Chico and the ManBy Wikipedia
Chico and the Man was a sitcom which ran on NBC from
September 13, 1974 to July 21, 1978, starring Jack Albertson as Ed Brown
(The Man), the cantankerous owner of a run down garage in the barrio
section of East Los Angeles, and introducing Freddie Prinze as Chico
Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic Chicano street kid who comes in looking
for a job.
Ed doesn't want Chico's help; in fact, he distrusts all Chicanos. A
hard-drinking widower, he refuses to fit in with the changing neighborhood
and has alienated most of the people who live around him. Ed uses ethnic
slurs and berates Chico in an effort to get him to leave. But Chico sees
potential in the old man and sneaks back in at night to clean up the
garage and move into an old van that Ed has parked inside. When Ed sees
all the effort Chico has put in, he slowly warms up to Chico and thus
starts the relationship. Ed grows to see Chico as a son, although he will
deny this fact on many occasions. The chemistry between Jack Albertson's
"Ed" and Freddie Prinze's "Chico" was one of the
leading factors in making the show a hit in its first two seasons. It
started in the top ten and never left there over those seasons.
The show was created by James Komack who produced other shows like The
Courtship of Eddie's Father. Freddie Prinze was discovered by
Komack after he appeared on The Tonight Show in December 1973.
Komack thought he would be perfect for the part of Chico Rodriguez. This
caused a stir in the Mexican-American community, who thought the part
should have been played by a Chicano (Prinze was half Puerto
Rican). Therefore, as the show progressed, Chico's background was
altered to being Mexican
on his father's side and Puerto Rican on his mother's side (with a nod to
Freddie's Hungarian ancestry in the same line which stated these facts, as
Chico remarks in his Hispanic accent, "...and my grandmother speaks a
little Hungarian!"). The Mexican-American community also complained
that the show used too many ethnic slurs, but this was the age of Norman
Lear and All
in the Family. Fans of the show saw the ethnic jabs as a part of
the endearing, if acerbic, relationship between "Chico" and
"the Man". As Chico once fondly put it, Ed was a minority
himself, the barrio's "token white man".
The "Hungarian side of the family" was also mentioned in a
tear-jerking episode during the first season, in which Chico plans to
leave Ed. Keeping his half of a childhood bargain, Chico's cousin Carlos
has invited him to come be the head mechanic in his used-car agency in New
York. In another reference to Freddie's background, Chico had spent part
of his childhood there following the death of his mother, being raised by
his Aunt Connie (a character who appeared in two other memorable
episodes). Chico attempts to explain his situation to Ed by portraying it
as the dilemma of his distant cousin in Hungary, torn between the farmer
for whom he now works and whom he has grown to love, and another farmer
who has offered him a better job. It is in this scene, and throughout the
rest of this episode, that the real love between these disparate
characters is made manifest for the first time, a fact on which Carlos
remarks when he releases Chico from his promise. This love remained, along
with the superb comedic timing of its stars, among the driving forces in
the show's popularity.
Another of Chico and the Man's formulae for success was the
casting of its supporting characters. Characters like Scatman Crothers as
Louie Wilson, Ed's friend and garbage man; Bonnie Boland as Mabel, the
mail lady; Isaac Ruiz as Mando, Chico's friend; Ronny Graham as Rev.
Bemis; and Della Reese as Della Rogers, Ed's neighbor and landlady, added
to the flavor of the ethnicity of the neighborhood and the garage. By the
second season, Ed begins to see that he is a part of a bigger world
(though he continues to complain about it), even acquiring a girlfriend
(Flora, played by Carole Cook) who nearly gets him to the altar.
At the start of the third season, however, the reality of Freddie
Prinze's drug use began to intrude upon the comedic fantasy of ethnic
harmony. From the moment he comes on stage several minutes into the first
episode (in which Chico moves out of the garage into a roach-infested
apartment), he looks haggard and much older than his 22 years--a fact that
the writers explained by having Ed complaining before Freddie's entrance
that Chico has been staying out too late at night. In the two-part episode
that followed -- which introduced landlady Della Rogers -- his weight loss
became quite evident, and it has been rumored that Della Reese's presence
was an attempt to take some of the focus off of Freddie. Later in the
season, an episode in which Chico became a professional boxer seemed to
take a different approach -- Freddie was often shown shirtless, muscles
rippling as he punched a heavy bag. In a tragic twist, this was the
episode that producers chose to run on the night of January 28, 1977, as
Freddie lay dying from a self-inflicted gunshot. They were concerned that
the episode originally scheduled for that night -- in which Cesar Romero
portrayed Chico's long-lost father -- would be too hard for fans to take
under the circumstances.
In the last episode to star Prinze, which was filmed just hours before
he shot himself -- ironically titled "Ed Talks to God"-- there
are many scenes in which Prinze appears to be "out of it,"
although it has also been said that he was always sober while on the job.
