Everybody Hates Chris

In this episode of How It Started, How It Ended, Angela and Bobby revisit the pilot and series finale of Everybody Hates Chris, the semi-autobiographical sitcom inspired by the early life of Chris Rock.

Before diving into the episodes, they look back at Chris Rock's rise from stand-up comedy and Saturday Night Live to films, HBO specials, and eventually one of television's most beloved family sitcoms. They also reflect on why they somehow missed the series during its original run—even though, after watching the pilot and finale, both realize it was exactly the kind of show they would have loved.

The conversation explores the show's authentic portrayal of family life, growing up Black in the early 1980s, attending predominantly white schools, and the emotional weight carried by Chris as he tries to find where he belongs. Angela shares how much of Chris's experience resonated with her own childhood, while Bobby highlights the show's humor, memorable narration, and surprising cinematic influences.

When they reach the finale, they discuss how remarkably consistent the series remained over five seasons, the show's homage to The Sopranos, and whether its famously ambiguous ending delivers a satisfying conclusion.

Verdict: They both agree that Everybody Hates Chris sticks the landing.

In this episode:

• Chris Rock's career before Everybody Hates Chris
• Why Angela and Bobby never watched the series during its original run
• How the pilot establishes Chris's struggle to fit in at school and at home
• Terry Crews and Tichina Arnold's memorable performances as Chris's parents
• The show's realistic portrayal of family, race, and adolescence
• Why the finale feels like a natural continuation of the pilot
• References to The Godfather and The Sopranos woven throughout the series
• Whether the open-ended finale works

Shows and people discussed:

• Everybody Hates Chris
• Chris Rock
• Terry Crews
• Tichina Arnold
• Tyler James Williams
• Saturday Night Live
• The Sopranos
• The Godfather
• New Jack City
• Boomerang
• Martin
• The Wonder Years

If you enjoy the show, follow How It Started, How It Ended wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for more conversations about the TV shows that got us hooked—and whether they delivered the ending they deserved.

Transcript

Bobby 0:11

Every TV show begins with so much promise, but how many actually fulfill it by the finale? I'm Bobby Meadows.

Angela 0:18

And I'm Angela Johnson Meadows. We're the couple that watches TV together. And this is how it started. How it ended, where we revisit the first and last episodes of some classic TV shows and answer one question. Did they stick the landing? So, Angela, what show are we talking about today? Today we're talking about Everybody Hates Chris.

Bobby 0:45

That's right, the semi-autobiographical tale of one of our favorite comedians, Chris Rock.

Angela 0:50

Yeah, we saw him in concert.

Bobby 0:52

We did. We saw him a couple times. We saw him by himself. It was New Year's Eve one night.

Angela 0:58

Yeah. Madison Square Garden.

Bobby 1:01

Exactly. And then we saw him a few years ago when he opened for Kevin Hart.

Angela 1:05

Yeah, we have had a long, decades-long relationship with Chris Rock, even if he doesn't know it.

Bobby 1:12

I believe the first time I saw Chris Rock was on this comedian's showcase special, and then he joined SNL a few years later. Were you watching SNL when he was on there?

Angela 1:23

Um, I think I was, although I don't really remember him. Was he only on for like a season?

Bobby 1:27

He was on longer than that. His character was Nat X. That was his signature character.

Angela 1:33

I do remember that.

Bobby 1:34

But he was on against Adam Sandler and David Spade, Chris Farley, so he was, you know, he was but he was right in with those guys.

Angela 1:43

Yeah, definitely remember that. Um and so that that was like late 80s at that point?

Bobby 1:49

Yeah, 80s into the 90s.

Angela 1:51

Yeah, and then during that time he started to make his way in movies and he was in uh New Jack City. Did you see that? Well, of course. Of course you saw that. Why was I even asking you that?

Bobby 2:01

Yeah, and then he was on boom in Boomerang, and then he moved over to in Living Color for a I think I think he was on in Living Color for a season.

Angela 2:10

Yeah, so he had some memorable movies and also some lines, I think, that people still to this day say, like, "Let me get one rib."

Bobby 2:20

That's right. That was pretty good. I didn't know you did a Chris Rock impression, baby.

Angela 2:24

Well, thank you. I didn't know either. Learn something new every day.

Bobby 2:28

There you go. And I think what really pushed Chris over because he was popular at the time, but I think what really pushed him over was this 1996 HBO special, Bring the Pain. Now that, I used to compare that with like Richard Pryor, the best of Richard Pryor, the best of Bill Cosby. And I remember telling my dad, Dad, you gotta watch this special. Did you watch that?

