Chico and the Man
Chico and the Man is an American sitcom which ran on NBC for four seasons, from September 13, 1974, to July 21, 1978. It stars Jack Albertson as Ed Brown, the cantankerous owner of a run down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and Freddie Prinze as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic Chicano young man who comes in looking for a job. It was the first U.S. television series set in a Mexican-American neighborhood.
Ed who returns from Mexico, learns that he has an 11 year old stowaway in the back of his car. This little kid is determined to stay with Ed in the USA.
Ed waits for word from Raul's parents. Later, Ed finds out that Raul is an orphan and needs a parent.
When a social worker comes to take Raul away, Ed decides to adopt him as his own.
Ed needs a third reference letter to officially adopt Raul.
Ed had stuffed 700 dollars in his own mattress. I say had because Raul, knowing that Ed needed a new one, traded the old one in for a newer one. Anyway, they have to go and try to get all the money back.
Ed tries to teach Raul how important it is to respect one's privacy. The moral blows up when Ed opens a package that is for Raul.
Ed and Della decide to have Christmas dinner together. As they are eating and drinking wine, they both get drunk and before you know it, Ed proposes marriage to Della and Della accepts. But when they become sober, they realize what they have done and try not to go back on their work no matter what. Will this wedding go ahead?
Raul's Aunt Charo comes to the Garage to take Raul back to Spain, but he would rather stay with Ed.
Charo tries to drum up Ed's business by taking matters into her own hands.
On a class report, Ed writes about Ed. He writes that Ed fixes poor people's cars for free. When word gets out, Poor folks from all over the neigborhood swamp Ed with trying to get thier cars fixed.
Raul wants to join a basketball team and he can if Ed sponsors it, so that is what he does.
Aunt Charo takes her citizenship test and becomes an American Citizen.
Raul finds out about the first Chico who died (Freddie Prinze). He finds the van hidden in the garage. He goes into the van and plays Chico's old guitar. When Ed hears the music an eerie feeling comes over him. He checks the van hoping that somehow Chico came back. When he finds Raul in the van, he gets mad. He bashes the guitar over the van and screams at Raul. Raul runs upstairs and prepares to run away thinking that he cannot replace the first Chico and that Ed doesn't love him anymore.
Ed goes to Mexico to try and track Raul down. In an old church they meet and Ed explains that he misses the first Chico, but tells Raul that he is afraid that he'll get too attached and that Raul will leave him the same way Chico left him. This is a very touching episode and the only episode that was filmed. They filmed it because they went on location to Mexico. They taped all the others in Burbank CA.
Charo's Matador fiancee Antonio, comes to sweep her off her feet to get married.
In an attempt to add more characters to the show, Monica, Ed Brown's niece, tells her tragic story and moves in with Ed.
For her Uncle Ed, Monica decides to drum up business by having an all-girl in tight shirts and shorts car wash.
Della tries to convince her son Tony to help her and her catering business.
Monica upsets Ed by getting a job at a sleazy restaraunt.
Ed is falsley accused by a woman who swears that he is a peeping Tom and is watching her on a daily basis.
Louie comes up with an invention. He wants to make a barbecue that relies on solar energy. Enthusiascic about the idea, Ed runs to his insurance company and tries to get money to launch the idea.
A motorcycle gang that know Monica comes and pretty much ransacks the garage and Ed doesn't know how to get rid of them.
Ed becomes agitated when the President decides to visit his garage when he comes to town.
Ed gets a new neigbor, but to his dismay it is a loud mouth liberal woman who now owns his garage and threatens eviction.
When Ed lays off the fighting with his new landlady, Della decides to renew Ed's lease.
Chico decides that he would rather move out on his own, away from Ed than give into Ed's rules.
Chico's girlfriend decides on calling it quits to being a nurse. She then changes her mind after saving Ed's life.
Ed's lucky hat is stolen and while he needs to have an operation, he won't go under the knife until he gets his lucky hat back.
After finding out that the nurse that Ed hired wants to get married to him, Chico and Della try to talk her out of it.
Chico and Louie decide that the only way to get Ed's taxes in is to forge his name to the document. This happens after Ed refuses to pay them.
Chico is reunited with his old high school girlfriend. Thinking the magic is still there, he proposes to her, but she ends up not wanting to marry him.
A woman visits the garage claiming that Ed is the father to her unborn kid. When he hears of this, he wonders how. He then decides to ask for her hand in marriage.
Ed gets the idea of hiring a senior citizen for the garage when Della persuades him through a debate that seniors don't have the same rights that younger people have.
Everyone has plans to attend to and people to see except Ed for New years. He then uses a CB radio that is in the garage. He comes across a woman who also doesn't have anyone to spend New Years with and she is on the road. Ed invites her to the garage and she shows up. Later, Della, Chico, and the rest of Ed's friends decide to surprise Ed by joining him for New years. When the element of surprise hits, that is when the gang meets Ed's new friend ""Kissy Face"".
Ed donates his deceased wife's dress to raise money for a charity auction. He regrets doing the good deed when he finds out that a cross-dresser decides to buy the dress. Ed feels that he should not sell it to a man who will soil his wife's good name, so he fights to try to persuade the man into changing his mind.
Ed is elected President of a Mexican Better Business bureau.
Ed displays worry about Chico when Chico decides to want to fight as a professional.
