Out of six votes, four voted in favor of this one. Maybe I'll cover the other if I ever feel the need to do a review and happen to be stuck.
Background
I, and possibly many people, first heard of this show through a fleeting reference on Clerks: The Animated Series. I thought it was just a joke, so when I decided to look it up to see if I could find a standalone video, lo and behold, it wasn't a joke. This was an actual show. And it sucked.
While the other show, Homeboys in Space, can be considered an incredibly lowbrow comedy show, this one was special, in that it was an incredibly lowbrow show set during the era of slavery. Promotions of the show led to protests from African American activism groups, but the show continued on, albeit with them airing a later episode (and you wouldn't be missing much from that, it's is about telegraph sex. Ever wanted to see a Family Guy joke extended to a half hour episode?)
The show was spearheaded by Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan, who also produced it. Fanaro worked as a producer on shows like The Golden Girls and wouldn't you know? After this show bombed he never produced anything else. Fanaro is better known for writing, having also written for The Golden Girls and Benson, but aside from the Witt/Thomas catalog, he was a writer on the film Kingpin and wrote the screenplay for Men in Black II and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Nathan had also worked on Kingpin and The Golden Girls and I imagine this is how the two met. Nathan isn't active on the producing front either, go figure, and the latest thing he has done was direct an episode of Big Time Rush, which for the record is a guilty pleasure.
But, you wanna know who directed every episode that aired? You won't believe it. Matthew Diamond. The exact same Matthew Diamond who directed the age all classic, Oogieloves and the Big Balloon Adventure. For a film so heinous, I can't help but bring it up.
With protests and ensuing negative reviews, this show didn't last long at all. As far as I know this is UPN's shortest-lived show that didn't get revived by another network. The others had lasted for at least six episodes. Of the ones that got summarized, it's your average sitcom bile, there's a good reason why sitcoms have a greater chance of getting lost than shows of any other genre.
The Sting
The show centers on the titular Pfeiffer (the P isn't silent, hold your laughter), a British nobleman turned butler who left the UK due to gambling debts, and now serves Abraham Lincoln. He's the smartest one on the show, but is it a commendable thing when everyone else is mindless? And drunk?
Among those assfucked in this show are Abe Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. Guess this show was considered especially heinous since they poked fun at a figure that helped to end slavery.
The stars who appeared in this are Chi McBride, pre-Boston Legal, but I know him from Killer Instinct, a short-lived Fox show that I remember for some reason. Dann Florek stars as Abe Lincoln, and Florek is better known for appearing in Law and Order, with Special Victims Unit going into his last notable year along with a one episode stint in Under the Dome. Christine Estabrook played Mary Todd Lincoln, and she had and has an extensive filmography. Did you know that she once played J. Jonah Jameson's wife in Spider-Man 2?
There's no overarching story here by the way, this is presented as separate entries in the titular character's found diary pages. Code for generic sitcom. What can I do now? Well, let's see how they get the humor down.
The episode I saw began with an contextual crawl. The most comedy I got out of that was an acknowledgement of how anyone could make something humorous out of it. Personally, I liked the gambling node at the end. While they clearly show Desmond with playing cards in hand, at least they didn't spell out that he lost a hand to the queen of England. Now he just wants to make some cash to pay off his gambling debts.
The highpoint to this is some decent timing from McBride. He made this just a tad more bearable to sit through. But his servant, yeah forgot to bring up that McBride has a manservant who's a retard, and this isn't carried out in a clever way. He hits every stop, can't count, can't remember much, even the one-liners don't do so well. Hell, most jokes that work on a surface level are ruined through needless dragging.
Mary Todd Lincoln, while interesting in regards to what happened during her widowhood, is reduced to a pseudo-harpy in this. As for Abe Lincoln, I'm more annoyed over the fact that we have an idea on how Lincoln actually sounded, a very squeaky voice. This could've been easily exploited, but then again, this discovery probably wasn't made yet. Then there's Grant, oh gee, one of his biggest strikes is his supposed alcoholism, I wonder if they're gonna incorporate this into his character, I wonder I wonder I wonder- you tell me!
When the Simpsons did a Grant joke they handled it with class and subversion, when Family Guy did it, it occurred during a Civil War reenactment headlined by the deep south. The first thing I asked when I saw the first Grant scene was... did they have round card girls during the Civil War era?
This is that telegraph episode I brought up early on. What's meant to be a high point where Desmond recites what's sent through a telegraph and his manservant believes he's talking to him gets old when you realize it's the same framework. Right when Abe gets into some foot fetish discussion, that's when I decided to give up. I had enough.
The episode I saw began with an contextual crawl. The most comedy I got out of that was an acknowledgement of how anyone could make something humorous out of it. Personally, I liked the gambling node at the end. While they clearly show Desmond with playing cards in hand, at least they didn't spell out that he lost a hand to the queen of England. Now he just wants to make some cash to pay off his gambling debts.
The highpoint to this is some decent timing from McBride. He made this just a tad more bearable to sit through. But his servant, yeah forgot to bring up that McBride has a manservant who's a retard, and this isn't carried out in a clever way. He hits every stop, can't count, can't remember much, even the one-liners don't do so well. Hell, most jokes that work on a surface level are ruined through needless dragging.
Mary Todd Lincoln, while interesting in regards to what happened during her widowhood, is reduced to a pseudo-harpy in this. As for Abe Lincoln, I'm more annoyed over the fact that we have an idea on how Lincoln actually sounded, a very squeaky voice. This could've been easily exploited, but then again, this discovery probably wasn't made yet. Then there's Grant, oh gee, one of his biggest strikes is his supposed alcoholism, I wonder if they're gonna incorporate this into his character, I wonder I wonder I wonder- you tell me!
When the Simpsons did a Grant joke they handled it with class and subversion, when Family Guy did it, it occurred during a Civil War reenactment headlined by the deep south. The first thing I asked when I saw the first Grant scene was... did they have round card girls during the Civil War era?
This is that telegraph episode I brought up early on. What's meant to be a high point where Desmond recites what's sent through a telegraph and his manservant believes he's talking to him gets old when you realize it's the same framework. Right when Abe gets into some foot fetish discussion, that's when I decided to give up. I had enough.
Overall
The problem with this show isn't that it's offensive, at least for me, the problem with this show is that it isn't funny. While McBride is the high-point of this with whatever good delivery he has, that doesn't save an otherwise predictable mockery of the Civil War era. No nuance, no creativity, no statements, zip. I brought up how I sat through two episodes of Emeril, but then again I just wanted to see what gave with that. Perhaps that was better than this show, Emeril lasted for seven episodes, and people agreed the show got better as it went on.
With this show, I imagine we would've got more of the same had it continued. If you ask me, I'd rather watch Shasta McNasty. That was another UPN sitcom few people liked, but that one was more interesting by default. Here's a bit of irony, that show had Jake Busey and this one had Chi McBride. Both actors worked together on The Frighteners, interesting fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pIppBMaFik&t=384s
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