That said, life often imitates art, and TBS is rolling the dice (and the same will hold true of Tyler Perry’s head if his co-signing of the show doesn’t hold merit) on rapper-movie mogul Ice Cube giving network television its first glimpse of an African American sitcom with a blended family through the vehicle of “Are We There Yet?”
“Our main objective is to have a show that everybody can relate to,” Cube offered as the reason he pushed for the show. “I think everybody can relate to a divorcée with kids trying to make a family again. Everybody can relate to a bachelor now wanting to be a husband and a father, and becoming one instantly through marriage — you know, a connection. So I think that’s really what the world looks like today and we don’t really see that on TV, that dynamic, and this is an opportunity to explore that and to teach people that we are more the same than we are different.”
Derived from the popular 2005 movie of the same name, the Ali LeRoi-helmed project features Nick (Terry Crews) as an ex-athlete and newlywed attempting to adjust to life with his wife, Suzanne (Essence Atkins) and her two children from a previous marriage.
“I had just ended ‘Everybody Hates Chris.’ Matt Alvarez, who runs Cube Vision, was putting this show together. They didn’t even have a show runner yet, but they wanted to know if I was interested in playing Nick from [the film] Are We There Yet? in a sitcom format. I was like ‘Yeah, let’s see.’ It was a year before it actually happened, then Essence came on and all the pieces just kept coming together … TBS wasn’t on board yet,” Crews explains of how he and Atkins were cast. “I’ve always been a fan of Essence and we were hanging out. I didn’t know this would be my future TV wife.”
“I actually worked for [Matt Alavrez’s] brother on ‘Dance Flick’ and they had a conversation. I had worked on ‘Dance Flick’ for four months and Matt and his brother had a conversation, and he was like ‘I’m looking for somebody to play the Nia Long role.’ And Nick was like ‘I know the perfect person … she would be great.’ That was the beginning of us talking. It just worked out,” says Atkins.
That this is the first attempt for an African American show to portray this particular family dynamic is startling. Consider that “The Brady Bunch” was one of the more successful family oriented sitcoms in network history. Father brings three sons to the table. Mother brings three daughters. You can’t get much more “blended” than that.
It comes as no surprise that sitcoms based on ready-made families have not been explored more often, because the networks like to stick with what works. And history has proven that African American TV shows with strong ratings and staying power have featured traditional, nuclear families with natural mothers and fathers. Consider the following shows featuring non-blended families; “Good Times,” “The Cosby Show,” “Family Matters,” “The Hughleys,” “My Wife and Kids” and “Everybody Hates Chris.” All of these shows lasted at least four seasons.
How about a show with a single African American mother raising three kids by herself in Los Angeles? Try 10 episodes. 1994’s “South Central” was unceremoniously axed despite being lauded by critics for its gritty reality.
Although “Are We There Yet?” will still satisfy the unspoken African American sitcom prerequisite of being “safe” and “middle- to upper-class” in its setting, the fact that Terry Crew’s character must maneuver through the blended family scenario poses interesting questions that could be potentially cutting edge.
“The show picks up where the movie left off. We are six months into our marriage … the ‘representatives’ have left the building and the real people are showing up. Now, the challenge is — like many families face when you get married again or you are trying to partner up with someone new and you already have children — to blend ideology [and] all the feelings. There are a lot of different kinds of elements to have a smooth running home. Especially when both parents work, as our characters do. The kids are checked out on their video games and text messages. I’m sure no one can relate to that,” Crews says, before erupting with laughter. “And it’s kind of like nobody is really sure of where their footing is. It deals with all those things on a comedic level. I think anyone who lives in our modern day can relate to it.”
The challenge of adopting two preadolescent children is daunting. Nick struggles with his new children not calling him “Dad.” They resort to doing so only when they want something. Children can be both the master imitators and manipulators, and they sense that calling Crews “Dad” when they want something appeals to the “man-of-the-house” ego that lies within many fathers.However, nothing can be more frustrating as an adult, than for a child to call you by your first name — especially when that child is technically “yours” now. They conveniently play that card, too. Conversely, if one analyzes this same dynamic from the children’s perspective, what is the alternative? “Sir?” Too formal. “Mr. Nick?” Too disingenuous. “Dad?” Humph … we don’t know you like that, yet!
The other unspoken balancing act of coming into a blended-family situation is the stepfather’s role with regard to discipline. How many of us would be as rich as Bill Gates if we had $20 for every time a friend told us, “I had to check my ex-wife’s husband about spanking my kids.”
Some people righteously believe that the stepfather’s role is to; stop what he’s doing, call the biological father and then let the “real dad” come by and issue out disciplinary measures. The obvious problem with that method is that it clearly does not work. If your child has a substitute teacher, they better respect him like the regular guy who’s there every day. The same should apply to parenting — if it were only so simple.
Since debuting on June 2, “Are We There Yet?” has met with mixed reviews. Randee Dawn of The Hollywood Reporter was “calmly brutal” in her appraisal of the show’s worth: “Bottom Line: A weak premise and tired plot leave this series dead on arrival.”
Ouch!
Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times was not as acerbic: “The show is just minor stuff. It’s fundamentally sweet. It’s just nice people telling jokes.”
Criticisms aside, the viewers will decide whether “Are We There Yet?” is funnier than “Meet the Browns” and “House of Payne.” Ice Cube is betting that his formula will draw a loyal audience that will keep the series on the air.
“Once we had our team and our plan together, TBS gave us the opportunity to launch this on their network, using Tyler Perry’s template for ordering multiple episodes if it does well and with his blessing, and to give it the publicity to be successful. Now, we all want to win, [but] if it’s not successful I wouldn’t wanna do 90 of them. It’s a good formula … we can really dig in and make some funny TV, and if it misses the mark, we [can] go back to the drawing board,” Ice Cube says of his preparation to deal with the critics.
“We don’t want to come across as trivializing what these relationships are and how far we have come. d… It’s a different game. There is a mantle to hold up,” Crews concludes. -jonathan spruill
