''White Famous'' is an American sitcom starring

Jay Pharoah Jared Antonio Farrow (born October 14, 1987), better known by his stage name Jay Pharoah, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, and impressionist. Pharoah was a cast member on NBC's sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' from 2010 to 201 ...

, based on the life of

Jamie Foxx Eric Marlon Bishop (born December 13, 1967), known professionally as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, comedian, and singer. He became widely known for his portrayal of Ray Charles in the 2004 biographical film '' Ray'', for which he won the ...

, which aired on

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

from October 15, 2017 until December 10, 2017. It is co-created by

Tom Kapinos Tom Kapinos is an American television writer and screenwriter best known for his creation of the Showtime series '' Californication'' and the Fox series ''Lucifer''. Early life Kapinos attended Island Trees School District on Long Island, New ...

, Chris Spencer and

Buddy Lewis John Kelly Lewis (August 10, 1916 – February 18, 2011), better known as Buddy Lewis, was a third baseman/right fielder in Major League Baseball who played his entire career with the Washington Senators (1935–41, 1945–47, 1949). Lewis ...

, directed by

Tim Story Timothy Kevin Story (born March 13, 1970) is an African American film director. He is best known for '' Barbershop'' (2002), the '' Fantastic Four'' (2005) and the ''Ride Along'' franchise. He has been nominated for two NAACP Image Awards for O ...

and Foxx, who will also be a recurring guest star. On December 29, 2017, the series was canceled after one season.

Premise

''White Famous'' follows a talented, young African-American comedian, Floyd Mooney, whose star is rising, forcing him to navigate the treacherous waters of maintaining his credibility as he begins to cross-over toward becoming “'white famous.'” The series is set in the same universe as Kapinos's previous show, ''

Californication Californication may refer to: *Californication (word) ''Californication'' is a portmanteau of California and fornication, appearing in ''Time'' on May 6, 1966 and written about on August 21, 1972, additionally seen on bumper stickers in the U.S. ...

'', and features some secondary characters from that series.

Cast and characters

as Floyd Mooney *

Utkarsh Ambudkar Utkarsh Ambudkar ( ; born December 8, 1983), also known by his stage name UTK the INC, is an American actor, rapper, and singer. He is known for his film roles including '' Pitch Perfect'' (2012), ''Game Over, Man!'' (2018), ''Blindspotting'' (20 ...

as Malcolm *

Cleopatra Coleman Cleopatra Coleman (born 29 October 1987) is an Australian actress. She is known for playing Erica on the American comedy series '' The Last Man on Earth'' and Rya in the Netflix original sci-fi thriller '' In the Shadow of the Moon''. Early l ...

as Sadie Lewis * Jacob Ming-Trent as Ron Balls *

Lonnie Chavis Lonnie Chavis, Jr. (born November 23, 2007) is an American actor and activist. He is known for playing young Randall Pearson on NBC's drama, ''This Is Us''. Chavis has been nominated for several awards and shared the win for the Screen Actors Gui ...

as Trevor Mooney *

Meagan Good Meagan Monique Good is an American actress. She first gained critical attention for her role in the film ''Eve's Bayou'' (1997), prior to landing the role of Nina in the Nickelodeon sitcom ''Cousin Skeeter'' (1998–2001). Good received further ...

as Kali *

Stephen Tobolowsky Stephen Harold Tobolowsky (born May 30, 1951) is an American character actor. He is known for film roles such as insurance agent Ned Ryerson in ''Groundhog Day'' and amnesiac Sammy Jankis in '' Memento'', as well as such television characters as ...

as Stu Beggs *

Natalie Zea Natalie Zea (born March 17, 1975) is an American actress known for her performances on television. Zea began her acting career in theatre. Her first major role was on the NBC daytime soap opera ''Passions'' (2000–2002), where she played the ro ...

as Amy Von Getz *

Michael Rapaport Michael David Rapaport (born March 20, 1970) is an American actor and comedian. Beginning his career in the early 1990s, he has made over 100 appearances in film and television. His film roles include ''True Romance'' (1993), '' Higher Learning ...

as Teddy Snow *

Jack Davenport Jack Arthur Davenport (born 1 March 1973) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the television series '' This Life'' and ''Coupling'', and as James Norrington in the ''Pirates of the Caribbean'' series. He has also appeared ...

as Peter King *

Lyndon Smith Lyndon Smith (born June 7, 1989) is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Natalie in the NBC drama '' Parenthood'' (2013–2015) and Dierdre in the TNT police drama ''Public Morals'' (2015). Life Smith is from Pensacola, Florida ...

as Gwen *

as himself

Episodes

Reception

The first season of ''White Famous'' was met with a mixed to negative response from critics. On the review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, as of January 2018, the first season held a 58% approval rating with an average rating of 5.64 out of 10 based on 26 reviews.

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 54 out of 100 based on 20 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

* * {{Showtime Network programming 2010s American black sitcoms 2010s American single-camera sitcoms 2017 American television series debuts 2017 American television series endings Showtime (TV network) original programming English-language television shows Television shows set in Los Angeles Television series by Lionsgate Television