Meet the Garcia Bunch

In a middle class suburb of San Antonio, 9-year-old Larry Garcia carries his math homework into the study where his father works. He climbs onto his lap and asks his father for help. Larry’s brothers have already proven themselves useless--one brother didn’t know the answer and the other wanted to charge him $2 for the answers. With easy tenderness, his father works through the equation. As Larry pads out of the study a narrator begins speaking. It is the voice of the man Larry will someday become.

“I used to think that a hero was someone who went to space, scored the final touchdown or hit more home runs than anybody,” the voice says. “Then I realized that we don’t even recognize some of the most important heroes. Everyday guys like my dad. Guys who suit up for every game, play their heart out rain or shine and don’t get called for penalties.”

It is a simple and universal scene on Nickelodeon’s new family comedy, “The Brothers Garcia.” Bedtime at the Garcia house is about dinner, homework and sibling rivalry. It’s not about immigration, drugs, gangs or poverty, because this is a handsome, freshly scrubbed, middle-class Latino family.

The show’s creator and executive producer, Jeff Valdez, is determined to present a realistic picture of U.S.-born Latinos. He stood on the set of “The Brothers Garcia” on a recent weekday declaring he felt no need to “beat ‘Latino’ over the head.”

“What’s ‘Latino’?” he asked. “Do I have to ride into town on a donkey with a sombrero?”

It has been that way in an industry where Latinos usually are cast in stereotypical bit parts. But Valdez was given the go-ahead to film four episodes of a Latino-themed show that gives an unapologetic nod to “The Wonder Years,” the ABC hit that ran from 1988 to 1993. Both sitcoms use a grown-up narrator to gently cradle the show’s jokes with life lessons. “Wonder Years” followed Kevin Arnold, a suburban kid growing up in the confusion of the 1960s and ‘70s; “Brothers Garcia” focuses on Larry Garcia, a NASA-obsessed boy who happens to have Latino heritage.

This makes “Brothers Garcia” one of the few projects to emerge from Hollywood’s virtually all-white machinery, only months after this town pledged to do more for minorities.

It feels new for everyone.

When a crew member yelled, “Boss!” from behind a maze of set walls, Valdez looked sheepish, then beamed: “Yes? I assume you mean me?”

That’s because there simply haven’t been many Latino executive producers here. The 30-minute sitcom, which will premiere on Nickelodeon tonight at 8:30, has dispelled other myths, as well--that the talent pool is thin, that it’s difficult to find Latino actors. This is one of several recent productions that use Latinos on both sides of the camera.

Valdez hired Venezuelan director of photography Carlos Gonzalez and his well-integrated crew. He also cast Latino actors in every part, including Alvin Alvarez, who plays Larry. Alvarez has been in several commercials and last season played a gunshot victim on NBC’s “ER.” His Mexican father and Salvadoran mother take turns caring for him on the set of “Brothers,” but Alvin already is keenly self-sufficient when it comes to self-promotion.

“I’m 10,” he said, “but I can play 9.”

Larry’s “older self” is the show’s narrator, played by Tony Award-nominated actor-comic John Leguizamo. Producers are hoping his name will intrigue audiences unfamiliar with the other cast members. For Leguizamo, the project was the answer to a question he had as a child: Where are all the Latinos on television?

“There’s such a lack of Latin fare out there, and this was such a beautiful little story. It’s got a great sense of humor,” he said. “Kids need to see their families alive up there on the mini-screen.”

But the reformed self-described “wild child” is hoping Valdez will allow him to make some contributions to future scripts.

“I wanted to punch it up,” Leguizamo said. “. . . Make it a little nastier, give it a little edge so adults can groove with it a little too.”

Regardless of the show’s success, Valdez and his series have already managed to survive a tough season for Latino projects. In the spring, the Latino-themed feature film “Price of Glory,” starring Jimmy Smits, drew poor critical reviews and thin crowds.

And the Latino-themed television drama “American Family” was rejected by CBS executives in May after they screened the one-hour pilot. Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Gregory Nava, the show was set in East L.A. and focused on a Mexican American family’s struggle to retain its culture while attaining the American Dream. Nava is still shopping the pilot at other networks.

Valdez faced his own measure of rejection. ABC turned him away after he pitched the show last year. But one network invited him back: Nickelodeon, the No. 1 cable channel for more than four years and the industry leader among children of every ethnicity. It’s done that by leading the way with primary characters--youthful role models--who are white, male, female, Latino, Asian and black. Herb Scannell, president of Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite and TV Land, has always said the network’s viewers are simply kids who “come in all shapes, sizes and colors.”

Nickelodeon’s “The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo” targeted kids ages 6 to 12 with an Asian American playing the sleuth-heroine. The network’s “Kenan & Kel” was a buddy comedy starring two black actors. By offering shows that respectfully reflect the audience, Scannell says, he has done what other network executives have always felt is too risky: He caters to, instead of ignoring, his audience’s diverse backgrounds.

In his own case, Scannell was schooled in Long Island, N.Y., but spent summers in his mother’s Puerto Rican hometown. When he saw Valdez’s pilot, Scannell liked it. He also was impressed with Valdez’s passion for telling stories about his childhood.

“I thought Jeff was an interesting guy. He clearly wants to tell stories that were based on experiences and people that were known to him,” Scannell said. “He felt there were not enough Hispanic forces in television both in front of and behind the camera.”

Scannell made the rare decision to air the completed pilot “as is,” with no cast or story-line editing from the network. He thought the child characters, who range in age from 9 to 14, would appeal to a wide audience. He explained: “There was a nice ‘bandwidth of kid-dom.’ ”

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This season, “Brothers Garcia” and Showtime’s weekly drama “Resurrection Blvd.,” are the only Latino-themed prime-time TV shows. “Resurrection Blvd.” is a boxing drama that, like Nava’s drama, follows a Mexican American family in East L.A. And, like Nava’s project, the pull between the past and the future is an overarching theme.

