Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Like Family

Like Family aired from September 2003 until April 2004 on The Wb.

Maddie ( Diane Farr) was a divorced single mother who was afraid that the long hours she put in on her Manhattan job , which kept her away from home a lot more than she liked , were having a negative effect on her fun-loving son , Keith ( J. Mack Slaughter). After she told her friend Tanya ( Holly Robison Peete) about her concerns, Tanya suggested she and Keith move in with her family in New Jersey. It certainly made an interesting blended family, since the Hudsons were white and the Wards were African-American. Maddie and Tanya had been best friends since they were kids and had always been supportive of each other. While Maddie was still working, Tanya had taken leave from her legal career to spend time at home with her family. Her husband, Ed ( Kevin Michael Richardson), who owned a landscaping business, had a bark much louder than his bite. While their young son, Bobby(B.J. Mitchell), welcomed the houseguests, hoping Keith would be like an older brother, his sister, Danika ( Megalyn Echikunwoke), had reservations about the living arrangements , since she and Keith had been competetive for years. Also living in the Ward home was Ed's flamboyant father, Pop ( J. Anthony Brown), an active senior citizen with an eye for the ladies.

Things did not always go smoothly. There were constant adjustments to one another and compromises in parenting styles, particularly since Maddie was much more tolerant with Keith than Tanya was with Danika. In February Pop began a relationship with a much younger Ethel ( Tembi Locke) and later in the year Keith started dating Danika's arch nemesis, Lauren ( Ashleigh Ann Wood).

An Article from Variety

WB will treat Farr 'Like Family'
Thesp appears in two other pilots this season
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER

Thesp Diane Farr ("The Job") has joined the cast of the upcoming WB sitcom "Like Family," starring opposite Holly Robinson Peete.
Farr will play Maddie, a newly single, down-on-her-luck mother who winds up taking her 16-year-old son and moving in with the family of her best friend (Robinson Peete). Farr replaces Amy Yasbeck, who played the character in the show's pilot.

Farr is coming off a busy pilot season, having booked two projects and developed a third. The actress starred in NBC pilot "The Ripples," in which she and Adam Arkin played a couple that have been married for 4,000 years.

She also appeared in the CBS pilot "Harry's Girl," playing the best friend of Christine Taylor's character. She also developed a project for ABC, through Warner Bros. TV, based on her experiences growing up with a multi-ethnic crew in Brooklyn.

Beyond acting, Farr is also working on her second book. Farr previously authored "The Girl Code: The Secret Language of Single Women on Dating, Sex, Shopping And..."

Farr's varied resume includes her two seasons on "The Job" alongside Denis Leary; recurring roles on "Roswell" and "The Drew Carey Show"; and a two-year sidekick gig on MTV's "Loveline."

Farr, who's repped by WMA, Steven Fenton and Todd Rubenstein, has also served as a columnist for magazines including Cosmopolitan.

Beyond Robinson Peete and Farr, "Like Family" also stars Kevin Michael Richardson, J. Mack Slaughter, J. Anthony Brown, Megalyn Echikunwoke and B.J. Mitchell. Laffer comes from Warner Bros. TV.

A Review from The New York Times

TV WEEKEND; Playing Race For Laughs

By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN
Published: September 19, 2003

With colloquial racism deemed no longer noxious but rebellious and plain fun -- especially by comedy writers eager to forsake stale Seinfeldisms and show off their harsher material -- two sitcoms have cartwheeled into prime time to have a ball with race.

WB calls its effortful ''Like Family,'' which makes its debut tonight, a crossover comedy, suggesting there is a Jim Crow line running through television audiences that the network bravely plans to breach.

''Like Family'' passes time in a New Jersey bathroom, a windowless mauve affair the size of an urban kitchen, with two slammable doors that ensure heavy traffic. Enter a chipper white lady, primping; a tenderhearted black boy, cavorting; a white underachiever, complaining; a fat black man, ambling. This last guy has a newspaper. It seems he plans to stay, and that's one big gag.

As the underachiever, Keith (J. Mack Slaughter), puts it on the second episode, ''Good morning, my multigenerational, multiethnic family.''

This madcap race-mixing happens because Tanya (Holly Robinson Peete), who is black, has unaccountably agreed to put up her best girlfriend, Maddie (Diane Farr), and her son, Keith. The chipper Maddie is an implausibly juvenile single mother, in the ''Gilmore Girls'' tradition, while Tanya is tough and hot, the kind of woman about whom other women might say, ''I don't know how she does it.''

What Tanya does, as it surfaces, is set up jokes for her husband, Ed (Kevin Michael Richardson), the man with the newspaper; Bobby (B. J. Mitchell), her sweet son; and Pop (J. Anthony Brown), Ed's father. As an old black man on a sitcom, Pop can naturally be identified by his fedora, pocket square and cigar.

In the show's first episode, Ed doesn't want to take in Maddie and Keith, but Tanya begs.

''The boy needs a strong male influence,'' she says.

''Tell him to watch Dr. Phil,'' Ed replies, and it's clear that Maddie and Keith will be sent out, only to return to this house -- and its bathroom, where they'll become like family.

