The first TV series adapted from a TikTok is upon us, though it’s also rooted in a groundbreaking Latino sitcoom from the early 2000s.
The premiere of NBC’s “Lopez vs. Lopez” on Nov. 4 will bring George Lopez back to broadcast network comedy 15 years after the conclusion of his self-titled ABC series. This time, he’s sharing the soundstage with his daughter, Mayan Lopez. They star as a father and a daughter working to repair their relationship in a fictionalized version of their own experience.
Mayan and George hadn’t been on regular speaking terms for nearly a decade because of his infidelity and eventual split from her mother, Ann Serrano. But when the pandemic hit, Mayan and Ann’s worry for George, who is immunocompromised, unexpectedly brought the whole family back together — and Mayan couldn’t help chronicling it on social media.
“They still acted like an old married couple. My mom was still trying to fix his hair,” Mayan says. “I randomly put my phone up and put it on TikTok, and we got 60 million views overnight. I was like, ‘Huh, I think I have something here. Airing out my dirty laundry for entertainment!’”
“She was revealing the sordid details of her parents’ divorce … and twerking the entire time!” recalls showrunner Debby Wolfe, who discovered Mayan’s posts during a 3 a.m. scroll. “I was immediately like, ‘This is a show.’ This Gen Z Latina, unafraid to call out her boomer father for bad parenting. Raw and hilarious.”
Wolfe is also a young Latina with self-described “daddy issues,” which is what initially attracted her to the material: “As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to forgive him. Part of the show’s theme is just coming to terms with the fact that your parents had a past too. They suffered trauma as well, and they really are doing their best.”
Wolfe secured the support of Bruce Helford, her boss on “The Conners” and co-creator of George’s first show, then pitched the father-daughter duo on a nostalgic multicam. It didn’t take much convincing for George, who was already learning to get comfortable with the world seeing the depths of his personal life.
“I have no control over [Mayan’s TikTok], but I wouldn’t tell her what to do anyway,” George laughs. “One time I was with Anthony Anderson, golfing, and he says, ‘Did you see Mayan’s TikTok?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I did.’ He said, ‘What did you think?’ I said, ‘I can’t think anything!’ He was like, ‘Word,’ and we just kept walking. ‘Yeah, word.'”
But with “Lopez vs. Lopez,” George gets to help craft the narrative, which he’s found to be a meditative experience.
“Looking at Mayan down the hallway at NBC — I don’t even think I’ve told Mayan this, but — you know when you watch a show, and the calendar goes by? January, then February, then years go by?” he says. “I can see Mayan’s face a couple of times a day: As a little first grader, and as a preteen when I used to drive her to school, and when she got her braces on. And I can see her face through all of the tough times in our life.”
“And then we ended up where we are,” he continues. “I see someone who has grown up, benefited from therapy,” he says. “She was prepared to deal with me every day and go through our lives again in those scripts. I respect her for doing it so well.”
“Mayan grew up on the set of the “George Lopez” show, watching her dad do his thing. She always dreamed of doing it one day as well,” Wolfe observes. “It feels like the only way that they’d be able to heal their relationship was on the set of a network sitcom. Sometimes, when we’re shooting a scene, they’re not doing the script. They’re really talking to each other.”
Mayan describes the work as “role-play therapy”: “We just did a Christmas episode, but I haven’t spent Christmas with my dad in 10 years. I got jealous of my character. But on the other side, my mom went to that taping, and we all had a great talk as a family,” she says, considering the chances for a real-life holiday together. “So I want this in print because maybe this year, it will happen!”
