History YMMV / TheGeorgeLopezShow

* WeirdAlEffect: Those familiar with the show are more apt to recognize "Low Rider" by War as "the George Lopez theme song".

** Carmen hasn't had it very easy. George has often shown more favor to Max due to his being a boy. Her best friend left her when her family moved away, and throughout the show she has been a magnet for some really [[{{Jerkass}} scummy]] guys. Her first boyfriend on the show dumped her when she refused to have sex with him, another ex-boyfriend claimed to have slept with her to avoid being seen as a loser (resulting in her being bullied for "[[Slutshamming being a whore]]" and sexually harassed so bad she was forced to switch schools, another boyfriend was a cocky delinquent who just wanted sex and manipulated her into running away with him to San Francisco and dumped her when she refused to have sex. Her next boyfriend was initially embarrassed to be seen in public with her due to his being popular (while she wasn't), and then cheated on her with a more "experienced" female classmate for a month. The girl has been through ''a lot'', and you can only hope she can achieve more in college. That being said, many of her troubles stem from her being an absolute HorribleJudgeOfCharacter, a complete DramaQueen, being [[ItsAllAboutMe overly focused on her own problems]], or all of the above. She even tried milking the sympathy card in order to do whatever she wanted after she returned home from running away, leading Angie to firmly (and rightfully) put her in her place.

** Carmen hasn't had it very easy. George has often shown more favor to Max. Her best friend left her, and throughout the show she has been a magnet for some really [[{{Jerkass}} scummy]] guys. Her first boyfriend on the show dumped her when she wouldn't have sex with him, another ex-boyfriend claimed to have slept with her to avoid being seen as a loser, resulting her in being bullied for "being a whore" and sexually harassed so bad she was pulled out of school, another boyfriend was a lying slimeball who just wanted to screw her, and manipulated her into running away to San Francisco, and later dumped her. Her next boyfriend was at first embarrassed to be seen with her, and then cheated on her. The girl has been through ''a lot'', and you hope she can achieve more in college. That being said, many of her troubles strem from her being a HorribleJudgeOfCharacter, a complete DramaQueen, or both. She even tried playing the sympathy card in order to do whatever she wanted after she returned home.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: Hoo boy does this fit George. His cynicism and vitriol in various situations is often condemned but usually validated.

** In "Dubya, Dad And Dating", Carmen protests George W. Bush and the Iraq War when the president makes a speech factory, something is treated as irresponsible teenager behavior and only serves to embarrass George at work. This episode came out in 2003, right before public opinions on Bush's presidency and the Iraq War had nosedived and most shows and sitcoms became highly critical of him.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped:
** "Girl Fight": Sometimes the best solution to bullying is to run away from the problem, which doubles as a HardTruthAesop. Even though George and Angie get the leader of Carmen's bullies suspended and get her boyfriend to admit she hadn't slept with him, the people in her class still think she is a whore and are now mad at her for wronging the popular kids. Their only solution is to send her to private school. Per this trope, it is unfortunately TruthInTelevision.
** {{Positive discrimination}} is bad and it is wrong to profit off of it. George is offered an important position at a company but only because he's Latino. Where the anvil dropping really comes into play is that the man offering him the position is black and talks about the whole process with a great deal of familiarity, suggesting he himself built his entire career out of being a minority and merely competent rather than actually being the best man for the job. George reasons they don't really want or need him and could just replace him with any Latino if they wanted.
** A Middle Eastern coworker is seen by his other employees as suspicious and untrustworthy simply because of his ethnicity, even by people who have gone through prejudice. And then Powers decides that he should do office work instead of plane construction because he didn't want to lose a deal because of the prejudice of Middle Eastern people being involved with planes. George is rightly appalled by these injustices against and calls it out.
** A photo of Angie in a wet, white t-shirt is spread online by an unknown person, infuriating her. When the person turns out to be Jason's younger, wheelchair bound brother, Angie initially pretends to forgive him because of him being in a wheelchair. Jason then tells her that just because he can't walk doesn't give a him a free pass to do whatever he wants.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: One episode has George doing a Creator/BillCosby impression as part of some sexual foreplay between him and Angie. Cosby getting charged with sexual assault makes that scene a lot less funny or even sexy.

