I Love FRESH OFF THE BOAT

OK, I'm just going to blunt right up front. If Jennifer Aniston has several Emmy nominations for her sitcom acting on FRIENDS, then Constance Wu of ABC's FRESH OFF THE BOAT should have at least one. Constance Wu is fabulous and one of the funniest sitcom moms I've seen on a network in ages. If only ABC would give that show as much promotion during GOOD MORNING AMERICA as GMA gave trumpeting the reboot arrival of ROSEANNE until...well, you heard what happened. I was overjoyed that Ms. Wu got a Golden Globe nomination for surprise box office champ, CRAZY RICH ASIANS. The success of that film put a spotlight on her that ABC should have back in 2015 when FRESH OFF THE BOAT made its debut. The sitcom is loosely based on the memoir of young hipster chef/restauranteur and COOKING CHANNEL host, Eddie Huang. Constance Wu plays the over-achiever mom of young Eddie on the sitcom. Her deadpan comic delivery is an artform.

Here's where ABC publicity has dropped the ball on FRESH OFF THE BOAT. Randall Park plays the dad on the sitcom.  I've been a fan of his for years. I always noticed him in TV commercials and in episodes of other shows like VEEP on HBO. When I read that FRESH OFF THE BOAT was in production for ABC and I read he was the lead male actor, I was thrilled. For one thing, it had been 20 years since we'd seen a sitcom about an Asian-American family. Margaret Cho broke ground with her ALL-AMERICAN GIRL on ABC in 1994. Unfortunately, execs tried to make her characters more Caucasian-like than Asian-American. It lasted a year. ABC announced FRESH OFF THE BOAT for the 2015 season.

Remember back during the Christmas season of 2014 when a Seth Rogan and James Franco comedy movie called THE INTERVIEW was making network news? In the movie, the host and producer of a TV tabloid show fly to North Korea to interview Kim Jong-un. They hear he's a fan of the show. That caused some real-life friction and our network news anchors reported that North Korea threatened to attack movie theaters showing THE INTERVIEW. ABC World News Tonight reported on this several times and, each time, it was always mentioned that Seth Rogan and James Franco were the stars of the film. I saw the film. The movie really snaps to life thanks to the wildly funny and somewhat touching performance of Randall Park as Kim Jong-un. Randall Park steals the movie. But no ABC news anchor ever mentioned that Randall Park also starred in the film as Kim Jong-un and, in a few months, would be seen on ABC's new sitcom, FRESH OFF THE BOAT. He's terrific on the sitcom and he's never been nominated for an Emmy either.

FRESH OFF THE BOAT premiered on Tuesdays. Now it's on Friday nights. Constance Wu and Randall Park break me up every single episode.  The parents, the kids, the grandmother -- I love that family. Here's a clip.

I wish ABC would realize how special and groundbreaking FRESH OFF THE BOAT is. And Constance Wu is comedy gold.

If you want to see Randall Park as Kim Jong-un, THE INTERVIEW is currently on Netflix.