In particular, when Ed's old army buddy is pretending to be God, speaking
over a PA system in an effort to convince Ed to attend his own birthday
party, Freddie sits beside the other actor on the couch, seeming not to be
paying attention to what is going on around him. In the final scene, when
Ed reveals that he knew all along that his buddy and Chico were in on the
"God" ruse together, Freddie picks up the knife beside the
birthday cake and holds it to his own throat, inviting Ed to use it in
revenge. To his legion of fans, the airing of this episode months after
Prinze's death was more disturbing than the tear-jerking reunion with
Chico's father could ever have been when they still had hope that Freddie
might survive.
A void was left with the death of Prinze. The producers toyed with the
idea of canceling the show, but opted for trying to replace the
charismatic young comic. So as to write Chico out of the script, they had
the other characters make comments about the fact that he had gone to
visit his father in Mexico. Fans knew the truth, of course, and many were
disappointed with this "cover-up" of the facts. An effort was
made to find a new Chico, but the season finished out with episodes based
on the other characters in the show. Early in the fourth season, a new
"Chico" was introduced. Instead of an adult, the producers
brought in 12-year-old Raul, played by Gabriel Melgar. His first
appearance came when Ed and Louie go on a fishing trip to Tijuana and find
the Mexican orphan hiding out in their trunk on their return. At the end
of this episode, Ed is putting Raul to bed and accidentally calls him
Chico. Raul corrects him and Ed remarks that, "You're all Chicos to
me." Ed finally adopts Raul, only to have Raul's overprotective
aunt--played by the Latin singer Charo--come from Spain and try to become
a part of the "family" as well.
The most poignant note in the otherwise dismal last season was a
two-part episode in which Raul discovers his predecessor's belongings in
the old van. Ed catches Raul playing Chico's guitar and smashes it on the
van in anger. Raul decides Ed doesn't love him anymore and runs away to
Mexico. Ed goes after him and finally explains to Raul that Chico died,
but really doesn't say how. For the fans of the show, this seemed to put
closure to the fate of Prinze's character. Even so, Chico and the Man
was never able to pull in its accustomed share of the audience in its
final season. Many critics attributed this to the now-missing chemistry
between Albertson and Prinze; others felt it was because the show's unique
premise of hard-won ethnic and generational equality and admiration had
been compromised by the use of a child actor who lacked Prinze's strong
personality. Perhaps it was mainly because James Komack had envisioned
Chico through the lens of Freddie's stand-up comedy style. Whatever the
reason, the most loyal fans seemed to abandon the show after his death,
and the producers finally pulled the plug at the end of the fourth season
when the ratings fell
to their lowest levels.
In addition to those already mentioned, notable guest stars throughout
the run of the show included (in no particular order): Tony Orlando as
Chico's look-alike, the ex-fiance of a hostile woman he wants to date;
Jose Feliciano (who wrote and sang the theme song) as Chico's womanizing
famous-singer cousin Pepe Fernando; Sammy Davis Jr. as himself; Shelley
Winters (who had appeared with Jack Albertson in "The
Poseidon Adventure") as the owner of the local bakery, Shirley
Schrift (her real name); Jim Backus of "Gilligan's Island" as
Ed's friend who uses him as a "beard"--pretending to be playing
cards with him when cheating on his wife (who was played by Audra Lindley,
later Mrs. Roper of "Three's Company"
fame); silent-film actress Carmel Myers as a former star who has fallen on
hard times, brings in her car for repairs, and stays in the garage while
looking for work; George Takei (Mr. Sulu from "Star Trek") as
Ed's supposed long-lost son from his time in Japan during WWII; Cesare
Danova as Aunt Connie's Spanish aristocrat boyfriend, the Count de
Catalan, in the second episode in which she appeared; comedian Joey Bishop
as an inept robber; Bernie Kopell of "The Love Boat" as a
plastic surgeon; Rose Marie, formerly of the "Dick Van Dyke
Show", as a CB radio enthusiast with whom a lonely Ed connects on New
Year's Eve (incidentally, this was the only holiday episode done during
Freddie Prinze's lifetime, and he died only a few weeks after it aired);
Penny Marshall, later of "Laverne
and Shirley" and movie-directing fame, as a waitress; football
star Rosey Grier as himself, Della's date for a charity benefit dance; and
Larry Hovis of "Hogan's Heroes"
as a customer in the second episode of the first season. Though little
else was heard from her in later years, Jeannie Linero deserves mention
for appearing in several episodes as one of Chico's more constant
girlfriends, nurse Liz Garcia. (A sidenote: several of Chico's girlfriends
were members of this profession. In the first episode of season three, one
was played by Dee Dee Sescher, who later appeared on another of James
Komack's big hits, "Welcome Back
Kotter".)
Unlike many other shows of that era, Chico and the Man was only
shown in syndication briefly in a few markets. TVLand resurrected it
briefly in 2001. Occasional episodes continue to air on that cable
channel.
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