Comedian Chris Rock was happy to see “Everybody Hates Chris” survive the merger between the WB and UPN networks.
“I thought I might have to drive a cab,” he joked Monday at the Television Critics Association’s summer meeting.
The UPN sitcom based on Rock’s childhood in New York’s borough of Brooklyn landed on The CW’s debut schedule for its sophomore season. Its season premiere is Oct. 1.
The show, in which Rock serves as narrator, a writer and co-executive producer, moves from Thursday to Sunday nights this fall as part of The CW’s block of comedies. It also gets an earlier start time, 7 p.m.
“Just make it funny, people will see it,” Rock said. “If something is funny, people will know.”
Of last season’s 22 episodes, Rock said he hated three.
Asked to name the offending shows, he replied, “Oh, I can’t do that. I got three uncles I hate, too, but I won’t tell them.”
Whoopi Goldberg will appear in two episodes this season, playing Louise, a woman from Queens who moves in next door to Chris’ family and whose granddaughter is an object of Chris’ affections.
“I’m a fan,” Rock said. “It’s not like stunt casting. Stunt casting to me is like, ‘Hey, Shaq just came over.’ We got Whoopi Goldberg to act because she’s very funny.”
The show’s Chris character returns to junior high this season.
“There’s going to be a massacre at the school, but it’s going to be funny,” Rock cracked.
Rock said his real mother approves of her TV counterpart, although she engages in revisionist history when it comes to her son’s childhood.
“As my mother gets older, she tries to act like she did nothing wrong,” he said. “She’s doing her heaven campaign: ‘Hey, I didn’t yell at you like that.”’
Rock recently finished shooting a movie called “I Think I Love My Wife” and said he plans another national comedy tour in between working on the show.
“I guess it was a little more work than I thought,” he said about the first season. “A lot of the UPN people were shocked to see me around so much.”