Saturday Night Live really needed Jay Pharoah. The late night show which relayed more and more heavily on political sketches as the show aged, had one lone black man at the time, and let’s say Kennan Thompson had a hamburger or a hundred too many to play Barack Obama, instead for three years Venezuelan/German/Korean actor Fred Armisen. And really, the best presidential sketch of his tenure was The Rock Obama when the Polynesian/Black wrestler took turns pretending to be the Commander in Chief. Pharaoh’s Obama actually looked and sounded like the president even though it took two years being in the cast to take over the role.
But the thing is, other than that, it is hard to think of another Pharoah sketch. Um, there were those horrible middle school dances where he played the principle. So when Barack got the boot, so did Jay. Though there are not many of them, black SNL cast members go into categories, the eventual superstars (Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock) and the ones who stay so long because they know there is nowhere else out there for them but bit roles (both Tim Meadows and Keanan Thompson have been in alumni monologue thanking them to come back for their triumphant hosting return only for the black guy sheepishly saying they are still in the cast).
For his first post-SNL gig, Pharoah teamed with another underutilized member of a sketch comedy show who himself who went into superstardom: Jamie Foxx who started on Fox’s In Living Color and was last seen on Fox’s Beat Shazam. The reason the game show was able to land an Oscar winner was because Foxx produced the show. Foxx is also the producer of White Famous based loosely on his life and makes a cameo in the premiere lampooning getting his start wearing dresses which his stand in Pharoah wants no part of.
The first episode is funny. Showtime has already released it so you can check it out at your lesure if you do not want to wait until it official airs this Sunday. Pharoah’s agent Utkarsh Ambudkar (Pitch Perfect) steals the show as an Indian Ari Gold doing whatever he can do to make Pharoah white famous even though the stand-up is content telling jokes on stage. Plus he want to stay close to his baby, and maybe even more so with his estranged baby mama Cleopatra Coleman (Step Up Revolution).
But as funny as that first episode is, I am a bit more dubious of the second episode when Michael Rapaport, who even managed to ruin my enjoyment of Justified, shows up as a director interested in casting. Future enjoyment of the show may hinge on just how long Rapaport sticks around. But at least Raylan Givins baby mama shows up in episode three as his agent's rival / former boss.
White Famous premieres Sunday at 10:00 on Showtime and moves to 10:30 November 5.
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