‘Poppa’s House’: Can Damon Wayans Bring Back the Old-School Family Sitcom?
CBS’s Poppa’s House is a family sitcom that posits one key question: If a television show exists seemingly only to allow a father-son comedic duo to work together, is it really worth it?
Ultimately, the answer to that question is yes—at least if the father-son comedic duo has the chops of a Damon Wayans and a Damon Wayans Jr. But it’s also worth acknowledging that Poppa’s House, which premieres Oct. 21, is still very much a work in progress, one that eventually can’t just rely on giving the people more Damon for their buck.
In addition to co-creating (alongside Last Man Standing‘s Kevin Hench) and executive producing the series, Wayans Sr. stars as the titular “Poppa,” a curmudgeonly talk radio host who finds his entire professional ecosystem challenged when a new female co-host, Dr. Ivy Reid (Essence Atkins), is added to help boost his show’s ratings. (Immediately, there are plenty of “men are like this, women are like this” jokes, but the series thankfully mellows out on that aspect of things fairly quickly.) And on the homefront, Poppa has to continue to parent his dreamer of an adult son, Damon Jr. (Wayans Jr., who also serves as an executive producer)—who just so happens to live next door—despite Damon Jr. having a wife (Tetona Jackson) and kids of his own.
It’s a tried-and-true sitcom split, with Poppa getting no respite in either the workplace-sitcom half of things or the family-sitcom side. And then, just a few episodes in, a pivot happens.
The pivot restructures the entire radio-station backdrop. As Poppa’s House showrunner Dean Lorey (who wrote Major Payne and also wrote for My Wife and Kids) explained at the Television Critics Association press tour this past summer, it was a choice made to capitalize on the “Poppa’s house” component (and setting) of Poppa’s House.
In practice, it ends up being the right choice, as the bits the series provides of the radio station are less about the entertainment factor of that setting and more about the fun quips between Poppa and his callers. But it’s also a choice that pushes the series more fully into that family sitcom place (giving more screentime to Poppa’s grandkids), which ends up making Atkins’ Ivy feel like even more of an interloper, this time unintentionally. The pivot that the Poppa character makes—hosting a podcast with Ivy from his house—is also far less defined and tangible than the radio job.
Much like the Wayanses, Atkins has plenty of sitcom and comedy chops to make Poppa’s House work. (And the Wayanses clearly know that as well, as members of the family have previously worked with her on Marlon, Dance Flick, and the A Haunted House movies.) But with the focus on the family and the series’ easy indecision about just how much of the love side it wants to land on in Poppa and Ivy’s love-hate spectrum, Atkins does get somewhat shortchanged in comparison.
Comparatively, keeping things in the family, the pivot gives Jackson’s Nina more to do. While the chemistry is obviously there between Wayans and Wayans Jr., Jackson and Wayans Jr.’s chemistry as a married couple is another selling point, playing two characters who clearly match each other’s freak, as it were. And for New Girl, Happy Endings, and Wayans Jr. fans in general, as straightforward of a multi-camera sitcom as Poppa House is, it still allows Wayans Jr. to unleash a lot of his comedic quirks and eccentricities. (In addition to appreciating the married couple dynamic, Happy Endings fans will especially delight that Wayans Jr. still has the power to remove pants with just the snap of a finger.)
Between the pivot from radio DJing to podcasting and an early episode framed as a part of a documentary, Poppa’s House is clearly unafraid to try new things and see what might stick, for better or worse. It’s also not afraid to go old-school and end every episode with a blooper reel.
The series is definitely rough around the edges in a way you might not expect from any of the seasoned professionals both in front of or behind the camera—numerous Wayans, including Kim as a co-executive producer, are also in the writers’ room, as well as part of production—but that’s actually part of its charm.
Just like Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. working together as father and son both on and offscreen is also part of its charm. Just like this being Wayans’ first series-regular gig on a sitcom since My Wife and Kids is a part of its charm. For all of that charm, Poppa’s House, while it may not be reinventing the comedy wheel, is worth it.
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