Show Description:

Chico and the Man was an American sitcom which ran on NBC from September 13, 1974 to July 21, 1978, starring Jack Albertson as Ed Brown (The Man), the cantankerous owner of a run down garage in an East Los Angeles barrio, and introducing Freddie Prinze as Chico Rodriguez, an upbeat, optimistic Chicano street kid who comes in looking for a job. It was the first U.S. television series set in a Mexican-American neighborhood. Ed doesn't want Chico's help; in fact, he distrusts all Chicanos. A hard-drinking widower, he refuses to fit in with the changing neighborhood and has alienated most of the people who live around him. Ed uses ethnic slurs and berates Chico in an effort to get him to leave. But Chico sees potential in the old man and sneaks back in at night to clean up the garage and move into an old van that Ed has parked inside. When Ed sees all the effort Chico has put in, he slowly warms up to Chico and thus starts the relationship. Ed grows to see Chico as a son, although he will deny this fact on many occasions. The chemistry between Jack Albertson's "Ed" and Freddie Prinze's "Chico" was one of the leading factors in making the show a hit in its first two seasons. It started in the top ten and never left there over those seasons.