Comedian Frankie Quiñones is back on HBO Latino with a special show entitled Frankie Quiñones: Superhomies. It is an installment of the Entre Nos Presents comedy specials featuring top Latino comedians. The show will air July 9 and also be available on HBO Max.

The proudly self-proclaimed “LA made, LA raised” funny man will share stories about growing up Mexican-American in Los Angeles and the difficulties of dating. He will also feature his barrio alter-egos Creeper, from his CholoFit sketches about a fitness guru from the vecindario, and “JC” Juanita Carmelita, whom he describes as a “spicy suburban drama queen.”

This is not the first time that Quiñones (Feliz NaviDAD) is on the cable channel. He has been in episodes of Entre Nos, the series that has featured dozens of established and up-and-coming stand-up Latino talent since 2017. Now, the Angeleno comedian joins a selected group of comics who have earned their very own special, such as Erik Rivera, Shayla Rivera and Nick Guerra.

“Pumped to finally share the trailer for my comedy special,” Quiñones posted on Facebook, sharing a trailer of the show.

Quiñones has recently been featured in other TV projects. He has voiced several characters for the Cartoon Network Mexican-American animated TV series Victor & Valentino, created and starring Diego Molano, and starred in the TBS comedy series The Dress Up Gang. The comedian also appeared in Lifetime Television’s Feliz NaviDAD, a Christmas movie starring Mario Lopez.

The L.A. cómico is also set to appear in a lead role in ABC Studios/Hulu pilot Punk Ass B*tch from creator Chris Estrada. 

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By Karina Noelle Castillo

Influenced by his experiences as a Mexican-American, television and film producer Mark Roberts is passionate about bringing Latino stories to the screen. “There’s a lot of conversation about Latino stories, about Mexican American stories, about Mexican immigrant stories. There’s so many different stories that fall into the category of Latino, now Latinx,” Roberts explains, and is why he feels he and actor/producer/TV host Mario Lopez work so well together.  “I think Mario and I have a tendency to really connect on our journeys as Mexican Americans. So we have a tendency to really be positive about who we are, about what we’re capable of”.

Roberts and Lopez recently teamed up to produce Feliz NaviDAD, one of the first movies to go into production during the pandemic for the Lifetime Network. This marks over a handful of collaborations for Roberts and Lopez over the past fifteen years, which includes their current hit TV show The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia currently airing part two of their first season on Netflix. 

Roberts began his career on the iconic film The Three Amigos when he was 19 years old. Transitioning from a studio tour guide, Roberts jumped on the opportunity to become a production assistant on the film. He was responsible for wrangling the extras on this comedy classic and the experience helped fuel his passion for filmmaking. 

His first break was on Los Angeles station of Telemundo when Eddie Dominguez, the general manager at the time, brought him on board to produce a Christmas Special. Although Roberts didn’t have any experience as a full fledged producer at the time, Dominguez didn’t see a problem. He recognized that Roberts was not afraid of the challenge and gave him the support to dip his toes into his first major producing endeavor. 

Roberts is also a seasoned documentary producer. His most recent project was Carlos Almaraz: Playing with Fire. The documentary premiered last year at the  Palm Springs International Film Festival. Almaraz, who passed in 1989 from his struggle with AIDS, was a prominent Mexican American artist and early proponent of the Chicano street arts movement. Carlos Almaraz: Playing with Fire is a retrospective of his impact on the Chicano and American arts community through his influential art and cultural activism. “His story was so rich and he was so talented and I didn’t understand why people didn’t understand who he was,” states Roberts. “Through the documentary work I figured out that, Latinos and Mexican artists that lived here in the United States weren’t categorized in the same way that American and European Artists were. So they were sort of a forgotten bunch.”

Continuing with the goal of bringing the Latino experience to the masses, The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia is a perfect example of what Roberts does so well. The series premiered early this year on February 17th. It spotlights a 15 year old scientist Ashley Garcia (Paulina Chavez) as she moves across the country to pursue a career in robotics, all while trying to navigate the peaks and valleys of her newfound teen-dom. 

Roberts talked about how he and Lopez came to the idea for the show.  “Originally our conversation was very small about ‘Hey let’s do something about a genius kid that happens to be Latino and that comes from this great line…and is a genius.’ And over a ten year period it developed into Ashley Garcia. The evolution of it was Seth Kurland coming in, and Netflix coming in…But the heart of it is creatively was wanting to do something that’s positive.” 

The idea for the TV film Feliz NaviDAD was hatched while Roberts walked and talked from one of Lopez’s jobs to another. With such a busy person, Robert says you have to catch him in between jobs. “On this one day, we had been wanting to do a Christmas movie ourselves, [with a ] Latino theme because there’s not a lot of Christmas movies with a Latino theme. So, we were in the elevator and he looks at me and says ‘How hard could this be?’ So that afternoon I sort of wrote what we talked about,” said Roberts. 