* LesYay: In one episode, Veronica mentions that she was hit on by two store managers.... and that one of them was a girl. Max, who was with her at the time, comments, [[GirlOnGirlIsHot "It was awesome."]]

** A photo of Angie in a wet, white t-shirt is spread online by an unknown person, infuriating her. When the person turns out to be Jason's younger, wheelchair bound brother, Angie initially pretends to forgive him because of him being in a wheelchair. Jason then tells her that just because he can't walk doesn't give a him a free pass to do whatever he wants. Yes, Jason is ''not'' a good person, and turns out to be a horrible boyfriend to Carmen, but he isn't wrong about this.

* RewatchBonus: In the episodes leading up to "George Helps Ernie See The Cellulight" where Ernie gains weight and almost gets fired, he is noticeably heavier as his actor begins wearing a fatsuit. George even comments on it in the episode "The Kidney Stays in the Picture."

** The best example of this would probably be when Benny moves into the house temporarily. George warns Angie against allowing it and is proven right when Benny's constant presence and refusal to be responsible so she can move out eventually cause even Angie to want her gone. In spite of this George is shown as in the wrong for wanting the throw her out despite his mother going out of her way to demean and humiliate him while receiving no support from even his wife.

*** During Benny's trial, George brings her mother to the stand in order to make Benny look sympathetic to the jurors. While on the stand, she proceeds to mock Benny and shows how bad a mother she was to her daughter. This was done to make Benny seem like a JerkassWoobie and show how tough she had it growing up in a broken home. The problem is that Benny was just as bad at raising George. Being emotional and physically abusive to him, being neglectful of his feelings, disregarding his dyslexia, unsupportive of his goals, and lying to him constantly. And as an adult she still a Jerkass to him and his family. She is the reason he has so many repressed memories and a demon parade. It's pretty hard to sympathize with her.

** When George catches Veronica's deadbeat, con artist father trying to skip town, he lies that he's only going for a walk and the cab is part of his training like how Lance Armstrong has a truck follow him around when he trains. With the reveal that Armstrong was doping after he won the 1999 Tour de France, Veronica's father comparing himself to Armstrong has a rather dark element of foreshadowing.

** "George Can't Let Sleeping Mexicans Lie" Benny destroying a neighbor's statue that was seen as racially insensitive to Mexicans. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_removed_during_the_George_Floyd_protests In 2020, a number of statues that were considered to be glorifying racism were destroyed during the protests over the death of George Floyd]]. The debate about the validity of such actions even mirrors the one Angie and George have over whether or not Benny was justified in destroying the statue.

* HoYay: There's enough between Ernie and George that George ended having a worm-induced hallucination that he and Ernie were a gay couple. One moment that's worthy of mention is one time when George and Ernie are playing guitar and they get close and stare rather intently into each other's eyes.

** {{Positive discrimination}} is bad and it is wrong to profit off of it. George is offered an important position at a company but only because he's Latino. Where the Anvil dropping really comes into play though is when the man offering him the position is black and talks about the whole process with a great deal of familiarity, suggesting he himself built his entire career out of being a minority and competent than actually being the best man for the job. George reasons they don't really want or need him and could just replace him with any Latino if they wanted.

** When a photo of Angie being in a wet, white t-shirt is spread online by an unknown person, which infuriates her. When the person turns out to be Jason's younger and wheelchair bound brother, Angie initially pretends to forgive him because of him being in a wheelchair. Jason then tells her that just because he can't walk doesn't give a him a free pass to do whatever he wants. Yes, Jason is ''not'' a good person, and turns out to be a horrible boyfriend to Carmen, but he isn't wrong about this.

** "George Can't Let Sleeping Mexicans Lie" revolves around a neighbor accusing George of destroying a statute of his that George deemed racially insensitive. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_removed_during_the_George_Floyd_protests In 2020, a number of statues that were considered to be glorifying racism were destroyed during the protests over the death of George Floyd]]. The debate about the validity of such actions even mirrors the one Angie and George over whether or not Benny, the actual culprit, was justified in destroying the statue.

** "George Can't Let Sleeping Mexicans Lie" revolves around a neighbor accusing George of destroying a statute of his that George deemed racially insensitive. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monuments_and_memorials_removed_during_the_George_Floyd_protests In 2020, a number of statues that were considered to be glorifying racism were destroyed during the protests over the death of George Floyd]].

