The Bernie Mac Show, Season 1 (2001)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Starring Bernie Mac, Kellita Smith, Camille Winbush, Jeremy Suarez, and Dee Dee Davis.

Features:

• All twenty-two first season episodes
  
• Running audio commentary on the pilot episode with Mac, scribe Larry Wilmore, and director Ken Kwapis
  
• Bernie Mac bio featurette
  

Released by Fox
Region: 1
Rating: NR, suitable for most audiences
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in original 1.33:1 TV aspect

My Advice: An excellent example of the sitcom; definitely worth a rental if you need a chuckle.

The TV wasteland is littered with with sitcoms hoping to tap into the cultural commonality of parenthood. For the most part, these shows have been replaying the same situations and comedy setups since the days of the Cleaver household. The Bernie Mac Show, on the other hand, presents a fundamental twist on the idea...the kids don't belong to the parents. Bernie Mac plays himself, saddled suddenly with his sister's kids when she has to check herself in for some court-ordered rehab. Since his wife Wanda (Smith) is a big-money executive, Bernie becomes a stay-at-home foster parent with a total lack of parenting skills. Hijinks ensue.

The show will be a bit of a shock for those familiar with Mac's stand-up, which is often pretty raw and on the edge. Here, we see a different side of the comic, with a much more mellow delivery and middle-of-the-road material. The kids are all sharper than anybody their age has the right to be and Smith is spot-on as a comedian's long-suffering wife, but this show is firmly Bernie Mac's stage. As with most television shows, the quality of the writing varies somewhat, but Mac's comic timing and delivery manages to make even the weaker scripts fairly watchable.

The show employs quite a few "gimmicks" in an effort to make itself stand out from the huge pack of sitcoms on the air, including lots of breaking the fourth wall and on-screen scribbled text notes to "help" the viewer. While it gives the show a distinct visual style, it's distracting more often than it's amusing, which is unfortunate. I certainly understand the logic behind employing these tricks to develop a signature "look," but I regret that it's necessary in order for the show to avoid being lost in a sea of crap.

The presentation here is good, utilizing slimline DVD cases to reduce the shelfspace commitment. Audio and video are excellent, as is to be expected. The features are a little thin, with only two things present. First, there's an audio commentary with Mac, scribe/creator Larry Wilmore, and director/producer Ken Kwapis. It's a half-hour sitcom, so it's easy enough to get through and they do seem to have a good time watching the show. You also get a bio of Mac that originally aired on A&E, which is interesting enough.

Despite the thin features, this is still a set worth picking up if you're a fan of the show or the genre. If you're a little more lukewarm on the whole sitcom scene, this one still makes a great rental as how to do the deed better than most.