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The Tracy Morgan Show aired from December 2003 until March 2004 on NBC.

This Innocuous black family sitcom, patterned after My Wife and Kids, starred Saturday Night Live's Tracy Morgan as Tracy Mitchell, a devoted dad and small business owner who had recently moved his family from the projects to a middle-class apartment building. Loud, bumbling but well meaning, Tracy was married to sensible Alicia ( Tamala Jones) and had two kids, shy, studious Derrick( Marc John Jefferies) and little wiseguy Jimmy ( Bobb'e J. Thompson), who spouted smarty-pants lines like "How do I put this?" Older guy Spoon ( John Witherspoon) and hulking young Bernard ( Heavy D) were mechanics who worked at his auto repair business while Freddie ( Katt Williams) was a wiry little hustler who lived in the neighborhood.

The executive producers were Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner.

A Review from The New York Times

TELEVISION REVIEW; An 'S.N.L.' Veteran Samples Life on the Sitcom Side

By ANITA GATES
Published: December 2, 2003

Tracy Mitchell doesn't like hearing that his adolescent son is a little shy. ''To survive out there, you got to be strong, confident and relentless -- like them Jehovah Witnesses,'' Tracy (Tracy Morgan) tells his wife. ''They keep coming back, no matter how much bacon fat you throw at 'em.''

If you've seen Mr. Morgan before, it was probably on ''Saturday Night Live,'' impersonating Mike Tyson, Star Jones, Marion Barry, Maya Angelou or Mr. T. Or as the title character in sketches about ''Brian Fellow's Safari Planet,'' playing a television host who is slightly underschooled on his topic. ''The rain forest?'' Brian remarks to one guest. ''That sounds wet.''

Now Mr. Morgan, like many good comics before him, has been set down in a sitcom. On ''The Tracy Morgan Show,'' which has its premiere tonight at 8 on NBC, he has been assigned a fictional last name, a level-headed wife, two contrasting children, Early American breakfast chairs and an aggressive laugh track. All that can save him now are good writers.

The gentle racial and religious jokes are there (''Black people do not take children,'' Tracy says during a discussion of child abductions. ''We can't afford the ones we got.''), but Mr. Morgan's wonderful sense of the absurd is hard to use in this format. Even when it works, it seems somewhat out of place. Mr. Morgan plays clueless sublimely, but the spell is broken the minute his own natural intelligence comes into his eyes.

Sometimes, in the first two episodes, the humor is forced.

''Phobia -- isn't that the blond girl on 'Friends'?'' asks Freddie (Katt Williams), a friend who complains that Tracy is no longer the same guy he grew up with in the projects. (Tracy went to trade school for two years and now owns his own auto-repair business.)

Later, Tracy suggests that his 7-year-old son, Jimmy, take up the cello, rather than the flute, because ''what's the sense of being cultured if people can't see it?'' Little Jimmy (Bobb'e J. Thompson) says if that's what he's after, ''then why don't you strap me to a grand piano and roll me down the street?''

Jimmy is the boy seen, in television advertisements for the series, showing off his bare chest beneath a suit jacket and pronouncing himself ''dangerous.'' At times the knowing, smart-mouthed persona seems a little creepy. At other times it comes off as a harmless updated version of ''the irrepressible Ricky,'' as Rick Nelson was always introduced in the early years of ''The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.''

The older brother (Marc John Jefferies) and the mom (Tamala Jones) are voices of reason. One garage employee, Bernard, is played by the rapper Heavy D, but it's his co-worker Spoon (John Witherspoon) who adds the more interesting dimension. Spoon is the group's collective superego, expressing concern about the negative influence of video games and ridiculing Freddie for saying ''moneys.''

Tracy Mitchell is no Brian Fellow, a man blessed with almost total self-delusion, unaware that he is bluffing his way through life. Tracy Mitchell is competent, intelligent and cares about other people. Viewers can only hope that he'll get over that.

A Review from USA TODAY

'SNL' player ready for prime time
By Bill Keveney, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Taped. From L.A. It's Tuesday night.

It doesn't have the ring of the classic Saturday Night Live introduction, but SNL alum Tracy Morgan believes his new NBC series, The Tracy Morgan Show (Tuesday, 8 p.m. ET/PT), has its own cachet: prime time.

"I wanted to see what prime time was about. I want to do it all. I want to do TV, theater, movies," he says.

