George Lopez had long dreamed of having his own comedy show in the vein of Seinfeld, and vowed never to play demeaning Latino roles such as a murderer, drug dealer or gang member.

Actress Sandra Bullock discovered George Lopez in August 2000 after listening to one of his comedy albums and then watching him perform live at the Brea Improv Comedy Club, after which she approached him backstage to pitch a sitcom built around him.

Bullock, who wanted to address the lack of Latino visibility on American television, brought in Bruce Helford (creator of The Drew Carey Show and former Roseanne head writer) to help sell the show to ABC given his prior relationship with the network.

ABC first tested the concept with 4 episodes before committing to an initial order of 13 episodes, later expanded by 9 more, and promoted the show heavily by buying ad time on Spanish-language networks and taking out full-page magazine ads.

George Lopez drew heavily on his own upbringing in the San Fernando Valley for the show's material, and became one of the few Latino stars of a TV comedy series, following Desi Arnaz, Freddie Prinze and John Leguizamo.

For its first five seasons, the show had an all-Latino cast except for Albanian-born American actress Masiela Lusha, who played George's daughter Carmen.

The show's theme song is 'Low Rider' by War, which George Lopez referred to as the 'Chicano National Anthem' at the 9th ALMA Awards in 2007; the song was later dropped from most DVD season releases due to licensing costs.

According to Lopez, ABC canceled the show because it wasn't produced in-house by ABC Studios but by Warner Bros. Television, and he noted the final season actually outperformed Notes from the Underbelly, a comedy ABC chose to renew instead.

Lopez criticized ABC for approving the sitcom Cavemen around the same time his show was cancelled, quipping, 'So a Chicano can't be on TV, but a caveman can?' He also said about 170 staff members lost their jobs when the show ended.

Although never a major primetime hit, the series became a surprise success in syndication, becoming Nick at Nite's highest-rated series during its nearly 13-year run there from 2007 to 2020.

In 2021, Lopez revealed that a reboot of the series had been sold to Netflix years earlier but was blocked by a former Warner Bros. Television president who purposely prevented it from happening.