"Welcome to Oscar's Barbershop, named after my daddy who passed it on to me. It's been a part of Washington, DC a long time. This is me, Clifton Curtis, and lovin' every minute of it. And this is my little sister, Tracy, and her husband Leonard. This is my best friend, happy-go-lucky Earl. And this wonderful person? Well, that's my mama." - Clifton Curtis (Clifton Davis) in the "That's My Mama" opening credits
That's My Mama: The Complete First Season and The Complete Second Season DVD Review
By A.J. Carson
You've collected every season of Sanford and Son and What's Happening!! on DVD, and you're impatiently waiting to complete your Good Times and The Jeffersons collection. What now? Why not check out That's My Mama, a short-lived sitcom that came and went in the blink of an eye on ABC in the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons.
After a stint in the army, Clifton Curtis (Clifton Davis, Amen) returns to his hometown of Washington, DC to run Oscar's, the barbershop he inherited from his late father. The shop is attached to his childhood home, so Clifton lives and works under the watchful eye of his meddling mama, Eloise (Theresa Merritt). Clifton can barely make ends meet, but he doesn't mind. He's too busy working his way through all of Washington's single women with the help of his best friend, mail carrier Earl Chambers (Theodore Wilson). Mama, of course, wants him to settle down, much as Clifton's sister Tracy (Lynne Moody) had when she married conservative businessman Leonard Taylor (Lisle Wilson). Josh (DeForest Covan) and Wildcat (Jester Hairston, Amen) are a couple of old timers who have hung around the barbershop since his father's day, and Junior (Ted Lange, The Love Boat) is the neighborhood goofball who drops by occasionally to pass along the latest gossip.
With the success of Barbershop on the big and small screens, That's My Mama is a natural for DVD treatment. The focus here is on Clifton's home life, not the shop. The series' earliest episodes are surprisingly funny, finding fresh ways to present even the most familiar of plotlines. When Clifton starts dating an older woman in "Clifton's Sugar Mama," Earl teases that "an old lady's just like a used tube of toothpaste - it may look wrinkled, but if you squeeze it hard enough, there's always something else." In "Honesty Day," Clifton, Tracy, and Mama decide to spend 24 hours telling only the truth. Even little white lies to spare each others feelings are forbidden:
Clifton: How are you this morning?
Mama: My corns is hurtin', my bursitis is actin' up, my back is achin', and I'm sufferin' from irregularity.
Clifton: You're just supposed to say "fine," Mama.
Mama: Not on Honesty Day.
This episode is so tightly written that almost every line provokes a laugh.
As the season progresses, the series becomes less clever. Episodes like "The Hero," in which Clifton and the gang stage a fake funeral to fool a criminal, are eye-rollingly dumb. Even worse, Junior is given too much airtime. In early episodes, he dropped in every now and then to tell a joke about streaking or some other dated '70s activity. In the second half of the season, he bounds onto the set and bellows a hearty "Oooooooooh-whee!" with alarming regularity.
The second season features a new opening credit sequence in which Mama looks through her collection of family photos to the tune of a funky Lamont Dozier-penned theme song. This isn't the only change. Joan Pringle (The White Shadow) replaces Lynne Moody as Tracy. Earl quits his job at the Post Office and begins a new career as a barber at Oscar's. Josh and Wildcat find a new barbershop in which to hang out. 227's Helen Martin begins a recurring role as Mama's two-faced friend Laura. Strangest of all, jive talking weirdo Junior is now a college student (he marvels that the college pays him $400 a month just to sit around a classroom being black and proclaims that he's "getting good at it").
The series actually rallies in its second season. The episodes aren't as funny as those at the start of the first season, but they are far better than those at the end of that season. Still, this didn't prove to be enough to attract a wider audience - the series was cancelled in the middle of its second season.
Most of the episodes presented here have been edited for syndication.
The twenty-six episodes that make up the first season are divided onto three discs. Each disc is decorated with portraits of cast members - Mama and Clifton on disc one, Tracy and Junior on disc two, and Earl, Wildcat, and Josh on disc three. The discs are housed in two slim, clear keepcases. The first keepcase holds two discs. The front covers are decorated with cast photos. The back covers include episode titles and plot synopses. The double-sided coversheets show through to the insides of the cases. The interiors feature large production stills. The two keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which showcases the cast.
The thirteen episodes that make up the second season are divided onto two discs. Each disc is decorated with a production still. The discs are housed in two slim, clear keepcases. The front covers each feature a different publicity photo of Clifton and Mama. The back covers again include episode titles and plot synopses while the interiors feature large production stills. The two keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which showcases the cast.
The static menus are simple to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or pick an individual one. There are no scene selection menus, but the episodes are divided into chapters (including one immediately after the opening credits).
