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Forum Idol
Join Date: Jan 09, 2001
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https://web.archive.org/web/20070225...ptheshark.com/
- Other Thoughts:
Two words - "the Scatman!"
This show began to slip just after the bullet went into Freddie Prinze's forehead, but before it exited the back of his skull. No show in history's decline is so specifically locatable.
OK, I still feel bad for Freddie Prinze, but realistically, this was just another bad 70s sitcom.
It just wasn't right that they didn't pull the plug after Freddie Prinze's suicide.
When Freddie Prinze first said "Looking goooood !!", I think something in all of us just withered and died......besides the guy lived, worked, ate & screwed in that damn garage!!
Chico,don't be discouraged. This show didn't jump until you were dead. I couldn't believe they actually came back after Freddie's death. It's almost like they didn't give a **** that he killed himself. All they wanted was to make money.
The show did jump the Shark once Freddie Prinze died, but the Man did his best to keep it going after Freddie's passing. The show was cutting edge...As a Chicano kid growing up in the inner city , in the 70's.....there was no Chicano roles on TV. A slick cat that worked and lived in a garage and was sly enough to get gals in his van in his garage, was top of the line. I have great memories of watching that show. It was something I looked forward to every week. Still "Looking good...Freddie". Rest in Peace.
Cutting edge? This show was about a sharp as a cue ball. As soon as All in the Family made it "okay" to not only feature minorities, but also make fun of them, the networks poured it on in the '70s with minority-based shows. (How many minority characters do you remember from TV shows in the '50s and '60s). A lot of these shows -- like Sanford and Son, Good Times, the Jeffersons, etc. -- had some genuinely great moments, but Chico and the Man was not one of them. It was carried solely on Freddie's charisma. The scripts were contrived and implausible, especially when celebrities would "pop in" to get gas. Right, you see lots of Beverly Hills millionaires pumping their own gas at rundown service stations in the barrio. The fact that NBC tried to perpetuate it after Prinze died is further evidence of congenital brain degeneration among TV executives.
TRUE ONCE FREDDIE DIED IT DID JUMP THE SHARK THEY SHOULD'VE NEVER BROUGHT THAT ILLEGAL BOY RAUL AND TRY TO BUILD A NEW STORY THAT DIDN'T WORK IT SHOULD'VE BEEN PUT TO REST ONCE FREDDIE DIED
It was starting to show its treads BEFORE Chico's death- as he and The Man became friends so whatever conflict was evaporating and they had to bring Della Reese in as The Man's new sparring partner ( she was his new landlady who, it was revealed, had <gasp> convinced his late wife to vote. ..DEMOCRAT in 1952 so *that* is why he hated her]! Anyway, it seems likely the show was running out of steam but it SHOULD have ended when Freddie Prinze, Sr. fatally shot himself. I have to wonder if he would have achieved the near-cult status he got OR would his career have been the equivalent of Gregory Sierra's ( a Latino actor who had been Julio on 'Sanford and Son' and was Det. Chano the first year of 'Barney Miller' but hasn't been heard of in the last 20 years)? I remember that not too long after Prinze's death, one of the girls in my homeroom circulated the rumour that 'Fonzie was killed in a plane crash'. I remember hearing about Prinze having a baby son but if you had told me that he would grow up to become a much BIGGER star than his father had been, I'd have thought you were nuts!
As I'm typing this, TVLand is having a Chico and the Man Fandemonium Weekend. I have to say, like I remembered, it jumped when Freddie Prinze capped himself. I was 11 when he did it and I was just disgusted with him doing it and thought it was a waste. He should've listened to the theme song of the show: "A new day has begun, you can see the morning sun if you try.". I noticed in some of the later episodes he could barely keep his eyes open and they were piling the makeup on, especially the eyeliner. In my opinion they should've ended the show instead of trying to keep it alive with that snotty Gabriel Melgar character.
