Chico and the Man (TV Series) Mucho Macho Ed (1976) User Reviews

Weak and distasteful plot.

[apelieuproar-69389 · 1/10 · 12 April 2024]

I've been binge-watching this show on Tubi for the past week or so and I've been enjoying it for the most part, but this episode didn't sit well with me.

The plot for this episode involves a Mexican woman who is four months pregnant claiming Ed Brown is the father of her child. The story she gives is that she delivered room service to him at at a mechanics convention. She felt faint and passed out. When she awoke she saw Ed looking down on her in his pajamas.

First of all, this would not prove anything. Second of all, if this weren't a sitcom episode and the woman's story wasn't an attempted con job to try to get $500, this would constitute a suggestion of rape. Even if the show doesn't suggest it, it's logically what would have had to have happened if it were true.

Of course, the identity of the true father is revealed and it's discovered that the $500 was needed to bring him from Mexico to L. A. But Chico feels it's important for Ed to go on believing he is the father of the child so he can feel vital again, or something.

Really not a very good episode, in my humble opinion, and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Ed learns that he's going to become a father

[kevinolzak · 8/10 · 22 July 2016]

"Mucho Macho Ed" finds Ed still complaining about his bad back, while a young lady named Anita Gomez (Maria O'Brien) shows up at the garage, proclaiming Ed to be the father of her unborn child. He doesn't remember much of the Palm Springs convention four months before, but he does recognize her as the girl who brought up room service. Now she's asking for $500 to go away and have the baby, but Ed is willing to marry the mother of his baby. A short time later, Anita confesses that her sweetheart Frederico (Jerry Velasco) is the actual father, needing exactly $500 to bring him back from Mexico, while Chico swears her to secrecy that Ed never know that another man is responsible: "it'd be like the six million dollar man finding out he got marked down to a buck and a quarter!" Ed's quite willing to give her the money, provided that Louie and Chico split the amount at $300 apiece: "I gave at the convention!" Pretty Maria O'Brien was the daughter of actor Edmond O'Brien, keeping the family name active in films and television through the 21st century.