Who saw the sitcom "Me and the Boys" [Archive] - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

isiahthomas

03-23-2004, 10:02 AM

MarvinG the oldest son on Me & The Boys was on a episode of Steve Harvey Show once. He was on the football team & i think he was the star quarterback. He asked Sarah to go to the prom with him & she said yes. So when they were at the prom, he wanted all the attention to be on him & he wasn't paying Sarah any attention. So she got mad at him & he left the prom. She ended up dancing with Bullethead.

tvje

03-29-2004, 01:16 PM

I saw that episode last Friday. And it will air on TBS tommorow. Anyway, I think they should have written a joke, or somehow refrenced "Me and the Boys" in that episode. During the dance, Steve should have said that Dexter reminds him of the way he was in high school and say people could mistake him for his son.

After hearing people talk possitively about the show, and the success Steve Harvey is having today. "Me and the Boys" should be released on video/DVD, and get the same treatment other short lived sitcoms such as "Get a Life" and "Freeks and Geeks" get. (Go to www.jumptheshark.com and hear all of the positive things people say about this show), Did you know Steve Harvey won a People's choice award for this show?

I wish I could go back in time, when the show was first on the air and tape all of the episodes. Who knew ABC was going to cancel it? (that type of decision making is one of the reasons why ABC went from 1st to 3rd back then) Steve is releasing a box set of his work including his 1995 HBO special, he should release this sitcoms on DVD.

But I don't think that will ever happen. And deffently will not happen until the entire first season of "The Steve Harvey show" is released on DVD, which might never happen either.

Maybe "Me and the Boys" will one day air on Trio (which I don't have on my cable system), which airs short lived tv shows.

jamesanthony

03-30-2004, 05:26 PM

Hi y'all. If any of you are in the NYC area the Museum of TV and Radio has the first 2 episodes of this show in their library which is open to the public. I must say that Me and the Boys was WAY better than The Steve Harvey Show. Madge Sinclair was a very classy supporting player and the kids in this show were much more realistic and less cartoonish than the ones in Steve Harvey Show. Also, the very presence of someone like Cedric means that a show is going to lack a certain level of sophistication.

ABC threw away a perfectly good show that was actually as far as I know the last black series to rank in the national top 20.

By the way, the actress who played Regina in Steve Harvey appeared as Steve's date in Me and the Boy's pilot and she appeared again in a couple of other episodes. He also had almost the same name in both shows and even had an old r'b group in the ABC series.

tvje

03-30-2004, 05:52 PM

The first two epsiodes are in the Museum of Television and Radio? What more do you need? Release this series on DVD already.

The Steve Harvey character on "Me and the Boys" was named Steve Tower, and the character on "The Steve Harvey show" was called Steve High Tower. So their last names did sound similar.

"Me and the Boys" had more serious story lines than "The Steve Harvey show".

But this show was great, and should be released on DVD.

marvin g

03-30-2004, 10:03 PM

What made the Steve Harvey show so cartoonish is the fact that it's set in a school where the students nevr graduate season after season! IMO schools really don't make good sitcom setting. A Different World is the only exception. And it was done right!

jamesanthony

03-30-2004, 10:41 PM

Hey Marvin:

You have a point about schools not being a great setting for sitcoms. If the show catches on the student characters become idiots so that they will be in the school as students for 7 years. A Different World worked because they were in a university not a high school.

Steve Harvey was better in year one before Lovita and when Traci Vilar and the other girl were in it. Romeo was more restrained in year one and Lydia Liza Guttman, a HORRIBLE character, was nowhere in sight.

Quite frankly another thing that contributes to this show not being as good as ME AND THE BOYS is that it was on the WB, a network that caters to young viewers so they go for easier less sophisticated humor and broader jokes. I was really struck by how good ME AND THE BOYS was in comparison. Ms Madge Sinclair was a real treat to watch in the episodes I saw. She seemed to be having a wonderful time being in a comedy for a change rather than some searing melodrama and the kid actors were credible. In one scene in the pilot Steve says a funny line of dialogue, the audience breaks up and the oldest kid actor breaks character and has to keep himself from busting out laughing. Yet Harvey stays with a straight face. I have a friend who met Harvey in real life and he said he is funnier than he is on TV.

