In “The Bernie Mac Show” — one of the best Fox TV shows of all time – late stand-up comic Bernie Mac was often looking straight into the camera, staring at his audience as he vented to “America” about his daily parenting struggles. But those iconic fourth-wall breaks weren’t inspired by the American TV shows you might suspect.
According to Entertainment Weekly‘s “‘I’m gonna kill one of them kids’: An oral history of ‘The Bernie Mac Show’ pilot,” series creator, Larry Wilmore, and director, Ken Kwapis, revealed that the foundational DNA of the comedy series actually came from the short-lived “1900 House.” The 1999 historical reality series — which aired on Channel 4 in the U.K. and on PBS in the U.S. — threw a modern-day British couple and their kids into a Victorian home to live exactly like it was the turn of the century: No electricity, no indoor plumbing, not even Snickers bars.
“I was watching this show called ‘1900 House,’ where they have cameras in the house and people had to act like it was 1900,” Wilmore told the outlet. “I thought it was fascinating. I wanted to do something different than the normal three-camera sitcom. I thought it might be interesting to do a show where it seemed like we were eavesdropping on the family rather than having the action pushed at us.”
Channel 4’s 1900 House had a major influence on The Bernie Mac Show’s style
After seeing Mac’s career-defining set in “The Original Kings of Comedy,” Wilmore realized that the comedian’s brand of raw family humor might be the key ingredient he needed for his experimental, single-camera vision. “I was really struck by Bernie’s attitude and his jokes,” he told the outlet. “I thought, ‘This would be an interesting story to put in this framework.'” He then pitched a story “about this guy whose sister is on drugs and he has to take care of her kids,” and Mac was totally onboard. According to Kwapis, the comedian — who went on the play one of the most influential Black characters of all time – wanted to veer away from the typical multi-camera format and “didn’t want to do anything that would basically replicate his stand-up act in front of a studio audience.”
Even though shows like “The Garry Shandling Show” and “Malcolm in the Middle” had broken the fourth wall before, “The Bernie Mac Show” went with an entirely different tone that was lifted straight from the British reality TV series. “The confessionals, that’s straight from ‘1900 House,'” Wilmore explained. Instead of casual banter, the characters on the British show were often stressed while adjusting to their 1900-era living situation, confessing to minor sins like eating a Snickers in secret. Wilmore wanted that same dynamic for Bernie. “Bernie had to confess something. ‘I’m gonna kill one of them kids!’ It was there so he could give us [a glimpse of] his emotional life and try to center himself,” Wilmore said.
