All language subtitles for Home.Town.Bens.Workshop.S02E07.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb

I like to think of myself
as a pretty funny guy.

But today, right here,
right now,

we have a comedy superstar
on the ground,
in Laurel, Mississippi.

He's about to start
his comedy tour
in Biloxi, Mississippi,

but before he does that,
he wants to do
a build with me.

Can you believe that?

And he's a huge supporter
of animal rescue.

So, when I heard that,
I thought,
"Let's build something

for the Animal Rescue League,
here in Laurel,

let's give something
for the dogs there,

but also something that's
gonna be a centerpiece
that will draw people there."

Something that says,
"George Lopez was here."

A legendary stand-up comedian,

star of his own series-s-s-s,

multiple shows,

his own talk show,
he's, you know, he's voiced
characters in animated movies,

he's been in kids' movies,
he's been in dramatic roles,

he'd done it all.

This is gonna be
a really good day.

- George Lopez? In my shop?
- Yes sir, how've you been man?
Good to see you, brother.

- What's up man?
- Man, I came...

to do a little work today.

Have you ever built anything?

It's funny you asked.
Nothing that I ever...

I wanted to be an architect
in high school, as my major.

During this one semester,
when you do your schematics
and your own...

- Yeah.
- ...my doors opened
the wrong way,

I took doors in the bathroom,
no shower

and everything was misaligned

and I thought,
I got a future in comedy, because...

- It was hilarious.
- ...architecture wasn't
working...[chuckles] Yeah.

You're really committed
to this dog rescuing.

Part of what made me a good
stand-up comedian or made me
a good actor, is that,

you're able to disengage
from the nerves...

- kind of, got like a wall up
and emotions and stuff.
- Yeah.

Rescuing the dogs has made me

appreciate them and then,
they made me
appreciate me finding

almost like, my heart.

And like, if you treat 'em
good, I mean,
they love you forever.

How many dogs
have you rescued?

You know, I've rescued,
maybe 25 and a lot of them
are that ones that are either

unwanted or are
about to get put down.

Those are the
most appreciative.

Do you have
any dogs right now?

I do, I have,
right now I have some
little chihuahuas, like,

one that I've had for
about seven years,

another like, a mini-pin
that's maybe
the size of my hand.

And I have one that got
hit by a car and
broke its tail,

so it's a dog
that doesn't have a tail.

But that little stub moves...

you feel it when he's excited,
'cause it just...

Here in Laurel, we got
our animal rescue league.

They rescue all sorts of
animals but there are
tons of dogs.

I though it'd be good if we
built something for them

- to kinda
raise awareness for it...
- Oh yeah.

What if we built
a big centerpiece,

- something beautiful?
- Yeah.

- Yeah?
- Yeah, that'd be great.

- Okay, I'm gonna show you
how we're gonna do it.
- Now we're gonna do it.

Oh man! All right.

- So, I was talking about
doing something...
- Mmm-hmm.

- ...that's a centerpiece.
- Right.

So, I was thinking, like,
what can we build?
Something that

is both beautiful,
form and function.

So, let's give them something
that they can drink water.

-'Cause if you think about
South Mississippi, it's hot.
- All right, right.

- They're gonna be out there,
they're gonna be playing.
- Right.

They need something
to drink water from.

You're talking about
more of like, a centerpiece,
almost like a...

- like a bowl.
- A bowl. A big bowl.

- Yeah.
- Well done, treated...

- Something they'll come,
they'll gather around.
- Yeah.

I don't really wanna
call it a dog bowl.

What if we called it like,
a hydration station.

It's brilliant.

- You like that?
- Yeah, hydration station.

All right, so we're gonna use
California Redwood

I'm from California,
yes sir.

And I want something
that's gonna contrast.

- Sure... okay.
- Mississippi Cypress.

- Okay,
what do you think?
- Yeah.

I mean, I've never
built anything from scratch.

The way we're gonna
build this...

So, we're making a bowl.

We're gonna make
three rings and then we're
gonna make a base.

We'll cut our pieces,
we're taking a simple joint,
a butt-joint.

We'll join them on the sander
and then
we'll glue them together.

When you glue this all up,
it creates a circle.

We will take those and we're
gonna join them together,

- to make it
a rough-shaped bowl.
- Yeah.

Then we're gonna mount
that on the lathe

and then we're gonna
take a knife and
we're gonna turn it.

Incredible.

- You're gonna love this.
- Are we doing this
in a day?

- Yeah.
- All right.

- This is gonna be fast.
- Wow.

- This if more of that redwood.
- Yeah.

See here, redwood is
protected okay, so you
can't go out and cut it down.

