All About the Washingtons

Cast and characters

Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons portrays Joey Washington, a hip-hop artist who retires to become a stay-at-home father. Justine Simmons plays Justine Washington, a former housewife who pursues entrepreneurship after her husband's retirement. Kiana Ledé appears as Veronica Washington, the eldest daughter and a college student.

Nathan Anderson plays Wesley Washington, the older son who wants a music career. Leah Rose Randall portrays Skyler Washington, the younger daughter and a gifted student. Maceo Smedley plays Daevon Washington, the youngest son, whose middle name is Gilbert.

Quincy Fouse appears as Malik, Veronica's boyfriend. DJ Ruckus, Arsenio Hall, and Lawrence Saint-Victor also appear. Tim Meadows, Daymond John, Aubrey Cleland, Kira Kosarin, Suzy Nakamura, Trinitee Stokes, and Deon Cole make guest appearances.

Production

On October 24, 2016, ABC gave the production a put pilot commitment with a financial penalty if no pilot was produced. Jeremy Bronson wrote the pilot, with Jhoni Marchinko supervising. Executive producers included Bronson, Marchinko, Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons, Justine Simmons, Michael Lehman, Darryl Frank, and Justin Falvey. Amblin Television and ABC Studios were involved.

After ABC declined to move forward, Amblin Television and ABC Studios used the penalty money to finance a pilot presentation in April 2017, filmed on the set of Black-ish with Don Scardino directing. On November 17, 2017, Netflix ordered a straight-to-series first season of ten episodes, produced by ABC Signature. The series was titled All About The Washingtons and premiered August 10, 2018.

Andrew Reich served as showrunner and executive producer. Netflix canceled the series after one season on October 18, 2018. Principal photography began in January 2018.

Reception

The series received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 40% approval rating with an average rating of 4.07 out of 10 based on 5 reviews.

Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the show is built on the idea that people funny in reality can be made fictionally funny, but in this case they cannot. Rachna Raj Kaur of Now compared the series unfavorably to the Simmons' real personas, stating that the family sitcom falls flat. Jacob Oller of Paste gave the series a grade of 4.2 out of 10, calling it too facile to be funny and too invested in testing the Simmons with scripted material to be charming.