Why was Chico's pants so tight? Why the bad mustache? Why the bad 70's video? That old man was annoying and the acting was all wrong. Gee where did they get such an original idea . . ethnic show, old grouchy guy interacts with young, slick guy surrounded by garbage in the inner city that also had Scatman a.k.a. bow-leggs. I wonder what ideas they scrapped. "How about Pat Morita plays a can recycler who stores the cans in his apartment in compton, and he has to relate to his young nephew who lives with him. And Pat, of course, is a widower. Scatman Crothers is the wise cracking maintenance man!"
I remember the episode where Sammy Davis Jr. (playing himself) drove to the garage for service. Our family had watched the series up to that point, but after that particular episode had finished my mother turned to my father and said "Do you suppose this show is having trouble in the ratings?" I just realize that Sammy appeared as himself on at least three sitcoms (All in the Family, I Dream of Jeannie, Chico and the Man). We tuned out the series after Sammy's appearance so for us that was when the shark jumped. I remember how appalled we were when they continued the show after Freddie Prinze's death by bringing in a little boy Raul. They ran a promo for those shows where they justified keeping the "Chico and the Man" title by having Ed tell Raul "I call all Mexicans 'Chico'".
This show was GREAT! But it jumped the shark when Prinze died. I can't believe that they tried to keep the show going with the RAUL. I could have sworn that they called that boy CHICO a few times or little Chico or something like that. That was a bad idea. They just should have ended the show with a final episode. Prinze carried the show without him there was no show. I also think that Jose Feliciano did a great job with the shows music.
after the networks dumped all the "rural" shows from the 60s and replaced them with urban settings, they found two minorities and an old white guy to stand in front of a dirty brick wall set doing basically vaudeville skits. like abbott and costello meet the ghetto. this is not to say Freddie Prinze in tight jeans was a bad thing...
This show should have been canceled after "Chico" died. They should not have tried to replace him.I will not watch the episodes that do not have Freddie Prinze in them.
I loved the show until they tried to continue with Raul Garcia. In fact now that it's on tv I watch it faithfully, even after the time slot change to 4;00am central. I would get up at 4 oam to be able to start my day with a great show but the raul episodes,why bother. When Freddie died the show was done.
The show should have pulled the plug the moment Freddy Prinze pulled the trigger. But, dammit, if the show must go on, change the title and don't get creepy replacing the dead guy with some goofy kid who serves no other purpose than to occasionally call him the dead character's name. And I hate watching the show now anyway, watching this dead man walking. But was it ever really that good to begin with?
It definitely jumped the shark when Freddie Prinze Sr. died. They should never have continued without him, but as usual it's always all about money.
This show went downhill when Della Reese joined the cast. The producers felt the bickering between Chico and Ed had gotten stale and brought in Della. Also, Freddie Prinze's drug problem in the third season became noticeable as he lost considerable weight and his performances became sluggish.
It just didn't work with grumpy old Ed morphing into a semi-kindly curmudgeon. And for cryin' out loud, they should have changed the the title.
There's no doubt that this show jumped with the tragic death, by his own hand, of Freddie Prinze. What still puzzles me after all these years is this: What on God's Green Earth made the producers of this show think they could continue on with the program after Freddie Prinze's devastating, and highly publicized death? This wasn't some supporting cast member (which would have been equally tragic) - this was the title character who died! Either the people behind the show were completely clueless, or they were completely insensitive (perhaps both).Their respect for the deceased took a back seat to the potential for generating a little more money out of the series. I sincerely hope that Freddie Prinze Jr., who is now making a name for himself in films, finds the happiness in life that eluded his father.