He must really be in deep financial debt though to be hosting that awful amateur talent show thing on the WB.

jamesanthony

03-30-2004, 10:51 PM

There was an old show called room 222 that was more like a melodrama with light comedic touches. There's a board for it on here. Anyway, what detracted from it was that for 5 years you saw the same students in the show and after a while they looked like college students or young adults. It detracted from what was supposed to be a serious portrayal of a high school. In some shows there seems to be a kind of time warp where the characters stay the same age for more than one year. Come to think of it that must be what happened on this show because Lydia is not supposed to be academically challenged and yet she was on it for a good while along with Romeo and Bullethead. I didn't watch it that closely, but how many years passed within the storyline of this show? I know there is an episode where Steve turns 40, but Steve Harvey is about 50 by now.

isiahthomas

03-31-2004, 10:43 AM

LOL@Steve Harvey must be in financial debt to host that garbage Big Time show hahahahahahahahahaha. I don't see how that show got on the air. Me & The Boys ain't hardly better than Steve Harvey Show.

jamesanthony

03-31-2004, 10:58 AM

Steve Harvey must really owe someone much money because there is no excuse for him being associated with anything as bizarre as that talent show. He seems to really need to keep working because he's in so many different projects and movies and things. I find him a bit overexposed. He should just refinance his debts or let his kids get summer jobs to pay for their own college educations.

isiahthomas

03-31-2004, 03:01 PM

Steve Harvey has kids? I haven't seen his kids. He has his own radio show in LA & he's doing movies so i don't know why he's doing that Big Time show. Plus i know he's gettin paid from his old reruns cause they show his show all the time on WB at 6:30 & 7:30 pm. Actors get paid everytime a show that they've been on is showing reruns on tv. Steve should take a break & stop trying to do so much stuff. I don't know why he wasted his time with that wack Nick Cannon & Christina Millan movie Love Don't Cost A Thing & he was in B2K's U Got Served movie. I would never play in wack films like that.

jamesanthony

03-31-2004, 03:07 PM

If he's not putting someone's kids through school then he's REALLY without an excuse for letting his name be attached to that talent show thing he's in. I have never paid $ to see him on the big screen, but a good friend of mine met him at one of the award shows he was hosting and they were having technical delays and he and Denzel just went off the cuff and ad libbed and had the audience in stitches. Maybe he's high energy and feels the need to be involved in everything at once. Some people are like that.

isiahthomas

03-31-2004, 03:12 PM

I rented The Fighting Temptations movie with Beyonce & Cuba Gooding Jr. Steve Harvey wasn't funny at all in that movie. I've never paid to see him at the movies either cause he plays in movies i don't wanna see LOL. I think i did pay to see him in The Kings Of Comedy movie at the theatres. That movie was hilarious. Cedric The Entertainer & Bernie Mac were the funniest ones. I wonder why he quit being the host of Showtime At The Apollo. He was the best host of that show. Monique of The Parkers tv show is the host of it now.

tvje

03-31-2004, 08:45 PM

I agree with you jamesanthony about the WB and ABC. The WB did not want the show to be to dramatic like "Me and the Boys" were at times. I have an old 1996 TV Guide Fall Preview, Steve told TV Guide that "The Steve Harvey show will tackle the real issues touching our high-school students today - teen pregnancy, drug aduse, crime, all of the peer pressure issues."

The first season is a lot less cartoonish, and it focus a lot on Steve's relationship with his students (examples, Steve helping Bullethead when his dog is in the pound, Romeo's dad taking him out of Steve's class, the homecoming dance episode)

It appears the WB and the produers of the show had a difference of opinion about the direction of the show and the WB had its way, and they decided that it would be more cartoonish, and it seemed that after year one, after Steve slowly warmed up to the students, Steve all of a sudden did not care about the kids anymore.

PS: for those who are not familar with Madge Sinclair, she played Eddie Murphy's mother in "Coming to America." And the first season of "The Steve Harvey show" was dedicated in her memory. (every season the show was dedicated to a different person's memory)

tvje

03-31-2004, 09:06 PM

Steve Harvey should once again host "Showtime at the Apollo", he is one of the best hosts they every had.

marvin g

03-31-2004, 09:08 PM

Yeah, Sounds like the typical hollywood b.s. to me! Just step and fetch it!

jamesanthony

03-31-2004, 09:51 PM

Tvje i can believe this. The sad truth is that if the producers and Harvey stood their ground about being more close to reality they would have thrown them right off the air. Does anyone know if the ratings were significantly different in year one in comparison to the other years.

As for Ms Sinclair she is a real joy to watch in the two episodes of Me and the Boys that I saw. She was clearly a classically trained actress who seemed to be enjoying being in the relaxed atmosphere of a sitcom rather than some heavy dramatic show. Compare her to Cedric who is a stand-up comedian who is always going for the joke and is not subtle and you see the immediate difference between the quality of Harvey's 2 sitcoms.

tvje

03-31-2004, 10:06 PM

The ratings for season 1 were good for the WB. It was one of their top 5 sitcoms of the 1996-97 season. In fact, the WB tried to clone "The Steve Harvey show" with a show called "Nick Freno: License Teacher", a show that premered the same season as TSHS, was originally about a teacher teaching 6th graders. Then in its second and final season (1997-98), it became a Steve Harvey show clone. The school on that show changed from a middle school to a high school, and a female Principal was added. "TSHS" must have gotten good ratings, or why would the WB try to clone it?

