Malcolm-Jamal Warner reveals why there was ‘so much fighting’ behind the scenes of Malcolm & Eddie
The late ’90s sitcom Malcolm & Eddie was lighthearted and silly, but Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who starred alongside Eddie Griffin, reveals that things weren’t always so playful off camera.
“There was so much fighting that I did on this show, with writers, producers, the studio,” Warner admits on the latest episode of PeopleTV’s Couch Surfing. “There was a particular vision they had for the show that was different from the vision I had for the show.”
Malcolm & Eddie premiered in 1996, just a few years after the end of The Cosby Show, where Warner and the rest of the cast challenged racial stereotypes. The actor recalls that his style of comedy didn’t always mesh well with Griffin’s, who tended to play into racial clichés for laughs, but they were able to set aside their differences and put on a great show.
“I mean, you’re putting the school of Bill Cosby and the school of Richard Pryor together as a team, so there were often creative conflicts,” Warner says. “But wherever we were, eye-to-eye-wise, every single show we’d get together, put our hands together, put our heads together, and we’d pray.”
