Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Steve Harvey Show: Cast Photo

The Steve Harvey Show aired from August 1996 until February 2002 on the WB.

In the 1970s Steve Hightower (Steve Harvey ) had been lead singer in the soul group Steve Hightower and the Hightops but things had changed since then. Money problems (" I'm so broke they cut off my refrigerator light") forced him to take a job teaching music at Booker T. Washington High School in inner city Chicago. Because of budget cuts he was also saddled with teaching drama and art, about which he knew nothing. Cedric ( played by Cedric "The Entertainer"), the lazy fat sports coach with the insatiable appetite, was Steve's buddy. Principal Regina Grier ( Wendy Raquel Robinson), a formerly fat, ( but now very svelte) classmate of his in high school, no longer had to take any nonsense from him. Steve caught the students' attention with his outlandish, bright 1970s-style suits and steady stream of one-liners. Among his students were Bullethead ( William Lee Scott), a golfer for the administration who was dumb but conniving; Romeo ( Merlin Santana), the black stud with the boom box who was always late to class because he had to make an entrance; Sophia ( Tracy Vilar), Romeo's sexpot girlfriend and Sara ( Netfa Perry), the sexy girl who became Romeo's girlfriend after he and Sophia broke up. Cedric moved in with Steve but they had their problems adjusting to each other's idiosyncracies. Despite their protestations , there was a sexual chemistry between Steve and Regina.

At the start of the 1997-1998 season Regina hired outspoken Lovita ( Terri J. Vaughn) as her new secretary. Lovita and Cedric hit it off right away and began a serious romance, often spending time at the guys' apartment, much to Steve's chagrin. Steve and Regina did start dating , but he had trouble coping with her competitiveness. Then they broke up and she got together with Warrington Steele ( Dorien Wilson), an obnoxious rich ex-boyfriend. The following fall two female students became more prominent-Lydia ( Lori Beth Denberg), a bright white student, and Coretta ( Robin Yvette Allen), a beefy black with designs on Romeo.

In the fall of 1999 Steve was promoted to vice principal although he still taught-and Cedric proposed to Lovita. Romeo and Bullethead had become an incompetent audiovisual team, and pushy Lydia had been assigned as a teaching assistant in Steve's class. For a time she also made the morning announcements over the public address system. In February, on the Friday after Valentine's Day, Cedric and Lovita got married.

In the fall of 2000 Steve's students were starting their senior year and he was going through a midlife crisis. Cedric and Lovita, who had been living with him, finally moved out of his apartment and into the one across the hall. Regina married her rich new boyfriend but returned from her honeymoon a widow; Jordan ( Dwayne Adway) had suffered a fatal heart attack while they were making love. Depressed, she moved into Steve's apartment until she got herself back together-this despite having rejected Steve when he admitted he loved her prior to the wedding. While Regina was recuperating, Steve took over as acting principal, but when she returned to work in December there was some friction. In January Romeo's parents moved to New York and he moved in with Steve so he could finish his "last" senior year with the rest of the class. The following month, while on a school business trip , Steve and Regina finally made love.

As Graduation neared, Lydia , the class valedictorian was accepted to Princeton , Lovita told Cedric she was pregnant, and Steve and Regina were having an affair. In the final original episode in February 2002 ( their were only 13 episodes that final season), the week after the graduation episode, Lovita and Cedric hit the lotto jackpot-and she went into labor; Regina took a job as dean of a private school in California; and Steve , despite initial resistance , followed her there and effectively proposed to her.

On a sad note, Merlin Santana who played Romeo was later killed by a drive-by shooting while sitting in a parked car in downtown Los Angeles in November 2002, shortly after The Steve Harvey Show had concluded its run.

A Review from Variety

The Steve Harvey Show
By RAY RICHMOND

Cast: Steve Harvey, Cedric "The Entertainer," Wendy Racquel Robinson, Marlin Santana, Tracy Vilar, Netfa Perry, William Lee Scott.

