'Chico and the Man' Turns 50: 30 Facts About the Series

While it wasn't one of those blink and you'll miss it moments in television history, Chico and the Man was nonetheless a short-lived small screen phenomenon that exploded in 1974, turned comedian Freddie Prinze into a bonafide superstar, reinforced the reputation of veteran performer Jack Albertson and justifies our saluting it as Chico and the Man turns 50.

NBC premiered Chico and the Man on September 13, 1974 at a time when television as a medium was going through a transition to edgier comedies dealing with more realistic — and oftentimes somewhat controversial — material. By that time, this was represented with shows like All in the Family, Maude and Sanford and Son, with, of course, Good Times and Chico and the Man both joining them in 1974.

The premise of the show is a kind of generational version of The Odd Couple, with Jack Albertson as Ed Brown, the elderly and cantankerous owner of a garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, who encounters a young Mexican American named Chico Rodriguez (Freddie Prinze), who arrives looking for a job and ends up living in a van on the property.

In its first year especially, the show was huge, the audience drawn in by the comic brilliance of Freddie Prinze and the chemistry between he and Jack Albertson.

As Chico and the Man turns 50, check out these 30 facts about the show.

1

Chico and the Man was created by James Komack, whose previous credits include creating the Bill Bixby and Brandon Cruz series The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and producing Gabe Kaplan's Welcome Back, Kotter.

2

As Komack explained it, he originally worked with comedians Cheech and Chong on developing an idea for a series, but because they "couldn't get it together," he decided to go with the concept of a seventh generation WASP and a young Chicano, which resulted in the concept for Chico and the Man.

3

The show's theme song was written and performed by singer Jose Feliciano, perhaps best known for his cover version of The Doors' "Light My Fire" and his own Christmas composition, "Feliz Navidad."

4

It was NBC that suggested Jack Albertson for the role of Ed, the actor having most recently scored in the early 1970s as Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) and as Manny Rosen in The Poseidon Adventure (1972).

5

Jack Albertson was born on June 15, 1907 in Malden, Massachusetts. He was a singer and dancer who got his start in vaudeville and would go on to win the acclaimed "Triple Crown of Acting": An Emmy, Tony and an Oscar in a career that spanned over 50 years and saw him perform on television, the stage, the big screen and even radio.

6

Freddie Prinze was born June 22, 1954 in New York City. Describing himself as a "fat kid," he realized that he would need to be tough or funny if he was going to survive growing up in the mixed neighborhood of Washington Heights and he decided to go with the latter.

7

When he attended the New York High School for the Performing Arts, Prinzer studied drama, but also started performing standup comedy in nightclubs. As his reputation grew, he began appearing on television talk shows, among them The Merv Griffin Show, The Jack Parr Show and five — eventually 20 — appearances on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. In terms of the latter, he was the first young comedian Carson asked to have an on-air chat with. He would go on to guest-host The Tonight Show several times.

8

It was The Tonight Show that brought Prinze to James Komack's attention, the writer/producer believing he'd found his Chico Rodriguez and that Prinze and Albertson would make a great team, correctly predicting, "This is a sitcom about an old man and hustling kid who won't let him give up on life. It's the warmth between the two that's going to sell this more than the comedy will." Apparently the audience agreed.

9

Season 1 of Chico and the Man aired from 1974 to 1975, airing on NBC and ranking number three for the year, while season 2 spanned 1975 to 1976 and had fallen to number 25. The third season aired between 1976 and 1977, falling to number 45 (largely because of a night shift) and the final year, airing from 1977 to 1978, fell to number 88. Obviously that is a huge drop, but as the following facts will detail, there's a very good reason for it.

10

For its first couple of seasons, Chico and the Man was part of NBC's powerhouse Friday night lineup that saw it paired up with its hit series Sanford and Son.

11

It seems that the success of Chico and the Man early on was a bit surprising to Jack Albertson, who told the New York Daily News in 1975, "We think it's a good show, but as I look at it, I'm always amazed at the reaction of the people who view it. I probably am my own worst critic. I really hate myself every time I see myself on screen."

12

By the time he came to Chico and the Man, Jack Albertson had already lived a long, and highly-successful career. For Freddie Prinze, though, this was a whole new world, and the success of that first year transformed his life far beyond his imagination, even though he told Cedar Rapids, Iowa's The Gazette in 1975, "I'm still the same kid I was when I first came to Hollywood. It's like my producer Jimmy Komack told me: the acting thing is no sweat, but it'll be the unexpected things that will get you, the ones that drive all entertainers crazy. Things like fan mail and the presents from fans and trying to juggle appointments with agents and managers and all."

13

Look at Prinze's life early on the in aftermath of the show's success: there were TV appearances on Tony Orlando and Dawn, The Hollywood Squares and Van Dyke and Company. He recorded several comedy records, and then — as if all of this wasn't enough — he began earning $25,000 a week (remember, this was 1975 dollars) headlining at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Prinze was smart enough to acknowledge that he'd wished the latter came a year or two down the line, believing it was the kind of gig "you really should work your way up to."

14

In 1976, Jack Albertson spoke to the West Bank Guide and said the following about his co-star with the exploding fame: "Freddie is a marvelously talented young man. He's only 22 and he writes all his own material in his nightclub act. I don't. I can't. I couldn't just be funny if my life depended upon it. I have to go to the gag file or the books or paid writers. But Freddie is so inventive. Now, all of this came so quick, so early in his life, often I have to, well, handle him some. But he's a bright young man, so most of it is easy."

