A few days after ABC announced their upcoming Uncle Buck pilot was being ordered to series, they’ve released the first trailer in time for the network upfronts. And you know what? Against many odds, this is a far funnier preview than I was ready for, and pilots are usually terrible examples of a show’s quality. Check out Mike Epps at his most untamed (for a network) below.
Sure, Epps is no John Candy, and this series is no John Hughes movie, but I’ll be damned if this iteration of Uncle Buck didn’t make me chuckle several times throughout the trailer. Epps is a total clown as Buck Russell, the man who can only keep jobs and girlfriends long enough to screw things up. His latest gig? Being trusted by his brother Will (James Lesure) and sister-in-law Cindy (Nia Long) to take care of their kids Miles (Sayeed Shahidi), Maizy (Aalyrah Caldwell) and Tia (Iman Benson) for the weekend. And how are they going to keep such a simple premise going for an entire season? Buck is going to become the kids’ “manny.” It’s an easy solution, so let’s just hope the situations that Buck gets into are as imaginative as possible.
The trailer gives us all the things we’d expect from a childless adult taking care of a set of young kids. They go to a bar and they have a party, complete with boozing and schmoozing. (The joke about it being a lame party because there’s only Altoids and donuts was spot on.) Buck drinks all the juice, he ruins a closet door, and he drives a car that needs to be started with a screwdriver. The only things missing here are basically him smoking and showing the kids how to use a gun, and I’m not sure either one of those things is going to make it to air at any point.
But getting drunk out of a glass shaped like a boot is totally on the table.
It seemed as if Uncle Buck might not get made for a little while, considering the estates of both John Hughes and John Candy weren’t into a second small screen version of the film going into production. (There was also a short-lived 1990 adaptation with Kevin Meaney.) But ABC was apparently more inclined to bring new fans in than pleasing old ones, and I’m inclined to think they’ll succeed with it.
Uncle Buck will hit ABC’s schedule at some point either in the fall or the midseason.
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