Angela 2:52

I did. Yeah, I think that was when we really realized that he had what it takes to be a true comedian.

Bobby 3:00

His humor was just so pointed and you know, dealing with race relations and O.J. Simpson. And and then he had his HBO show, The Chris Rock Show. It was an amazing show. And the sketch that has always stayed with me and probably many people is him trying to get Howard Beach, a very segregated community in New York City, to rename a street after Tupac Shakur. And I know we just watched that sketch, so you can definitely speak to it.

Angela 3:30

Yeah, I have to say I missed that show when it was airing in real time because I did not have HBO at the time, but yeah, I've been able to see some clips on uh YouTube and can see why why he got the attention of television execs.

Bobby 3:48

That's true. I mean he has an incredible story where he grew up and and how he rose from it, and so that's what Everybody Hates Chris talks about. And so I have to ask you, did you watch that show?

Angela 4:01

I watched a few episodes, but I didn't watch it from start to finish.

Bobby 4:05

Same here. And yeah, I've wondered why. I do know when this show debuted, it was it was up against Joey.

Angela 4:15

Yeah, when did it debut?

Bobby 4:17

It debuted in 2005, September 2005 on UPN.

Angela 4:22

Yeah, which might explain why we didn't see it from the beginning, because that would have been our first anniversary.

Bobby 4:30

And we were out of the country at that time, so that that could very well be why. I know that the network had pretty high expectations for this show. It was compared to Cosby, which of course was the biggest show ever back in the 80s. Everybody Hates Chris followed the similar path in that it was about an African-American family, though it was very different. But yeah, the network had really high expectations, and you have to imagine that part of that reason was because of this cast. Now, Tyler James Williams has, of course, blown up, but he was just a kid at the time. Were you familiar with him back then?

Angela 5:06

No, no, I had not heard of him. What about you?

Bobby 5:10

No, no, absolutely. I definitely hadn't. But the two actors who played the parents, Terry Cruz and Tishina Arnold, Tishina Arnold, especially. I mean, she was, I first saw her in Little Shop of Horrors way back in the day. And then, of course, she played Pam on the sitcom Martin.

Angela 5:30

That actually might explain why I didn't watch the show. Because I will confess I was not a fan of Martin.

Speaker 1 5:39

Oh no.

Angela 5:40

And I really didn't care for uh Tishina's character, Pam. So that wouldn't have been something that would draw me to a new show.

Bobby 5:48

She played the mom on the show, and then Terry Cruz played Julius, the father, her husband. And I was familiar with Terry. I know he had been in, at this point, he'd been in um a couple movies that I'd seen. And, you know, at the time he was he still wasn't that big yet, but now he's he's definitely huge. Including Everybody Hates Chris. he's been on three shows that have had nearly or more than 100 episodes.

Angela 6:16

One of the things as we were prepping for the show that I thought was interesting is that there uh the kids in the show. So there's there's Chris, there's his brother Drew, and his sister Tanya, and then also um Chris's best friend, Greg. They were all 12 when they were cast in these roles, although they're all playing characters of different ages. So I just thought that was interesting. It's like it was a requirement to be 12 to be on the show.

Bobby 6:51

Well, I think that's a good jumping off point. How about we pause and go watch the show, and when we come back, we'll talk about how it started.

Angela 7:00

All right, let's do this. Bobby, can you give the listeners a quick summary of what the pilot episode was all about?

Bobby 7:21

Absolutely. Um, in the pilot, what we see is Chris and his family, they open up , their living in the projects, but very quickly they move to Bed Sty, which is supposed to be a better neighborhood, though the family quickly finds that in this crack era that there's really no safe space. And the mother is really concerned that Chris goes to a school in an all-white neighborhood, and she's like those white kids, they get an education. So there's nothing that Chris can do about it. While his parent, while his siblings get to go to the neighborhood school, he has to take two buses to Corleone Junior High School, a godfather reference that I loved. This is in an all-white neighborhood where he's the only black student, and he immediately runs afoul of a bully, Joey Caruso, but also makes a friend, Greg. Meanwhile, at home, the pilot included a number of hilarious montages that really put on display the family life. Mom threatening spankings, dad worrying about money, Chris having to be in charge of his siblings. Really, the the plot goes on, and all the hilarious, all the hilarity stems from these really grounded real situations that again make me wonder why we didn't watch this series.

