George Lopez
George Edward Lopez (played by George Lopez) is the main protagonist of the series. He is the son of Manny and Benny Lopez and son-in-law of Vic and Emilina Palmero and nephew of Octavio and Lynette. George married Angie Palmero right out of High School and had two children, Carmen and Max. George is Mexican descent and proudly boasts about it several times throughout the series, though he occasionally makes jokes about it as well. In the pilot episode, "Prototype," George gets promoted to manager of Powers Brothers Aviation (usually seen as Powers Bros.), an airplane parts factory. He is also dyslexic, which often comes into play on the show. His son, Max, also has dyslexia, but a more severe case than his father. George also loves to play golf and he usually does it whenever he gets out of situations and to outsmart his family, like listening to Carmen's poetry or talk about Max's dyslexic problems.
George had a difficult childhood which is referenced throughout the series. His mother, Benny, is blamed for much of the abuse and jokes are often made about how she treated him. George initially believed Manny, his father, was dead (which was what Benny told him so he would stop asking where his father was), but learned he was actually alive from Manny's sister and George's aunt, Cecelia. When Manny sends George a check to help him out of financial trouble, George goes to see him in Phoenix, and ends up punching him in Benny's honor (the first gift Benny actually wanted from him). In Season 3, Manny has George arrested for hitting him, but drops the charges that same day after asking for another chance. George invites Manny over for dinner. Benny is incensed at this, but decides to accept it for George's sake. At Thanksgiving dinner later that year, Manny is revealed to need a kidney transplant, so George offers to donate his kidney. Manny dies before this can happen. George gets a package with a gold watch and a letter from Manny asking him not to come to his funeral to avoid ruining his reputation. Angry and hurt, George destroys the watch, not knowing that it is worth a fortune until Benny tells him it must have been worth a lot more than when she was with Manny.
At the start of the series, he and Angie were very much in love. But as the series progresses, their marriage becomes more and more competitive, disputing on issues such as who's a better parent or who does more work in the house. George often backs down from his wife, which prompts Benny to tease him on the inevitable fact she's actually the "man" in their marriage. This is often demonstrated when a particularly challenging situation arises and rather than admit that he is in over his head, George will quote in a very high-pitched voice, "I got this!" At serious points in the series, he has tried to set Angie straight but she's always managed to either outsmart him or avoid the problem completely by pointing out some other problem. In one episode, it is learned that Angie once fell in love with him because of a mural Angie that George claims to have made. But Angie finds out that George didn't really paint it. Despite all this, Angie still loves him. It has also been heavily implied that Angie's typical housewife status and in ability to get a decent well-paying job is because George is the one who kept her from going to college and obtaining a degree. It's also been revealed that George got Angie pregnant before they got married, implying that that their first-born Carmen was conceived outside of marriage.
Throughout the series, George demonstrates several times how inconsiderate and unappreciative he is of Angie, such as in "George's Extreme Makeover: Holmes Edition", where George promises to renovate the garage into an office space for Angie, but resorts to paying a couple of his old friends to do it with "a couple of cases of beer". Or in "George Nieces a New Video Room", where Veronica's ex-boyfriend leaves her a giant stuffed animal in the backyard and George says that he will use it as Angie's anniversary gift and then says ("Now that doesn't mean you won't get that set of diamond earrings you asked for - but you're not..."). Angie was most upset, though, in the season 3 episode "Mementos", where George proves he has failed to listen to her and throws an irreplaceable box of her grandmother's mementos away while spring cleaning, and this spawns an entire list of occasions in which his failure to listen to Angie at an earlier time (usually not seen by the viewers) comes back to haunt him in one of the episodes. (George, however, defends himself by saying if she's told him repeatedly, he's obviously not a very good listener) George can also tend to forget Angie's birthday or their anniversary, such as in "George of the Ring", where Angie points out that he actually forgot three days ago. In the end, though, he always comes through with getting gifts.
George's character also goes through a big change over the course of the series. In the beginning, he was depicted as caring man, loving father and husband. But as the series progresses, he becomes increasingly more sarcastic, seemingly less caring, and becomes more-and-more competitive with Angie and Benny. Even so he still loves his family and cares for them, even if he doesn't show it as often as before.
George's relationship with his mom revolves around insulting each other, briefly complimenting each other, and insulting each other some more. Benny constantly teases George about not being the man of the house, his big head, his failures as a child. George retaliates by teasing her about her short stature, her age, and her inability to maintain a single man for more than a day. George often refers to his mother as "a crazy old bat". In "God Needles George", he shares the beginning of a speech he saved for Benny's death; the beginning of his speech was "The reason I'm drinking champagne is because...". At another time, when Benny said she would never see George again after an argument, George said he would (when he's called to identify Benny's dead body)- "That's her. She's cold. So let's... wrap her around the keg and start this party!" Though aside from all this, they both truly care for each other. A prime example is when George believed his mom died in a house fire and was genuinely distraught. He was even willing to run into the burning building to save her if it weren't for a firefighter holding him back. He even said "My mom's been training for this; she's been smoking three packs a day for years!" to try calming himself.
As a boy, George enjoyed playing guitar and baseball; in his teens he started a heavy-metal band with Ernie, and other friends called "Dos Bad Asses"; they won battle of the bands at school by lighting their instruments on fire, but only the first round and making the curtains in the auditorium fire-poof. Throughout grade school, he and Ernie had the reputation of being outcasts or "unpopular". At one point, George learned Angie's ex-boyfriend dumped her before meeting him, making him think she "dropped a level" so she wouldn't get dumped again. However, it is later revealed Vic paid him off to do so (with George joking that he'd leave Angie if he got paid $2000). He is also an avid sports fan of teams such as the Oakland Raiders, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. George often buys expensive jerseys of the teams and wheres them on his days off. Carmen insults him about buying jerseys in her diary, saying because he doesn't play for them, George should stop buying the jerseys.
Read more about this topic: List Of George Lopez Characters