The show did jump the Shark when Freddie Prinze died, but the show could have worked if it had been repackaged. The last three episodes of the 3rd season, after Prinze's death, were kind of strange -- but they were entertaining. Especially the one with Louie retiring and becoming a refuge man. I kept thinking, the show would have to make a change -- but keep Della as the antagonist and make Louie and bigger role. Have the three of them go on . . . or close down the show. Instead, the producers (I guess) thought we need a "Chico". The show just got on the boat in Shark infested waters when Season 4 started with the "Raul formula". Could it have worked? Maybe if Freddie Prinze had still been alive it would have worked as a short thing, but this became the show. It was horrible, as it was obvious that Della's role became useless. She seemed to be playing antagonist for Ed's sake, instead of really being the antagonist. After a while, they brought flamingo singer Charo onto the show and Della Resse walked out. For about 6 episodes, Charo took over the show. It wasn't "Chico and The Man" -- it was the comedy hour with Charo. Now this was 1978, and T&A wasn't going to boost ratings on prime time TV. The shows went from being 2d with Raul to being 1d. This was when the show jumped the shark. Having a 4th season at all was bad, but turning it into the Charo show really pissed on the corpse of the already dead show. Then, in an attempt to save the show or at least show the audience that were still watching that they tried to go on for the show's sake, they filmed a one hour special with Raul running away because he found out there was another Chico. Before it was rumored that Chico had left for his father's island to start his own garage, but that was written in as a delusion of Ed's because Chico had died. By then, you could tell that the actors were only there because they were under contract to. As the story would go Ed tried to convince Raul, he called him Chico because he really "love him", not because he was a replacement. After this episode, Raul said "call me Chico", but Ed called him Raul from that moment on. Then the show tried one last attempt with another Freddie Prinze type character. This time she'd be a 16-year old run-a-way white girl named Monica, who was looking for Hollywood fame. Julie Hill actually seemed to mimic a female (non Hugnarican) Chico in the first three of her episodes. By the fourth episde, where Monica creates "Ed Brown's car wash" -- the show reminded me of Greese gone bad. The final episode, staring Alice Ghostly, was about Ed going senile and being a peeping Tom. The show was stupid, and really made me wish for TvLand's redebut of the pilot with Freddie Prinze. Freddie Prinze was the show, but the show must go on -- but they pissed in the face of Chico when they had three different seasons in one (The 4th Season).
I found Chico and the Man to be a very outstanding comedy show back in the 70's. It was funny, smartly done and had a cast of extremely talented actors/actresses. I do have to say that I think it did go downhill after the death of Freddie Prinze Sr. He was a talented young man who had a lot to offer his public. It was such a shame that back in that time period, people did not recognize nor seek help for drug/alcohol addiction. Today in the movie industry, it seems like everyone has a problem but it is the cool thing to do and help is readily available for you whenever you decide to stop. I am so sorry that Freddie Prinze did not have this help available to him then. I believe he would have been a very successful comedian/actor today. Jack Albertson had already made a great name for himself through his other work and the chemistry between Freddie Prinze and Jack Albertson was superb. The addition of Scatman Crothers, and later on Della Reese, only added to the extreme talent this show had to offer. In my opinion, this was truly one of the best shows of the 70's.
I also think that Chico and The Man was a great sitcom of the 70's. Freddie had a lot of talent along with Jack, there was definitely chemistry between the two. Kind of like peas and carrots. I too think they should have cancelled the show after his passing. Long Live Freddie!!
Without even reading all the comments regarding Freddie Prinze's death, I could tell you that "Chico and the Man" JTS when he decided to end his life that day in January 1977. As his good friend, Tony Orlando, once put it, "the seeds of destruction were planted in him the day he stepped off the plane in 1974" (the year "Chico" made its debut). The producers tried to make the series work with a new kid, Gabriel Melgar (since he, too, was Mexican), but it just wasn't the same. Raul Garcia was no Chico Rodriguez. Even though there were a few highlights during the 1977-1978 season (the final one for "Chico"), it's obvious the chemistry wasn't there. The pre-January 1977 "Chico" episodes will always be considered the best of the lot. BTW--how many of you knew that Chico's first name was actually Francisco?
The only reason why this show was cancelled ever, is cause of the tragic events, when our dear Freddie Prinze died  It bombed after that...he and the Man were the show.... I love Freddie Prinze....and people who dont like him they have their right to their opinion, no matter how bad it pisses me off....he was a talent a gorgous comedian and even if one doesent like him For God sakes let him rest in peace, dont bash him and call him ill names, how the heck would you like that done when you die....lets pull out the skeletons....let that awsome man RIP! so many still love him, I am one, and I will till I DIE!!!!! so if ya have something bad to say KMA!!!
