NEW YORK — Boundaries between work and family don’t just blur in the new CBS sitcom “Poppa’s House” starring father-and-son comedy duo Damon Wayans and Damon Wayans Jr. They shatter.
“It’s wonderful to come to work every day and see him and some of his kids and my sister and my brother and nieces and nephews. They all work on this show. They all contribute,” says the senior Wayans. “I don’t think there are words to express how joyful I am.”
Wayans plays the titular Poppa, a curmudgeonly radio DJ who’s more than comfortable doing it his way, while Wayans Jr. plays his son, Damon, a budding filmmaker who’s stuck in a job he hates.
“My character, Pop, is just an old school guy who’s kind of stuck in his ways,” says Wayans, who starred in “In Living Color” and “My Wife and Kids.”
Pop yearns for the days when a handshake was a binding contract and Michael Jordan didn’t complain if he got fouled on the court. Pop laughs at the younger generation’s participation trophies.
“It’s old school versus new school and them teaching each other lessons from both sides,” says Wayans Jr., who played Coach in the Fox sitcom “New Girl.”
“They (the characters) bring the best out in each other and they’re resistant initially. But then throughout the episode they have revelations and these revelations help them become better people,” he adds.
The two have worked together before — dad made an appearance on son’s “Happy Endings” and “Happy Together,” while son was a writer and guest star on dad’s “My Wife and Kids.” But this is the first time they have headlined a series together.
The half-hour comedy — premiering Monday and co-starring Essence Atkins and Tetona Jackson — smartly leaves places in the script where father and son can let loose and create, like a moment in the pilot when the son has to wait as his father sips tea.
“We have a lot of those moments in every episode. And that’s kind of what we’re trying to zero-in on, is trying to find the comedic set pieces, at least one of them for each episode,” says the son.
“I tell the writers, ’Don’t write the funny. Put us in the area of the funny and we’ll find it,’” says Wayans. “You know, if you’ve got Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, don’t put them in a pie factory reading books.”
He has some sway with the writers: They include he and his son as well as Kim Wayans, Michael Wayans and Shawn Wayans, siblings of the elder Wayans.
The Wayans family is like the Barrymores of comedy, a clan that also includes Keenen Ivory. The Wayans have been behind everything from “In Living Color” and “White Chicks” to “Bamboozled.”
Viewers of the first episode of “Poppa’s House” find the elder Wayans challenged when a new female co-host (played by Atkins) is hired, while the younger Wayans puts pressure on his happy marriage by threatening to leave his salesman job.
Later episodes will have Poppa starting a podcast at home — further blurring the home-work divide — and exploring the different ways the generations deal with grief and discipline. In one show, a family photo leads to a discussion of who and what constitutes family. Does it survive divorce?
“I think we’re dealing with a lot of relatable storylines that I think people will enjoy. And on top of enjoying it, you’re going to laugh out loud,” says Wayans Jr.
Speaking of laughing, do the two men have the same approach to comedy? Wayans Jr. says they mostly laugh at the same things.
“I would say that they’re very similar and the differences are minuscule. It’s because my comedy is informed by my upbringing and same for him,” he says.
Dad agrees: “Yeah, I call it same humor, different sensibilities. Like, he’ll say stuff that in a million years, I would never get to that joke. And I love that about his sense of humor. It’s like, ‘That’s so random.’”