Both the Nickelodeon and Showtime projects underscore that Hollywood’s most progressively diverse shows are not yet available to general audiences. In America, diverse entertainment still tends to come at price--a monthly cable subscription that brings Nickelodeon to about 70% of households and pay channel Showtime, purchased by only about 12% of U.S. families.

At a conference earlier this month in San Diego, the National Council of La Raza met to discuss, among other things, its next step in getting the general networks to follow the cable channels.

“Cable is leading the way. They’re willing to take risks because they’re able to break away from the pack,” said La Raza spokeswoman Lisa Navarette. At the same time, she said, cable has an incentive to take risks, where networks do not. “Cable will not succeed if it cannot differentiate itself.”

Cable channels have more latitude to court niche audiences--in contrast to broadcasters, who rely solely on advertising as a source of revenue. In the case of “Brothers,” that latitude means allowing Valdez to inject a few affectionate Spanish phrases between the parents. When the father gets mad, he spews Spanish as the kids joke that he’s “going Ricky Ricardo on us.”

But overall, Valdez said his only “agenda” is to show a comic, middle-class world through the eyes of 9-year-old Larry Garcia. And the rest of the cast seemed casual, at best, about their roles in a Latino sitcom.

“Being an immigrant myself, I don’t see the big push to try to define a group,” said Carlos La Camara, who plays Ray Garcia, family patriarch and university history professor. “I think assimilation is more important. Lately, that’s become a bad word, but I think it’s what people want.”

La Camara, who has usually been asked to play parts with a fake Spanish accent, just finished filming his role in “The Mexican,” an action-comedy feature film with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. He took a break in between the film and “Brothers Garcia,” to return to Cuba for the first time since he was a toddler. He said he was stunned by the condition his relatives were living in and realized he would probably not have been a playwright or actor had his parents stayed there. Still, after 18 years of theater and television, the 41-year-old La Camara still had to audition three times before landing the part of Ray.

The issues that La Camara realized during his Cuba visit--thoughts of what might have been or what could have been--are gently touched on in “Brothers.” Most recently Valdez was working on an episode in which the oldest son, Carlos, played by Jeffrey Licon, fails his Spanish class. It is a well-known dilemma in many Latino families; successive generations gradually lose their ability to communicate in their grandparents’ native tongue.

“One of the kids tries to help him by buying him Spanish tapes,” Valdez said, “and part of his punishment from his parents is to watch novelas [Spanish-language soap operas] with his sister.”

For the most part, the show aims for the smile rather than the smirk. Valdez, who grew up in Pueblo, Colo., based much of the sitcom on his own admittedly happy childhood.

“Every time you say ‘Latino,’ you think immigration, gangs, violence,” he said. “But the real thing you should think of is family.”

His sister ran a beauty salon out of the house, so Valdez made the show’s matriarch, Sonia Garcia, played by Ada Maris, a home-salon owner.

“Larry’s into being an astronaut. I was obsessed with being an astronaut,” Valdez said. “I used to sit under my sister’s hair dryer and do the whole astronaut thing.”

In an episode filmed last month, Larry successfully nominates his father to participate in NASA’s civilian space program. Ray doesn’t want to disappoint his children but is squeamish about the fat-free meals and rigorous physical training. To prepare Ray for the G-forces, they go to an amusement park and spend hours on Supreme Scream, a ride in which they are harnessed and dropped several stories.

This was the ultimate in being a “working actor,” the kids said, and it was universally their favorite scene.

But for La Camara, they were not the most significant moments in the show.

“My favorite scenes are the last ones in all the shows. The mushy moments, because they show a family tenderness,” La Camara said.

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It was those moments of tenderness that made Valdez choose Maris, a family friend who last appeared in NBC’s “Nurses” from 1991 to 1994, alongside La Camara. A slender, former Montebello Junior Miss, she and her husband of 12 years, actor Tony Plana, socialize with Valdez and his wife.

“They’re sort of asking what is authentic, as a parent and as a Hispanic American parent,” Maris said. “Even though I’m not a writer, I feel almost a part of the creative team.”

One element of the sitcom that doesn’t get much billing is the set, a warm, traditional-looking suburban home with Tex-Mex richness.

“I didn’t want it to take place in East L.A.,” Valdez said. “And I thought--no disrespect to my brother in East L.A.--but 31 million of us can’t exist in one neighborhood.”

The set is the creation of Portuguese-Japanese designer Candi Guterres. She’s a 38-year-old with spiked peroxide-blond hair, rod-iron tattoos on her upper arms, a nose ring and a tongue spike. She used plants, comfortable furniture in earth tones and Spanish tile to create the Garcias’ home. She hung cooking pots above the island-stove in the kitchen and placed a built-in wooden bookshelf in the father’s study to make a masculine den that opens into the kids’ TV room.

“I wanted to give a lot of depth,” Guterres said. She created “layers” with arches and recessed windows and doors that are common to adobe-style homes. Compared with other shows geared to Latinos--namely, Spanish-language television, where some of the sets look cardboard--”The Brothers Garcia” house looks solid and warm.

If Nickelodeon decides to pick up the show for the rest of the season, the set will stand for 22 weeks, marking the spot for a potential breakthrough in Latino TV shows.

“To give kids the Latin version of ‘The Brady Bunch’ is fantastic. It’s good for them to see a different option--middle class,” said Leguizamo. “You’ve arrived in America when you have a show like that about your people.”

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“Brothers Garcia” will premiere on Nickelodeon tonight at 8:30.