When Comicview first exploded onto the scene in the fall of 1992,it was a wonderful showcase of up-and coming Black comedians strutting their stuff onto the stage with a brand of unadulterated humor that has at the time the show premiered,never before seen. During the show's early years,it was a mixture of cleverness alongside quickwitted and tackling issues that were the order of the day. During that time when Comicview first came out it was the only comedy show to showcase rising black comedians other than that was Def Comedy Jam,which was a bit raunchy and straight up adult-oriented material,and so was Comicview which at the time was very funny and very humorous,and it was always coming on cable's BET Network at 10:00 hour when most adult-oriented shows to come on. However,Comicview showcased a lot of bright and promising talent as well which brought to the stage the like of comedians who were just starting out at the time this show premiered,comedians like Bernie Mac,Martin Lawrence,Chris Tucker,Cedric The Entertainer,Monique, DL Hughley,and so much more with comedian Don "DC" Curry was not only one of the comedians,but the show's host during the first two seasons.
All that would change since there were a lot of comedians that did not become famous,but were also extremely hilarious like Simply Precious, Ricky Smiley,Bruce Bruce,J. Arnaz,and Sammora. Not to forget on that same bill Miss Laura. Not only they were comedians,but the did double duty as guest hosts. Nowadays,Comicview has become a display of outlandish buffoonery and sex jokes that are in very poor taste which most of the hour of the show is nothing but straight up humor that has gone "ghetto" to just total stupidity which network executives think that is the way viewers look at the show,in which one comment was made that Black America is way more diverse and more sophisticated than this. There is a article in Black magazine the reflected on this show in which one of the show's co-host,Reynaldo Rey,also from the 80's sitcom "227",admitted that even the buffoonery that is displayed on the show annoys him,at times. The same can said from another co-host who nowadays doesn't want nothing to do with the show. Do you blame them? Comicview has gone from brilliant to worst to pathetic to just toward the boundary of ghetto fabulous to boost ratings.
By the way,there are some individuals who like "intelligent" comedy,but you won't see any of that on BET,and let me explain why. If you want to enjoy good intelligent "black" comedy,look no further to either Bill Cosby or for than manner Dick Gregory or Sinbad,or to an extent Damon Wayans to some excellent laughs,since BET is no longer the intelligent network of choice,since most of BET's programming consists of nothing but music videos running all hours of the day and so forth. Comicview's primarily targeted audience consists of nothing of the teenagers up to there late 20's-early 30's which the target audience that welcomes nothing but raunchy talk which most of the hour consists of sex and toilet humor and the dissing of someone's parents since most of it is not funny at all period especially with the topic is nothing but gay humor and references to someone's private parts of their body. And all of this is in a hip-hop appeal setting. That's all for 60 minutes!
This was a great show in the beginning until corporate media giant Viacom brought it changing the overall landscape of BET's programming. When Viacom brought BET,the network lost its independent voice and nowadays the only independent voice out there for cable that is for Black Americans is the MBC Channel(Mutual Broadcasting Company)run by an independent black enterprise system. But getting back to Comicview on BET,the show nowadays is an excuse to showcase the same dancers in every segment and the same dancers gets tiredsome afterwhile along with the musical guests which are nothing more than rap videos and lame ass R&B singers instead of showcasing comedians and that is so sad to see. The changing of the hosts has done this show in too,since comedians Bruce-Bruce,and Ricky Smiley tried to be fair but too much of a product for a corporate image is overdoing it,and just recently the show is being hosted by radio personality J. Anthony Brown(for The Tom Joyner Morning Show)and in some segments actress Kim Coles(from the TV series Living Single)and this is why I don't watch the show anymore,period. It's gone totally ghetto from the get-go.