Taped in Los Angeles at CBS Television City by Winifred Hervey Prods., Brillstein/Grey Communications and Stan Lathan TV. Executive producers, Brad Grey, Bernie Brillstein, Winifred Hervey, Stan Lathan; supervising producer, Walter Allen Bennett Jr.; producers, Wenda Fong, Manny Basanese; co-producers, Michael Rowe, B. Mark Seabrooks; director, Lathan; writer-creator, Hervey;

Steve Harvey deserves more than the forced "The Steve Harvey Show," and what's more, the talented standup comic had more.
Two years ago, Harvey centered a promising, warm little family comedy called "Me and the Boys" on ABC that cast him as a single father raising three boys with an agreeable tough-love panache. It wasn't exactly a scream, but it was comfortable, establishing Harvey as a legitimate primetime presence.

What's more, "Me and the Boys" did pretty decently in the ratings sandwiched between Tuesday night's "Full House" and "Home Improvement," finishing 20th with Nielsen for the season and beating out such CBS comedies as "Cybill" and "Dave's World." But Harvey's show was burdened with iffy demographics.

Which brings us back to "The Steve Harvey Show," a typically pandering comedy from the WB that takes a smart sitcom performer and magically transforms him into a buffoonish black stereotype.

Harvey plays Steve Hightower, a onetime prominent R&B musician and Commodore wannabe who is forced by circumstances to take a gig teaching music at an inner-city Chicago high school. It's one of network TV's favorite equations: black + teacher = tough neighborhood.

Against all odds and logic, teacher Steve winds up becoming the bestest buddy to a motley collection of students who include a smug Romeo named, uh, Romeo (Merlin Santana); his saucy girlfriend (Tracy Vilar); a school tough (William Lee Scott); and an annoying airhead (Netfa Perry). Then there is the jovial gym teacher (Cedric "The Entertainer").

About all that stands between this teacher and grade school nirvana is his principal (Wendy Racquel Robinson), who just happens to be the same girl Steve regularly made the butt of fat jokes in high school. Seems she's hired him to get revenge. Oooooooh! Contrived subplot!

Despite coming out of the same stable (Brillstein/Grey) that created and produces the brilliant "Larry Sanders Show" for HBO, "The Steve Harvey Show" has remarkably few laughs. Those couple it manages spring from Harvey's savvy way with a one-liner, not the lame script.

Show plays shamelessly off such black stereotypes as big-butt jokes and jive talk, a formula that the WB appears oddly to have adopted as its mandate.

It's an unfortunate development for Harvey, who truly coulda been a contendah.

A Review from The New York Times

Two Oddly Familiar Guys in a Diner

By CARYN JAMES
Published: August 24, 1996

By the end of September television viewers may feel they've been locked in a room with Felix and Oscar, kept after school for detention and overcome by aliens. The new season's trends include ''Odd Couple'' wannabees, classroom series and ''X-Files'' clones. And as if that thematic overload wasn't enough, there is a monstrous scheduling battle coming, with the three major networks planning premieres of most new shows during the third week of September (at last count, 16 premieres in 6 days). With this traffic jam among major networks, what's a netlet to do?

The smaller networks, WB and UPN, have shrewdly decided to get a head start, rolling out their new series this coming week. Beginning tomorrow night, WB (Channel 11 in New York) starts what it calls ''Sneak Peek'' week, with debuts of two new shows at 8:30 and 9:30.

The one worth watching is ''Life With Roger,'' an ''Odd Couple'' comedy saved by glints of dark humor. The show does not start in a promising way. Jason (Maurice Godin), the fussy Felix-type who always does what he should, is driving around at 5 A.M, insomniac on his wedding day. He can't stand the snorting sound his fiancee makes when she breathes, but he's planning to marry her anyway.

Jason's car breaks down just in time for him to save Roger (Mike O'Malley) from jumping off a bridge. They go to breakfast at a diner where Roger, of course, eats Oscar-style and talks with his mouth full. But just when you're ready to give up on this show, two men walk into the diner: dead ringers for the hit men played by John Travolta and Samuel Jackson in ''Pulp Fiction.'' Roger panics. ''If they catch me I'm a dead man!'' he says.

