At age 6,the night this show debuted,my brothers & I had the TV that night. The parents were out and we basically watched whatever. My oldest brother,age 10,made the choice of this show. It sounded like it would be "cool". Of course it was. I liked Jose Feliciano's opening song and didn't get a lot of the humor but I did understand that Ed Brown (Albertson) was not a nice man. Freddie Prinze was (aside from actors on Sesame Street & Electric Company)the first Latino I had seen on TV,or anywhere for that matter.I somehow recognized some of his actions as funny because I did laugh at his antics of trying to get Ed to take him on at the garage. Especially funny to find him bathing in a large oil drum in the men's room. We watched this show for about 2 to 3 years,constantly repeating the phrase "looking good" all the time and driving our folks nuts with it. Then on January 23rd,1977 we headed out west to California and kind of forgot about it somehow. The night after we arrived,Saturday,January 29th,Prinze took his life. I never saw any of the shows with the replacement actors but I did see the TV movie,"Freddie Prinze : Can You Hear The Laughter" over a year or so later and that's how I found out he was gone. For well over 15 years,I heard nothing about the show,never saw any reruns on TV either. It became a fuzzy memory by the time I was grown up. Then 1999,I saw the pilot show in Spanish on Telemundo and couldn't believe I was actually seeing it! It was almost surreal.Fast forward to the present day and on the internet's In2TV,I once again saw the debut show,sporadically with the annoying stop & start of "loading". I couldn't "save" it though. Then 9/13/2008 , I made an unplanned stop at a local 99 Cent store and there on their shelves were dozens of DVD's featuring 6 episodes (pilot included)of "Chico and The Man"! (All DVDs have the same 6 by the way).I couldn't believe this legitimate WB release,with subtitles included was only $1 + tax! I took it home and watched with my oldest brother who was visiting me. After we watched I checked my copy of "TV Guide Guide To TV" and discovered that I had bought this set on the 34th Anniversary date,Sept. 13th,2008!One of Prinze's last newly aired show from 1977,"Ed Talks To God",is featured on the DVD. In it,Ed wants no one to throw him a birthday party and Chico gets very mad at him for Ed not wanting his friends to show how much they care about him. Another included an appearance by Jose Felicinao who sings both "Light My Fire" (briefly) and the show's theme song as well. Feliciano shows he can be almost as funny as the others,as a Latino superstar cousin of Chico who hits on Chico's girl.In summing up the series overall,I know the show is great,no question. It's sad that Prinze took his life and that NBC didn't have the decency to just let go of the show. "Sanford and Son" and "Chico and The Man" are the two sitcoms people associate with that network in the early 70s,mainly because they had no other "real" successes until "Diff'rent Strokes" & "Facts Of Life" came along after.Good shows,but they pale in comparison to what this series tried to accomplish. Even sadder,it would be over a quarter century until another Latino had a truly successful series,that being "The George Lopez Show". Between those two is 1982's unsuccessful "Aka Pablo" starring comedian Paul Rodriguez. It aired on ABC for only a few short weeks.I wont lower my rating of 10 stars because of that final season,ill advised as it was,but will for the memory of Freddie & Jack and even Scatman Crothers give it top mark. In my view the series is a classic,even though it should have at least run until 1980 or early 1981.Thanks to all who made "Chico and The Man" a reality. (END)

Chico and the man was the essence of my TV watching childhood. The mid 1970s were my developmental years, and I like to think that this timeless sitcom was and is a sentimental and forever memorable fixture in my growing years and even now. In the mid seventies, Friday night was a line up for my 'obsessions'. Sitcoms and police shows and the cast on 'Chico and the man' I felt to be an extension of my family. The comedy was quick and strong and the duo of Albertson & Prinze was a special chemistry, so unbelievable and loving, I feel a bond like that one might never be accomplished again. All of these comical plots always centered around some sort of life lesson always 'giftwrapped' in friendship and caring. Freddy & Jack & the others, looking down on myself and all of the 'Chico' lovers, can only nod in absolute agreement(like that little mounted dog, on his back dash, with the spring form neck and head that would bob up & down.

This show was well on its way to becoming one of the all time classics when the tragic death of Freddie Prinze occurred. You had the two classic themes in the show. One was the theme of age versus youth and the other was the clash of cultures between Chico and Ed. This latter them is reminiscent of the show which aired on the same night and network as this one, "Sanford and Son". You could pretty much see Ed in the Fred Sanford role and Chico in the Lamont role and it basically was the same, the older father figure constantly clashing with his young charge over how to run the business. It was these qualities that helped make this show the semi-classic that it was. Also, the supporting cast of Scatman Crothers as Louie, Della Reese as Della and Ronny Graham as Reverend Bemis really made it a fun show. Unfortunately, when the tragedy happened and they brought in Gabriel Melgar to play Raul (a.k.a. the new "Chico") that's when the show went downhill. They should have canceled the show at that point and spared us the pain of watching it decline. If that had happened it probably would still be remembered as a good sitcom.

"Chico and the Man" broke major ground in two areas: it created a successful series with an ethnic lead and made an overnight star out of Freddie Prinze, the "Chico" of the title.Every week, Chico would take strides in making the garage he worked and lived in more successful and bringing his boss, "The Man" (Albertson) out from the walls he had built up against the rest of humanity.There were plenty of laughs every episode; I mean, with a cast like this, how could you miss? Not only were Prinze and Albertson on hand, but so were Scatman Crothers ("Put out your can, here comes the GARBAGE MAN!"), Della Reese, Ronny Graham, and even Isaac Ruiz as Chico's buddy Mando - all making big with laughs, both ethnic and otherwise.But this was a show that appealed to every demographic; Back in the mid-'70s, you couldn't avoid a teen magazine that didn't have Prinze's face plastered all over it, and there were constant reminders of the show's success on talk shows, specials and variety shows that the stars would appear on.It was a sad day when Prinze took his life; it left a great void in entertainment as well as the lives of those he left behind. But at least with this series, we can all see the genius of Prinze and witness the effect he's had in the comedy world since.Ten stars for "Chico and the Man", a classic in every sense of the word.