Bea Arthur Tribute Is Mario Lopez's Chance To Talk About The Impact Of Mario Lopez

Last week, Entertainment Weekly put together a tribute to Bea Arthur, asking her Golden Girls co-star Rue McClanahan, Norman Lear (the creator of Maude and All In The Family, where Arthur got her big break on television), and female comedians who were influenced by her (like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) for their remembrances of the actress. But, apparently, they thought the tribute needed a little dash of "Huh?", so they picked up the EW office phone, and before they could even dial 9 to get an outside line, Mario Lopez's voice was eagerly chirping in their ear, "What's up, EW? Need a quote about something? Everything's greater with A.C. Slater! (That's a little motto I coined for myself. I think it's pretty catchy. Plus it alludes to both the ameliorative effect my presence has on most situations and my role as beefy wrestler A.C. Slater on the beloved Saturday morning sitcom Saved By The Bell. It's called branding.) Soooo, what kind of a Mario Lopez quote were you looking for today?"

And so, the resulting tribute article basically read like this:

Bea Arthur: 1922-2009

Tina Fey
''She made TV a little safer for women''

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Rue McClanahan
''Bea taught me to be outrageously courageous…to go out on a limb''

Rosie O'Donnell
''She made bawdy brilliant''

Norman Lear
''There was no doubt this was a television star''

Mario Lopez
''I worked with her when I was 10 years old''

Because if there's anything anyone should remember about Bea Arthur, it's that she worked with Mario Lopez when he was 10 years old. (Jenny Lewis was also on an episode of The Golden Girls when she was younger. Where's her tribute quote?) But that's not all Mario remembers. It starts off okay, with Lopez's fond memories of working with Arthur when he was a child actor:

I worked with her on a show called a.k.a. Pablo when I was 10 years old. Even as a little kid I could recognize how funny she was, and talented. She was so gracious with her time, and she was helping me with my lines, and she was so sweet. Then a couple years later, I ran into her again with The Golden Girls. She remembered me, and she was again so nice and took me out to lunch that whole week and helped me with my lines.

Then there's this:

The particular episode was called ''Dorothy's Prized Pupil'' [about a student of Dorothy's who faces immigration problems]. I was like the original Elián González.

Yep. Of course. When you think "Mario Lopez," first you think "Z. Cavariccis," then you think "panelist on Dick Clark's sad, all-male version of The View," then your brain revolts and refuses to think for about two minutes, and then you think "original Elian Gonzalez."

Thanks for the memories/ weird boast, Mario. If nothing else, it's an excuse to post a Golden Girls clip.