They're such
a slow-growth tree,
that once you cut them,

you know, it'll be
generations before
there're more of them around.

That's why the redwood that
we use is actually salvaged.

What's great about them
is it's good for
outdoor furniture...

- Mmm-hmm.
- ...because, it's resistant
to rot and bugs...

- Amazing.
- ...that sort of thing.

This is a piece of
a cypress,
just to kinda show you...

Oh, wow yeah.

...what
that's like together.

Both these trees produce
a lumber that is good for
outdoor materials.

So, then we start off with
a good base to build from.

Right there where this
apron is hanging,

- you can actually
put that apron on.
- Oh.

- That one's for you.
- Okay, you know, I always
hate to put things on,

because I say,
"Is it gonna fit
over my head?" Let's see.

Oh, thank God.

When I was in little league,
my head was so big,

I had to wear a hat
that coaches would wear.

My brother, he,
in seventh grade,

- he had a varsity
football helmet.
- Yeah.

So, you played
sports growing up.

I played
a little baseball, yeah.

- Really?
- I got a letter
from the Reds

when I was in tenth grade.

And then I had a falling out
with my coach in twelfth grade

and he tore the letter
from the Reds up in half,
in front of me.

- Dang.
- So, we got into it

and then he started to get
into my character and he says,
"You know,

I'd like to see where you are
in ten-20 years, because,

you're a quitter.
I'll see how far a quitter
can get in life."

He gave me the spark
of truth that I needed
to build...

- my life on.
- That's fascinating.

That baseball field that
I played in High School,

I started to donate
back to the school,

and they named the field
after me.

- Oh wow!
- They won two championships
and I bought those kids

championship rings...

- That's cool.
- ...twice.

All right, so,
this is our cypress.

We're starting from
a big slab.
Right now what we're doing

is giving ourselves
more manageable pieces

- that we can make
the segments from.
- Okay.

So that we can
start cutting
the pieces for the rings,

we'll rip it down,
we'll get it to the thickness

and width that we want.

So, I'm gonna
let you cut that.

Beautiful.

- You sure you haven't
done this before?
- I haven't done it before.

- I'm going early
with the push-stick.
- Do it.

What was it like growing up

being George Lopez?

- You never knew your dad...
- Yeah.

Uh, you didn't know
much of your mom.

You know my grandparents
raised me, they were older,
they worked, I was home a lot.

Well, my grandmother was
pretty hard on me, man.

And you know,
we didn't have a lot,
you know.

- Absolutely.
- I wouldn't have had a show
if I couldn't talk about

my grandmother, who became
the mother character and those

stories of this childhood,
as tough as they were,

were real and
I didn't know that

in those tough summers
and in those tough holidays
and then the...

all the stuff of being alone,
that I was really,
kinda building

- what would become my future.
- Yeah.

I gravitated towards comedy.

Instead of being hurt,
you look at it
and you laugh.

But, I mean like,
your friends and your school,
raised you also.

Yeah, I was kinda,
taken in by my friends

and I'm still friends
with those guys.

When I was 15-14,
we would go to Hollywood
every morning.

When I would go to
the Walk of Fame,
I would see George Burns' star

and I would imagine
my name there.

At the end of March,
on the 100th episode
of my show,

I got a star on
the Walk of Fame
and then when I, uh...

looked...
man...

to my right,

- I saw the guys
that used to take me...
- Sha...

the guys you'd go with...

they were all there.

Amen. There's sawdust
in my eyes.

- It is...
- But, I mean, to look over
and see...

- ...us as men...
- Mmm-hmm.

...and know that as kids,
it was a dream of mine,

to do this was... I mean...

and I know how hard it is
to get to a place where
you've achieved something that

is almost impossible.

- Yeah. Well, that's gonna make
this thing...
- Come on, man.

- like nothing at all.
Let's cut some wood.
- This is easy. This is easy.

Take the cypress,

I'll take the redwood.
We're gonna go over
to the miter saw, now.

Now, we're gonna cut the
18 pieces that'll make up our
three rings on the miter saw.

Miter saw... we're gonna
set our angle.

- It's 15 degrees.
- Okay.

That slight angle,
taking that 15 degree angle,

applying it to
the perfect length of board,

when you glue this all up,
it creates a circle.

- You see that mark?
- Oh, yeah, yeah.

- So that's seven inches.
I'm gonna cut it a hair bigger
- Okay.

Man, when we gotta
cut this one, I'm gonna flip
this board over.

'Cause now,
that angle's ready.
So, we need three rings

- and for each ring,
we need six redwood and...
- Okay...

- ...and six cypress.
- ...and six cypress, right.

