THE WAYANS BROS.

'''The Wayans Bros.''' is an African American sitcom that premiered mid 1994-95 season on The WB. The series starred Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. It ran for five seasons, and the last episode, ''Rope A Dope'' aired on May 20, 1999. ''The Wayans Bros.'' along with ''The Parent 'Hood'' were the first programs to ever air on The WB. The show also became popular for making fun of numerous celebrities (such as financial issues, appearance etc.) It has also aimed numerous statements at recording artist Keith Sweat, who later appeared on the show. The show never got the proper series finale because of its cancellation.
The show's characters insulted each other in the form of jokes (Examples: Shawn
★ to Marlon
★ -You look like a gay Captain Crunch,Marlon-I used Aim. Shawn-It smells like you missed).

Contents

Synopsis

Second season onward

Episodes

Music

Trivia

Cast

DVD releases

Synopsis

Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans who portray Shawn and Marlon Williams, two siblings living in Manhattan, New York, with their father, John "Pops" Williams (John Witherspoon), who owns his diner, named Pops' diner. During the first season of the show Shawn had a girlfriend, Lisa Saunders (Lela Rochon), who appeared in every episode of the first season, but then Rochon was dropped from the show's cast. Also starring on the show during its first year was Benny Quan as Benny the Chef, but he was dropped from the show's cast as well. In the 1995-1996 season, which was the second season of the show, new characters appeared and new attractions on the show came in. Pop's Diner was moved into the Neidermyer Building; the owner of the original newsstand dies, and Shawn takes the job after being fired from his job at APS. Also, Marlon stopped working as a busboy for Pops, and worked with his big brother Shawn, after the dismissal of Lela Rochon in the first season, Paula Parker and Jill Tasker halfway the second season, Anna Maria Horsford appeared mid season 2 onward appearing in every episode starting with the third season.

Second season onward

Also starring in the second season was Jill Tasker as the original security guard. Lou Malino, and Paula Jai Parker (who made an appearance on the show during the first season) joined the cast as Marlon's new girlfriend, Monique. As a result, Tasker and Parker were dropped from the show's cast midway during the second season. Anna Maria Horsford portrayed the new security guard, Deirdre "Dee" Baxter, from the show's second season until the series ending. Making appearances on the show were: Ja'net DuBois, who portrayed Willona in the hit sitcom ''Good Times'', portrays' the boys' grandmother, Grandma Ellington. Although DuBois was a guest star, she still had a recurring role. Phill Lewis appeared as the boys' pal, T.C., during the first four seasons of the show. Lewis would go on to star in the Disney kids sitcom, ''The Suite Life of Zack and Cody''. With Rochon gone from the show's cast in Spring of 1995, and Tasker and Parker gone midway of the 1995-96 season; Anna Maria Horsford (from TV's ''Amen'') was the fourth and only female cast member appearing in the final four seasons (1995-1999) of the show.

Episodes

Main articles: List of The Wayans Bros. episodes

Music

The show's theme song was changed throughout its five-year run (1995-1999), in the first two seasons, from early January 1995, until May 1996, the show's theme song was A Tribe Called Quest's "Electric Relaxation", then in the third season (1996-97), the show changed to a fast beat, when Marlon cut his hair (and grew a mustache), then in the final two seasons (1997-1999), the show's theme song was changed again to a regular hip hop instrumental beat (which was produced by the Wayans Bros. & Omar Epps.).
The segue music from scene to scene derived from many popular hip-hop songs that were released at the time, such as A Tribe Called Quest's "Sucka Nigga" and "Jam", along with Busta Rhymes's "Woo Hah!! Got You All In Check", Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Brooklyn Zoo", Notorious B.I.G.'s "Me And My Bitch", Bone Thugs-N-Harmony "East 1999" and Tha Dogg Pound's "Let's Play House."

Trivia

★ This show, along with ''Unhappily Ever After'' debuted at the same time on the same network. Three days after ''The Wayans Bros.'' was cancelled, ''Unhappily'' was discontinued.

★ The apartment Shawn and Marlon live in and Pop's Diner look different in the first season than the rest of the seasons.

★ Before working together on the show, John Witherspoon (Pops) and Anna Maria Horsford (Dee) played Ice Cube's parents in the 1995 movie ''Friday''.

★ The inside of Shawn and Marlon's apartment usually features posters of album covers by various hip-hop artists, including The Notorious B.I.G., Method Man, Rampage and Ghostface Killah

★ John Witherspoon worked with Shawn and Marlon once again in the 2006 movie ''Little Man''.

★ In ''Scary Movie'', Shawn Wayans' character mentions that cancelling TV shows makes people go crazy claiming ''The Wayans Bros.'' was a good show.

★ In the episode "Unspoken Token", the cast parodied the sitcom ''Good Times''. DuBois reprised her role as Willona Woods. Johnny Brown and Bern Nadette Stanis also made special appearances as Bookman and Thelma, respectively. John Witherspoon also appeared in a ''Good Times'' episode as Officer Lawson in 1979.

Cast

★ Shawn Wayans — Shawn Williams

★ Marlon Wayans — Marlon Williams

★ John Witherspoon — John "Pops" Williams

★ Anna Maria Horsford — Deirdre "Dee" Baxter (1996-1999)

★ Ja'net Du Bois — Grandma Ellington (1996-1998)

★ Phill Lewis — T.C. (1995-1998)

★ Jermaine 'Huggy' Hopkins — Dupree (1996-1998)

★ Jill Tasker — Lou Malino

★ Lela Rochon — Lisa Saunders

DVD releases

Only the first season of ''The Wayans Bros.'' was released on DVD in February 2005. It is highly unlikely that more season DVDs will released due to the first season's poor DVD sales. Reruns can now be seen on BET network.