Who was the a**hole who thought to keep the show going after the tragic death of its star.For what its worth did Della Reese and Jack Albertson need the money that bad that they would agree to go on after the death of Freddie Prinze no F**king loyality.I remember when I saw Prinze on the Carson tonight show for the first time I never laughed so hard.Like many before him and many after him drugs ,alcohol, personal demons, will take their toll and you die young.
Jack Albertson was a wonderful actor with or without Freddie Prinze with him...the problem was that the show wasn't wonderful without it's star. You needed them both.
I was eleven when Freddie Prinze, Sr. killed himself. I remember watching the first show they did with the kid who was brought in to replace Prinze, and thinking, "This is WRONG." This was my introduction to the callous and greedy side of television. I never watched another episode.
To be honest, I was never alive when Chico and the Man was originally on. I managed to catch some of the episodes on TV Land. The only reason I tuned into to Chico and the Man in the first place was not because of Chico or the Man, but LOUIE. Yes you heard me right, Louie the Garbageman (played by the "Great" Scatman Crothers of couse). I think Louie was the best character on the show. He had a birght personality and provided the show with some of the best lines. (e.g. "Put out your can because here comes the Garbageman.") Whenever Chico and the Man were bickering at each other, it would always be pleasent to see Louie coming in and bring a smile to both their faces. Like most people though, I think the show went downhill when Freddie Prinze committed suicide and he was replaced a pint-sized Chico. At least Louie was still in top form, so the change doesn't bother me too much. One more thing: When "Little Chico" stowed-away with Louie and the Man on thier fishing trip, why did "Little Chico" opt to stay with the "GROUCHY, always bickering" Ed Brown (the Man) instead of "OPTIMISTIC, always cheerful" Louie?
Why they continued with this after Freddie Prinze died is beyond me!!!!! I thought the programme was great when I was 8, and thought Freddie Prinze was such as dude. I watched a rerun of it about 5 years ago and a lot of it was really cheesy. (which i did not recall at age 8) Bad scripts, not a bad cast. I pretty much stopped watching it around series 4, you could tell they were struggling and it was plain embarrassing to watch.Should have been canned when Prinze died, it just got really lame....mind you, it was not the most brilliant masterpiece of that era. I still think that Freddie Prinze had a lot of talent and it would have been interesting to see how far he would have gone if the drugs hadn't screwed him.
I seem to remember Charo popping in to get her car fixed. Sure, who didn't want to see Charo back then....but I remember the show actually dimming the lights and putting a spotlight on her as she sang! All of a sudden we had a variety show on our hands.
Actually the show was like many of the 70s hit sitcoms. It was really only a one season hit. It ranked 3rd after its first season. Then the ratings fell then plummeted then.... Think Welcome Back Kotter, Angie, Mork and Mindy they ran out after the first season
Obviously, the Man couldn't carry the show without Chico.
This was the best show on television during the mid-1970's. Not to oversell the show or be melodramatic in anyway, but it was the one glimmering beacon of light during the malaise of that era. The turmoil the world was suffering through at the time was reflecting in the bevy of bad shows on the air at the time. Chico & the Man was a welcome exception. I even loved their catch phrase, "Looking Gooood!". I laugh now just thinking of it. All the other catch phrases shoved up our noses by the television industry can be regarded now other way than at very least, utter contempt. "Looking Goood!" brought a smile to my face. The whole show brought a smile to my face, which couldn't have come at a better than. After all, this was the Ford administration we're talking about. When Freddy Prinze died, it was a downer. It ruined the theme of the show. It can't bring a smile after it brought such a frown. Going on and bringing in Raul was the stupidest thing NBC could have done and they did it. Shame on them for not only "Jumping the Shark", but doing so in such a tasteless manner.
Although the producers of CATM are probably sick of hearing this, I don't really care. I'm gonna say it again..."Chico and The Man" should have never...NEVER stayed on the air without Freddie Prinze! At the very least, they should have had Freddie's character "Chico" die as well. But to explain it away by saying "oh, well, Chico just up and decided to go back to Mexico?" How disrespectful! Not only to Freddie's memory, but to Freddie's friends, fans and family as well!