- So, we're gonna need
18 pieces of these.
- Okay.

That gives us, you know,
enough pieces

that we can create a pattern

So, what was
your grandmother like?

What was she like...
let's see, um...

she was just kinda,
little bit mean...
she could be mean fast.

And I don't know why.
I mean, I wasn't a bad kid.
She wasn't really into...

compliments or asking
how you were,

or how was school,
because she was
always working.

So, I lived kind of,
in solitude, you know.

Solitary confinement.

I mean, all of that
was kind of like, the fabric

- for what I built
my career on.
- Yeah.

She didn't prepare me for
life being good,

she prepared me for
life being bad.

So, nothing bothered me.

And then when things got good,
I could handle it,

but when things got bad,
I was better at it.

- Dang!
- Crazy

That's how he became
who he is.

And he uses that in his comedy
and he uses it
in his routine.

I think he's come to
peace with that.

It's fascinating to me.

- Power of the saw,
it's impressive.
- Yeah.

- Does it make you nervous?
- A little bit.

So, we need to cut
each segment
a little bit bigger

just a hair bigger
than seven inches

and then we'll take it
to our sander, so, once we
sand it down to seven inches,

we'll have
a perfect glue surface,
so, a perfect joint.

We're also going to cut out

triangles for our base.
The bottom of the bowl

is going to be
a series of triangles
coming together at the center.

This is gonna be
a 30 inch bowl
for the best dogs in Laurel.,

All right, so we got
all our pieces...

All sanded down. Beautiful.

- ...sanded, ready to glue.
- Yep.

- Is that our bottom
right there?
- This will be the bottom.

- Beautiful.
- This will be what the bottom
of the...

bowl looks like.

And it all lines up.

- Almost like we planned it.
- Finally.

That's the really cool thing
about this is,

that we're taking a
simple joint, a butt joint,

but by applying a
different angle to it,
we can make something new.

It creates a circle.

This is sleight of hand,

...magic.

Comedy started early for you.

I'm 18, I just graduated...
I'm still in high school

and just got out.

- I go to
the Comedy Store, uh, June...
- When did you start?

June 4th of 1979.
It was a Monday

I didn't do very good.
But, I went up.
It's almost like, you know...

- You did it.
- I did it.

Like, you gotta get up there.
So, I did it.

- Did you get any laughs?
- Not the first two times.

The third time,
so it's packed in the
middle of the summer.

It's almost July, '79.
So, I go up there
and I start...

and they're laughing
and they're laughing more...

and then,
they're laughing more
and I'm kinda like,

"Wow, what the hell
is going on?" and they're
laughing some more.

It's all like,
adrenaline, smiles
and happiness

like I'd never had in my life
up until that point, so...

it was kind of like,
an infusion of

acceptance and laughter
and like,

love that was new to me.

I was just out of my mind.

I don't know what
made me continue
to go back.

It wasn't like I was
a natural, like,
"Oh, this guy is a savant."

It was... every time was tough.

But, it must've been
better than where I was

or what I thought
my future would be

if I didn't do it.

Was this the first thing
you did and didn't quit?

I just decided I was gonna
work harder
than everybody else.

I was gonna work
when people were sleeping.

Still, you know,
scared to death of every time
was gonna perform.

In five years I met Arsenio
I did his show 15 times

and in seven years
I did The Tonight Show

and in 2000,
I met Sandra Bullock

and she came to see me

and she said,
"I'm interested in your show,

I like what you gonna do.
Come and-- let's meet."

- She like... one of the
biggest movie stars ever...
- Bigger movie star.

- So...
- ...at that point.

...she'd become
disillusioned with Hollywood.

- And...
- Wanted to do
something different.

And just wanting to step back.

So, when she saw me,

I was unique enough and...

funny enough in the material to...

pique her interest.
She became, like,
my biggest advocate.

And the first day
I went to her...

office and we had lunch,
and she was taking notes and

she's walking me down
to my car and I turned back
and I said,

"What you're gonna try to do
has never been
done successfully before

"in the history of television.

"And I just wanna say,
whatever happens and if
I never see you again or...

you know, whatever happens
in this whole thing,
I could just thank you."

- Yeah.
- And she goes,

"Why don't you worry about
being funny

and why don't you let me
worry about that?"

- Dang.
- And man... and that was it.

- The rest is history.
- I wanted... the president at
Warner Brothers saw me,

the president of ABC saw me,

I said to myself,

"I think I just might've
gotten myself
a television show."

That's cool.

- So, once you to get
these all glued up...
- Yeah.

I'll throw
a strap around them.

