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. As Chico once fondly put it, Ed was a minority himself, the barrio's "token white man". Fans of the show saw the ethnic jabs as a part of the endearing, if acerbic, relationship between "Chico" and "the Man". 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. 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!"). 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). Komack thought he would be perfect for the part of Chico Rodriguez. Freddie Prinze was discovered by Komack after he appeared on The Tonight Show in December 1973. The show was created by James Komack who produced other shows like The Courtship of Eddie's Father.
It started in the top ten and never left there over those seasons. The chemistry between Jack Albertson's "Ed" andįreddie Prinze's " Chico" was one of the leading factors in making the show a hit in its first two seasons. Ed grows to see Chico as a son, although he will deny this fact on many occasions.
When Ed sees all the effort Chico has put in, he slowly warms up to Chico and thus starts the relationship. 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. Ed uses ethnic slurs and berates Chico in an effort to get him to leave. A hard-drinking widower, he refuses to fit in with the changing neighborhood and has alienated most of the people who live around him. Chico and the Man was a sitcom which ran on NBC from Septemto 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.Įd doesn't want Chico's help in fact, he distrusts all Chicanos.