Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Gregory Hines Show: Gregory Hines

The Gregory Hines Show aired from September 1997 until March 1998 on CBS.

Widower Ben Stevenson ( Gregory Hines), had been father, mother, and buddy to his young son Matty( Brandon Hammond), since his wife's passing 18 months ago. Ben worked as a book editor for Oak Park Press, a small Chicago publishing house run by a formerly married couple, Alex and Nicole ( Mark Tymchyshym, Robin Riker), who never passed on an opportunity to put each other down. His doddering father James ( Bill Cobbs), and his pushy brother Carl( Wendell Pierce), offered him well-intentioned advice on everything, including dating with mixed results. Also providing encouragement was Angela ( Judith Shelton), Ben's administrative assistant. Episodes focused both on Ben's work and social life and on his loving, and evolving relationship with his son. Matty's social life was definately more active than his father's. lol

A Review From The New York Times

NEW TV SEASON IN REVIEW

By WILL JOYNER
Published: September 15, 1997

A Father-And-Son Sitcom
About Love and Loss
'The Gregory Hines Show'
CBS, tonight at 8:30, then Friday nights at 9

At its outset, ''The Gregory Hines Show,'' about an upscale widower rearing an adolescent boy in Chicago, looks like a ragged rehearsal for a production that everyone knows will eventually be a success. Mr. Hines has never starred in a situation comedy before, but he's clearly a natural at it. His timing is perfect on good punch lines, and he easily saves bad ones. He can be funny with a simple shift of his signature wide eyes.

As Ben Stevenson, an editor and publisher at Homecourt Press and the father of 12-year-old Matty (Brandon Hammond), he's suave and endearing. And he can turn on a dime and do the sort of serious interlude that's not overly sentimental. Now the writers need to get their act together.

Admittedly, the show's premise -- two soul mates trying to get on with their lives after the loss of the woman they loved completely -- is a difficult one to make comically coherent right off the bat. In a preview tonight (the show will be seen in its regular slot on Friday), the best moments are not the broadly contrived sketches in which Ben jousts with his concerned colleagues or tentatively ventures into the dating stream but the quieter exchanges between father and son at home.

Brandon Hammond, who is already familiar to viewers from the movie ''Space Jam'' and will be even more so after the release of ''Soul Food'' next week, has a knowing, understated manner that fits well with Mr. Hines's. As Ben gets ready for his first date in 18 years, Matty says, ''I'm O.K. with it, but if you're not, I can maybe pretend to freak out a little bit, so you can pretend to stay home on account of me.''

The two seem equally comfortable wrestling after a hockey game or talking about a first kiss. (Predictably, they even dance well together.) And they have a strong family support system in the persons of Ben's brother, Carl (Wendell Pierce), a no-nonsense lawyer, and the men's father, James (Bill Cobbs), a philosopher who likes his nap.

In fact, the primary problem with ''The Gregory Hines Show'' at this point is that the guy stuff, which is consistently genuine, makes anything to do with a walking-and-talking woman seem silly. If each episode is going to document Ben and Matty's brushes with the opposite sex, then someone had better come up with substantial people for them to brush up against. WILL JOYNER

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on September 12, 1997

Cover Story
A DIFFERENT WHIRL
GREGORY HINES MAY NEED A LITTLE FANCY FOOTWORK TO STAND OUT AMID A CROWDED BLOCK OF KIDDIE SITCOMS

By Dan Snierson

THE GREGORY HINES SHOW CBS, 9-9:30 PM STARTS SEPT. 15

Of all the questions Gregory Hines has fielded about his new family comedy, The Gregory Hines Show, perhaps the screwiest came at a July press conference: ''Will you be wearing that earring in the show?''

While the room groaned at the absurd inquiry -- which the values-minded reporter kept repeating until Hines retorted, ''Is that my mother?!?'' -- one couldn't help but wonder if there was yet another hole in Hines' head. After all, why would a distinguished Broadway performer and world-renowned tap dancer with solid movie credits (Running Scared, Waiting to Exhale) want to enter the fatuous sitcom world of Family Matters and Step by Step? ''I wasn't getting a lot of the roles I wanted in film, so I thought, 'Let me try TV,''' says Hines. ''I had originally wanted to do something more adult oriented, but this show had an adult sensibility -- and family values. We're not going to shy away from any issues relevant to parents and children in the '90s.''