You know, I wouldn't have
expected that we would

put a band around it to...

hold it secure while
it glue-dried.

But, you know, when we

bought mattresses and
we're driving home with them,

nobody put a strap.
You just had people

- reaching out.
- ...hold them.

- Yeah.
- So, this is essentially
just a butt joint.

- Okay.
- Okay.

So, as far as woodworking
joinery goes,

this is not
a complicated joint.

What makes it complicated
is the fact that once we put
all these pieces together,

- it's a circle.
- Right.

Once that glue dries,

it is actually
a stronger joint than

where the woods comes
together in mother nature. Like,

it is stronger than
where the wood fibers
joined to each other.

Unless you didn't
glue it right
and then it's weaker.

All right.
We got all our
pieces glued up, ready.

This is my sander.
It's a wide-build sander.

It's got this big belt.

- Inside of there
it's sandpaper.
- Okay.

- So, then we'll
run these through.
- Okay.

So, then we're gonna take
our three rings

and our base

and we're gonna run them
through the wide-build sander
on both sides,

because, in the same way
that we needed
the segments to be

perfectly glued together,

we need each of these
four pieces

to glue together perfectly.

How long was it from...

the lunch with Sandra,
ABC get involved

and Warner Brothers to

making the first episode?

In literally, a summer,
less than a year,

I'm on TV.

- This is crazy.
- And they were, you know,

they were almost
recreations of my real life,

which, I think, you know,
one of the things that has
made it survive since

2002, is that, it had heart
and it had

a reality and it had...

my... kind of my struggle.

So, the show was trying to
prove to my mother
I wasn't a boy

and trying to prove to
my wife, I'm a man.

So, to mime my life,

almost verbatim was...

was easy and cathartic for me.
So, now when it airs...

- And you're airing it out...
- And the mom is...

like, a mean mom.

That's really my grandmother.
When my grandmother sees it,

she says,
"You've made me nice,"

- She said...
she said you made me nice.
- Oh my God!

So, the next step, now that
we've got everything sanded
perfectly, we will glue

all four pieces together.

And we're essentially
stacking it like
a layer cake.

But then, we're going to
shift it a little bit a...

half-a-segment turn

on each one, so that our lines

don't line up.
This is where the beauty
comes into it.

- So,
you like the pattern?
- I love the pattern.

I realize that our pattern
just kinda looks
haphazard right now.

But, once we turn
and slick it down,

- it's gonna be beautiful.
- Okay, so, you're a craftsman,

you did it intentionally,
I would have done it...

I was like, "Oh man,
I thought everything
lined up."

- So, that's the difference
between, I mean... talent.
- We did it on purpose.

We did it on purpose.

This is also our
moment of truth, because
is we didn't...

glue these very well...

- Okay.
- We're gonna find out here
in just a minute.

Okay. Let me go outside
and come back in
when it's over.

I'm honestly
a little bit intimidated.

I've never tuned something
this big, so...

mounting this on the lathe
and turning it

is... it's intimidating for me.

It's gonna be sacring George
pretty good.

And then we're gonna turn
this bad boy on.

We got a 30 inch,

you know, pointed
piece of wood that we're
mounting to an electric motor.

We're gonna turn it on at,
you know, 700 rpms and

stick a knife into it.

I don't know who thought
this was a good idea.
I'm gonna blame this on George

Heaven forbid
that it's not perfect,

what can we expect
to have happened?

If it's not perfect,
then it's gonna come apart.

What's perfect in this case?

Perfect does not mean
that it is...

perfectly aligned or anything,

- it mean these seams
aren't perfect.
- Okay.

The stakes are actually
high here, because,

this bowl could blow up.

And when I say blow up,
I literally mean, "Blow up."

Like, looks like
a bomb goes off.

You could stop now
and take this home

or you could continue
and possibly risk it all

for dogs to drink out of it.

You have ten seconds.

- It does feel like
a game show doesn't it.
- Yeah.

- All right.
- This is like,
a day-of-firsts for me.

I don't think I've seen
a lathe machine work.

I always... when it gets down
to the part that's like where,

you know, where the real
nut-cutting happens...

- Yes... hits the road.
- When the rubber
hits the road,

then I start getting nervous.

Are our joints good enough?
Yes, they are simple joints.

Did we do them perfectly?

My first car had that
same slight wobble.

- Are you nervous?
- I'm a little bit nervous.

I wasn't really
watching George when he was
gluing some of his.

But I hope he used
enough glue.

Okay, first thing
I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
try and

- even it up.
Take that wobble out.
- Level it up... okay.

The fact that
it's segmented for one, is...

you're gonna have those joint,
those elbows, where the pieces
come together

and so, as they're
coming around and
hitting the knife.

