Freddie Prinze – Chico And The Man

Chico and the Man
Television Favorites
Freddie Prinze, Jack Albertson, Della Reese
Created by James Womack
Television 1974-78
Warner Home Video 2005
6 Shows

Here is my conspiracy theory:  The release of this 6-episode Chico And The Man Dvd featuring the pilot episode and various other very funny shows from that great sitcom from the seventies featuring Freddie Prinze and Jack Albertson is Warner Brother’s way of testing the waters.  Proof of this theory is WB basically did the same thing a few years ago with the TV Premiere Dvd releases that came on a card and featured an episode or two of The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Gilligan’s Island, The Waltons, and so on.  The Dvds that sold soon became box sets.  That’s my theory and I am sticking to it because it is Looking Good!

It’s about time Chico And The Man came out on Dvd.  The series, which ran from 1974 to 1978 was greatly affected by the suicide of star Freddie Prinze in 1977 and was cancelled after the cute replacement kid idea bombed.  This funny TV show was consistent for its humour, very funny situations, and great comedic timing from both Prinze and Jack Albertson of the original Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, The Poseidon Adventure, and many other movies and voice work fame.  Regular guests included Scatman Crothers, Della Reese, and Isaac Ruiz.

WB Television Favorites: Chico And The Man features episodes from the three years the series really ran. The pilot episode finds Ed (Jack Albertson), a grumpy old guy barely making a living from his garage, hiring more or less against his will a young Chicano mechanic, Chico. This comedic pair is an obvious gem from the start.

If I Were A Rich Man finds Chico proposing and things not turning out for the best.

Chico And The Van has Chico moving in with Ed for a while.  Watch for Penny Marshall as the waitress in the coffee shop in a very Laverne kind of role.

Chico’s Cousin Pepe is basically a setup so Jose Feliciano can do a couple of tunes:  Light My Fire and the theme song for the show.

Chico’s Padre features guest star Cesar Romero (The Joker in the original Batman) as the long thought dead father who comes back to check up on his son.

Ed Talks To God is a minor episode involving a birthday party and one of Ed’ s friends faking the voice of God to convince Ed to attend the party.

Warner Brothers Television Favorites: Chico And The Man is a fun collection of what was a really good situation comedy.

Conspiracy theory number two:  the real reason this sitcom died was because of numerous appearances by coochie-coochie girl Charo.  This is probably the more reasonable of the two:  look at how many other shows dies after Charo appeared on them

Related Posts