On this day in comedy on May 17, 2005 My Wife and Kids aired its last episode on ABC
This sitcom starred Damon Wayans and premiered on March 28, 2001. Wayans plays an old school dad in a new school world. So he resorts to being a smart aleck dad; teaching his kids lessons in life sometimes at their own expense. The modern world says you can’t whoop kids, but nothing said anything about everything else you can do to them. Hard lessons in the house of hard knocks.
Wayans goes through some tough lessons himself. In the final episode he wants to have sex with his wife (Tisha Campbell-Martin), but she doesn’t want to get pregnant again. So Wayans vows to get a vasectomy. He gets cold feet and tells her he got it anyway. When she finds out she is livid, so Wayans goes to get one for real. The kicker is he returns to find out she’s pregnant anyway.
Produced by Touchstone Television, My Wife and Kids was co-created by Wayans and Don Reo. The supporting cast included George O. Gore II as the only son; an underachieving son at that. The middle daughter was played by Jazz Raycole the first season and by Jennifer Freeman for seasons 2-5. The youngest daughter was played by Parker McKenna Posey. Noah Gray-Cabey had the role of Posey’s friend / boyfriend. Megan Goode played Gore’s girlfriend and Andrew McFarlane was boyfriend to Freeman. Recurring characters were Ella Joyce, Lester Speight, Liliana Mumy, DeRay Davis, Brian Holtzman, Todd Lynn, Katt Williams and Sean Whalen.
My Wife and Kids was a huge hit in syndication; broadcast in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, India, Israel, Ireland, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, The Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
The sitcom received numerous awards during its run. It won the ASCAP Award for Top TV Series; The BET Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Wayans) and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Campbell-Martin); Family Television Award for Best Comedy Series, People’s Choice Awards for Favorite Male (Wayans) and Favorite Comedy Series; a Prism Award for TV Comedy Series Episode and Young Artist Awards for Noah Gray-Caney and Jessica Sara for a guest starring role.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
Check out this clip:
