Damon Wayans is back on television! Damon Wayans Jr. is back on television! They’re both together, the father and son duo playing father and son on the new CBS sitcom Poppa’s House. The multi-cam sitcom is about Junior (Wayans Jr.), who moves next door with his wife, Nina (Tetona Jackson), and their children to his father Poppa’s House. Poppa is a divorcé who’s also an award-winning and successful Black Music Radio Personality. From the Pilot, the show is about how Junior, even though an adult married with children of his own, still needs fatherly advice on moving through the world. While he’s currently working for his father-in-law, played by Geoffrey Owens, what he really wants to do is be a filmmaker. So, he struggles with doing work he has no passion for; his dad needs to put him on the right path in the most sarcastic way he can. Meanwhile, Poppa has his own battles as the radio station wants to make changes to his show with the changing dynamics in how audio shows are listened to. The biggest change is to add a woman co-host, Ivy Reed, played by Essence Atkins, to give the show some banter between old and younger views on things that Poppa takes some time to get used to.
For many, the comedic genius of the Wayans family is a known quantity. Damon is a genius, and it’s great to see him on TV again. Damon Wayans Jr. has been great as one of the major stars from this current generation of Wayans, and the few times we’ve seen them play father and son in Wayans Jr.’s earlier sitcoms have always been some of the best episodes of those series. They have the cheat code of comedy chemistry being father and son, along with the fact that Wayans Jr. looks and sounds so much like his father. They are like a Batman and Nightwing of TV sitcom jokes. The physical humor is just as good as written humor in their performances. Tetona Jackson, who I mostly know from the BET‘s Boomerang film spinoff sitcom and her appearances on Home Economics, does well as Junior’s very sensible and understanding wife. A reminder of his responsibilities and supportive in a way that you expect from a wife in a sitcom; she doesn’t get to do a lot in a joke sense in the Pilot, but they are very cute together on screen.
Essence Atkins, a veteran of sitcoms going back to Smart Guy on The WB more than twenty years ago, is a good foil for Wayans’ Poppa. She’s able to push and pull with him on all his old curmudgeonly antics at the station. She can give as good as she can get with good delivery on her barbs back at Pop while also able to be just silly enough to bring it all together. Thorne was a surprise sight. Probably most known as Elvin on The Cosby Show, he is fun here as Nina’s father, a person that fits the father-in-law trope in most sitcoms but also a rival of Poppa as they are constantly trying to one-up each other, adding a new dynamic of the father-in-law who takes digs at his son-in-law as he’s catching just as much hell from Poppa the whole time. Poppa’s House has a great start, and I look forward to continuing the series this season. I think it’s something you should definitely check out for some laughs on an already solid sitcom block on CBS Monday.
Score: B+