15

There were rumblings that the two stars of Chico and the Man didn't get along, but Jack Albertson put the kibosh on that during his Daily News interview, stating, "Both Freddie and I constantly talk about one another. We're extremely fond of one another. As a matter of fact, there is a great deal of love between us. I look upon Freddie as a son and he looks upon me as a father. We have a great time together."

16

During the show's run, to help promote it, both actors participated in a bit of a theater tour that promoted them together, but featured them as individuals. The Miami News reported on March 30, 1976, "Prinze's act stays mostly to the tried and true course of his talk show appearances, with just enough material thrown in to border on the risque but not enough to offend the mainly parent-child audience .. He's never breath-taking like watching some comedy gambler on a run. Prinze is never boring, either. The little girls (and a lot of the older ones, too) are infatuated with the kid and he uses it all to his advantage ... Jack Albertson mixes song and dance and comedy together in his portion of the show that ranges in musical selections from Guys and Dolls to jokes about being a furniture salesman ... The Jack Albertson-Freddie Prinze show has been engineered to drive straight down the middle of the road. There's no twists, turns or exciting hair pin curves."

17

In his personal life, Freddie Prinze married Katherine Elaine Cochran on October 13, 1975, and on March 8 of the following year they welcomed their son, Freddie Prinze Jr. (yes, the actor who's married to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar). Several years earlier, he had been romantically connected to actresses Pam Grier and Raquel Welch.

18

As quickly as Freddie Prinze's career took off, it didn't take that long for things to fall apart in the most horrible way imaginable. Someone who had always struggled with depression issues, he was arrested on November 16, 1976 under the charge of driving under the influence of Quaalude, which in turn led to his wife filing for divorce several weeks later.

19

During the evening of January 28, 1977, Prinze was visited by his business manager, Marvin Snyder, shortly after he had spoken to estranged wife Katherine. While he was there, Prinze reportedly pulled out a gun and shot himself in the head, dying at 1PM following his removal from life support on January 29. He was only 22.

20

Singer and friend Tony Orlando would explain some time later that Freddie Prinze had been in great emotional pain, though it was something his fans had never been aware of. Said Orlando, "He told me, 'I'm only here temporarily. I have a feeling I should go home and there ain't no ghettos where I come from.'"

Jack Albertson also pointed out that the younger actor had been speaking prophetically, predicting that he would never live past age 30.

21

At Freddie Prinze's funeral, Tony Orlando commented, "Freddie was in turmoil, he was suffering much pain. His problem was so complicated that no man should even try to figure it out." Jack Albertson, after noting people should be not be mourning the comedian's death, but celebrating his life, said that Prinze would be remembered for his "awesome talent, that illuminating smile."

22

Freddie Prinze's final episode of Chico and the Man was season 3, episode 18, "Ed Talks to God," in which Ed doesn't want to be a part of his own birthday party, so Chico comes up with the idea of getting one of Ed's old friends to pretend to be the voice of God and convince him to attend by using a microphone and sound equipment. That left three episodes to be filmed for the season after Prinze's death, which could not have been easy for anyone. The excuse for Chico not being there was that he had gone to Mexico to see his father.

23

In the history of bad network decisions, this one was one of the worst: instead of using the suicide of Freddie Prinze as more than enough of a reason to shut down production of Chico and the Man permanently, James Komack and NBC decided to keep the show going. Season 4 introduced 12-year-old Gabriel Melgar as a hispanic kid named Raul, a Mexican orphan Ed ends up adopting.

24

There's a two-part episode towards the end of the series' run where Raul finds Chico's belongings, including his guitar, and Ed, without elaborating, explains that Chico is dead.

25

Jack Albertson seemed excited by the addition of Melgar, telling the Kenosha News in October 1977, "The boy has a natural talent and it is very thrilling for me to see him in front of the cameras. He's so inquisitive about how everything works, he spends time talking with the cameramen. I sometimes wonder if he'd prefer to be behind the camera ... He works very hard during rehearsal, spends three hours in school and then goes home to learn his lines."

26

The attempt to change the format of the show failed, and Chico and the Man aired its last episode ("The Hot Rock") on July 21, 1978, with one additional episode in the can, which NBC did not air.

27

After Chico and the Man, Jack Albertson continued to act, appearing in several TV movies as well as the seven-episode TV series Grandpa Goes to Washington. In his personal life, he was married to June Wallace Thomson from 1952 until the time of his death and had one child. He died on November 25, 1981 at the age of 74 from colon cancer.

28

James Komack, following Chico and the Man, served as executive producer of the series Me and Maxx (1980), directed the film Porky's Revenge (1985) and provided the story for the Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon reunion flick Back to the Beach (1987). He married Marilyn Cluny Cohen in 1955 and they had one child. He died on December 24, 1997 at the age of 73 from heart issues.

29

TV has often served as the birthplace for popular catchphrases, and that was really true in the 1970s. Fonzie gave us, "Ayyyyy," Vinnie Barbarino, "Up your nose with a rubber hose," J.J. Evans, "Dyn-O-Mite!" and Chico Rodriguez, "Looking good!"

30

Due to the fact that only 88 episodes of Chico and the Man was produced, the show was never really syndicated, so it's never had the chance to live on in the same way that so many series have been able to. For anyone who hasn't seen it, all four seasons are available for streaming on Tubi.

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