While Chris Rock’s sitcom Everybody Hates Chris didn’t enter pop culture with the same impact as family comedies like Full House or Family Matters, for a mid-2000s sitcom on the now-defunct UPN it was still a relative success, running four full seasons before successfully entering the weakening-even-then syndication market.
And certainly, a series one of whose episodes followed two preteens going to Manhattan to try to get into a Fat Boys concert might not strike a chord with all audiences, but creators Rock and Ali Leroi crafted a Wonder Years-like sitcom that launched former NFL player Terry Crews into small screen stardom. So it’s no surprise that Viacom, desperate for fresh content to fill space on their streaming service Paramount Plus as well as their over-the-air cable network Comedy Central, would reach for a celebrity like Chris Rock.
While the Everybody Still Hates Chris animated reboot has been in development with Viacom for a while, Chris Rock’s reentry into the news cycle thanks to “The Slap” seems to have given the series production some wings. Certainly, the idea of Chris getting humiliated in front of everyone by a popular kid at an awards ceremony seems to be a plotline that could have fit into the Everybody Hates Chris series. In the show, Rock narrates the adventures of himself as a teenager growing up in a lower-middle class family in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn in the 1980s.
According to an article in Deadline, Everybody Still Hates Chris will join the South Park animated specials and the Beavis & Butthead sequel series, as well as the spin-off series Daria’s spinoff movie Jodie!, in the Paramount Plus cartoon comedy queue, as a co-production with CBS Studios and Rock’s managers at 3 Arts Entertainment.
In a statement, Chris McCarthy, the president and CEO of Paramount Media Networks and MTV Entertainment Studios, said,
“Chris Rock is one of the most gifted comedians of all time and we’re excited to partner with him, 3 Arts and CBS Studios to bring this to life and welcome it as the next big hit in our expanding arsenal of iconic adult animation that includes smash series such as South Park and the new Beavis and Butt-Head.”
Sadly, there’s still been no word on a possible Homeboys in Outer Space revival, but we can dream.
Meanwhile, all four seasons of the original Everybody Hates Chris is currently available to stream on Hulu.