Whether it’s selling tacos themed to FX’s Mayans M.C. or voicing an adorable gecko on the Disney Channel animated series Elena of Avalor, there’s not a whole lot Danny Trejo can’t do. And with nearly 370 credits to his name it’s amazing he hasn’t headlined a show on a major network yet…until now.
It’s being reported that ABC is developing the series Food & Familia, a “Latinx comedy” set to star Trejo and created by sitcom veteran Peter Murrieta. The show will follow a father and daughter attempting to reconnect with each other while running a restaurant. Trejo’s character, also named Danny, inherits the restaurant from his mother but butts heads with his daughter, Michelle, who feels he abandoned her when he went to prison. The series will be loosely based on Trejo’s own life which included several stretches in prison during his twenties.
Right now there is no additional casting short info of Trejo. The series is being spearheaded by the Mexican-Irish showrunner Murrieta who is well-versed in Latinx entertainment, having worked on One Day at a Time, Lopez, and Cristela. He created the series Greetings from Tucson in 2002 based on his own life about a young boy growing up with a staunch Mexican-American father and an Irish-American mother. The series was heavily praised upon release for having a mostly Latino cast though it only lasted one season.
It should be great to see Trejo lead a series like this, especially for ABC which has been embracing diverse depictions of family with Black-ish, Fresh Off the Boat, and Speechless. Hopefully this gets enough traction to go beyond a single season, especially considering Murrieta’s passion for telling Latinx stories.
The show is still in development so there are no talks about producing a pilot episode or the chances it will get greenlit as a full series yet.