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closeSaturday, Nov. 07, 2009
George Lopez says he’s ready to talk, in English and Spanish
George Lopez saw a lack of diversity in late-night talk. He thinks he's the guy to bring it.
By ROBERT PHILPOT
dfw.com
TBS
George Lopez has 30 years of experience as a comedian. TBS
TBS
George Lopez cites Arsenio Hall’s talk show as being a big influence on Lopez Tonight. TBS
These are tough times for late-night talk-show hosts. Jay Leno, whose late-night show doesn’t air so late anymore, has been under scrutiny for low ratings ever since he went to prime time in September. David Letterman is at the center of a sexual scandal. And those are the guys who are getting attention; Jimmy Fallon has fallen so far off the radar that he recently did a 30 Rock cameo spoofing his troubles as the host of NBC’s Late Night.
With all that going on, it seems only logical to start an interview with George Lopez, who is launching his own chatfest Monday night on TBS, whether he is — to put it the way that he might put it — loco.
"No, I don’t think so," says Lopez, who sounds relaxed and confident during a phone interview. "It’s an opportunity. It’s almost like Mad Max — you get to ride into town and wear black and clean up."
With Lopez Tonight, Lopez plans to clean up a lot of things. When Fallon was announced as Conan O’Brien’s replacement, many critics pointed out that all the network late-night hosts were white men. Lately, there have been some moves to change that, with comedian Mo’Nique’s BET talk-variety show and Wanda Sykes’ new Saturday-night Fox show. Like those hosts, Lopez saw too little diversity in late night, and he’s pretty straightforward about it.
"You have to acknowledge that there’s a lack of inclusiveness in late-night TV," Lopez says. "As a country, the mainstream is not the mainstream anymore. It’s just not. Whatever that term mainstream meant 30 years ago, it doesn’t mean the same [now] as it did 20 years ago, and it doesn’t mean the same thing it did even five years ago."
In markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth, the Latino influence has been showing. In Nielsen Media Research’s weekly reports on how nationally broadcast shows perform here, telenovelas are regularly in the top 30 in total viewership. KUVN/Channel 23’s newscasts are strongly competitive with English-language newscasts. But Lopez notes that Latinos are still underrepresented on English-language TV, and he thinks it’s time for a breakthrough.
"There hasn’t been somebody who has been known enough, who has the appeal broad enough to bring a little bit of everybody to the same place," Lopez says. "I think that I’m that person."
Lopez has given it a crack before, of course. Besides several popular stand-up specials for pay cable, he starred in the sitcom George Lopez from 2002 to 2007. The show, featuring Lopez as a factory manager with the usual family and work problems common to sitcoms, launched to respectable ratings and reviews, but became hard to find thanks to haphazard scheduling. It went through so many time-slot changes that it aired, during the course of its run, at least once on every weeknight.
Lopez Tonight won’t face those problems, with its Monday-Thursday time slot firmly in place on TBS. His opening-night guests include Ellen DeGeneres, who knows a thing or two about having a successful talk show, Eva Longoria Parker and Kobe Bryant. Michael Bearden, who was the music supervisor on the Michael Jackson movie This Is It, is the show’s musical director.
Lopez says that the show will have a party atmosphere and that Arsenio Hall’s 1989-94 show is a big influence. He’s not worried that he’ll suffer from growing pains, he says, because his guests will know him first as a stand-up comedian and actor, so they will be more at ease around him.
"If they see that I’m comfortable, it’s going to make them comfortable," he says. "If you have that 'deer in the headlights’ look and need three months to find your legs, then you’re going to be in trouble. The climate doesn’t give me three months."
Lopez, who has done stand-up for 30 years, has been preparing for the show by going out on the road as much as he can. He likens it to a fighter keeping in training, and says that it has helped him shape what he plans to give his TV audience.
"I know what I mean in Fort Worth," he says, listing several other cities and regions where he knows how well he is connected to fans. "I know, because I didn’t have someone running and telling me that I was successful in Idaho. I went to Idaho and did stand-up and sold out. I know, because I’ve been out there."
The comedian says the show will have enough of a Latino flair that he will occasionally throw in some Spanish phrases, as he does in his act. He says it’s going to be different enough from other late-night offerings that he’s not nervous about entering the arena. What does make him nervous has little to do with late-night talk shows.
"I’m more afraid of the telenovelas than any competing talk show," he says with a laugh. "It’s really that big. This [show] is English and occasionally some Spanish, but that’s all in Spanish. You have to look at the Spanish-speaking audience as completely different from the English-speaking audience."
Online: http://www.lopeztonight.com. Lopez is on Twitter at http:// twitter.com/georgelopez
TBS
Robert Philpot, 817-390-7872
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