Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Marlon Wayans Presents: The Headliners’ On HBO Max, One Hour Not Enough For Five Comedians To Show Why They’re Headliners

The term “up-and-coming” might hit different when you’re in your 20s versus your 40s. Nevertheless, that’s the tag HBO Max and Marlon Wayans have put on the five comedians invited to suit up and show up for their first stand-up showcase on HBO Max. Is asking them to share time within an hour, alongside their host, enough to demonstrate why they’re headliners, though? 

MARLON WAYANS PRESENTS: THE HEADLINERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Marlon Wayans had his own solo hour special on HBO Max just last year with Marlon Wayans: You Know What It Is.
For his next act with Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming platform, Wayans has extended a hand out to shout-out five of his funny friends who have opened for him on tour. As he said in his opening monologue, “I’m not trying to make comedians….I want to make stars.” Which also is why he asked his openers-turned-headliners to all match him in wearing suits onstage. This fab five features D.C. Ervin, Tony Baker, Chaunté Wayans (Marlon’s niece), Sydney Castillo, and Esau McGraw.

What Comedy Specials Will It Remind You Of?: The most obvious comparison on streaming would be Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready for Netflix, especially since Chaunté Wayans appeared in that showcase series, too. But the Wayans have a history of keeping their relatives in the picture, per se, so we’ll allow the overlap!
Memorable Jokes: Tony Baker set a solid tone with an 11-minute set with a well-thought-out through-line establishing why he’s “a proud cat person,” why Harriet Tubman’s face should grace all the paper money, why even having a pet won’t help you much when you need to check the door crack, behind the shower curtain, and the back seat of the car because you’re freaked out.

Baker, as well as most everyone else in the lineup, closed their set with a shout-out for Cerain Baker, Tony’s son, who died last summer at 21 when his car got smashed by two other cars involved in an illegal street race.
D.C. Ervin’s set edges into dark territory, not so much when he acted out trying on shoe’s at Ross, but rather when he joked about depression and suicidal thoughts, and simulated using heroin by wrapping the mic cord around his arm.
If you want to know about the last man Chaunté Wayans ever dated, she’ll tell you the who and the why of it all, as well as recounting how you might not want to be cheap with your dental care, based on her experience getting braces in adulthood.
Sydney Castillo joked about needing a game-plan for couples counseling, which might partially explain in retrospect why he’s divorced. Castillo also offered advice should you ever decide to buy your erectile-dysfunction pills at the gas station. But if you think his ex-wife won the divorce, Castillo reminded you, he’s the one on HBO Max now.
Esau McGraw closed out the hour by establishing his experience and point-of-view as a product of a grandmother who had 13 kids and a mother who gave birth to eight. Long story short? “I’m raising my uncle. He 9.” That’s not why McGraw has to ride the bus now, but he has act outs aplenty for dealing with his younger nephew, as well as for navigating the bus system and all those who ride. “The bus is transportation for the lost and the damned.” And if that’s not all, lest not he be judged, he used that conceit to reveal he’s dating an older woman who’s been a freak in the sheets since before he was born, and while talking about that relationship, McGraw proved he knew how to work the camera in addition to working the live audience.
Our Take: I’ve been on record as enjoying Marlon Wayans’s work much more as an actor than as a stand-up comedian, but his presence in this hour is more incidental, with a singular purpose of drawing your attention in to click on this special, so you can see the five comedians he’s showcasing.
But I cannot help but think he’s giving short shrift to these comics by shoehorning them all into one hour. Yeah, yeah, there’s a tried-and-true strategy in marketing of leave them wanting more. Less is more. I get all of that. And yet. Haddish’s Netflix series gave each of her handpicked comedians their own episode to shine. So Chaunté had 23 minutes solo with Haddish, versus only 8 minutes here. Chappelle started his own Netflix presents stand-up series earlier this year, and his chosen comics each get closer to an hour to demonstrate their underrated-ness.
Besides, the title alone suggests these are headliners, so reducing them to 10 minutes or so each only serves to handicap them. No matter how well they clean up in matching suits.
The strategy of teasing you into seeking out more from these comedians definitely works to the advantage of Baker and McGraw. Is it a coincidence that they’re the only comedians not introduced as having a personal and professional connection to the host? Castillo wrote for Marlon (he’s also on the writing staff for HBO’s new talker, Game Theory with Bomani Jones) and won Funniest Wins, Marlon’s TBS contest from 2014. He, Ervin and Chaunté all had supporting roles in one of Marlon’s parody movies, Fifty Shades of Black.
There’s a slight chance you recognize Baker from appearing in multiple episodes of A Black Lady Sketch Show, or perhaps a decade ago, when Gabriel Iglesias hosted him on his Comedy Central showcase. But perhaps not. Likewise, McGraw’s previous TV credits date way back past a decade to Def Comedy Jam and ComicView.

Our Call: STREAM IT. This hour is worth it just for the chance to see Baker and McGraw. They have been grinding on the road and in Los Angeles clubs for many years, and their experience paid off here.

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.