Angela 8:34

I think what the show is setting up is that it's it's not just like this coming of age story about Chris, but it's also showing that Chris kind of doesn't feel like he fits in in all of the worlds that he encounters. So at school, as you mentioned, he's the only black kid there and feels out of place. And then at home, you know, he often feels like he's uh unappreciated or that what he can contribute to the family can be overlooked. Um and so I think that is something that will play out as uh as the show progresses.

Bobby 9:14

Yeah, that seems to make sense, and you're right, because uh he's 12 or I think 13, right? Yeah, he's 13, he says that at the beginning. And but he's gotta be a parent. And Drew's bigger than him, which he hates. He he says that's one of the worst things possible. So yeah, he's he seems like he's feeling like he's overlooked, and like you said, really unappreciated. Were there, you know, were there moments in these specific moments that you particularly liked?

Angela 9:40

I think, you know, when I when I think back to that pilot episode, I don't know if there were specific moments, but there were were things definitely resonated with me. So in 1982, I was like somewhere in that mix, a little bit younger than Chris, a little bit older than Tanya. So that world that they were inhabiting looked very familiar to me. I also attended a predominantly white school, so I understood what Chris was experiencing when he went to school. I unfortunately did not have the neighborhood to come home to where I would see people that look like me, but I do understand being in a world where you are one of one. And then I think one of the things that stood out to me, and I wonder if Chris really recognized this when he was a kid, or if this was more of a reflection that he had since being an adult and perhaps having his own children is when he talks about, you know, he notices that his father is only one of four fathers on the block. So he recognizes that his family is different than most families and that they are a two-parent home. And that, you know, while his father might have not said to him directly, I love you, the fact that, when he says it in the show, like coming home from work was his father's way of saying "I love you." That and I think just everything that his father would do to make sure that his family had what it needed.

Bobby 11:19

And you and I, of course, both grew up with our parents, married parents, in the house with us. And so, I mean, I could certainly relate to that strong paternal figure in the house. I will tell you that, like I said, I mean, I found this pilot, I found the show just really, really delightful. It was, I found it so appealing. I thought that Toshina Arnold and and Terry Cruz had really great chemistry as a couple. I thought the kids were, you know, they weren't like, at least in the pilot, they weren't like smart alecky kids like you can sometimes get on TV. And I love that there was at one point, you know, you mentioned the Wonder Years earlier, and one of the things that really struck me was , you know, Chris Rock is doing narration. I forgot to mention that in the pilot, that Chris Rock narrates this entire show. And where we see Chris and his brother and sister leaving the house, and we see Keisha, the girl next door, and Chris fantasizes about her, and Chris Rock narrates, you know, the hey, the fantasy girl next door, and it made me wonder if she was going to be his Winnie Cooper, you know, the love of his life that he pines for for the duration of the series. But that's immediately undercut when she says hi to Drew. Chris, you know, he talks about how that Drew is his younger brother, but he's bigger than him, like you said, and he's cooler than him as well. So those, you know, I love those dynamics, love them.

Angela 12:46

One of the things as I was watching it, and I was like thinking to myself, I am really enjoying the show. Why didn't I watch this when it was on? Because it was really well done, and I think in a way that we had previously watched Family Matters, and I kind of like sat through it because that was the show that we had picked to watch, but I didn't really enjoy watching those, those episodes. Whereas this one, like I might watch the full series now.

Bobby 13:15

I was seriously going to suggest we do that.

Angela 13:19

I think one of the things that I really liked about this show was that it wasn't kind of like that syrupy sweet like sitcom moments with the music. Now they did, I don't know if you noticed this, they did have some like sitcom-y kind of music in certain places. But what played out in the show actually was almost counter that at times. But what I did appreciate was like there was a scene where it's after toward the end of the show, and you know, Chris has had some some challenges during the day where he, you know, he's encountered a bully who's taken his lunch money so he wasn't able to eat. So then when he got home, he was really hungry and he ate his father's dinner. The bully also stepped on his shoes, so the shoes that he had borrowed from his brother, his good dress shoes, to wear to school had been messed up, and so he used a towel to put shoe polish on them, which then obviously made that towel black. And there were moments when the mother, when she discovered this, she didn't yell at him. Like she sat down and had a really nice conversation and just said, you know, next time don't eat the biggest piece of chicken. Right. Um, but it is funny that then you later on she discovers the issue with the towel and she's like, What happened to my towel? But you also see that his father did the same thing, and that he's the one who didn't have the food to eat and perhaps should have been even more upset, but also didn't yell at his son for for making that choice. He kind of sat down with him and made sure he understood it. So in that way, it was a little bit Cosby-ish in the like my parents can be nice to me kind of thing, but it landed differently um than if you had been watching Cosby or another show like that.

