Chico and the Man is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC for four seasons from September 13, 1974, to July 21, 1978. It stars Jack Albertson as Ed Brown (the Man), the cantankerous owner of a run-down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and Freddie Prinze (until Prinze's suicide in the third season) as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic young Mexican who comes in looking for a job. It was the first U.S. television series set in a Mexican-American neighborhood.
Conception
Comedians Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong (better known as the comedic duo Cheech & Chong) have stated that series creator James Komack followed the comedians on tour for three months; Chong wrote in his 2009 book Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography that Komack based the show on Cheech and Chong skits titled "The Old Man in the Park" and "Pedro and Man" and had acknowledged that fact to Chong after the television series' release. Cheech and Chong have both stated that Komack had originally approached them to star in the show, but they turned down the offer, preferring to stick to films.
Komack told the Associated Press that he first tried working with Cheech and Chong on a show about a Chicano and a Nisei. Komack said he decided to make the show about a young Chicano and a "seventh-generation WASP" after he and the comedy team "couldn't get it together".
The show was created by James Komack, who produced other successful TV shows such as The Courtship of Eddie's Father and Welcome Back, Kotter. NBC suggested someone like Jack Albertson as Ed/"The Man", and Komack approached him. Though not impressed with the pilot script, Albertson agreed on the trust of Komack's reputation. Freddie Prinze was discovered by Komack who received a recommendation from a friend who saw Prinze's appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in December 1973. Komack thought he would be perfect for the role of Chico Rodriguez. Though initially rejected by NBC executives, he stood out against two other finalists in testing.
Synopsis
A hard-drinking widower, Ed stubbornly refuses to fit in with the changing East L.A. neighborhood and has alienated most of the people who live around him. He uses ethnic slurs and berates Chico, a Latino, in an effort to get him to leave when Chico comes looking for a job. Yet Chico sees something in Ed, and sneaks back in at night to clean up the garage and move into an old van that Ed has parked inside. As Ed sees all the effort Chico has put in, he begins to warm up to Chico. Over the course of the show, Ed grows to see Chico as family, although Ed denies this on several occasions.
The chemistry between Jack Albertson's "Ed" and Freddie Prinze's "Chico" was a major factor in making the show a hit in its first two seasons. It debuted in the top 10 and remained in the top 30 for its second season.
As the show progressed, Chico's background was revealed as being Mexican on his father's side and Puerto Rican on his mother's side, and (in a nod to Prinze's faux-Hungarian ancestry) "... my grandmother speaks a little Hungarian!" (though Prinze's paternal ancestry was actually German, in his stage-act he would claim his father was Hungarian, thereby allowing him to comically refer to himself as "Hungarican"). Chico was revealed to have spent part of his childhood in Hungary following the death of his mother, being raised by his Aunt Connie (a character who appeared in two other 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. During this scene and this episode, the love between these disparate characters was made clear for the first time, which Chico's cousin Carlos (played by actor Richard Yniguez) notes when he releases Chico from his promise. By the second season, Ed begins to see that he is a part of a bigger world, although he still complains about it. By this time he has found himself a girlfriend by the name of Flora (played by Carole Cook).
The theme song was written and performed by José Feliciano.
Freddie Prinze's death
After struggling with depression and drug use, Freddie Prinze shot himself on January 28, 1977. He was taken off life support and died the following day at the age of 22.
The last episode to star Prinze, "Ed Talks to God", was taped several hours before Prinze's death.