After one Showtime special, four HBO specials, and one Netflix special, George Lopez is ready to call it quits, as a stand-up at least, with this, his final hour of jokes recorded last year for Amazon Prime Video. Will he go out with a bang?
GEORGE LOPEZ: MUY CATOLICO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Starring alongside his daughter, Mayan, as fictionalized versions of themselves in NBC’s Lopez vs Lopez, George is enjoying quite the comeback after a few short-lived sitcoms and one talk show that came and went since his first big breakthrough with ABC’s George Lopez in the 2000s (and still airs in syndication and streaming).
He played a major supporting role in the 2023 DC superhero flick, Blue Beetle, and supported Snoop Dogg in last year’s Prime Video film, The Underdoggs.
For this stand-up finale, filmed last year in Hollywood at the Dolby Theatre, Lopez finds himself reflecting on getting older and how things used to be in the Latino family in which he grew up.
What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?:Â Now an elder statesman, you can almost view Lopez’s special now as an older mentor to Felipe Esparza’s Netflix special which came out earlier this month.
Memorable Jokes: Lopez pokes fun early on at the idea that many other comedians and celebrities have started their own liquor brands in recent years, so why doesn’t he have his own tequila by now? Probably because he doesn’t look like the tequila has aged him well, he jokes, noting people have asked him: “Have you ever heard you look like an old George Lopez?” And even though he adds that he has lost 40 pounds in recent years, he’s quick to play that off, saying he did so “the old-fashioned way” before miming snorting stuff up his nose and being awake long enough to walk for days.
There’s a lot of reminiscing here, but it’s not to lash out at kids these days as much as it is nostalgia for the younger time in his own life. He wishes his body could live up to the horniness he still feels in old age. And he compares today’s kids being bored despite having everything at their fingertips to the true boredom that he and his friends had as kids, based on the dumb games they made up to pass the time.
He’s not quite as political onstage as he was the first time Trump came around. Sure there’s a joke or two at the expense of how aging got a hold of former President Joe Biden (example: “He walks like he’s doing Tai chi.”). And Lopez laments the attacks on Mexican-Americans and immigrants, claiming that immigrants work harder at American jobs than many Americans do, and that plenty of Mexican-Americans don’t even know what Mexico is like now, let alone would know what to do if they went back.
And there’s a wry moment after taking pot shots at Jeff Bezos for owning Amazon, a company that has everything, but still not being able to find a Latina to marry who didn’t already have kids, where he stops to concede: “You know what I just remembered? This special is for Amazon.”
Our Take: Introduced to the stage by his daughter and to the familiar strains of “Low Rider,”Lopez has always stayed true to himself.
But now 63, he has reached that point where he has traded liquor for weed, so he can maintain his rebellious spirit without getting into quite as much trouble for it.
He’s more likely now to have the authorities looking out for him, as he concedes at one point that he was warned about landing on a list of 100 people a Florida man wanted to send pipe bombs to. Lopez finds both the perverse pride in being the only Chicano on the man’s death list, as well as the humor in wondering how he can thwart off the tradition of not opening packages that might be Mexican food at his door.
But in the end, he’s grateful more than anything else, reminding us that he started stand-up way back in 1979. He already has his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a wax figure at Madame Tussauds, and a current NBC sitcom to bookend his earlier success in primetime at ABC. He might still tour and perform, but he doesn’t need to hustle to record specials any longer. He’s already made it.
Our Call: STREAM IT. This might not be Lopez’s strongest hour as a stand-up, but considering the context, it might be his most poignant?
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comicâs Comic Presents Last Things First.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘George Lopez: Muy Católico’ On Prime Video, The Sitcom Star’s Final Stand-Up Special appeared first on Decider.
