Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Gary Owen: Black Famous’ On Showtime, Divorce Makes For A Bittersweet Homecoming

In his fifth Showtime comedy special, Gary Owen goes home to his native Cincinnati to break down the breakdown in his marriage, and take some solace in how he’s much more popular there and everywhere else with Black Americans. Even despite his divorce.

GARY OWEN: BLACK FAMOUS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Gary Owen is a fixture on Showtime; Black Famous is his fifth stand-up special for the premium cable network. And he has indeed become more famous to Black Americans through his various credits as the white guy at the proverbial cookout, appearing in supporting roles in movies such as Think Like a Man, Ride Along, Little Man, Daddy Day Care, and Meet the Blacks. On TV, he and his family also starred in a reality series for BET, The Gary Owen Show, after previously hosting two seasons of BET’s ComicView.
Owen’s reality got even more real in 2021 when his divorce went public. He addresses that right from the beginning in this more personal hour of stand-up.
“You guys heard any good gossip?” he asks, pointing the finger at himself. “I’m going through a very very messy and public divorce. Thought it was going to be private. Wife had other plans.”

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: Not too many white guys in stand-up comedy who talk and act as if their skin color is the only thing white about them. Not too many famous ones, anyhow. Owen continues to own his niche.

Memorable Jokes: Owen teases that his divorce has “one of those twists that when black people hear it, they go OOOOOOOOH! I TOLD YOU!” but you’re not going to hear the big reveal in this hour, most likely because when he taped this special, he was still negotiating the terms of his divorce in court.
But Owen does earn an early applause break by noting that he’d never “sell out” by cheating on his wife with a white woman, declaring: “I am still on the squad.” He also gets a kick out of a gossip tabloid report that his soon-to-be ex had asked for $44,000 a month in alimony, as well as the idea that he could be a deadbeat dad when their kids have become adults already.

The hour can be divided into two parts of personal pride. The first, about how well he’s kept his private life private; the second, about how he’s the most “Black Famous” whenever he returns to his hometown of Cincinnati. He gets a lot of mileage about how he has used that fame not only in a past trip to a Bengals game but also on his then-current trip thanks to the lady at the Avis counter. And did you know he caught COVID-19 early on in the pandemic? Probably not until now, unless you were one of his friends who caught it from him!
Our Take: The personal touches definitely make this hour more special for Owen and for his audience.
His 2019 special mocked his social media presence, introduced multiple catchphrases and suggested he’d never wind up in a scandal. So to see and hear him now, going through a messy divorce and revealing how much he hides from social media, feels like we’re getting to see a clearer portrait of who he is and what he’s about.
He invites us even deeper in with a series of jokes late in the hour about how his parents had him while they were still in high school, and how their irresponsibilities and relative immaturity had an impact on his childhood.
Even if a couple of his joke choices might be more than a bit off-putting. Comparing his COVID-19 contact tracing phone calls to Magic Johnson’s HIV calls from 30 years ago might not be, in fact, “too soon,” but while Magic might have survived his AIDS diagnosis, do we really know how well it went for all of the women he slept with?! And then there’s just the super lazy decision to take a reasonable routine about a crazy Netflix documentary, only to tag it with a homophobic joke about Netflix’s algorithm suggesting Owen might want to watch movies with gay themes. But I guess that really does make Owen more of a black comedian these days?
Our Call: STREAM IT. If you’re ever going to be in the mood to find out more about Gary Owen, then this is the hour to do it. This is his best, most personal hour yet.

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Gary Owen: Black Famous on Showtime