Around his grandmother, comedian George Lopez felt like Rodney Dangerfield.

        “When I wanted to have a party at Chuck E. Cheese's, my grandmother actually said to me: "If you want to see a mouse, I'll pull out the refrigerator.' ”

Lopez

        When he asked why the family has no baby pictures of him, his grandmother explained: “Because you were always crying. Who wants to take a picture of a baby who is always crying?” he recalls.

        “So I didn't really exist until (age) 9,” he says. “But there are all of these rolls of film at our house that are unmarked and undeveloped from when I was a kid.”

        No respect, I tell you. He got no respect. Until now.

        The 38-year-old Los Angeles native stars in an ABC sitcom, The George Lopez Show (8:30 p.m. today, Channels 9, 2), based loosely on his life.

        In the show, he has a wife (Constance Marie from American Family) and two children, Carmen, 13 (Masiela Lusha), and Max, 9 (Armand Garcia). He works at an airplane parts factory with his domineering mother, Benny (Belita Moreno, Perfect Strangers). In reality, he had worked at a Van Nuys aviation plant with his grandmother, Benny.

        “The only reason I got the job is because I was Benny's grandson,” he says. “I remember as a kid, dropping her off there and saying, "I want to work there' ... But when you're 21, and you realize it's minimum wage, it doesn't seem so exciting.”

        Working with grandmother didn't help his luck with the ladies, either. “I couldn't date,” he says, “because she would always get involved in my business.”

        No respect, I tell you.

        In the sitcom, his mother becomes his factory foil. She's constantly challenging his manhood — in terms not appropriate for young viewers — after he's promoted to plant manager. (The show is rated TV-PG-L, with a parental guidance warning of material “unsuited for younger children,” and “coarse or crude indecent language.”)
       

Not for all ages

        Some parents may wince at the subplot involving George's teen-age daughter reaching puberty. On the scale of ABC sitcoms, this is more like Roseanne than Full House, though not as funny as either one. The tone is about what you'd expect in a family show from Drew Carey executive producer Bruce Helford.

        George Lopez is the first in ABC's new strategy to reclaim its family sitcom heritage. It's also one of the few English-language Hispanic series in TV history. (Ironically, PBS' American Family drama airs at the same time, 8-9 p.m. on Channels 48, 16).

        Former ABC and Fox executive Peter Roth calls the lack of Latino series “one of the most extraordinary failures” of network TV. “We have failed miserably,” says Mr. Roth, president of Warner Bros. Television, which produces George Lopez.

        So Mr. Lopez, the only son of Mexican-American parents, is finally getting some respect. He had wanted to go into show business since age 12, when he saw Freddie Prinze in NBC's Chico and the Man. “It changed my life,” he says.
       

Comic, DJ, actor

        He became a stand-up comic, and a popular Los Angeles morning DJ. He was “discovered” for Warner Bros. by actress Sandra Bullock, who saw his comedy act and called Mr. Helford. She's also an executive producer on the series.

        For the past decade, Mr. Lopez had dabbled in acting. He has appeared in Ski Patrol, Fatal Instinct, Nickelodeon's The Brothers Garcia and Showtime's Resurrection Boulevard. He also had turned down roles on Hunter and Desperado, refusing to play a drug dealer or illegal alien that was “derogatory and stereotypical to Latinos,” he says.

        As a writer and producer on George Lopez, he'll control his own fate. Some — but not all — of the humor will come from his Hispanic perspective.

        When his wife talks to their daughter about taking swimming lessons, George cracks: “Why does she need to know how to swim? We're already here.”

        When his boss tests George's loyalty to his co-workers, George tells him: “That's why I work in a factory: I'm no good at tests.”

        Other jokes will be about parenting, working and other universal themes, he says.

        “I'm just an American guy who happens to be of Mexican descent. So we're just a family like any other family,” he says.

        “I know people will approach it from the Latino angle. Hopefully, they'll just see this is just a family — with great tans.”

       Contact John Kiesewetter by phone: 768-8519
       

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