Three Ways to Make 'The Carmichael Show' More Carolinian

Note: Since I started working on this post North Carolina has entered center stage of the transgender rights debate.  Naturally these events have slightly influenced the final product.  If you get a chance to see last year's The Carmichael Show episode on the issue I highly recommend it.

With only six episodes in its first season NBC's The Carmichael Show has already become a hit with critics and garnered enough viewers to land a second season with twelve episodes that premiered earlier in March.  At risk of jinxing it, one can't help but compare this success with Seinfeld which launched with a five episode freshman year, returned with twelve before becoming a decade defining cultural phenomenon on NBC.  For many viewers it is also as representative of New York City as any Woody Allen movie and without trying too hard to do so like How I Met Your Mother.  One of the reasons The Carmichael Show has become a favorite of mine (along with the bold, uncompromisingly compromising approach to hot button issues, fantastic performances and wonderful jokes) is that it is set in North Carolina, the home state I share with the show's creator Jerrod Carmichael.  So far in the second season Jerrod's fictional mother has mentioned the capital Raleigh as the site of her hypothetical affair and Panthers quarterback Cam Newton has been sighted twice by characters off-screen at retail stores.  However, if The Carmichael Show is going to represent North Carolina the way Seinfeld represent New York I have a few suggestions.

Cheerwine

That's an Avett Brother referring to Cheerwine

North Carolina is kind of a major player in the history of soda (we call it soda by the way).  Pepsi was invented in New Bern, NC in 1893.  About twenty years later another beverage was created that doesn't have quite the same amount of outreach.  For the most part Cheerwine is almost exclusively available in North Carolina.  This cherry flavored, rich red hued refreshment with the weight of a cool breeze is a staple of pig pickin's and local sporting events.  Let me rephrase that.  This sugary, fruity, colorful nectar, which could just as easily be the official beverage of the LGBTQ community as the people who apparently hate and fear them, is a common sight at social gatherings.  Nothing would confirm The Carmichael Show's setting like the characters drinking from a chilled burgundy can.

An Uneasy Loyalty to the Tobacco Industry

This is from Bull Durham

North Carolina was largely built by tobacco.  It's only rival as the state's main export is cotton and of the two only tobacco is the most deadly plant outside of the evil sentient tree known as Croatoan who ate the entire colony of Roanoke.  Durham is especially reliant on tobacco, earning the Bull City another nickname, Cancer Capital of the Galaxy.  In recent decades humanity has accepted that cigarettes and the ilk are deadly and anyone who uses them does so knowing full well that it could be the thing that kills them.  Of course many places in the United States, particularly the South, have dark spots in their history; slavery, Jim Crow, and now rampant homo/transphobia for instance but so few of those are currently economic necessitates that kill people every day.  Although, that still might not be as bad as forcing the glamorous Laverne Cox to use a filthy men's bathroom, assuming she ever graced the Tar Heel State with her presence.  An episode about a character's struggle to quit smoking would be an easy fit for The Carmichael Show.  If anything it would be too similar to the episode about David Alan Grier's Joe and his adherence to a poor diet in spite of his failing health.

Andy Griffith

I don't recognize either of these people

You can't talk about television and North Carolina without talking about The Andy Griffith Show.  It's easily the most famous depiction of the Old North State.  With his folksy charm and sly grin Griffith's sheriff Andy Taylor and the fictional town of Mayberry captivated the nation of the 1960's.  Griffith quickly became North Carolina's chief unofficial emissary, a role he filled to perfection up until his death in 2012.  For over half a century Andy Griffith and Mayberry's colorful cast of characters have been an omnipresent force throughout the state.  Actually, Griffith's legacy can be seen in the pilot of The Carmichael Show and Jerrod Carmichael might not even realize it.  Despite his kindness and unlimited country wisdom, Andy Taylor could often be quite manipulative, like a benevolent trickster god from a folk tale.  Likewise, Jerrod's character spends most of the pilot steering the conversation to avoid the topic of his girlfriend moving in with him.  It's a trait that hasn't been seen much since that first episode but could easily make a return.  Failing that, Jerrod's brother Bobby would make an excellent sheriff.  All he would need is North Carolina's beloved moral compass, the question "what would Andy Taylor do?"  The answer is rarely if ever "let misguided fear and bigotry conquer over compassion."