When Jerrod Carmichael was 13, he told his brother about dreams of having a television show. He wanted a sitcom on NBC and it to air on the then-coveted spot of Thursday nights.
Fifteen years later, two out of three of those wishes have come true.
After a recent day of rehearsals on the 20th Century Fox studio lot in Century City for “The Carmichael Show,” the 28-year-old comedian scanned a list of production emails on his phone as he sat in a barber chair, getting a trim. Carmichael was preparing to shoot an episode the next day for his own show, on NBC.
The one hitch: It airs Sundays, not Thursdays, although nowadays Sunday is considered the more prestigious night.
Carmichael’s comedy sitcom series, now in its second season, mixes the rigors and joy of family life with heavy-duty issues pulled straight from the headlines.
This time around the show will feature episodes on how the family adjusts to a Muslim couple moving in next door, how they feel about the morning-after pill when Jerrod and his girlfriend (Amber Stevens West) have a pregnancy scare, and their unedited view of Bill Cosby’s damaged legacy after a year in which he was accused of sexual assaults against women over several decades.
When television challenges people, said Carmichael as he played Kanye West’s latest album in the background, the medium is at its best. “Its biggest contribution is what it does to those around us,” he said. “If we can contribute to that, then we’ve done more than our job.”
The show, which is created, produced and written by Carmichael, also stars West as his live-in girlfriend, Maxine, David Alan Grier and Loretta Devine as his wacky parents, and comedian Lil Rel Howery as his younger brother, Bobby. Tiffany Haddish plays Bobby’s very present ex-wife, Nekeisha.
The inspiration for the show came from Carmichael’s real-life family. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina, native, who grew up watching reruns of Norman Lear’s “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” said his family encouraged him to weigh in on just about any topic — religion, entertainment, politics — no matter how controversial. He’s hoping to bring some of that back to television.
“There wasn’t a lot (of shows), especially in this format, of people just speaking honestly and reflecting real life,” he said about how television has changed since Lear’s days. “It started becoming just these watered-down, really contrived situations. It wasn’t reflecting how people talk every day. It wasn’t reflecting the conversations I was having.”
“The Carmichael Show” comes at a time when audiences are calling for film and TV to have productions made by and starring people of color. Carmichael, who rose to prominence after a breakout role in 2014’s “Neighbors,” landed his show after becoming known for a laid-back yet subversive comedic approach to a variety of social issues in which race and class intersect.
As showcased in his 2014 HBO special “Jerrod Carmichael: Love at the Store,” he deftly jokes about the death of Trayvon Martin, police brutality, things Republicans say about welfare, and female empowerment.
The same can be seen in the sitcom when the working-class family took on, in its first season, transgender issues — with a Caitlyn (or “Carol Ann”) Jenner name drop — the BlackLivesMatter protests and organized religion.
“We are looking for topics that make the writers in the room get excited, argue, have interesting discussions and debates,” said Danielle Sanchez-Witzel, the series’ show runner and an executive producer. “Rather than coming from a plot angle, we’re from a ‘What’s an interesting discussion’ angle or ‘What’s hard to talk about?’ And then we try to build a story around that.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
