Chris Rock singled out as family-friendly TV hero

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – In one of the more unlikely product
endorsements of recent years, a group of major advertisers is
touting provocative comedian Chris Rock as the next poster
child for “family-friendly” television.

“Everybody Hates Chris,” a new comedy that Rock created,
produced and narrates about his childhood, was showcased this
week at a TV industry symposium presented by a Madison Avenue
group called the Family Friendly Programing Forum.

It singled out “Chris,” which debuts Thursday on UPN, as a
perfect example of what it says advertisers and viewers want
more of in prime time — shows that appeal to both kids and
their parents, without seeming sanitized or preachy.

The forum, founded in 1998, reviews several dozen TV
scripts submitted by the major networks each year and picks
those it deems worthy of support. This year it underwrote the
development costs of 16 scripts, four of which, including
“Chris,” made it into series production.

Forum co-chair Dawn Jacobs, advertising vice president for
consumer products giant Johnson & Johnson, admitted she was
initially skeptical of a show involving Rock, a comedian known
for his often-edgy and decidedly adult humor in such HBO
specials as “Bring the Pain” and “Bigger and Blacker.”

“In the first two seconds, you see the title of the script
and you see, ‘Inspired by the life of Chris Rock,’ and you
wonder what’s that about,”‘ Jacobs said. “But past that it was
just a terrific script, a great pilot (episode) and it’s going
to be a great series.”

Advertisers are not alone in their praise of Rock’s work.
TV critics, too, have given the show enthusiastic reviews.

The Hollywood Reporter called “Chris” a “fresh and
appealing comedy.” TV Guide named it as one of the few new
shows with that could rescue the faltering TV comedy genre.

“Chris” also is generating the heaviest volume of positive
Internet “buzz,” according to a recent survey by ad-buying
agency Initiative Media that measures advance awareness of new
shows by monitoring online chat rooms and discussion boards.

The show features Rock voice-overs narrating stories based
on his youth in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn,
where as the eldest of three children he was the lone black kid
attending an all-white school two bus rides from his home.

Young actor Tyler James Williams stars as the 13-year-old
Chris, who endures the slings and arrows of school bullies, a
romantic crush, and a no-nonsense mother with “a hundred
recipes for whoopin’ ass.”

The stories are all infused with a wry nostalgia and Rock’s
own offbeat commentary, as when he recalls hearing gunfire
erupt from the junior high school across the street from his
home as he boarded a bus for the trip to a cross-town school.

“Like rock ‘n’ roll, school shootings were also invented by
blacks and stolen by the white man,” he says.

The show airs on Viacom Inc.’s UPN, the smallest of the six
major broadcasters with a weeknight-only lineup.