By Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune
Nearly dialogue-free, the Oscar-winning, six-minute 2019 animated short “Hair Love” from Matthew A. Cherry was inspired by videos on social media of Black fathers caring for their children’s hair. With the new series “Young Love,” Cherry has expanded that premise to focus on the close-knit family at the story’s center with a 12-episode animated comedy for Max.
Mom is Angela (Issa Rae) and she’s a hair stylist who is picking her life back up after an illness. Dad is Stephen, a struggling music producer (Scott Mescudi, aka the rapper Kid Cudi) who has been holding down the fort in the meantime. They live on the West Side of Chicago — specifically a tree-lined stretch in West Garfield Park — and share a multifamily home with their six-year-old daughter Zuri (Brooke Conaway), a spirited kid who isn’t afraid to assert herself, or her preferences. They’re upstairs. Downstairs are the grandparents (Loretta Devine and Harry Lennix).
The show zeros in on the kinds of small details that make up a life. Hoping that a working parent will be able to carve out time to show up at a school event. Or the way a child sleeping in your bed can roll over and inadvertently slap you in the face. Or a brief but lovely scene when Angela is driving Zuri to school and glances back at her in the rearview mirror. The little girl is staring out the window and happily nodding her head to the music, but senses her mother looking at her and turns to make eye contact. It’s just a wonderful moment of connection that makes these two characters seem less like cartoon constructs, more like human beings.
Charming but not treacly, the series starts off strong and I appreciate the straight-faced comedy that’s occasionally laced through it. After tumbling into a pile of garbage, Angela reassures everyone she’s OK: “This bag of glass bottles broke my fall.” When Stephen is working on his latest beats and notices the family cat has put its paws over its ears, he is unfazed: “Who asked you?”
Unlike Disney’s “The Proud Family,” which is more gag-based and with a zanier pacing and energy, “Young Love” is in line with something like “Bob’s Burgers,” but it’s also gentler in many respects. And it’s not aiming to be quite that funny. But I appreciate that this one-liner got in: Walking through a gentrified neighborhood, Angela squints at the word “artisanal” and asks, “Why does every sign say ‘artist anal’?” That’s an “Arrested Development”-level joke! But the episode also glosses over the issues that make gentrification a concern. The guy who once had a restaurant in the area now has a food truck instead, everything’s fine!
Zuri is smart and confident and, as a result, can be the bane of her teacher’s existence. Holding up a storybook for children about an athlete named Tisha Turtle, she says: “Who cares if Tisha can run fast? Tisha should be teaching us kids how to grow into healthy, competent adults who are able to support themselves financially and contribute to society.”
Do 6-year-olds speak this way? Not many! Doesn’t matter, though. Zuri is a gas and she feels like a real person, even if some of her antics, including some early stabs at teenage-style rebellion, seem a little aged up for a first grader.
Mom and Dad are the kind of likable people who are not immune to making bad decisions, like when Angela opens their home to a family in need, only to use them for social media clout. It’s pretty awful! And she knows it! Both parents are working through professional frustrations, including Stephen’s misadventures working with a ridiculous rapper named Lil Ankh, which becomes a running gag throughout the season. Money is tight and it feels like, finally, a fictional depiction of the financial realities so many of us are facing at the moment, but they’re a happy family for the most part. And here’s the rare animated show to put Black millennial parents at its center.
Cherry is a Chicago native and you can see the care that has been put into capturing the city, even if it’s a perpetually warm-weathered version. The visuals are unquestionably Chicago, from images of the river downtown, to the “L” zooming by, to the recognizable wooden back porches on brick three flats (the show’s art director is Ed Li). And I’m a sucker for the hummable opening credits, from composer Taylor Graves.
Adorable family? Check. A gorgeous portrayal of Chicago plus terrific performances? Check and check. “Young Love” is a worthy entry into the pantheon of animated family comedies.
“Young Love” — 3 stars (out of 4)
Where to watch: Max
Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.