Bobby 15:14

Yeah, and I think like you know, you certainly because he spent the the the pilot has a montage of Tichina Arnold's character yelling a hundred different ways she's gonna beat the kids. So you know that there's some bite to that, because this is still early 80s, so they're portraying it that way. Um, which was but yeah, you're right. I mean, I I love the scene, the scenes, the two scenes that you described with the parents sitting down with Chris and having conversations with him. And I love the button where she screams, what happened to my towel? Because that that actually, like as you said, that ends the episode. Alright, so I think that wraps it up for the pilot. So what we're gonna do now, we're gonna take a look at the finale, and when we come back, we're gonna talk about how it ended.

Music 16:00

Everybody hates Chris.

Bobby 16:07

Alright, so we just watched the finale that aired on May 8, 2009. Angela, why don't you let our listeners know what happened?

Angela 16:17

Sure. In this episode, you know, Chris is now a sophomore in high school, and he's at risk of having to repeat 10th grade because he has had so many latenesses. So we see him struggling to be on time for the remainder of the school year. We also see Drew now has aspirations of being on Showtime at the Apollo, and Tanya is getting ready to graduate from sixth grade.

Bobby 16:51

Chris now attends Ta taglia High School, which is another Godfather reference. So I was so thrilled when I saw that.

Angela 16:59

And that completely went over my head because I have not seen any of the Godfather movies.

Bobby 17:03

Which is still painful for me, but let's move on. You know, I thought that the finale, it really felt like a continuation of the story. The characters are all familiar. Julius is still concerned with money. There's another montage about that. Joey, it opens with Joey, the bully, punching out Chris, and so that is something else that had never changed. He and Vincent are still, I mean, um Greg, played by Vincent Martella. They're still buddies, and um, you know, uh Drew is still cool going out for the Apollo. So this felt like a real continuation of the series.

Angela 17:39

Yeah, I think this is maybe unusual, and maybe because it was only on for five seasons, but yeah, the entire cast is, the entire core cast is the same, which I appreciated, and also agree with you, like I felt like I felt like I was watching a continuation of the show. I didn't feel like this had evolved or changed in such a dramatic way that I no longer recognized it. Although there were a few things that changed outside of the script of the show, and that you know, we started watching the show, it was on um UPN and now it's on CW. And that's uh a change that happened actually in the second season or before the second season because UPN actually went away um and then it got picked up by uh CW. But you know, to me it felt like the tone of the show was the same. The the tight-knit family that we met in that first episode is still the same, and you know Chris is still you know having his challenges. Um just making it through adolescence as he was in the beginning. So yeah, there was a lot of continuity there for me.

Bobby 18:49

Yeah, definitely. And you know, he's still facing the racism, you know, the I guess principal now who, you know, was speaking jive, I guess, when his mom came in to talk with him, and he was like, Mom, this is just what she does. And you know, it's funny, but you know, you definitely know he's still facing it. And it , the casting that I loved was when Drew was in the barber shop. You could tell that those were people who'd been on the show before. Ernest Thomas was there, Todd Bridges was there, uh, and then there were other people whose names I just don't know, but I'm sure they were familiar characters.

Angela 19:25

One thing I appreciated about the guest starring roles of with Todd Bridges, particularly with Todd Bridges and Ernest Thompson, is that they both were on sitcoms and both family-focused sitcoms. And so the kind of that tie-in, I appreciated that nod.

Bobby 19:44

Right. And the montages continue just like they'd been in the pilot. This montage of all those guys singing "A House Is Not a Home."

Angela 19:54

Yeah, they had they when they said they had all been on the Apollo and they all sang the same song.

Bobby 19:59

Right.

Angela 20:00

Um, but glad that Drew did not go that route.

Bobby 20:03

Yes, yes. Drew was very cool. He played the bucket drums and then had dancers and he got applauded. And it's it's really like some some happy endings in many ways for a lot of the characters. Imani, as you mentioned, graduated sixth grade. But

Angela 20:19

That'd be Tanya.

Bobby 20:20

Tanya, played by Imani, sorry. I'm getting them mixed up. Imani Hakim played Tanya. Chris is late to school one final time, and his principal tells him that he's gonna have to repeat 10th grade, and he decided, he told his parents he was going to drop out. Which is real life. That's what Chris Rock did, the actor, a comedian did. He dropped out at the same time, which made me wonder a lot about this show, like how much of it was from taken from Chris Rock's actual life.

Angela 20:55

Yeah, and I when I read about the ending and I'm saying that they kind of thought this was the natural spot to end, because this is where real Chris's adolescence really ended.

