'Cedric's Barber Battle': Clipping the Comedy

I realize it sounds almost silly to say that I was disappointed by a show called Cedric’s Barber Battle, but, well, I expected more fun from a TV show built around Cedric the Entertainer.

Barber Battle, premiering on Friday night, is a competition show between three barbers, evaluated by a trio of barber-judges, hosted by Cedric. One challenge I watched involved giving civilians haircuts based on the presidential portraits on various bills of currency. Thus, images of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Ben Franklin were carved into skulls. The challenge is basically a drawing contest with razors.

Cedric has been given a lot of recurring phrases to gussy up the proceedings. For example: When the barbers first put aprons around their clients, he bellows, “Cape your crowns!” And the follicle-kidnappers are referred to as “BWA” — “Barbers With Attitude.” When time is up, Cedric crows, “Clippers down!” The resulting cuts tend to look as though someone has sprayed graffiti across the back of a head.

Here’s what I thought Cedric’s Barber Battle might have been: Cedric, such a wonderfully talented comedian and talker, going to a different old-school barber shop every week, sitting around and chatting with veteran, seen-it-all hair-cutters while they snipped, trading stories, boasts, insults, and dandruff horror stories. You know, like the Cedric-co-starring movie Barbershop but even more funky. Doesn’t that sound like an amusing half-hour?

Instead, we get a lot of variations on other reality shows — when a barber is eliminated here, Cedric intones, in the manner of Jeff Probst on Survivor, “Sorry, you’ve been clipped” — and a lot of dull observations from the judges about technique. Trips to my own barber are more entertaining than this, and I only have to see him once a month.

Cedric’s Barber Battle airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on The CW.