Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - He's The Mayor: Kevin Hooks

He's The Mayor aired from January until March 1986 on ABC.

Fun and games at City Hall was the premise of this 1986 comedy. Mayor Carl Burke ( Kevin Hooks), a black, had been elected at age 25, and found running things a little more difficult than criticizing from the outside. His " Kitchen Cabinet" consisted of his father Alvin ( Al Fann), who was the City Hall janitor and best friend Wardell ( Wesley Thompson), hizzonner's chauffeur.

A Review from USA TODAY

TV PREVIEW/BY MONICA COLLINS

'He's the mayor': Call for a recount

He's not the King of the Mountain or the Duke of Earl-although he knows the lyrics. He's the mayor. You have to wonder how he ever got elected.

Somehow, ABC is hooked on series about minority candidates who become elected officials. He's the Mayor follows in the tradition of Benson and Hail to the Chief.

The comedic irony is supposedly heightened by the fact that the lieutenant governor is black, the president is a woman and the mayor is not only black, but under 30. After watching one of these political satires, however, you're relieved it's only make-believe. These characters are oddballs who supposedly work outside the system to make things work. However, they're utterly dependent on the system to make their jokes work.

Here, the mayor is portrayed as a naive and bumbling kid who lives with his dad and hasn't had a date in months. Dad, a longtime janitor in City Hall, naturally is mighty priud of Junior.

Kevin Hooks, who's the mayor of this unnamed city, is an appealing talent-vigorous, fresh. Yet, he's given nothing inventive to work with.

As depicted, this is your standard story of a renegade who surrounds himself with loonies while somehow managing to cut through the beurocratic red tape. For that he's supposed to be a hero.

This mayor shuns the trappings and perks of power, but every episode of this " elected official comedy" depends on his consolidation of power through devilishly unorthodoxed ways. That's not funny, although it's designed to be.

The formula is clumsy and lazy.The crazies are very crazy. The loonies are loony tunes. Everyone's a " type."

He's the Mayor just hands over a lot of jive. This mayor will do anything for a laugh, such as making a point at a press conference by holding up a dead fish. That's supposed to be believably irreverent. Unfortunately, it's just plain fishy.

An Article From USA TODAY Published in January 1986.

Hooks fishes for challenges

By Karen S. Peterson
Special for USA TODAY

WASHINGTON-Kevin Hooks is no run-of-the-mill TV star. The man can not only mug a camera and milk a line, but ruminate on issues from race to religion. And he's always looking for new challenges.

On Tuesday Hooks, the star of ABC's sitcom He's The Mayor, opens off-Broadway in a sophisticated two-character play about a father and son who struggle to reach each other.

" I need the discipline coming off a weekly series where one tends to become complacent, maybe even lazy."

In Jonah Howard and His Wonder Dog , Hooks plays the Harvard grad son, a possibly bisexual, joint-smoking career dropout who trades " intellectual jabs " with his father. " We don't take any prisoners," Hooks says.

It's a far cry from his role on Mayor , where Hooks, 27, plays a bright-eyed, clean-living, often-befuddled politician.He lives with his working class dad. And gosh darn , he just can't seem to get the girl even though he's kissed the likes of former Miss America Vanessa Williams.

" Right after I kissed Vanessa, her boyfriend put this big diamond ring on her . It took two guys to bring it into the room. He's got a voodoo doll that looks like me..."

The doll had better be well dressed. Hooks admits he's a clotheshorse. " My boyhood dream was to be a model. But I wasn't tall enough or handsome enough."

Fans might not buy that. Hooks does wear clothes well. Today he is checked out in charcoal slacks, blue Ralph Lauren shirt, muted knit tie.

Plus he wears one tiny diamond earring. " I got it to celebrate my divorce a couple of years ago. It was either this or a tattoo, and I figured I could take this off." ( Hooks has a 6-year old daughter who lives in Los Angeles.)

Hooks admits his love life now is a bit stagnant. " I haven't had the time . I've been so concerned about my career," he says. " I'd like to enjoy a relationship but I just can't sit still long enough."

He won't find out if ABC has re-elected Mayor for another season until May. And he wants to see the show renewed not only for himself, but for the nation's blacks.

Portraying a black city mayor " is the most positive image I've ever had an opportunity to play. I remember my grandmother telling me, You are the future of this country.' I tell my daughter the same thing.The responsibility never ends."

The cahnce "to create a milestone" lured him back in front of the camera. Hooks had taken a hiatus from acting to direct episodes of Hotel, Fame, V, and St. Elsewhere.

He isn't troubled that the show doesn't deal in great issues. " The mayor's youth and inexperience make him funny, not the fact he's black."

And he doesn't welcome comparrisons with Bill Cosby. " We're not all Cosby clones. You can't compare all black male leads to Cosby."

But Hooks is used to being compared to other actors. He's the son of actor Robert Hooks, who founded the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. At the age of 9, Hooks got his first tv part in his father's series, N.Y.P.D.

" I'd love to be a finer actor than my father. That would make me very proud," he says. And if his daughter decides to follow him, Hooks hopes she'll have the potential and opportunity to be still better.

His performance in the Ensemble's Jonah mark's the group's 20th anniversary. Things, he says are coming full circle. Meanwhile, he feels he is doing God's work. " Fortunate as I am, I can't take the credit. I was in the right place at the right time. And that fate, that destiny, is God."

To watch the opening credits for He's The Mayor and some other 1985-1986 TV shows go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZKoRqhyrLI