Critic Reviews

Unconventional and sometimes tasteless, it’s one series that audiences will want to return to repeatedly in order to completely appreciate its many dimensions and intricacies that may not be immediately obvious on first viewing. But “Sherman’s Showcase” is above all – and most importantly – just plain funny.

Season two is a continuation of the team’s well-honed brand of quick-hitting, time-hopping narration, giving a 360-degree view of a beloved musical variety show. ... If something doesn’t work for you there’s surely something else coming right behind. Something else in a steady, heady funk, set entirely to its own beat. Something delicious because you don’t know quite how to process it, and nobody is giving a clue.

It’s 100%, brilliantly executed, hilariously spot-on parody, created by the rising-stars duo Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle.

There are sharp musical parodies; spot-on period costumes; amusing impressions (Mary J. Blige, Lana Del Rey); and appearances by executive producer John Legend, Tiffany Haddish, Quincy Jones and more. Though Showcase is more allusive and ambitious than South Side, both shows are funny.

There’s something hugely refreshing about “Sherman’s Showcase,” a show that makes you giggle before you realize, “Hey, that’s pretty smart.”

Sherman's Showcase offers a lot to laugh, and occasionally marvel, at.

Clever, laid-back, and sneakily weird, the new IFC series Sherman’s Showcase will be catnip to pop-culture-history obsessives. ... But what makes this series stand out is how it weaves in a utopian fantasy element. Its invented gallery of African-American entertainers are contextualized as part of a thriving black culture that’s obviously part of the mainstream, not operating adjacent to it, or struggling to claim a little corner.

A joyful Sunbeam Mixmaster of a sketch show, a Spirograph set spinning through decades of black pop culture, finding faintly psychedelic patterns, in the shared tradition of Sun Ra and K-tel. Its premise is pure meta-absurdism. ... For all the show’s self-awareness, it feels warm, organic, and spontaneous, not cold or contrived.

While there are recurring characters and some structural throughlines — episodes follow the dancers, guests, controversies, etc. — the show generally jumps around without lingering too long on any given subject. That can make it a little disorienting to follow, but the brisk rhythm also keeps both the IFC and fictional versions of “Sherman’s Showcase” from getting stale too soon.

This Showcase is an uneven but offbeat gem. [22 Jul - 4 Aug 2019, p.7]