That's My Mama

The ensemble work in this show, and the scripts are pretty incredible, the laughs constantly surprising. The sets are roomy and the lines are shouted. There's lots of physicality, lots of high energy, lots of brilliant punchlines set up and tossed about, lots of screaming and laughing from the audience, and lots of skill. Most of what works well here is driven by character, and there is no weak link. You will laugh out loud a lot at unique outrageous humor drawn from guns, marital problems, car accidents, religion, loan sharks, a dead body, broken ankle. Ted Lange always has a choreographed entrance and struts all over. Theodore Wilson is comic perfection. Theresa Merritt has fantastic timing, she was very strong in the role of Mama. Lynne Moody is awesome as always. Clifton Davis is a hottie, etc. There's literally nothing wrong with this show.

Clifton Davis coped quite well as the straight man son in this all-black comedy show. He was let down by Theresa Merritt, who was always weak in the title role of Mama. Ted Lange provided some comic relief as Junior, but he did not really start to shine until he joined the crew of the Love Boat.

I don't believe this show was ever rerun, so these recollections are a quarter century old.

This show was so crazy back in the day! Theresa Merritt was so funny. And Theodore Wilson was almost as funny as he was playing "Sweet Daddy" on Good Times. Clifton Davis and Jester Hairston were on this show together way before they were Amen together. And it was so cool to see Ted Lange playing Junior. Every episode, Junior would say "Oooooooooooooooooooooo! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" I didn't like the fact that they had two different guys playing the role of Clifton Davis' brother in law in the show. I used to look forward to watching this show every evening when I was in the 4th grade. This was another great black sitcom that they stopped showing reruns of.

I have (4) episodes of this sitcom on tape but would like to communicate with others that may have some of these extremely hard to find episodes on tape. Episodes of another black sitcom from the 1970's was just recently put on DVD. Maybe someone in the film vault, will someday, pull out some of these episodes for syndication or DVD.

I didn't have the pleasure of seeing this series on television or in syndication. By getting the two seasons on DVD, I was entertained by this lighthearted series. I knew Clifton Davis and Jester Hairston from the eighties sitcom, "Amen." Theresa Merritt who plays Mama Eloise Curtis as a warm loving mother to her adult children, Clifton (played by Clifton Davis) and Tracy (played well first by Lynne Moody and just as well with Joan Pringles in the second season. I will never understand why the network canceled the series. It was mostly because of poor ratings but they aired their last episode on Christmas Eve. Ted Lange (Isaac from the Love Boat) tried to bring it back in syndication in the eighties but not enough stations signed on. I felt this series had plenty of potential. The casting was brilliant but the writing could have been better. Still a barbershop in Washington DC with a terrific cast.