I've never seen the post-suicide episodes, but they sound awful. I just remember watching Chico and the Man and finding it too gimmicky, and too dependent on its gimmicks. It was like Archie Bunker's Place in a garage. The material was good for a while, but the bloom really seemed to wear off quickly. In the first season, 1974-75, the show hit #3 in the Nielsen Ratings. The very next season, the show fell to #25, and by season 3, 1976-77, fell entirely off of the top 30. The show just didn't have enough uniqueness to carry itself very long, unlike similar-era minority shows like Barney Miller, The Jeffersons, and Welcome Back, Kotter. Prinze did a great job, but I was never terribly impressed with Jack Albertson's work. However, the liquor hiding was funny.
Producer James Komack (the guy who ruined Welcome Back, Kotter) decided to put his profits before anything else and continued with this show.
Without a doubt, one of the saddest stories in the history of the medium. It goes without saying that the fortunes of "Chico and the Man" paled in comparison to what Freddie Prinze did to everyone around him by taking himself out of the picture. He had everything going for him. It made no sense. He had a beautiful wife, a young son, a comedy career that was just taking off, and a hit show. In fact, "Chico and the Man" was one of the few bright spots in NBC's dismal years. It was a lot to juggle. I don't really understand because I've never been that badly depressed, but suicide is not a viable solution to any problem, which are usually temporary. Those closest to Prinze were profoundly affected in different ways. Tony Orlando and Dawn went on extended hiatus. James Komack opted to continue without one of his leading men and often vented his frustrations on the set of "Welcome Back, Kotter". Jack Albertson reluctantly stayed on. Everyone should have agreed to walk away. Producing it and living it must have been just painful as watching it was.
CHICO AND THE MAN was a very funny NBC sitcom that sadly jumped the shark with the unfortunate death of Freddie Prinze. Production should have been halted immediately but the producers made the mistake of implementing the "new kid in town" theory with the hiring of Gabriel Melgar to replace Freddie. As far as I'm concerned, trying to replace Freddie Prinze on this show was like trying to replace Lucille Ball on I LOVE LUCY. Couldn't be done.
This show was a piece of crap form the beginning. Every joke in the script is taken from an old vaudeville routine and James Komack was such a tightwad, he used the same sets for different shows.(Chico's apartment is the same set used for Kotter's apartment). I love Scatman Crothers, watching him schtick with Jack Albertson was and is extremely painful.
The 70s are an important time. The theme song to the show, and the footage that goes with it, brings hope. Forget that Prinze died. Forget the chatter about the characters and the plot. Sit and watch the opening scenes and Julio's song several times. Remember what it is to be happy, to embrace different cultures within an urban setting. Remember what hope feels like. Schedule a trip to LA or Manhattan. Go to the parks, feel like an American again who has fellow citizens. Stop just trying to make money. It's not your job!
When Freddie Prinze killed himself in early 1977. NBC had the gall to milk the other characters for a year and a half until the show died in 1978.
People who knock the show can't remember that there were only 5 or so stations to watch in the early '70s and so this was a very entertaining show to watch. Freddy was ahead of his time.
Episode 62, "Ed Talks To God", was the last time Freddie Prinze appeared before the camera: the tragedy occurred shortly thereafter. The series should have ended then and there. True, Jack Albertson and Scatman Crothers were older, not exactly in huge demand all by themselves, and one more season did allow them some protection. The producers were also probably concerned about making more episodes for the syndication package, hopefully allowing the show years of re-runs. Yet given the tragic situation, the show could NEVER really be properly syndicated! Sixty-two episodes would be enough for some kind of limited weekend syndication, but naturally Hollywood is all about making money and more of it. For the absolute smallest of favors, the fourth season allowed a tribute episode. Today, the main cast are all gone. May they rest in peace, and may Freddie Prinze Jr. find the long life and happy career unavailable to his father.
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10-01-2013, 05:53 PM
Chico and the Man Boned the Fish When...
It just wasn't the same though and you could never replace the chemistry that Freddie and Jack had.
