Mike and Gibby Cevallos
Like a lot of teenagers, Mike and Gibby Cevallos made home movies. "Gibby was my guinea pig," Mike, now 32, recalls about his brother. "I'd say, 'Hey, get over there and fall out of the tree. Let's see how it looks on tape.'" Though 28-year-old Gibby did his own stunts back then, the San Antonio natives gradually grew less attracted to making action flicks and more interested in telling stories. In 1998 they released the short film Barbacoa, which portrayed a Hispanic family's Sunday routine. That work drew the attention of cable television executives and led to the Cevalloses' newest project: a television series for Nickelodeon titled The Brothers Garcia. Mike and Gibby wrote and directed the sitcom about a fictional San Antonio family, featuring a voice-over by John Leguizamo à la Daniel Stern in The Wonder Years. When The Brothers Garcia premiered in late July, the ratings proved they had a hit on their hands. "For that time slot and target audience, we outscored every cable competitor and got the highest ratings on Nickelodeon since 1996," Mike says. Impressed? There's more: Not only is this an all-Hispanic cast—rare for any U.S. program—but it's Nickelodeon's first show with a Hispanic lead character. "It's history in the making," says Mike.
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