The comic, 35, plays New York garage owner and family man Tracy Mitchell, tapping into his own working-class upbringing in Brooklyn and the Bronx. In the show, Tracy has a wife, Alicia (Tamala Jones) and two sons (played by Marc John Jefferies and Bobb'e J. Thompson). In real life, he and wife Sabina have three boys.

"It's not exactly the Morgans, but the family part hits pretty close to home," Morgan says. Many stories come from his childhood ("Bed-Stuy, do or die," he blurts, referring to the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn). He credits lead writers David Israel and Jim O'Doherty with translating them into funny episodes. (Related item: Watch a clip from The Tracy Morgan Show)

Morgan, who spent seven years on SNL, has impressive producers on the series, including SNL chief Lorne Michaels and Carsey-Werner-Mandabach, the studio that came up with such family hits as The Cosby Show and Roseanne.

"We're talking about a family show from an authentic point of view," Tom Werner says. He doesn't completely shy from comparisons with Cosby: "If there are parallels, it's that both are talking honestly about parent and child and family stories."

Although Michaels has seen many SNL stars move on to film careers — Mike Myers (The Cat in the Hat), Will Ferrell (Elf) and Eddie Murphy (The Haunted Mansion) are competing at the box office — this is his first try at producing a scripted series.

Michaels says Morgan, besides his obvious humor, has a likability that's important for an actor seeking to be welcomed into people's homes each week.

"Tracy's really good, but he's also very warm. People like him and respond to him," Michaels says. Such popularity can buy time for a sitcom, which takes a few episodes to gel, he says.

Morgan delves into a topic most sitcoms avoid: race. In Thursday's show, Tracy's colleagues (played by John Witherspoon, Heavy D and Katt Williams) lament the lack of a classic black Christmas carol, despite African-American musical accomplishments.

"This show does talk about race. It does talk about the modern, working-class black experience," Werner says.

Morgan marks an unusual but good turn for NBC comedies, which have primarily featured upscale white characters, often centered in the workplace, Michaels says. The network has been broadening its offerings, with such series as Happy Family and Whoopi, the latter a Carsey-Werner-Mandabach show.

As a father, Morgan is happy that his series, unlike many comedies, will welcome families. But it won't be sitcom-sentimental, he says, and there will be flashes of outrageousness from an actor known for such SNL characters as dim-witted animal expert Brian Fellow and retro Astronaut Jones.

"Tracy Mitchell is outrageous, too. The difference now is he has a wife to bring him back," Morgan says.

Although Morgan is the main attraction, other characters get chances for laughs. Thompson, who plays 7-year-old Jimmy, gets some of the sharpest, funniest lines. Morgan disagrees when asked if they might be too sophisticated for a young child.

"Real kids nowadays say even crazier stuff," he says.

His own real kids are enjoying life in Los Angeles, where the New York native shoots his series.

"Yeah, they're chillin'," he says. "They're happy as long as Papa Bear is happy."

An Article from Entertainment Weekly
Published on December 5, 2003

The Family Guy
Ex-'SNL' wild man TRACY MORGAN as Father Knows Best? It's not as crazy as you'd think.
More

By Bruce Fretts

Tracy Morgan has just finished taping a scene on the L.A. set of his self-titled NBC sitcom in which his character, Bronx auto-shop owner Tracy Mitchell, has a heart-to-heart talk with one of his sons. Suddenly, his nostrils flare. ''What's that smell?'' Morgan asks the crew. ''Smells like...Emmy!''

Sounds like the ''Saturday Night Live'' vet is ready to be a prime-time player. Aside from ''NewsRadio'''s Phil Hartman and ''Just Shoot Me'''s David Spade, ''SNL hasn't had a ton of success with crossovers to sitcom stars,'' says executive producer David M. Israel (who cocreated ''Tracy'' along with fellow ''3rd Rock From the Sun'' alum Jim O'Doherty). ''But people are going to be surprised by Tracy's warmth and depth.'' NBC entertainment chief Jeff Zucker believes that Morgan can make the transition: ''Tracy was telling jokes and acting on SNL. There's no reason to believe he can't do the same thing in prime time.''

During his seven seasons on ''SNL,'' Morgan created several recurring characters, including homeless lady-killer Woodrow; the effeminate and combative ''Safari Planet'' host Brian Fellow; and the swinging, singing space explorer Astronaut Jones. Now he's asking audiences to accept him as a much tamer creature: a sitcom dad. ''The Tracy Morgan Show'' (debuting Dec. 2 at 8 p.m.) casts him in the Bernie Mac -- Damon Wayans mold as a crusty-yet-cuddly family guy with a levelheaded wife (''Booty Call'''s Tamala Jones) and two rambunctious boys (Marc John Jefferies and Bobb'e J. Thompson). ''I've played outrageous characters my whole career,'' says Morgan. ''People don't know this part of me.''

The role is hardly out of character for the 35-year-old comedian: Morgan and his wife, high school sweetheart Sabina, have three sons -- Tracy, 17; Malcolm, 16; and Gitrid, 12. ''This character is close to me,'' says Morgan. ''The only difference is in real life, it takes more than 22 minutes to solve problems.'' Morgan's domesticated lifestyle caught his costars off guard. ''It shocked the s -- - out of me,'' says rapper Heavy D (who plays a mechanic at Tracy's garage). ''You can't see Brian Fellow with kids.'' Echoes Jones: ''I thought maybe he'd be wild with the chicks out at the nightclubs, but that's not him.''

Morgan's flava hasn't always been so mild. Born in the Bronx, he grew up in a hard-knock Brooklyn housing project. ''I did some things I'm not proud of,'' admits the comedian. ''I tried my little hand at drug dealing, but that wasn't me.'' Says Israel: ''He could've wound up like a lot of other people -- in jail or dead. Comedy was his saving grace.'' Morgan's father, Jimmy (who died in 1987), was a musician, Vietnam veteran, and master of the put-down contests known as jonesing. Recalls Morgan: ''One day he sat me on his lap and made me jones on somebody, and that was my very first joke. It was something about somebody's mom. Dude's name was Boo-Boo -- God bless the dead.''

In his early 20s, Morgan started jonesing professionally, and later guest shots on ''Def Comedy Jam'' and ''Martin'' brought him to the attention of ''SNL'' guru Lorne Michaels, who's now one of Tracy's executive producers. ''I wouldn't do it without Lorne,'' says Morgan. ''He's my Obi-Wan Kenobi.'' After he joined the ''SNL'' cast in 1996, screen time was scarce (his first on-camera appearance was as a Caribbean magic man in a commercial parody), but Morgan eventually became one of the sketch show's MVPs. ''I learned how to be patient,'' he says. ''And when my shot came, I took full advantage of it.'' Just as Morgan had established himself as a go-to guy, however, he called it quits at the end of last season. ''I didn't want to stay too long,'' he says. ''I wanted to leave on top.''

Now Morgan faces the tough task of shoring up NBC's struggling Tuesday-night lineup, having bumped ''Whoopi'' out of the leadoff spot. With his series, Morgan wants to present a more working-class New York City than ''The Cosby Show'' did. ''We're not quite the Huxtables -- we're a little to the left,'' he says of the Mitchells. ''We're from the streets. There's love and affection in the hood, and we're going to show that.'' While Tracy Mitchell might not boast as much street cred as Woodrow, he's not Ward Cleaver, either. ''We're going to keep our edge,'' he promises. ''Ain't nothing sappy about Tracy Morgan.''

A Review from entertainyourbrain.com

"The Tracy Morgan Show" Review

By Shawn McKenzie 01/21/2004

Tracy Morgan was one of my least favorite alumni from �Saturday Night Live.� I don�t know if it was him or if it was the horrible sketches written for him, but I didn�t exactly miss him when he left. I thought his biggest sketch, �Brian Fellows Safari Planet,� was incredibly lame. On the flip side, when he would make an appearance in a movie, like as Pumpkin Escobar in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, he was funny. I didn�t know how I was going to take his new NBC sitcom, �The Tracy Morgan Show,� but now that I�ve seen it, I�m still blaming the writing.

Tracy Mitchell (Morgan) is a father, husband, and small business owner of an auto garage. He lives with his wife Alicia (Tamala Jones) in a modest apartment with their two kids, shy 12 year-old Derrick (Marc John Jefferies) and definitely-not-shy 7 year-old Jimmy (Bobb�e J. Thompson.) At work at his auto garage, Tracy is the boss of mechanics Spoon (John Witherspoon) and Bernard (Heavy D.) Spoon constantly tries to give his odd advice while Bernard is the levelheaded one. Freddie (Katt Williams) is an old neighborhood friend of Tracy who hangs around the garage all the time and has different philosophies that mostly make no sense. He always talks Spoon and Bernard into coming up with the �black� version of things, like Christmas carols or cookies. Tracy is a good family man, but each week he has his share of sitcomy family problems.

In the first episode, Tracy and Alicia find out through a parent-teacher conference that Derrick is doing well academically, but not socially. Tracy discovers that he likes a girl named Simone (Stevanna) and wants to help him woo her, but when he sees the girl, he sees that she is out of Derrick�s league.

In the second episode, Tracy reveals that he has a phobia of doctors after Jimmy freaks out at the doctor�s office himself. Spoon and Bernard try to help Tracy out with their own phobias, but Tracy still makes excuses not to go. He finally goes in the end.

In the third episode, Tracy tries to get a store Santa (Peter Allen Vogt) to teach Jimmy a lesson about lying when he discovers that the boy had destroyed his Planet of the Apes DVD box and covered it up. He ends up punching Santa after the guy doesn�t cooperate with him. Later, Jimmy admits to the destruction, and he had been saving up to replace the DVD�s with his own money. Meanwhile, Jimmie has Spoon and Bernard help him write a black Christmas carol.

In the fourth episode, Tracy wants to take Alicia out to dinner for their fifteenth wedding anniversary so he can give her a better engagement ring than the one he had originally given her, but they can�t find a babysitter. They decide to trust Derrick to watch Jimmy, but it backfires when they won�t let Tracy into the house to get the ring he had forgotten to bring with him (they think it is a test about not letting anyone in the door like their father had told them to not do.)

In the fifth episode, Derrick shoplifts in order to seem cooler at school. Tracy tries to help him look cool in other less criminal ways.

In the sixth episode, Tracy gets upset that the basketball coach isn�t giving Derrick enough time on the court and manages to take over as coach. He soon finds out that Derrick doesn�t even want to play. Meanwhile, Jimmy is becoming frustrated trying to find his own style, resorting in super gluing one of his mom�s jewels to his tooth to look cool.

In the seventh episode, Jimmy is suddenly interested in going to church, so Tracy uses the time there to drum up business for the garage. He offers the Pastor (Don �D.C.� Curry) free repairs, which backfires when the Pastor has the garage fix his whole family�s cars. Meanwhile, in attempt to show up a rival mother (Keesha Sharp), Alicia pushes Derrick to try out for a solo in the church choir. Tracy holds back one of the Pastor�s cars so Derrick will get the solo, but after the rival mother�s son is discovered to be great, Jimmy saves Derrick�s neck.

In the eighth episode, Tracy tries to teach the boys the value of money after they break their video game and demand a new one. This leads them to think that they are poor, especially since Alicia has gone back to work. She just wants to interact with adults again, but when her co-workers start acting childish, she quits.

I read that Tracy wanted this show to be the old-fashioned type family sitcom, and he points to �Good Times� as his inspiration. In my opinion, it is similar, but only because they are both shows that have occasional individual funny performances, but aren�t overall funny.

Tracy makes a surprisingly good sitcom dad, but I don�t think this show is edgy enough for him. I don�t know if I think he�d be better in a show like �Everybody Loves Raymond,� where the kids are barely seen, or a show like �The Bernie Mac Show,� where he doesn�t act like the typical sitcom dad. This show is executive-produced by the same people who did �The Cosby Show,� so you would think that it would be better. That show played on the strengths of Cosby�s own brand of comedy, so if they are doing that for Tracy, maybe he is the problem. I will admit that I have never seen Tracy do stand-up before, so I don�t know if he is funny doing material written by himself.

Aside from Tracy, the supporting cast has varying degrees of effectiveness. I think Heavy D�s best role was as Bob Lick on �Boston Public,� but he left that show to do this one unfortunately. Witherspoon does his usual shtick from the Friday movies, only severely toned down, but still funny. Williams steals the very brief scenes he is in on the show. Jones has been written very generically as a sitcom wife, but she is effective. Jefferies doesn�t really stand out, but newcomer Thompson does, almost too much. They have written Jimmy to be a little too old and brash for his age. It comes off as creepy more often than funny.

It looks like �The Tracy Morgan Show� has become a minor hit for NBC, so I don�t see it going away soon. If that is true, I can only hope that the show can gel into something a little funnier. If not, I�d really like to see Tracy get a leading role in a movie, so I can determine once-and-for-all if he is as funny as I think he could be with the right writing.

1/2

For more on The Tracy Morgan Show go to http://www.popmatters.com/tv/reviews/t/tracy-morgan-show.shtml

For a Website dedicated to Tracy Morgan go to http://www.tracymorgan.net/

For more on The Tracy Morgan Show go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tracy_Morgan_Show