Los Garcia
| Los García | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Tommy Muñiz |
| Starring | Tommy Muñiz Gladys Rodríguez William Gracia Manela Bustamante Rafo Muñiz Gina Beveraggi Edgardo Rubio |
| Country of origin | Puerto Rico |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes; 60 minutes in the last years |
| Release | |
| Original network | originally WAPA-TV Channel 4; Teleluz Channel 7 since 1981. |
| Original release | 1976 – 1981 |
Los García was a Puerto Rican television sitcom from the 1970s. First shown weekly on WAPA-TV, and later on TeleIsla (then called WRIK-TV, Rikavision Channel 7), it depicted the life of a local fictional family, as well as that of some of their neighbors. The series' characters were based (and even named) on real individuals. It was the best-rated television program in Puerto Rico in three (or five, depending on which source is quoted) out of the six years of the program's run. It is still aired in re-runs by the local Puerto Rico community channel for DirecTV.
Tommy Muñiz had a stream of radio productions in the late 1940s and 1950s, the most successful of which were family-oriented comedies. The two most successful ones, La Familia Pérez and Gloria y Miguel, featured comedic variations on real-life stories about married couples, essentially premiering sitcoms in Puerto Rico. When local television stations started their broadcasts in 1954, Muñiz tried the formula in two productions: Hogar, dulce hogar in the late 1950s, and a television version of Gloria y Miguel in the mid-1960s. Since broadcasts were live, and airings were frequent, Muñiz, who was the writer for these programs as well, felt that the family sitcom format was quite challenging to sustain. He felt slightly burned out by the time each program had run its course, and was quite reluctant to pursue the formula further.
By the time his production company experienced a strike in 1973, Muñiz felt compelled to abandon television productions altogether. He remained as executive producer for various comedies, particularly those featuring José Miguel Agrelot, and had various other businesses to fall back to, but he had lost the desire to write and produce. As his other businesses fell in hard times, coinciding with an economic recession in Puerto Rico, he was repeatedly urged by family and peers to try producing yet another family sitcom, a tried-and-true formula that, they considered, would involve little risk. He reluctantly agreed, and when no actor was available to play the main role, he took a gamble and decided -against his own wishes- to star in the comedy as well.
When Tommy Muñiz first sketched his new production, he intended the starring role to reflect an everyday man from Puerto Rico. Curiously enough, the man who served as the main inspiration for the role had not been born in the island country. Tomás Muñiz, Tommy's father and a famous producer in his own merit, had met Jean Baptiste Romanacce-García, a Corsican immigrant whose name was adapted into Juan Bautista García, a Spanish-sounding name, upon his arrival to Puerto Rico in 1906. García was a self-made man who thrived after his orphaned childhood and became a handyman and freelance set designer for Puerto Rico's television stations. He was also known in the island country for having fathered ten children, adopting three more, and somehow managing the entire tribe. After using García's services often through the years, Tommy Muñiz (himself the father of eight children) befriended García. In turn, Rafo Muñiz, Tommy Muñiz's son, was a childhood friend of García's grandson, Roberto, who in turn was the son of Rodofreddo (also known as Roberto) García.
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