Cute. But then, lots of viewers agree, so is Martin Lawrence-the guy who plays the guy on “Martin,” the Fox Broadcasting sitcom that ran episode one of the stunt last week. Lawrence also works other turf. He’s a stand-up comic with one of the raunchiest acts around, riffing about “the man-woman thing” everywhere from Radio City Music Hall (he just finished five sold-out gigs) to Home Box Office (as host of HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam”). The other Lawrence, the sitcom star, is strictly Grated. Playing a talk-radio host with a macho mouth but a sweet heart, he’s given Fox its only hit new series this season and one of TV’s top shows among teens. No wonder he’s being hailed-perhaps all too inevitably-as a young Pryor, another Murphy, even the next Arsenio.
Heady stuff for someone who, just a few years ago, was playing a Greenwich Village park for handouts from passersby. But the former class cutup also tore up enough comedy clubs to score some movie parts: a wino-hassling home boy in “Do the Right Thing,” a signifying deejay in “House Party,” a rising comic in “Talkin’ Dirty After Dark” and Eddie Murphy’s randy buddy in “Boomerang.” Timing helped, too. Lawrence is riding the same wave that’s carried a slew of young African-American comedians to TV, including close friends Chris Rock (“Saturday Night Live”) and Tommy Davidson (“In Living Color”). Along the way, though, Lawrence took an implicit shot from Bill Cosby, who complained that shows like “Martin” reinforce the stereotype of young black men as oversexed buffoons. Counters Lawrence: “When I heard that, I thought: ‘Wow, Cosby, you ought to look at where you’d be if no one gave you a chance.’ He should be happy for the young talent. We’re not always going to put out the best message, but we put out what we know about.”
That, of course, hardly rebuts the Cos’s charge. Still, the message of “Martin”-and what probably accounts for its huge teen following-is engagingly unique. The show’s leading man poignantly struggles to be just that: the man. That sometimes works around Martin’s doofus corner cronies, but never with his girlfriend (Tisha Campbell), who’s smart enough to see through his macho bluster and loving enough to nail him for it: “You’re not in third grade anymore. You’re in a relationship.” In Lawrence’s words, “They’re a real young black couple.” What sitcom has ever shown us that? However Fox’s phone poll comes out, “Martin”-and Martin-are already winners.