Good thing, because the show depends on Keith, catnip for the Teen People set: he's a looker with a gunky thatch of hair. Seemingly on loan from an all-white show, Keith is here to be hazed. Tanya's daughter, Danika (Megalyn Echikunwoke), nicknames him Poopy. Ed has him test-drive a toilet seat. Little Bobby, who bunks above him, seems poised to soak him in urine. That's what he gets for crossing over.

A Review From entertainyourbrain.com

"Like Family" Review

By Shawn McKenzie 10/03/2003

The WB really must be attempting to take ABC’s former TGIF crown, because they have a decent lineup on Friday nights. I already like “Reba” and “Grounded for Life,” and “All About the Andersons” isn’t too bad. Now we can round it out with “Like Family,” a great family sitcom for Friday nights.

Tanya (Holly Robinson Peete) and Ed Ward (Kevin Michael Richardson) are a middle-class African-American couple in suburban New Jersey. They have two kids, 16-year-old Danika (Megalyn Echikunwoke), and 10-year-old Bobby (B.J. Mitchell.) When Tanya’s best friend Maddie Hudson (Diane Farr), a hard-working white single mom who has recently gone through some hard times, needed a place to stay, they allow her and her 16-year-old son Keith (J. Mack Slaughter) stay with them. Maddie felt like her corporate job in New York City had kept her away from Keith for long hours, and he had begun to hang out with the wrong crowd (one of his friends was named Scuzzy.) She wanted him to grow up in a better neighborhood, and felt like Tanya’s neighborhood was perfect. She also thinks Keith needed the influence of a traditional family structure, and living with the Wards would provide that (after all, they are Keith’s Godparents.) Tanya had a successful career as a lawyer, but now she is taking a few years off to stay home with her kids. Ed runs his own landscaping business. Bobby likes Keith, and considers him “the older white brother he never had.” Danika’s relationship with Keith is complicated. Keith and Danika have known each other since they were babies, and it is a love/hate thing. They will fight with each other and pick on each other, but they still look out for one another. Their relationship is almost flirtatious (you almost think of Greg and Marcia together in A Very Brady Sequel.) Also living in the house with all of them is Ed’s father, Pop (J. Anthony Brown), a 74-year-old senior citizen who is still a ladies’ man and is never afraid to give his opinion.

In the first episode, Keith learns to adjust to living with the Wards. Maddie finds out about Keith’s plans to sneak out and hang out with his friends in their old neighborhood, but doesn’t have time to punish him. She leaves that responsibility to Tanya, who grounds him for the weekend. That night, Keith tries sneaking out through the bathroom window, but when Danika comes in and distracts him, he accidentally breaks the toilet seat. Ed loved that toilet, and he makes Keith go with him to buy a new toilet at Home Depot. Keith meets a girl named Alyssa (Ashleigh Ann Wood) there who he recognizes from school, but Ed embarrasses him in front of her. When they get home, Tanya furthers her punishment by making him do a bunch of chores. Keith finds out from Bobby that Danika is going out with a boy named Brad (Arjay Smith), even though Ed won’t let her date. Since she initially ratted him out, and distracted him during his bathroom sneak-out, Keith decides to invite Brad to the family barbeque to get her back. Initially, Ed is mad, but Brad charms him, and Keith’s revenge plan backfires. Later, Keith talks to Brad out on the patio about the Wards. He tells Keith that he is putting up with them so he can get it on with Danika. Keith defends her honor, and Ed, who overheard the whole conversation, scares Brad off. Keith makes up with both Danika and Ed.

In the second episode, Tanya lectures Ed about getting along with Keith. He agrees to make a room for Keith in the basement to have some privacy. Tanya then gets jealous of Maddie when she learns that Maddie gave Danika boy advice. Tanya didn’t know why Danika didn’t tell her about this boy. Maddie is also sharing clothes with Danika, which further infuriates Tanya. Maddie and Tanya have a big fight, which freaks out Ed and Keith, and they hide out in the basement. Ed makes them talk it out, which they finally do. Tanya talks to Danika and tells her that they can talk about anything.

In a future episode (which is scheduled to air October 10), Ed is feeling frustrated because he and Tanya haven’t had sex since the Hudsons moved in. Pop suggests that Ed clear the house so he and Tanya can have some alone time. Ed allows Keith to go on a trip with his friends to the shore, Danika to a rap concert, and Bobby to a sleepover with a friend. His attempt to shuffle them out the door proves harder than he thought.

This show is funny, mainly because of the ensemble cast. Everyone works together great, but there are two standouts. Richardson is a hulking man who is very expressive. I was reading his bio, and it looks like he has done mostly voice work (most recently as Thadeus in the “Final Flight of the Osiris” segment of The Animatrix.) He does have a booming voice, but his acting skills aren’t bad either. Everything that Brown says on this show is absolutely hilarious. I wish he had gotten his own show.

The show isn’t perfect. Bobby is a little annoying, but I have seen far worse. I also really want to see Pop get more screen time!

I think that ABC had better watch out for the WB in its attempt to re-launch TGIF this season. With shows such as “Like Family,” the Frog may just jump over the Alphabet on Friday nights.

For Holly Robison Peete's MySpace page go to http://www.myspace.com/hollyrobinsonpeete

For the Official Site of Kevin Michael Richardson go to http://www.kevinmichaelrichardson.com/