The Jamie Foxx Show: The Complete First Season

Jamie Foxx's recent Oscar win for his terrific performance in Ray is sure to bring in a wider audience for his earlier sitcom...and that's too bad, because even small doses of The Jamie Foxx Show are enough to spoil the memory of his more recent and far superior work in feature films. An embarrassing carnival the likes of which should have gone out with button shoes, these 22 episodes--the entire 1996-97 debut season--feature horrendous overacting, corny mugging for the camera, and humor that verges on the vaudevillian. Foxx plays Jamie King, a none-too-bright would-be actor who works at his aunt and uncle's (Ellia English and Garrett Morris) Hollywood hotel, where his job seems to consist of pulling off bad imitations of everyone from Michael Jackson to Hannibal Lecter, while also assaulting the female employees and guests with crude sexual innuendo (though it's really way too obvious to be deemed "innuendo"). Jamie's idiocy and lascivious behavior make him the hero, while the butt of much of the show's ridicule is the hotel's accountant (Christopher B. Duncan), an educated man who apparently "acts white." The only DVD extra is a gag reel. Optional. (M. Johanson)