‘Uncle Buck’: Not the Mike Epps Show You Want

Mike Epps is a funny man, as his standup comedy and his role in the Starz sitcom Survivor’s Remorse have proven. But as the star of the new ABC sitcom Uncle Buck, premiering Tuesday on ABC, Epps is deprived of the sort of good writing that would showcase his talent well.

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The show is a remake of the 1989 John Hughes movie that starred John Candy. It uses the same premise: Buck, an irresponsible fellow, is asked by his brother to babysit his two nieces and a nephew. In the new show, the brother and his wife are played by James Lesure (Las Vegas) and Nia Long; one of their children is old enough that Long’s character laments the girl’s interest in boys, saying, “Our straight-A student is becoming black Amanda Bynes.”

Buck is, in the John Candy vein, irascible and irresponsible. In this new edition, he’s also an interloper in the upper-middle-class society in which his new job as the kids’ “manny” thrusts him. This leads to exchanges such as one when one of the kids shouts, “You’re insane!” and he responds, “You have no idea.” Yet there’s never a payoff on this promise of comic insanity.

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This is actually the second Uncle Buck sitcom. The first, from 1990, also starred a good standup comic; in that case, it was Kevin Meaney, and the show was slightly worse than this new one.

The new Uncle Buck includes a moment when the little boy of the family gets some powdered-doughnut sugar on his face. Buck bellows, “Who gives a kid cocaine? He has a tiny heart!” Oh, the laughs. …

Uncle Buck airs on Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. on ABC.