SummaryBy night Craig (Craig Robinson) is the lead singer and keyboardist for the funk band Nasty Delicious, but to pay the bills, he works as a substitute high school music teacher.
SummaryBy night Craig (Craig Robinson) is the lead singer and keyboardist for the funk band Nasty Delicious, but to pay the bills, he works as a substitute high school music teacher.
Where Robinson excels are in the scenes with him leading his funk band.... The series, however, sticks too much to the sitcom formula, telling 22-minute stories that are all too predictable.
I absolutely adored Mr Robinson. I find it reminiscent of The Steve Harvey Show, which also started off to a slow start. I hope they let it build its audience!
I've read a few of the critics reviews, and though everyone's entitled to an opinion, their bashing of this show only proves one thing to me, they're full of sh*!. Looking down from their high rise glass and steel cages I doubt if they even know what makes a good urban sitcom. Yes it uses formulaic, 1 episode contained plots. It's….a "sitcom". When did it become mandatory that a 30 minute weekly show had to be arc based with a singular storyline played out over the course of a season. Too many years watching "24" I think. I'm also hard pressed to label all the characters as stereotypical, how so? Is it the "stripper who worked her way through college"? Ok yeah…., except that it's always done from the point of view that she's a stripper, who claims this. Last I checked, this show has a college grad who teaches and claims that she strips. ( so, just which episode has the strip club scene in it?!?) Or is it Craig's character - daytime teacher, nighttime struggling artist? Well all the people I know who pursue these type of creative dreams (musicians, artists, writers, etc) live this life, and I know that first hand [feel free to Google me] So, I can identify with this character, and in fact I enjoy the interaction with all the characters in this show, do I think some are over the top? (Jimmy) Sure, but they're counter-balanced by other characters (Principal Taylor) It's an imaginary world with imaginary people living interesting lives. Or maybe you think the characters of Fox's "New Girl" is an accurate portrayal of grown people in their mid 30's? (and I love New Girl. by the way.) Yeah, they take some artistic license on that show for sure. It's no different with Mr. Robinson, The integration of music (one of the first things you lose in an urban educational environment) is inventive and refreshing, the plots revolve around the settings and the characters and even though they have a 22 minute shelf life, they still ring true as being feasible situations for those characters, the dialogue is current, the atmosphere, up to date, unlike some shows that take so long to reach the air, they feel outdated before the 1st episode finishes. I believe many reviewers use the viewer ratings to base the tone of their comments on, thinking "if no one's watching it must be bad" Do you remember a show called "Firefly"…. Anyway, I enjoyed the 6 ep run and hope they come back for a second season.
Writers (and co-executive producers, among others) Mark Cullen and Robb Cullen have an uneven and not 100% original touch here. But sitcom magic is difficult to make, and at least Mr. Robinson has a few tricks in its bag.
For every charming and genuinely funny moment--and there is a fair amount--there is a lazy sitcom trope that stunts Mr. Robinson and depletes it of its promise.
Robinson obviously has some fun riffing at the keyboards (Brandon T. Jackson plays his brother and bandmate), but everything about the show has an exhausted, late-’80s vibe.
This is one of those shows with some promise in some of the characters--and even potential chuckles at the better, weirder jokes--but so clearly emits the sad stench of yet another comedy that that’s been cooked too long in a network oven.
It's been an incredibly odd summer for comedies. It feels like many of them have been odd throwbacks to another era. I could see "Mr. Robinson" succeeding on TGIF in the 1990s, or as part of a comedy block in that era. But in 2015, it feels retro in an odd way. I loved Craig Robinson on "The Office" and in other projects, and he's still a likeable leading man, but this sitcom construct feels way too dated and stale.
The show is just far too predictable, not funny and the characters are so stereotype that it's almost sad. A big disappointment as it was a great idea.
Mr. Robinson is hardly the worst sitcom on television currently but is pretty darn awful. Feels like a throwback to the 80's or 90's and the jokes are just about as stale. NBC's lack of comedy successes continues unabated. Good thing Coach is coming to turn their comedy fortunes around :)
Mr. Robinson is just pretty goddamn awful and I'm completely embarrassed for both NBC and Craig Robinson. The jokes, if you can call them that, are predictable and just plain flat. I predict a cancellation in Mr. Robinson's near future.
What an embarrassment for TV and NBC! silly, stupid, predictable, rehashed material. A teacher comes in to the break room proudly lamenting that one of her students answered the "which weighs more? two tons of this or 2000 lbs of that" question by drawing a **** for the answer. Another teacher chimes in with his two cents worth about the **** being to scale ---or some such **** crap. I couldn't bear to listen. When writers have to resort to "****" jokes in order to get a reaction from a laugh-track, it's time to switch to the Natl Geographic channel to watch a herd of cape buffalo cross a river. It's more interesting. When is prime time TV going to grow up?