Chico, don't be discouraged,
The Man he ain't so hard to understand.
Chico, if you try now,
I know that you can lend a helping hand.
Because there's good in everyone
And a new day has begun
You can see the morning sun if you try.
And I know, things will be better
Oh yes they will for Chico and the Man
Yes they will for Chico and the Man.
Reading those lyrics, you can almost hear the strumming melody of Jose Feliciano's classic theme song for the equally classic 1974 NBC series
Chico and the Man. Starring Freddie Prinze (until his death near the end of the 3rd season) as "Chico", Jack Albertson as "Ed Brown" (a.k.a. "the Man"; Albertson also played "Grandpa Joe" in
Willy Wonka), and Scatman Crothers as Louie the garbageman (a far cry from Crothers' voice role as Autobot warrior "Jazz" on
The Transformers).
The first season of the show had 22 half-hour episodes, starting with the pilot episode where Chico shows up riding a motorbike into Ed's garage, looking for a job as a mechanic. Ed is not agreeable, but finally gives in and gives Chico a chance...but by the second episode has already changed his mind and tries to get rid of the young latino. Chico is not so easily run off, and The Man finally learns to trust him, befriend him, and eventually makes him a partner. It would be great to have this series on DVD, but is Warner Brothers working to get it out? Well, as "Chico" actor Freddie Prinze was famous for saying, it's "loooooking gooood!"
Back in November
we told you about Warner Home Video's plans to celebrate 50 years of Warner Television, and how they wanted to release plenty of new TV-on-DVD box sets throughout the year to support their anniversary promotion. Part of that promotion, as we mentioned, was an escalating mail-in rebate: the more participating season sets you buy, the bigger your rebate!
A link to the rebate form for this promotion has just been added to the Amazon listings for participating titles (including February releases like
Full House, Night Court, Fresh Prince, etc.). When you
look at the form (.pdf format: Adobe Acrobat Reader required), you see a list of many of the Warner television series titles whose DVDs will be part of the rebate promotion. A few of these titles have no releases on the market yet, but were already known to be in-the-works (like
The Adventures of Superman and
Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman).
However, if you take a close look at the list, which we've captured and display below, you'll notice that
Chico and the Man occupies a spot near the top of the left-side column! This is the first way we've known that the series is coming to DVD, and we're sure that the show's many fans are glad to hear it. Stay tuned and we'll have more for you about this release just as soon as Warner Home Video makes the details available. Our thanks go to Mark White and the other readers who wrote in to give us the heads-up about the rebate form; here's that list we promised:
