‘Poppa’s House’ Review: Damon Wayans Sr. and Jr.’s Warm Familial Chemistry Boosts an Otherwise Slight CBS Sitcom

Back before social media became irrationally obsessed with nepo babies, we used to accept that comedy could be a family business to at least some degree, and that if your TV show or movie featured one person named “Wayans” in the cast, there were probably 10 or 15 other people with that last name working behind the scenes in various capacities.

If you were raised on In Living Color, watching the Wayans torch get passed from Keenan Ivory Wayans to siblings Damon, Kim, Shawn, Marlon and their additional brothers, sisters, children, aunts, uncles and cousins over three decades has been the source of much amusement and a fair amount of talent.

Though the Damons Wayans, Jr. and Sr., have played father and son before on ABC’s beloved Happy Endings, the new CBS sitcom Poppa’s House is their most extended starring vehicle in this capacity. The series also features Kim as director-producer, Dwayne as composer, Shawn as consulting producer and Michael as a staff writer. There will be no test on how anybody is related to anybody else.

Narratively flimsy but thoroughly proficient, the CBS multi-cam serves as a worthy-ish complement to its Monday night cohort The Neighborhood — reuniting New Girl‘s Schmidt and Coach in a single comedy block, if you desired such a thing. It’s a tribute to an interplay between the Damons that’s something more primal than chemistry, though you may find yourself wishing it had more to offer than, “Man, this cast looks like it’s having fun.”

Created by Senior and Kevin Hench, Poppa’s House features Senior as the titular Poppa, a beloved and venerable New York City radio host whose show has slipped to second in the ratings in part because of a “female problem.” The station’s solution? Pair Poppa, who’s either “old school” or “a dinosaur” depending on your generosity, with self-help guru Ivy (Essence Atkins), who wants to get Poppa in touch with his feelings. (What is the format of this radio station and what is the format of Poppa’s show and how old does this series think Ivy is? These are not questions you should be asking! He’s very successful and very rich.)

Living next door to Poppa in the suburbs is son Junior (Junior), an aspiring filmmaker married to event planner Nina (Tetona Jackson). The house is paid for by Nina’s dad (Geoffrey Owens), who also employs Junior when Junior isn’t skipping key meetings to go to sit-downs with advertising agencies and stuff. (What does the show think filmmakers do? Is it odd that Nina’s dad’s company is built entirely around foam rollers? How much does the show think the couple’s house costs? Does Nina make any money at all in her business? These are not questions you should be asking!)

At different points in the five episodes sent to critics, it’s suggested that Senior and Junior have a somewhat emotionally fraught relationship stemming from Poppa’s focus on his career, with the inference that Junior was largely raised by his mom (guest star Wendy Raquel Robinson, who appears in only one of the five but is so good that you can be sure she’ll return). So sometimes Poppa’s House wants to focus on different generational views on child-rearing, since Junior and Nina have a pair of cute moppets. But more frequently, it’s about the Damons Wayans attempting to crack each other up using the ample tools at their respective disposals.

The outtakes that end each installment of Poppa’s House leave the overall impression that it’s largely improvised, which may explain why there are certain fallback comic approaches and targets. When in doubt, Junior will resort to impressions and voices, while Senior will lean into his physicality and line-readings with offbeat emphasis on certain words. When all else fails, everybody makes fun of Jackson’s height. She’s very tiny! Or maybe the Wayans are tall? This tends to get repetitive, but it underlines the looseness of the approach. The warmth in this family comes from how they bust each other’s chops, how each character likes to make the other members of their family laugh even if they know they aren’t always being funny.

Even without those outtakes, you would sense that the Damons are constantly trying to make each other break. And you would appreciate how immediately Jackson and Atkins are able to get in on the act, making Nina more than just a wife disapproving of her childish hubby and Ivy more than just a touchy-feely wet blanket. Jackson is particularly amusing in her own right, and the show works much better when it leans into the playful affection and give-and-take between Nina and Junior.

The generally pervasive conviviality covers for more narrative sins than you might expect from such a relatively simple concept. Poppa’s House is still tinkering with its plot, trusting that if you’ve accepted the pleasures of watching the Wayans clan at work, you’ll wait patiently for the show to find itself on even the most basic levels.

The series begins as roughly 75 percent domestic sitcom and 25 percent workplace comedy at Poppa’s radio station. No matter how nice Poppa’s house might be, the structure is helpful for preventing claustrophobia from setting in. While the first episode begins with Poppa mocking Ivy’s podcasting background and the next two episodes half-heartedly introduce various radio station adversaries/co-workers, by the fourth episode Poppa and Ivy have transitioned to just doing a podcast.

This absolutely makes the show simpler — nobody seems to know or care how podcasts are made, so they can just record in Poppa’s living room — but also a bit more limited. The transition comes in an odd chapter that wants to use a mockumentary format, but without changing the style at all, and relies on alleged commentary on the stupidity of AI, despite nobody quite knowing what AI is or what it can do.

The fifth installment, in which Junior and Senior disagree about discipline and unearth family wounds, feels closest to an ongoing template for what I would guess Poppa’s House would like to be by the end of its first season. It features a lot of Damon Junior doing funny voices and accents, but it also has actual semi-dramatic beats and seems to be seeding a potential romance between Poppa and Ivy, both bitter divorcees, that is both unnecessary and inevitable. The theme of the episode — today’s parents don’t discipline their kids as harshly as parents used to, which is both good and bad — is pretty rote, but at least offers a point of view.

But is anybody really coming to Poppa’s House for a point of view? Probably not. The show’s draw is the rapport between various members of the Wayans clan — a tangible collaborative spirit that keeps Poppa’s House from ever feeling generic, however generic its trappings are on the page. It’s the family business, after all.