* TheWoobie: Ernie can fall under this. He's had terrible luck with women, and one that was even chubbier than him ran out on what was supposed to be their first date.

** One episode reveals that George's little league coach bequeathed him $100,000, which Benny proceeded to quickly fritter away on a new car and a trip to Las Vegas. The event is never mentioned again after the episode but it means that every attempt to portray Benny as a flawed but hardworking and underprivileged mother rings hollow as she had the funds to provide George with a comfortable life but wasted it on herself.
** During Benny's trial, George brings in Benny's mother to the stand in order to make Benny look sympathetic to the jurors. While on the stand, she proceeds to mock Benny and shows how bad a mother she was to her daughter. This was done to make Benny seem like a JerkassWoobie and show how tough she had it growing up in a broken home. The problem is that Benny was just as bad at raising George. Being emotional and physically abusive to him, being neglectful of his feelings, disregarding his dyslexia, unsupportive of his goals, and lying to him constantly. And as an adult she still a Jerkass to him and his family. She is the reason he has so many repressed memories and a demon parade. It's pretty hard to sympathize with her.
*** Benny falls into this a lot. In one episode, George completely remodels her bathroom, free of charge (and even throws in some custom stuff). When she complains about this and he rightfully calls her out for being ungrateful, she launches into a rant about all the bad things that happened in her life. The logic gap from being angry at people in your past and never saying thank you to your son is pretty blatant.

* HarsherInHindsight: In one episode, George says that he's in favor of tighter border control, and now look what's happening with Arizona, be careful what you ask for!

** During Benny's trial, George brought in Benny's mother to the stand and try and make Benny sympathetic to the jurors. While on the stand, she proceed to mock Benny and shows how bad a mother she was to Benny. This was done to make Benny seem like a JerkassWoobie at the most since how bad she grew up in a broken home and being a single mother. The problem was that Benny was just as bad at raising George. Being emotional and physically abusive to him, being neglectful of his feelings, disregarding his dyslexia, unsupportive of his goals, and lying to him constantly. And as an adult she still a Jerkass to him and his family. She is the reason he has so many repressed memories and a demon parade. It's pretty hard to sympathize with her.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: The show gives the moral that sometimes bullying can get so bad, you have to run away from the situation. Carmen was called a whore at her first high school, due to her ex-boyfriend telling everyone that they had sex. George and Angie get the leader of the bullies suspended, and get the ex-boyfriend to tell the truth. However, the episode ends with Carmen ''still'' getting bullied (and ''groped''), and George and Angie making the conclusion that Carmen can never get her reputation back, and that she must leave the school. Unfortunately, all of this is TruthInTelevision.

** The jokes about Fidel Castro in the show are now funny in hindsight since he died on November 25th, 2016!

* RewatchBonus: In the episodes leading up to "George Helps Ernie See The Cellulight" where Ernie gains weight and almost gets fired, he is noticeably heavier. George even comments on it in the episode "The Kidney Stays in the Picture." He looked like he was wearing a fat suit, though.

* CriticalResearchFailure: During the [[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Disneyland]] episode, George's mother claimed she rode the Matterhorn while pregnant with him, thinking the splash at the end was her water breaking. As the safety announcement played every 5 minutes during the line to the ride claims, pregnant women are '''heavily''' discouraged from riding the Matterhorn or any other rollercoaster, as it could easily lead to miscarriages. Then again this is [[AbusiveParents Benny]] we're talking about, so it would be perfectly in character for her to do that sort of thing, plus back when she was pregnant, the effects that certain actions by a pregnant woman(I.E. smoking, drinking) could have on the child were not as well known, so it's also possible she wasn't aware of the risks.

* TheWoobie: Ernie can fall under this. He's had terrible luck with women, and one that was even chubbier than him ran out on what was supposed to be their first date.

* VindicatedByHistory: Onetime George bought two tickets for him and Angie to Cuba, which will be for a future date when Castro is dead or Angie's Father wouldn't care. Flash forward to December of 2014, Castro stepped down for his brother to take over and relations between the United States and Cuba are normalizing including less travel restrictions and with Fidel Castro's death in November 2016.

* HarsherInHindsight:
** In one episode, George says that he's in favor of tighter border control, and now look what's happening with Arizona, be careful what you ask for!