Jamie Foxx’s new show is no fun for the whole family
Jamie Foxx is a funny guy.
You’d just never know it from “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” The new Netflix series, now streaming, is based on Foxx’s real-life relationship with his daughter Corrine Foxx; the two are also executive producers of the show. An intriguing premise in theory. In execution, it’s a mess, a waste of a really talented cast.
That begins with Foxx. He plays Brian Dixon, who lives in Atlanta and inherited his mother’s heretofore successful cosmetics line, which has begun to struggle.
In the first episode his daughter Sasha (Kyla-drew) moves in with him after her mother dies. Brian, who already lives with his father (David Alan Grier) and sister Chelsea, (Porscha Coleman) is the confirmed-bachelor type, so of course this cramps his style even further. But he loves his daughter and welcomes her – on his terms. The friction between them is the basis for the show.
Which seems like a confused mess. In many ways it’s a throwback – a multicamera show, shot like a play (think “Friends” as opposed to single-camera shows like “Schitt’s Creek”). That’s not a dealbreaker by any means. It gives it a kind of retro vibe.
Here’s where the new Netflix series goes wrong
The show’s perspective, centered on the lives of a Black family, is a welcome one that audiences don’t see enough of in mainstream television and film. Although Brian’s frequent “a Black man does this or that” jokes grow stale. Eventually the series tackles more serious issues like racial profiling, but it’s a long time getting to that.
Instead the show spends the first few episodes going for broad comedy. Really broad comedy. It also drops a little Grade-a profanity into the dialogue from time to time, which in a show like this is just … weird. And not funny.
Most of the time. Honestly, Foxx and Grier are so funny they can make you laugh at a poorly written line at least some of the time. They get the chance to prove that over and over here.
Jonathan Kite plays a cop who is Brian’s best friend and Chelsea’s sometime put-upon lover. Valente Rodriguez is the family’s handyman, Manny. Heather Hemmens plays Stacy, who has worked with Brian for years; both of them studiously ignore their mutual attraction.
Foxx goes the Eddie Murphy route, playing several over-the-top characters, like the Rev. Sweet Tee, a money-grubbing minister who has hoodwinked most of the family except Sasha. It’s more fun for him than it is for viewers.
Foxx and Grier are funny actors, but they can’t save the bad writing
Given the topics the show takes on, it’s hard not to compare “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” to its most obvious antecedent, “Black-ish,” in which Anthony Anderson plays an advertising executive trying to navigate family life while exploring what it means to be Black in America. Director Ken Whittingham also has worked on both shows.
The comparisons are not favorable. Where “Black-ish” tackles thorny issues with real heart and intelligence and still manages to be hilarious, “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” goes time and again for the easy laugh and too often fails to find it.
Which could be OK. Sometimes you’d rather laugh than think. “Modern Family,” at least the first few seasons, used plenty of silly sitcom tropes. But it was really funny. “It’s Always Funny in Philadelphia” is practically a live-action cartoon at times. Aiming lower doesn’t make it a bad show.
The writing does.
The jokes are cliched and obvious, too often dependent upon the considerable talents of the cast to find a payoff. They’re doing what they can, but you’d have to be Comedy Superman to shoulder the burden of making this show consistently funny.
In fairness, the show gets somewhat better over the course of its eight episodes, particularly by the last one, when it tries on, however briefly, a more thoughtful approach. But for the most part the laughs are too hard to come by.
The groans, on the other hand, are not.