HBO Comedy Half-Hour

Warren Hutcherson builds his set around the distinct worldview he inherited from his family. He leans heavily on his background growing up in Baltimore as the son of a Nation of Islam member, wringing jokes out of a father who could find a sprawling conspiracy in the most ordinary daily events. He plays with the paranoia of the era, delivering his observations with a steady, conversational rhythm.

The thirty-minute television spot aired in December 1997, catching the comic at a busy professional intersection. Hutcherson had spent the previous years in writers’ rooms for Saturday Night Live and Living Single. By the time this episode hit cable television, he had recently launched his own NBC sitcom, Built to Last.