Bobby 21:09

Right.

Angela 21:09

Um, and so anything going forward from that, if you had kept Chris in school and like that would start to be really fabricated stories that weren't based on his life.

Bobby 21:19

Yeah, one other um point about the pilot was the finale that carried over was the opening of the pilot was a scene where Chris is imagining being famous, and he walks into the club, he's dressed like Run DMC, he's got women on his on his on his uh arms, and so there was a level of fantasy, surrealness that they had, and it happens again in the finale when he gets to his school and there's this massive shootout between the police and criminals, and he runs through it, and then he has to save a baby, and then he's uh accused of being a robber. And the police hold him at gunpoint and then let him go on. And so I'm wondering, is that surrealness? It must have been part of the show all along. And so I once again asking myself, why did I not watch this show? Because these seem to be my people.

Angela 22:14

One of the things I thought was interesting is how they decided to end the show. So the episode focuses on, you know, once Chris has decided that he's not going back to school, somebody brings up the idea of him getting his GED. So he goes forward and he takes that test. And in the final scene, where the family is gathered for dinner at the diner and they're wondering how he did on the GED. And then the father comes in with the envelope and he's like, Yeah, I've got Chris's test results, and he opens the envelope, and I think Chris says, Oh, how'd I do? And then it just cuts to black.

Speaker 22:52

Right.

Angela 22:52

And so you don't know. I mean, obviously, if you're gonna assume he did fine, you know, if this is semi-autobiographical, and you know, he went on to have a very good adult life, but it was it was very interesting that there was no closure of that. But that didn't bother me in a way that I think it might have in a different sitcom.

Bobby 23:14

Or a different HBO drama, because many, many people, this was an homage to The Sopranos, which ended exactly like that, and many people still hate that ending. And so when I saw it, you know, of course I immediately picked up on that, but I was also like, I appreciate the homage to The Sopranos. Because that was just fantastic because they're in the diner just like Tony and his wife were in The Sopranos, and there's that guy at the counter who appears kind of sketchy, Chris has his eye on him, and then he walks away, and yeah, like you say.

Angela 23:45

It's funny listening to you and your perspective and all these like Godfather and Soprano tie-ins. Like, I wonder if that was a consistent thing throughout the show, and it does seem like Chris is very heavily influenced by mob culture. Or is that all just coincidence?

Bobby 24:03

Right. I wonder, yeah, is there a scenes somewhere along the way where somebody's asking, Am I a clown to you? just like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. I guess I will ask you this question. Maybe we already know the answer, but do you wish you had watched?

Angela 24:18

I do. I do. I I I genuinely enjoyed the two episodes that we watched, and I think I would have enjoyed the series. And so yeah, it's going back to that question. Why didn't I watch it? Because it was really good. Maybe, maybe it's I'm a obviously uh 2026 me is very different than 2005 me. So maybe at that point I wasn't ready for a show like this, but uh it does hit really well uh with me right now.

Bobby 24:48

Yeah, I don't know. Obviously, I feel the same way, so I guess we have to keep our Hulu subscription for a while longer. And I guess I will ask you, you know, your verdict. Does this finale stick the landing?

Angela 25:00

I think so. Yeah, I I actually appreciated that everything wasn't wrapped up in a nice bow. I mean, we did have some closure, like you know, uh Tanya graduated from sixth grade, Drew did really well on the Apollo, but we did have that one point with Chris where we kind of don't know kind of his fate in that. And but I'm okay with it. And I think I also appreciated that it was very consistent throughout the show that we watched in the pilot. It felt like we were watching the same show uh in the finale.

Bobby 25:36

Yeah, and I I also think it stuck the landing. Um, there was another line around the GED when Chris is trying to explain to his parents, and he's like, Bill Cosby got his GED, and his mother says, You want to be a comedian? So, so yes, um, I uh feel the same way. I thought it stuck the landing and um was really, really happy with this. So I guess that's it for "Everybody Hates Chris" until we turn on Hulu in a few minutes and watch episode two. Thank you for hanging out with us again. I'm Bobby Meadows.

Angela 26:12

And I'm Angela Johnson Meadows.

Bobby 26:14

Join us next time back on the couch for "How It Started, How It Ended."

Angela 26:18

Because endings matter, especially to the people who stick around.

Bobby 26:24

How It Started, How It Ended is produced by Bobby Meadows and Angela Johnson Meadows for Ain't We Cute Media. You can find how it started, how it ended wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And you can follow us on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram at how it started underscore how it ended.