As luck would have it, Roberts was having dinner that night with one of their investors in their Casa Mexico Tequila venture. The investor expressed interest in the creative duo’s next filmmaking project and upon hearing the news of their Christmas film, he signed on to fund the script and get things started. From there, screenwriters Peter and Eliza Murrieta were hired and they found themselves in pre-production film. 

“It’s this beautiful story about a father and a daughter and how ‘this song’ became an anthem for her when she was little; she didn’t know it was the Feliz Navidad song [by Jose Feliciano], she thought it was Feliz NaviDAD about her dad. So they connected on this different level and she wants him [her dad who is a widower] to find a new love and she wants him to find the spirit again, and that happens in the movie.”

The shoot began in the first week of June and as one of the first project to shoot during the pandemic. There was much more to prepare for, as Roberts explained it, a “wild” ride. He detailed the extra precautions the production needed to take in order to get the go ahead from SAG-AFTRA and the other unions/guilds.

“It added an additional layer to everything we did, on and off the set. We put a lot of thought and research into our protocol and learned from the CDC, state, county and industry groups as they adjusted each week. I’m not sure if we were the first, but I know we were one of very few films shooting at the beginning of June, so we had to make sure our crew and cast understood the plans clearly. This was a new experience for everyone. 

As filmmakers, we are used to obstacles, big and small – we sort of thrive on forcing a square peg into a perfect circle. But add the ever present gravity and unknown of unpredictable Covid-19 and it felt like producing a film while being a contestant on Wipeout! Was today the day a crew member tested positive? Would our actors be affected? We started each day with precautions and protocol and when the DP was ready with the first shot, we all focused on what we came to do. I did get the sense it was important for people to work and for those of us who put Feliz NaviDAD together, we were committed to bringing this film to completion for the holidays 2020. 

We did follow strict protocol. A negative test was required before arriving on location. Testing once a week was mandatory. Temps, heart rate and a questionnaire before anyone went on set, everyday. Temps before you received your individually wrapped lunch. No craft service! That was tough. Movie sets love snacks.”

Mission accomplished by the team.  Feliz NaviDAD is now in post production and is due out for the holidays in December 2020.

In addition to the film and television projects Roberts has is also partnered with Lopez on the Casa Mexico Tequila brand with Olympian boxer Oscar de La Hoya as a partner. Casa México was a big hit at Lopez’s wedding a few years back, with his friends and family becoming major fans, so when the opportunity arose, they decided to become partners with Don Buccio, the founder of the tequila. The group of partners recently travelled to Mexico to shoot a commercial as they are getting ready to launch a major marketing campaign for the brand.

And if his talent and working on multiple productions didn’t extend far enough, Roberts also has a podcast called Let’s Get Into It with fellow filmmaker and makeup artist Rod “Tuddy” Rinks, in which the pair look to inspire aspiring filmmakers by providing them with invaluable lessons from their experiences with production over the years. For more information on Roberts’ projects you can follow him on @iceroberts on Instagram.

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The popular cable channel Lifetime is celebrating their 30^th anniversary of the first Lifetime Original Movie, by announcing over 50 new original films set for release between May and December of 2020, including Mario Lopez’s newest Christmas film project, Feliz NaviDAD.

Feliz NaviDAD is written by Peter Murrieta (Wizards of Wavery Place, One Day at a Time and Cristela) and produced by Mark Roberts (Mexico’s Next Top Model, The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia and Carlos Almaraz: Playing with Fire). Melissa Joan Hart will be directing. The film stars Lopez and Paulina Chavez as his daughter (Ashley Garcia in The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia).

In Feliz NaviDad Lopez plays is a widower struggling with his first Christmas after the passing of his beloved wife. His daughter makes it her mission to help him rediscover his Christmas spirit. Lopez will be both star and the executive producer of this heartwarming Christmas family-friendly movie.

It has been highlighted as one of the featured films for Lifetime’s yearly Christmas film block tradition It’s a Wonderful Lifetime. This will be Lopez’s second-holiday film with Lifetime, after the rom-com A Very Merry Toy Story (2017).

Hart will join Lopez in Feliz NaviDAD as the film’s director and actress. In an interview with Access Hollywood, Hart revealed that Lopez himself asked her to direct this film. Hart has made a name for herself as a television director, which including the original Netflix series The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia, which was co-created by Lopez. Feliz NaviDAD will also be the third rom-com holiday film collaboration between Hart and Lopez, including their first and most popular film, Holiday in Handcuffs (2017).

While Lopez is primarily known for his role as A.C. Slater in Saved By the Bell and playing Greg Louganis in the TV movie Breaking The Surface: The Greg Louganis Story. He has been doing a lot of work as an entertainment host, currently on Access Hollywood.  Recently he has been producing a multiple TV shows and films, such as Champs, A Very Merry Christmas, The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia, and the Saved by the Bell reboot.

Though there are concerns about film projects, either starting or finishing during this uncertain time of COVID-19, according to iHeart Radio’s On with Mario Lopez, the production has gotten the green light to begin production on June 8th.

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