Paramount

Chris Rock has been one of those comedians that either hits a home run or strikes completely out. I’ve seen quite a bit of his stand-up and found I loved it or hated it. He’s not afraid to play the race card. Hell, Chris plays the whole dang deck at times, and Everybody Hates Chris is no different. The comedy is based, loosely I’m sure, on the young adolescent life of Chris Rock. It’s a black comedy that will bring back memories of those 1970’s shows we all watched as kids. Like Good Times and even Sanford And Son, the show is loaded with stereotypes. All of the white characters are bumbling fools who are often played as racists themselves. Chris’s school teacher, Mrs. Morello (Mazarella), is the most obvious example. She’s constantly trying to talk “hood” with the boys and making politically incorrect observations loaded with outrageous clichés. Of course, it’s all in fun and if you’re willing to overlook the often sensitive language and plots, you’re in for some laughs along the way. I like that the show never really takes itself seriously and challenges the viewer to simply lighten up. Basically, this ain’t no Cosby Show.

The first season release of Dave’s World is going to upset the show’s fans a bit. Paramount has decided to change the opening theme from Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” to some jazzy piece that doesn’t come close to saying the same thing. This wasn’t even Joel’s performance of the song we’re talking about on the original. I know that the musical rights issues can be a problem. Shows like WKRP suffered from being loaded with songs and racking up a fortune in royalties for home video release. Most of these shows were aired in the days before anyone even knew there was going to be a home market for these programs. But I still don’t understand this one. It’s the show’s theme song and an important part of the show’s look and feel. We’re not simply replacing incidental music or songs that take up significant portions of the show. I think it was a bad move, and I’d be very curious as to just how much money Paramount saved by replacing the song. Average that number out over the set’s sales figures, then find out if the fans would have been willing to pay the difference.

I was first introduced into the somewhat twisted world of Dave Barry in 1986 when I moved to Florida. The Tampa paper carried his Sunday column, and all I can remember is that it had something to do with dinosaurs on the beach and that I couldn’t stop laughing. For years afterward both my wife and I made the column regular Sunday reading. As years went on other things fill one’s life, and I only occasionally read the material until he disappeared almost completely from the Central Florida scene, keeping more to himself some 250 miles to our south. He’s since spent a lot of time playing in a writer’s band with the likes of Stephen King. So, I was pretty eager when Dave’s World first came to television in 1993. To say I was disappointed wouldn’t exactly be fair. The show was pretty funny, but Harry Anderson was so ingrained in my mind from his Night Court role that I never did accept him as Dave Barry. Once I was able to separate the character from the writer, the show was a little better going for me.

While nowhere does anyone actually say it, Caroline In The City is obviously inspired by/ripped off from the popular newspaper comic strip Cathy. Each episode, for a time anyway, would begin with an animated scene from one of the “Caroline” strips. The topic mostly deals with the pitfalls of being a single New York City girl. From these roots there was an often awkward attempt to create a warm and fuzzy romantic comedy that never seemed to find its own focus, let alone footing. It didn’t help matters that the title character was played by Lea Thompson, best known for her role as Michael J. Fox’s mom in the Back To The Future films. Here as she was there, Thompson is relatively unemoting, a tragic flaw in a romantic character. She’s a good enough actress, but she does appear to be missing charisma in the role. Caroline was joined by her comic strip colorist, Richard, played by Malcolm Gets. Here again we have a pretty reserved actor. Now we’ve got a couple of very low key actors playing a couple where sparks should be flying, and it never works. Most of the laughs, in fact, don’t even come from our leads. Instead Amy Pietz has most of the funny lines as intrusive next door neighbor Annie. Annie’s a cast member in the then huge Broadway production of Cats. She would often barge into the apartment where Caroline and Richard are working/sniping at each other and offer the comic relief in this situation comedy.