Posted by | Ray Cornelius
Last year, RC reported that the “Empress of Soul” Gladys Knight was starring in a new television project entitled The First Family. Well now 100 episodes of the sitcom have been acquired by BET from Entertainment Studios and will air this month on the Centric Network.
The First Family is about an African-American family (not to be confused with the Obamas) residing in the White House and starring Christopher P. Duncan as President William Johnson, Kellita Smith as First Lady Katherine Johnson, Knight as Johnson’s mother, Marla Gibbs as the First Lady’s mother, Paul Rodriguez as Dictator Rafael and Jackee Harry as the First Lady’s sister. The show will also be joined by Mr. Box Office, a comedy about the biggest movie star in the world who is sentenced to teaching English at the “toughest’ high school in America. This sitcom features Bill Bellamy as Mr. Box Office, Tim Meadows, Vivica A. Fox, former NBA star Rick Fox, Keisha Knight Pulliam, Jon Lovitz and Gary Busey.
According to Byron Allen, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Entertainment Studios, “This is an historic deal.”
“We have bypassed the broadcast networks to produce two original sitcoms with hundreds of episodes that feature prominent TV and film stars, and we couldn’t be happier to have BET Networks as our cable premiere partner.”
RC will keep you posted as trailers for the shows should be released soon.
