At the Huxtables
An excellent interlude in the second act graced this week’s episode of Everybody Hates Chris (CW Fridays 8:00 EST).
The ‘A’ storyline of this week’s show was Chris going with a girl named Jenise Huxtable to the homecoming dance. The second act opens with Chris coming to pick up Jenise at her house, which lo and behold, is a spitting image of the Huxtables’ home on The Cosby Show. It’s all there – the jazzy intro music! Dr Clint Huxtable (played by Orlando Jones) ambling down the stairway! His wife, Blair, a lawyer, gliding in from the kitchen through the swing door! Capping off it all off, the show, which is usually shot on film with one-camera, takes on a three-camera format and adds a laugh track.
Everybody Hates Chris elevates the parody of The Cosby Show beyond the visual evocation and manicured impersonations. The disjuncture between the Huxtables’ social standing and Chris’ is played to great satirical effect: Blair literally cannot conceive of what Chris’ parents do for a living, while Clint wonders whether Chris comes from Crack People. This is sort of thing exemplifies Everybody Hates Chris at its best: it’s rare enough for a show to acknowledge social stratification, much less to find humor in an amiable yet incisive way.
Photo courtesy of thecw.com
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