Granted, the premise is nothing bold: Hines plays Ben Stevenson, a newly widowed book publisher who juggles career and love while raising his 12-year-old boy, Matty. But thanks to sophisticated Cosby Show-esque humor and a charmingly believable relationship between Hines and screen son Brandon Hammond, Sir Taps-A-Lot just might pull off this career switcheroo in style. ''I think we've got a tempest in a teapot,'' confides CBS Television president Leslie Moonves. ''Gregory pops right off the screen with genuineness and joie de vivre. He was born to be a television star.''

If so, it was prime time's longest pregnancy. Hines and his manager (and the show's exec producer) Fran Saperstein spent seven years fleshing out ideas. ''I didn't want to embarrass my family and friends and have them say, 'Geez, why is he doing that show?''' says Hines, 51, ''even if it was successful.'' Recalls Saperstein: ''We'd been through it at different networks and different creative groups, trying to find the right show. You'd be shocked at how many people pitched the same concept to us over and over again: 'OK, he's got a dance studio on the third floor and he lives on the second floor...'''

Frustrated and depressed, Hines dialed an old friend who knew a thing or two about TV: Bill Cosby. ''He never said, 'Forget it, chuck this one,''' says Hines. ''He told me to keep pushing in every way I could, which was invaluable. He's been a hero.'' Hines, who lives in New York City (when not working in L.A.) with second wife Pam, also found inspiration in his kids, Zach, 14, Jessica, 25, and Daria, 26. ''They're always pitching story ideas,'' he chuckles. ''Zach says, 'Why don't you do one about the time I told you I didn't have any homework, and you went to the theater with my best friend's mother, and when the curtain went up, she said, 'Is Zach studying for the big science test tomorrow?' So I said, 'Zach, that's a horrible memory. I don't want to get into that.' 'Well, how about the time I made a doody?'''

Now that Hines is armed with his crack support team and encouraging early word from critics, perhaps the only thing he needs is a time slot that's more, well, mature; he's sandwiched between the Bronson Pinchot-as-alien sitcom Meego and Step by Step. "Gregory does have an adult appeal," Moonves says. "But if you like Meego, you'll like this, and if you don't like Meego, you'll like this." Adds Saperstein: "We're not concerned. If it was on Saturday morning at 7, it'd find an audience."

Of course, there's always one way to ensure a decent crowd: Care to break out those tap shoes, Gregory? "Actually, in one episode, I'm going to dream that I'm a dancer and I challenge [Broadway sensation] Savion Glover to a tap duel," he whispers with a wink. "And then I beat him, which is really dreaming."

--Dan Snierson

A Review From Entertainment Weekly
Published on September 19, 1997

TV Review
THE OL' SOFT SHOW
AS A HUG-HAPPY SINGLE DAD, GREGORY HINES TAPS INTO AN ENGAGINGLY MODERN BRAND OF TV PARENTHOOD
By Ken Tucker

Perhaps because he's done so little TV, actor/dancer Gregory Hines doesn't seem to have any preconceptions of how a dad in a sitcom is supposed to behave. The result, in The Gregory Hines Show (CBS, Fridays, 9-9:30 p.m.), is a different sort of father. Neither Bill Cosby-grumpy nor Ozzie Nelson-doofy, Hines' Ben Stevenson is an enthusiastic, seriously silly, touchy-feely parent to his son, Matty (the appealing Brandon Hammond). Ben kisses his 12-year-old boy as often as he can pin the kid down, and when he hugs Matty, you get the feeling that he's trying to pass his own life force into the lad.

Ben is a widower just re-entering the dating market, and some of the show will revolve around that awkwardness. More promising is the occasional presence of Ben's father, James, a stiff-limbed sourpuss (Bill Cobbs). Between them, James, Ben, and Matty offer three generations of African-American men with personalities guaranteed to both clash and mesh in funny and perhaps even enlightening ways. So far, The Gregory Hines Show doesn't have many big laughs, and whenever it leaves the Stevenson apartment to visit Ben's mundane-seeming job as a Chicago book publisher, the show becomes seriously generic. But you know what? That almost doesn't matter. There are plenty of places to go on TV for big yuks; many fewer places to see familial love portrayed with such bracing sincerity and spirit. B

For a look at Gregory Hines' obituary go to http://www.kfcplainfield.com/tv/obit_gregoryhines.html