Gilberto, Chico's father who he hasn't seen in many years, returns to Chico to try and give him a chance to better his life by living with him. Chico's father is rich.
Della plays matchmaker at trying to set Ed up with a woman. However when Ed gets word that Della did the matchmaking, he immediately wants to call the whole thing off.
Della wants to attend a formal dance and needs a host to go with her. Nobody wants to go, (Chico, Louie, and Ed) so they all try and find ways to get out of it.
Ed does not feel like appearing at his own birthday party. Chico however tries to find a way for Ed to go, so he gets ahold of a good old friend of Ed's and has him impersonate the voice of God by hooking sound equipment and a microphone all over the garage.
Ed sells a rooster that belongs to him, but when he finds out that the rooster's purpose is to cockfight, he tries to get the bird back.
Louie hires Ed to be a garbage truck driver, after he is forced to retire his job and decides to open his own garbage collecting business.
While Ed is away, his daring uncle comes to visit and throws an all-night girl party.
Ed and Chico clash over the wall of their alley for an art competition.
The City plans to demolish Ed's garage to open a newer, more enhanced power gas station.
Ed develops the hots for Chico's visiting Aunt Connie.
Ed meets a Gypsy who wants Ed to train him on how to be a good mechanic.
Chico thinks that Ed is spending too much time living in the past and not getting on with life.
A city ""Truent Officer"" let's say tells Chico that his van is illegal in the states, so Chico moves in with Ed.
Chico falls head over heels for a woman named Liz, in fact he likes her so much that he decides to marry her.
A Japenese man visits the garage claiming to be Ed's long lost son.
Ed tries to prevent the bank from foreclosing the mortgage on his garage by visiting a fortune teller.
Ed has stirred emotions when he sees his favorite silent film actress waiting tables at a local cafe.
Chico joins a union for mechanics, but is forced to picket Ed's Garage.
Ed creates a new invention. He decides to design training wheels for motorcycles. While trying to get the idea patented, they get swindled out of five hundred bucks for the patent process.
Chico is assigned Jury duty, and he finds out that the defendant on his jury is actually a good friend of Ed's.
Chico tries to persuade Ed to retire and move into a retirement home, but Ed will not go for it naturally.... I don't blame him (lol)
Chico, not realizing his own strength, hypnotizes Ed and leads him to marrying Flora.
After Chico guest preaches a good sermon at Bemis' church. The people find out that they would rather have Chico preach instead of the Reverend Bemis.
Chico is having some women problems. A girl that he likes will not go out with Chico because he looks too much like her ex-fiance.
After Chico gets into an accident, Ed burrows from his own insurance money to send Chico to school.
Chico's blind, skirt chasing, singer of a cousin visits Chico and meets Ed.
Chico's Aunt Connie visits and when she does, Chico and Ed realize that she is a con artist.
Ed, not knowing that he gave a handout to a crook, eventually Ed has all kinds of crooks from the neigborhood coming to him for a handout as well. Of course it is money they are after.
Ed's public life is almost destroyed when he is offered a free face lift.
Conservative elderly man Ed Brown meets a Chicano man who rides in Ed's garage on a bike, looking for a job. After a day of persuasion, Ed agrees to give Chico a job as his mechanic.
Ed has second thoughts about hiring Chico and tries as best as he can to get rid of him.
Ed thinks that he lost his mechanic skills.
Ed does not want to attend his former Army reunion.
Chico tries to persuade Ed to take a loan from the bank to improve conditions of customer service.
Louis gives Ed and Chico his used car to sell which gives Chico the idea of selling used cars as a part of Ed's business.
Ed thinks that something kinky was going on between Chico and his girlfriend when he caught them in the back seat of Chico's van.....but was Ed just jumping to conclusions?
Chico and Ed try getting Veterans financing from the Government.
A pregnant Spanish woman comes in the garage and Ed thinks that she is looking for him because he thinks that Chico may be the father of the unborn child.
Chico wants to participate with his cousin's business in New York.
When Ed hears about a death of an friend, he begins to think that he may be the next one to meet his maker.
A car is towed into Ed's garage and when this man comes to the garage, it turns out that this man was a Chicano friend of Ed's from the past.
An inspecor inspects Ed's garage and when he find a pile of junk in front of an emergency exit, he issues an ultimatum...Either he gets rid of the junk, or he gets a hefty fine. Ed then decides to profit from the ultimatum by having a garage sale.
Ed is determined to go to court to testify on a car accident that he may have witnessed with his eye problem.
Harold, a cheating husband counts on Ed to cover for him on his wild nights out.
Ed tries to snap Chico out of falling in love with and spending too much on a woman he has fallen in love with.
A widowed baker buys a bakery in the area and has her dibbs on Ed.
When his car acts up, Sammy Davis, Jr. pulls into the garage to get it fixed. However, he quickly learns that this is just no ordinary garage, with Sammy Davis, Jr. fans crawling out of the woodwork.
Ed would rather fix his aching shoulder himself than go to see a doctor.
Chico is carrying large amounts of cash and working strange hours.
Louie, who has retired, wants to spend his remaining years haning around the garage.
Everyone thinks that Ed had died, and when Ed finds out about it, he gets upset because nobody had cried for him when they heard the misleading news.
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Release | 1974-09-13 |
| Producer | Wolper Productions |