The George Lopez Show

George Lopez had spent years in stand-up when Sandra Bullock championed the idea of building a network sitcom around him. She became an executive producer and recruited Bruce Helford — creator of The Drew Carey Show and a former Roseanne head writer — and even with that muscle behind it, the show "was not an easy sell": ABC tested it with just four episodes before committing to more. Created by Lopez, Helford, and Robert Borden, George Lopez debuted on March 27, 2002, with Lopez starring as a fictionalized version of himself in Los Angeles, drawing material straight from his upbringing in the San Fernando Valley.

Upon its debut Lopez became one of the few Latinos ever to star in a network television comedy, following in the footsteps of Desi Arnaz, Freddie Prinze, and John Leguizamo. For its first five seasons the show had an all-Latino main cast with a single exception (Masiela Lusha, who played daughter Carmen). And every episode opened the same way: War's "Low Rider" — a theme so beloved that Lopez, at the 2007 ALMA Awards, called the song the "Chicano National Anthem."

ABC ended the run on May 8, 2007, after six seasons and 120 episodes, but the show's second life dwarfed its first. It entered syndication a month after the finale and joined Nick at Nite that September, where it ran for almost thirteen years — until September 2020 — as one of cable's top off-network sitcoms. For a generation that grew up with it in nightly reruns, the "Low Rider" horn riff is less a War song than a bedtime signal.