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Everybody Hates Chris

Written by sdettorre

Everyone at some point in his or her life goes through an awkward developmental stage where you are unsure about everything in your life. Your voice cracks when the gym teacher is taking role, you are thoroughly embarrassed by everything your parents do, suddenly when you let your arms hang freely it looks like you have a troll in a headlock, and the girl who lived down the street from you goes from cootie-filled to filling out a sweater. This awkward time is known as puberty/junior high and there have been a number of TV shows centered around coming of age kids, most notably The Wonder Years of the late 80s-early 90s. UPN realized it’s been much too long since a good adolescent comedy was on the air and green-lighted Everybody Hates Chris.

Everybody Hates Chris is a mirror-image of The Wonder Years in a few ways. The Rocks, much like the Arnolds, are a family of five who live in NY state. Both fathers (Jack and Julius) work extremely hard to provide for their families. Both main characters have nerdy friends who cling to them (Paul and Greg). Both main characters (Chris and Kevin) also have crushes on girls that live down the street from them (Winnie Cooper and Keisha). Finally, actors who starred in movies alongside Joe Pesci narrate both shows (Daniel Stern in Home Alone and Chris Rock in Lethal Weapon 4). There are differences between the shows though. Chris is the oldest Rock whereas Kevin was the youngest Arnold. While Wayne was a bully who constantly picked on his younger brother, Chris is a shy kid whose crushes kiss his younger brother. Finally, Chris’s mom week after week delivers the best lines on the show while Norma Arnold didn’t make me laugh once in the entire span of the show.

The reason why shows like The Wonder Years and Everybody Hates Chris are successful is everyone has experienced the awkwardness that Chris Rock and Kevin Arnold live through on screen. Those kids who don’t go through these awkward stages of adolescence and make a smooth transition from 10 years old to 16 piqued in high school and still talk about the time in 9th grade when they made a great catch in gym class or the time they lapped you in the 12 minute run. So readers, even I, your trusted TV critic, went through a horribly awkward stage encompassing all of junior high and a few years in high school. To show why Everybody Hates Chris could be called Everybody Hates (insert name here), I’ll share a little of my past to parallel the show’s episodes.

Chris in a new school
While I never changed schools when I went from elementary school to junior high I was thrown in with four other elementary schools into one big “melting pot”. Unlike the melting pot of early America, I bet immigrants didn’t get made fun of for wearing a Def Leppard t-shirt when they weighed 80 lbs. Pour Some Sugar On Me was more like What a Dork Is He.

Chris having a crush
Chris has a crush on a girl named Keisha. She lives down the street from him and is the eye of many kids in the neighborhood. She is nice to him and Tara Reid’s drinking problem is less obvious than Chris’s crush on her. I too had a crush in junior high on a brunette Greek girl who was in a class across the hall from me. I tried my best to win her affection but it wasn’t meant to be. I think she went steady with everyone in the class except for me that year. I guess 80 lb. kids who had gold-framed glasses and a hairline that made Eddie Munster look like he was receding weren’t her bag. I did get her to sign my yearbook though, which was a monumental achievement for a shy kid like I was (this was before the witty personality and sharp sarcastic sense of humor revealed itself to be the enticement that it is to the fairer sex).

Chris’s younger brother hurting him
Now my younger brother never kissed a girl I had a crush on, or if he did I never walked in on them like Chris did in a recent episode where he caught Drew kissing Keisha. However, through my brother’s inconsideration, I did get hurt a few times-never emotionally, only physically. One incident that comes to mind is when we were in our backyard playing catch with a babysitter. He was standing directly in front of me and the baby-sitter threw a laser to us. He had his glove up and I assumed he had the ball. I learned two things shortly thereafter. 1-never assume, it makes an ass out of you and me and 2-use better judgment in a 7 year old’s ability to catch a baseball when you’re standing behind him. To make a long story a little less longer, he moved his glove and I got beaned in the face resulting in a black-eye. You’d think a house fell on me the way I reacted. In my defense I was about 8-9 years old and just got drilled in the face by a baseball. 20 years later I might react the same way. On a good note, I did get to wear sunglasses at all times until it healed. So I could wear my sunglasses at night and fulfill Corey Hart’s plea to a nation.

Chris getting picked on by a bully
While I never got beat up by a bully I did get picked on a few times (in case you’re wondering, I could have easily been beaten up but I imagine the threat of detention or me simply not being much of a challenge pugilistically deterred them). Chris got picked on for being the new kid. He had his lunch money stolen but one day he stood up to the bully and ended up getting the kid in trouble and a quasi-restraining order enforced on him.

Everybody Hates Chris is a funny show that not only makes you laugh because Chris Rock is narrating and his delivery is one in which if he were reading a calculus textbook I would laugh, but also because as I’ve pointed out in this column, you can relate to the show on a personal level. This isn’t the case with every show on TV. While I like The OC, I’ve never punched out a water polo player or slept with my ex-girlfriend’s mom. Similarly, while I never miss Curb Your Enthusiasm, my parents haven’t told me I’m adopted and I haven’t created or written a hit TV show…Yet.

Email me your comments at tvdinner90210@yahoo.com.