It is hard to tell what was a hit show on the WB and UPN back then, because it had different standards then the big four networks.

I am not sure about the rating history of "The Steve Harvey show", but it was never in life support the first season.

jamesanthony

03-31-2004, 10:48 PM

Well it was on for 6 years which is a mighty long time for a WB show and all those actors are making money from the reruns, but I must say that it seems like WB and Fox seemed to use black shows to build up their reps then they switched off in completely different directions. UPN still has black shows, but they're the lowest rated network and their black shows are all of a certain flavoring. It feels like I'm watching six different variations of the same thing.

tvje

04-07-2004, 11:12 PM

Today I saw two episodes of "the Steve Harvey show" that made reference to "Me and the Boys."

First on TBS, on the episode "The Roof is on Fire", Regina's apartment has a fire during a party and she stays over at Steve's apartment, and they are watching TV, and Steve says "Maybe Me and the Boys will come on. For some reason I like that show, they should not have canceled it."

Tonight WWOR 9 New York, aired the episode "My Two Big Daddies" when Steve accedentally goes to a parents without partners meeting, meets a girl, pretends to be a widower which is who is was on Me and the Boys and pretends Romeo is his son. When he is introducing himself, he says "It is just me and my boy Theo."

Dr. Jazz

04-09-2004, 09:59 AM

tvje, remember the episode of "Me and the Boys" where they went camping and one of Steve's sons had a crush on this girl who was sitting on a big rock and she starting singing "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston? That's the episode I remember most vividly because I caught it when ABC re-aired it in the summer of 1995. Madge Sinclair, who played Steve's mother or mother-in-law on the show, passed away in December 1995. The show hadn't been off very long when she died. But you're right it was a good show and should have been given more of a chance.

tvje

04-09-2004, 12:28 PM

Yeah, I remember that. Also remember when Steve got exited that the Four Tops were going to appear at his church. It is obvious that Steve was a big Four Tops fan, remember his group on the Steve Harvey show was called the Hi-Tops. Also on "Me and the Boys" his former high school bands name was the Four Vibes.

I also remember the episode when the yougest son refuces to appear in a family chrismas photo because Steve's wife was not going to be in it, and in the end of the episode Steve and his mother in law reflect on how much they loved Steve's wife and how much they missed her. That episode was very emotional, and hard to watch without seeding a tear.

My favorite epsode is when Steve coaches his son's basketball team. That was hilarous.

What was shocking to me, is that no other network picked up the show. If I was a network executive and one of my rival networks cancels a top 20 show, I jump on the show and pick it up. I guess the death of Madge Sinclair scared off the other networks.

The same year the show was canceled, the WB picked up another canceled ABC show "Sister Sister", why didn't they pick up this show also? Nothing aganst "Sister Sister", but "Me and the Boys" was a better show.

jamesanthony

04-09-2004, 12:39 PM

Hey Tvje:

Me and the Boys was much better than Sister Sister. I don't know how ill Madge Sinclair was when ABC cancelled this show though. If My Three Sons could survive without William Frawley this show could have lived on without her. Could you imagine if they brought Cedric into Me and the Boys? The actress who played Regina was in it as Steve's date.

tvje

04-09-2004, 12:43 PM

Yesterday, I went on a number of TV shows tape trading websites, looking for someone that has any episodes of this show, I have not found anything yet. If I do, I let you guys know.

"Freek and Geeks" another great show that did not deserve to be cancel will be released on DVD, "Me and the Boys" should also be released on DVD.

tvje

04-10-2004, 10:37 AM

I just thought of an idea. It might not acclumsh anything, but it is worth a try. Go to www.tvshowsondvd.com register and vote for "Me and the Boys."

I just did that, at the very least it lets our feelings get out.

tvje

04-15-2004, 08:01 PM

On my way back from "Johnson's Family Vacation", I stoped by the Museum of Television and Radio, and saw the first two episodes of "Me and the Boys."

In the pilot, Steve catches the middle son seeing an R rated movie. The actress who played Regina on "Steve Harvey show" was in this episode as Steve's date. She looked different, with longer hair. My favorite part is when Steve finds out the older son took the middle son to the movie.

In the second episode titled "Searching for Miss October", Steve finds his son's porno magazine, and teaches them a listen. It backfires when his youngest son finds it and uses it on a science project. My favorite parts are when his sons finds a bunch of porno magazines in the closet put there by Steve, and when Steve is explaining the situation to the yougest sons principal. I also liked the exchanges between Steve and the little girl that is his neighbor. He says "I told you to knock, so we have time to hide." She responds "Were past that, so move on." That is hilarous.

I liked the second episode better than the first, but both were great. This show uses very few pop culture jokes, unlike "the Steve Harvey show" which used a ton ot them per episode (for example jokes about the Jackson family and TLC). Between the two episodes there were only two of them. One joke about the movie Free Willy, which was very funny, and another one about the Buffallo Bills.

Another difference between this show and "the Steve Harvey show", is that they just let the laughs come, they didn't try to hard for the laughs.

"Me and the Boys" was produced by ABC Productions, so Disney owns the rights to the show. Disney has not released any DVD's of its shows. But Steve Harvey could buy the rights to this show, like he did for his HBO specials, and release them himself. He should do that, it is better than his current show on the WB, and making more movies.

jamesanthony

04-15-2004, 09:03 PM

Those two episodes were really good. You're right, tvje, they didn't try to force the jokes they just let them flow. In the pilot there is a scene where Steve is scolding the oldest son and he says something really funny and the son almost busts out laughing. I liked seeing Madge Sinclair in this show too. She was so laid back here unlike the dramas she normally appeared in and she seemed like she was having a great time. Harvey probably had her in stitches in between scenes.

Harvey should buy the show and release it and get off that awful talent show thing he's in on WB.

tvje

04-15-2004, 09:24 PM

Though she only appeared briefly in the second episode, the child actress that played the little girl that was the youngest son's classmate and neighbor was very funny.

I think Steve tried harder for the laughs on "the Steve Harvey show" instead of just letting the laughs flow like on "Me and the Boys", because he was parinoid or worried that the WB was going to cancel the show, just like ABC did. Also maybe because "Steve Harvey show" had two comedians, with Steve and Cedric trying to outdo each other.

I might go back to the Museum very soon, and watch "Me and the Boys" again. I wish they would allowed me to tape the episodes.

jamesanthony

04-15-2004, 09:36 PM

Steve probably was paraniod. Plus WB aims at a younger demographic of viewers and they assume they would want to see a certain type of show. I could see Harvey doing a sitcom that has a lot of improvisation in it like Curb Your Enthusiasm, but I don't think any network on broadcast tv would give him the opportunity to.

jamesanthony

04-15-2004, 09:50 PM

That girl looks like the first Clair from My Wife and Kids but there is no info on tvtome.com or imdb.com about who played the role.

tvje

04-15-2004, 10:57 PM

No info, next time I watch the show at the museum, I'll look for her name in the credits.

The show is 10 years old, she is a teenager today. I wonder what happened to her? I thought she and Steve had a good comic chemistry. But then again so did the whole cast. Hell, I also wonder what happened to the actors that played Steve's son.

That cast was so talented.

tvje

04-16-2004, 12:03 AM

I know there is no point to it. But, I found another person who appeared on both "Me and the Boys" and "the Steve Harvey show".

We know Wendy Raquel Robinson who played Regina on "Steve Harvey show" guest starred on "Me and the Boys", and Czar Lamar Shepherd who played Steve's oldest son on "Me and the Boys" guest starred on an episode of "the Steve Harvey show". Bianca Lawson who had a recurring role in the second half of the second season of "The Steve Harvey show" as Rosalind, a girl Romeo was trying to get with, guest starred on an episode of "Me and the Boys".

So the list of actors that I know of that have appeared on both shows are:

Steve Harvey (of course)
Wendy Raquel Robinson
Czar Lamar Shepherd
Bianca Lawson

jamesanthony

04-16-2004, 12:14 PM

Tvje: Actually I thought that little girl was the girl who played on My Wife and Kids. Me and the Boys aired in 1994 and My Wife And Kids started 7 years later. The girl looked to be about 8 or 9 and the first Clair on MW&K was about 15 so It's possible. The first Clair was only there in year 1. Plus George Gore who plays Junior on MW&K started on New York Undercover in 1994 playing a kid of about 11. Seven years later on MW&K he was Jr who was about 15 or 16.

tvje

04-16-2004, 01:55 PM

Could be the same girl, I had great time at the Museum, I was laughing my ass off at those two episodes.

jamesanthony

04-16-2004, 02:29 PM

That museum is cool. My favorite. Never became a member or went to any of their private screenings or when the have the cast of some old show reunite. I might see you there sometime, tvje.

tvje

04-16-2004, 03:03 PM

Maybe, we'll see.

tvje

04-25-2004, 04:37 PM

I found another mention of "Me and the Boys." on an episode of "the Steve Harvey show."

In the episode "Just My Imagination". Romeo asked Steve if it okay to date a older women. Steve said "If is Robin Givens older, it is okay. If it is Esta Rhodes older, you have a problem." Steve's character on "Me and the Boys" chased a charcter played by Robin Givens for two episodes.