Meet The Browns Episode 2

Miss Daisy, channeling Gloria Swanson, glides down the stairs asking for her tea, but it’s reminiscent of the Sunset Blvd scene in which Gloria states “Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” They’ll need to watch this one to make sure her performance isn’t too over the top.

Ms. Simmons then gets a phone call from Mr. Brown who informs her that he’s in jail for making terrorist threats. While at the airport he referred to a box that he was shipping as “the bomb.” The tenants scramble to find a way to get Mr. Brown out of jail.

In the meantime the tenants begin interviewing candidates for the handyman position. The first candidate appears a bit odd and we soon learn that he’s suffering from post traumatic shock syndrome and hallucinations.

Shortly thereafter Mr. Brown is freed from jail (his nephew posts bail).

The next candidate for the handyman position is “Jesus” (Latino pronounciation “heh-sus”) which throws Mr. Brown for a loop. As you can imagine, Mr. Brown insists on pronoucing the name using the biblical pronunciation. After he successfully fixes a lamp Mr. Brown hires him.

London, a dense young pop star (read Paris Hilton or Britney Spears), also moves into the retirement home. Okay, at this point the establishment ceases to be a retirement home in my mind. It’s becoming more of a general boarding house than anything. Why a wealthy (albeit crazy) aging actress and a young and extremely popular pop star would want to reside at Mr. Brown’s rundown home is anyone’s guess. I hope we find out what brought all of them to the house instead of having to suspend reality and accept that they chose this place on their own. We at least find out that London is there serving out a community service sentence but why Mr. Brown’s home was chosen for this purpose and why he received a sizable check to keep her there is anyone’s guess. Some questions are better left unanswered.

Overall the show is entertaining. Mr. Brown is hilarious and incredibly endearing. Although there are several quirky characters on the show the show doesn’t really have a villain, which I think would add to the appeal of the show. The rival nursing home owner may be the person the fill this need but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Meet The Browns Episode 1

The scene begins with Mr. Brown explaining the misuderstanding that occurred at the hardware store when Mr. Brown asked the clerk for the clap. As you can imagine, Mr. Brown was referring to The Clapper (a device that controls house lights by simply clapping ones hands) but it was funny watching him explain this issue. At one point he informs his sister (Ms. Simmons, portrayed by Mr. Brown’s real-life wife, Tamela Mann) that he’d given the clap to Madea. Ms. Simmons soon makes a hasty departure.

The next scene opens with a male tenant chasing a female tenant around Mr. Brown’s living room. Turns out the two of them are married and the male character (Les Brown) is Mr. Brown’s nephew and a gynecologist who’s married to Sasha brown, a nurse.

A frantic woman (Carmen) bursts into Mr. Browns house asking if he can house the residents of a nearby nursing home that was burned down. The most outstanding character in this group is a 60 something woman that’s hot after Mr. Brown (and any other man for that matter). There’s a brief sniping scene between Mr. Brown and Miss Robinson, the current owner of the burned down nursing home, but it’s unclear as to how large a role she will play in the series. It’s during this scene that Mr. Brown is informed that he’ll need a license for housing the 20 or so tenants.

Mr. Brown is next visited by Miss Robinson accompanied by a representative from the state licensing board. They inform Mr. Brown that he has to shut down his establishment because he doesn’t have a license to operate a retirement home. Mr.Brown reluctantly gives up the tenants but there’s a twist: Miss Robinson doesn’t want to take two of the tenants:

-a male tenant that likes to take care of bodily function outside, in the shrubbery;
-a female tenant that’s the 70-year old version of Samantha from Sex and the City.

They soon take an additional eccentric tenant, Miss Daisy Larue, a wealthy, somewhat insane former stage actress who acts like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd.

Great fun!

See also: Meet The Browns Episode 2

David Mann

If you’ve never seen Tyler Perry’s plays or movies your first exposure to the “Mr. Brown” character was probably via the “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” television show. However, David Mann has portrayed this character in several productions:

* I Can Do Bad All By Myself – Mr. Brown
* Madea’s Family Reunion – Mr. Brown
* Madea’s Class Reunion – Mr. Brown
* Meet The Browns – Mr. Brown
* House of Payne – Mr. Brown (5 episodes)
* What’s Done in the Dark – Mr. Brown
* Meet The Browns (film version) – Mr. Brown
* Madea Goes To Jail (film version) – Brown
* Meet The Browns (TV Series)- Leroy Brown

David Mann is married to Tamela Mann, the person portraying his sister on Meet The Browns. He and his wife were gospel singers with Kirk Franklin’s “The Family” before working on Tyler Perry’s productions.