Los García
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Los Garcia was a Puerto Rican television comedy show from the 1970s. Shown weekly on Ricavision channel 7, it depicted the fictional lifes of Los Garcia (The Garcias), a fictional family that was based on a real life family.
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Tomas Muniz, a famous producer from Puerto Rico, met Juan Bautista Garcia, a Corsican immigrant who had his name changed, as a baby, into a Spanish sounding name upon his arrival in Puerto Rico during 1906.
After many years, Tommy Muniz, Tomas Muniz's son, met and befriended Bautista Garcia. Rafo Muniz, Tommy Muniz's son, befriended Bautista Garcia's son, Rodofredo Garcia. Long after Tomas Muniz died and shortly after Bautista Garcia himself had died, Tommy Muniz, who had been inspired by a painting that Bautista Garcia had done in a school where Muniz's children attended, came with the idea of dedicating a television show to the Bautista Garcia family. Tommy Muniz did play Tomas Bautista Garcia, and Rafo Muniz was Rodofredo Garcia.
The show began in 1975, quickly becoming a public favorite. Gladys Rodriguez played Ms. Garcia, while Otilio Warrington also had appearances. Edgardo Rubio, who would later on achieve fame in WAPA-TV's El Barrio Cuatro Calles, made his television acitng debut as a member of Los Garcia.
Los Garcia is considered by many Puerto Rican television critics to be among the best comedy shows in Puerto Rican history. The show ran until the early 1980s. A strike by some of channel 7's actors, by then owned by Tommy Muniz, affected the show. Increased competition in the show's 7 p.m. time slot from other channels that showed telenovelas during the same hour also affected the show.
Tommy Muniz made the phrase Sia mi vida!! (Damn be my life!!, which he said every time his character got mad for some reason in the show), a trademark of his during this show.
After the end of Los Garcia's successful run, the members of the show went on to do other things: Warrington, popularly nicknamed Bizcocho, for example, moved on to channel 2, where, among other things, he hosted a cooking show with Luis Antonio Cosme and crossdressed to play comical character Cuca Gomez in a show named Los Kakucomicos. Like Manela Bustamante, Rafo Muniz almost quit acting at all, returning sporadically to the profession that first gave him popularity, but he became a successful show producer, representing many singers in Puerto Rico with his Promotores Latinos company. In 1989, he produced a version of MTV's Remote Control, but the United States network threatened to sue and the show was taken off the air. Edgardo Rubio had a productive career as an actor, although he did occasionally battle with drugs. Gladys Rodriguez went on to star in many telenovelas and some comedy shows, and, in 1989, she and Tommy Muniz reunited to play another romantic couple, in Jacobo Morales' film, Lo que le Pasó a Santiago, which was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film.