- It's a little smoother.
- I like it.

I don't know if George
is gonna wanna actually
do any turning.

- All right, you ready?
- I think that thing would
end up back there. No, no, no.

You got the wobble out of it,

I'm gonna take credit for it
anyways, I think we're good.

- All right, we got the outside even.
- Okay.

Now, I'm gonna work on
smoothing the inside

and then we can do
the finer details.

- I just wanna get
all the rough...
- Out of it?

So, now looking back
on The George Lopez Show,

what do you feel like
you accomplished?

It appeals to all people.
Not necessarily
Latino people, but...

everybody loves it.

In 19 years,
it's never been off the air

and that people feel like

"That's my family.
Oh, that's my family", not
necessarily a Latino family.

Now you're this
successful Hollywood actor,

you're able to give back
to the community.

I was doing a show in Venice

and as I'm getting in
my car, this girl comes over

and she says, "You know,
I'm from New York, I came out
here with my brother.

"I wanna tell my story
about coming out
as a teenager

"in senior high school
and I wrote this part

and I had you in mind
to play it."

I gave her my number
and I said, "When you
get it done, I'll do it."

And last year, she uh,

got it done and I did it.

You got to be...

- I got to be
the Sandra Bullock.
- ...the Sandra Bullock.

I know that that girl
would've never had
a chance to tell her story

had I not decided to
play her father

and brought her attention
that she needed
to get it sold and...

- and she got it sold.
- That is pretty cool

Now that
the bowl is shaped,

George can actually
sand it down without
worrying about it blowing up.

The last step is actually
taking it off the lathe,
so we've got it turned and we

layer a sheet of fiber glass
on the outside

and on the inside
and then we do a
two-part epoxy.

So, we're gonna spread
our fiber glass

over it...

and then we're gonna mix
our two part epoxy,

pour it on and spread it out.

The fiber glass
will kind of, disappear.

It's, your know,
it absorbs the epoxy
and once it all cures,

then it is a water
and weather-proof barrier.

This thing will be sealed.

There's another thing
haven't seen in my life.

- You've never done
a fiber glass?
- Never... no.

Once this all cures,
we've got
a little brass plate

that says built by
George Lopez

and Ben Napier.

Man, I'm happy that
I came out here to see it.
Man, this is amazing.

This is beautiful.
All right.

- The only one of its kind.
- The only one,
maybe ever.

Let's go. Let's go deliver it.

The Animal Rescue League
of Laurel
has been around forever.

Erin grew up getting her pets
from there.

We pull up at ARL,

we carry the bowl,
we've got it, you know,
hidden under the tarp.

See this is the yard
where they come and play.

- How are you?
Nice to see you?
- Hey. How are you?

- Nice to see you.
- Your place is great.

These dogs are,
they're like, well adapted.

I mean, they see
a bunch of strangers
and they're...

- They're very calm,
very calm.
- They've been quite. Yeah.

Alicia runs
the rescue league

and she is extremely
passionate about

helping these animals.

How many dogs
y'all have here, right now?

Close to 25.

So, tell us a little about
who we got out here.

I mean, here on the right
is Ms. Paisley.

She's been here since
about 2017.

Mmm-hmm.

Regina came in,
in 2019.

Big boy here, this is Kane.

He's about five years old,

- he has a torn ACL
in his back-rear left leg.
- Oh.

So, he's gonna be a
special needs case.

- How did he end up here?
- He was a surrender.

I don't like it.
I'm almost crying,
'cause you know...

Rescuing dogs is what
saved me. It saved my life.

That's great.
Yeah, that's awesome.

George is extremely
passionate about
helping these animals.

That it's a way for him
to give back,

it's a way for him to help
something else of someone else

who's fallen on hard times.

- We're very excited for you
to see this.
- Yeah.

- We're excited to see
what y'all have created.
- The only one...

- in existence.
- We're proud
of our work.

- Come on, guys.
- And she calls out
all of the people that

volunteered there,
all the people
who worked there.

And they're all excited
to see it.

One, two, three.

- It is a... station.
- Hydration station.

Love it!

It's California Redwood
is what the darker wood is

and then the lighter wood is
Mississippi Cypress.

- Love it. Love it.
- You like it?

I'm fighting back the tears.

- Let's fill it up.
- Let's fill it up!

I hope that
it's a bright spot
in these dog's days.

George will forever be
remembered for the time that

he built the huge
hydration station

for the Animal Rescue League
and he'll be remembered for

giving this incredible gift
to our town.

- Oh what the hell.
- Yeah, let's get down here.