Lopez at his best is very funny. Tha's true for his standu, his situation comedy, and his talk show.
His core audience knows why, can relate to his humor based on common experiences, background. Those who aren't Latino, have never been around Latinos, or find Latinos threatening or hard to understand, won't get his humor.
His problem has always been a limited amount of material before he repeats himself. True of his standup, where he was hilarious for the first decade and then only kind of funny after. True of his sitcom, where he was only funny the first season and then only sometimes on the rest of it.
And it's true on this late night show. Hilarious the first few months. Then he was clearly running out of jokes. He's not nice guy everyman like Carson, or bland like many others. He's abrasive, which is funny to his core audience.
But to whites scared of dark skinned people, they use code words like "coarse" or "vulgar" when they wouldn't complain of the same from Don Rickles or Larry the Cable Guy.