Roger gets Jason into many scrapes; his car is towed; he is mugged at an ATM. But Roger also stops Jason's wrongheaded wedding, and in gratitude Jason lets the homeless Roger move in. What luck! Jason has an attractive unmarried sister who lives across the hall. Much of ''Life With Roger'' is just that convenient and predictable, until those ''Pulp Fiction'' characters turn up again.

Mr. O'Malley brings a goofy charm to Roger. Whether the series holds up will depend on whether it follows its edgier instincts or decides to play it safe.

Life is not so promising for ''The Steve Harvey Show,'' a reluctant-teacher sitcom. Mr. Harvey, the stand-up comedian who was in the short-lived series ''Me and the Boys,'' is much more likable and amusing than this show's tired premise. He plays Steve Hightower, who once led a group called Steve Hightower and the Hightops. Now he's reduced to teaching music at a rough Chicago high school.

He shows up for work wearing a bright red suit, which is the object of many jokes. ''Does that suit come with an eight-track?'' asks a student named Romeo.

Steve tangles with the attractive but hostile principal, Regina Grier (Wendy Raquel Robinson). It takes him the entire half-hour to figure out that she is the classmate, now older and slimmed down, he used to call Piggy Grier in high school. Mr. Harvey's sharp, stand-up delivery is put to good use. ''What's with that principal, treating me like I'm LaToya at a family reunion?'' he wonders. But he is surrounded by cliches, including two motor-mouthed female students who seem to be competing in a Rosie Perez talk-alike contest.

These first episodes of ''Life With Roger'' and ''The Steve Harvey Show'' will be repeated when the series begin their regular runs on Sept. 8. ''Life With Roger'' deserves its head start.

LIFE WITH ROGER
Warner Brothers Network, Sunday night at 9:30
(Channel 11 in New York)

Howard Adler and Bob Griffard, executive producers; Bob Keyes and Doug Keyes, co-executive producers; Nancylee Myatt, supervising producer; Tracey Ormandy, producer; Frank Merwald, associate producer.

WITH: Maurice Godin (Jason Clark), Mike O'Malley (Roger Hoyt) and Hallie Todd (Lanie Clark).

An Article from CNN on the death of Merlin Santana

Actor Merlin Santana killed in shooting in Los Angeles

Sunday, November 10, 2002

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Merlin Santana, a television and film actor who appeared in this year's Eddie Murphy movie "Showtime," was shot to death while sitting in a parked car, authorities said Sunday.

Santana, 26, was killed early Saturday in South Los Angeles, police spokeswoman Lucy Diaz said.

He was sitting in the passenger seat shortly after 2:30 a.m. when at least one person approached the car and fired, Lt. Clay Farrell said.

The driver escaped injury, drove off and flagged down police. Paramedics responded but Santana was pronounced dead at the scene, Farrell said.

No arrests were immediately made and investigators had not determined a motive for the attack.

The New York-born Santana had a recurring role on "The Steve Harvey Show," playing Romeo Santana. The role won him nominations for NAACP Image Awards and ALMA Awards, which honor Hispanic performers.

One of his earliest roles was as Stanley, the faithful admirer of Rudy Huxtable on the hit series "The Cosby Show."

He also had guest appearances on several television shows, including "Major Dad," "Moesha" and "Sister, Sister."

He later joined the casts of "Getting By" and the short-lived James Earl Jones drama "Under One Roof."

For the Official Website of Steve Harvey go to http://www.steveharvey.com/morning.html

For the official site of Cedric The Entertainer go to http://www.ceddybear.com/

For a Website dedicated to William Lee Scott go to http://www.geocities.com/williamleescott/

For more on The Steve Harvey Show go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steve_Harvey_Show

For a Review of The Steve Harvey Show go to http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/Steve-Harvey-Show.html