Talking TV: Bounce’s ‘Act Your Age’ Sets A Debut Record

Act Your Age, a new half-hour original comedy from diginet Bounce, saw a record debut for the network last month with 2.14 million viewers tuning in for its debut episodes. Given how streaming consumes most of the oxygen in every programming room, it’s a debut worth noting.

Alyson Fouse, the show’s creator and showrunner, takes heart from what its debut largely signifies — that people will still discover a new show through the serendipity of just flipping around, in this case on over-the-air TV.

In this Talking TV conversation, Fouse discusses the show’s premise of three 50-something Black women discovering what life has next in store for them, the ongoing value of classic sitcom conventions for audiences and her aspirations for the show.

Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.

Michael Depp: Act Your Age, a new show on diginet Bounce, debuted on March 4 as the most-watched series launch in that network’s history. The half-hour comedy features Kym Whitley, Tisha Campbell and Yvette Nicole Brown as a trio of successful Washington, D.C. area women who are in their fifties and each at a personal crossroads. Alyson Fouse is the creator, showrunner and producer of the 16-episode series, which runs Saturdays at 8 p.m. on Bounce.

I’m Michael Depp, editor of TVNewsCheck, and today Alyson Fouse joins me to discuss why Act Your Age had such a strong early start and the viability of diginets like Bounce for original series. We’ll be right back with that conversation.

Welcome, Alyson Fouse, to Talking TV.

Alyson Fouse: Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me.

And congratulations on your show.

Thank you again. I’m really excited about it.

Well, Alyson, you’ve previously worked on Big Shot, which is, I believe, on Disney+, Everybody Hates Chris and The Wanda Sykes Show. But this is your first experience, as I understand it, as a showrunner. Is that right?

Well, I had some experience as a showrunner, but it wasn’t a show I created. It was for Born Again Virgin, which was created by my co-EP now, Renata Shepherd. I like to call her my work wife. We’ve been through the trenches together.

How did Act Your Age originate?

Well, it’s been living with me for a while, but I’ll say the time came when Brad Gardner from MGM, I had a meeting with him, and told me that Bounce and Scripps had an idea for a show, and they’d like to talk to me about it. And then we had a call with David Hudson from Bounce and Scripps. And they told me that they wanted a show with women who were my age, in their 50s, well-off in this certain area. And that’s basically all they gave me. And I just took that and ran. You know, it’s something I can really relate to, especially as far as being a woman of a certain age.

I’ve read that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution called the show Golden Girls for Black women. Is that what you had in mind?

You know, I love classic sitcoms, and Golden Girls is one of my favorites. And the idea that I hadn’t seen Black women like this, of this age, I mean, of course, you take from the greats. You steal from the greats as far as their chemistry and the rhythm and everything, it is just classic funny. If they’re comparing it to Golden Girls, I think that’s a really good compliment.

I’d take it. A lot of new shows now are very edgy and conceptual, including comedies. This show is very traditional. It sort of harkens back … I definitely had a feel of sitcoms from the ’70s or even the ’80s. What about those kinds of conventions appealed to you when you were putting the show together?

Well, you know, the idea of people sitting in front of the TV with the family while watching shows and laughing, and even the next generation who watch these kind of shows as reruns later, you know, it’s that good feeling of these are people I can return to every week and just feel good about it. You know, when I was a kid, it was Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, and then as I got older, was all of Norman Lear’s stuff. And I like the idea of revisiting anything that feels like a family, whether you’re with one or not. I think people love to laugh. They love a happy ending. They love to feel good. And that’s not to say that we won’t cover certain issues and we keep the show current, but the main feeling we want is that people have a good time. Just a little joy in your life for 22 minutes.

I was going to ask you about your influences. You said Norman Lear and Happy Days. Anything else kind of formative for you in the sitcom world going into this?

Well, my first sitcom was My Wife and Kids, and Don Rio was the showrunner. And it was funny, before I was even in the business, I loved everything he did. So, I was sort of a fan also of those sort of darker comedies, too. But just I love anybody who’s who has good rhythm and storytelling. You know, I enjoy Abbott Elementary now. I enjoyed Modern Family when it was on, you know, they had a great way of keeping everyone active. And I just love good story and characters.

As I mentioned, you had this strong performing show right out of the box for Bounce. What do you think has been the draw for viewers so far? Is there something just sort of comfortable about the sitcom that draws them in?

Yeah, because there aren’t big surprises in sitcoms. It really comes down to the stories and the characters. But I think we presented a show that not only looks good, our cast is phenomenal and familiar, and they’re women you loved and love to see now, you know, returning to them. Tisha Campbell, I mean, she’s done so much work and her fan base is huge as well as Kym Whitley and Yvette Nicole Brown, whose fan base is very broad. So, the fact that we could put them all together and lot of the feedback has been, you know, I love seeing these women again. I love seeing them together. You know, and the family aspect of it, the friendship.

Did the casting come together very quickly?

No, we were writing the show before we knew who would star in it. But then when they asked me who I want it, I was like, there’s a list in my head of women I’ve always wanted to work with. You know, to me, Yvette was always Angela. I had to have her as Angela, and I knew that Tisha would bring so much more to Keisha than how she was written on page or how people perceived her on the page, what I wanted her to be. And then with Kym, we had another actor who fell out that the network was really excited about, but unfortunately, we couldn’t make it work. And so, I was like, Kym is perfect for that. And I love that they all came together and the fact that they’re real friends.

You have to have that that off-screen chemistry, I suppose, as well to have it on screen. As I mentioned at the top, this is airing Saturday nights on Bounce. Is it available on streaming as well?

Well, Bounce does have a Brown Sugar app that you can watch the reruns the next day and you can watch all the episodes, as a matter of fact. That’s as far as I know. I’m encouraging people to record it. And I guess it would also depend on what your cable services are, Dish Network or whatever all that stuff is. But it’s free on the airwaves with an HD antenna.

As most of the viewers are finding you, there’s that sort of serendipity, they’re flipping around and there it is, let me leave this on.

Well, you know, it’s funny because a lot of people had Bounce but didn’t know it. You know, they were watching it and weren’t aware that it was Bounce because they show a lot of classic movies and things like that. So yeah, I tell people, go ask your grandmother or mother, they’re probably already watching it.

Right. Well, the thing is that most people don’t even know what a diginet is. I mean, that’s sort of an industry term. When we think about diginets, often it’s sort of reruns of classic shows, you know, thematically organized by different genres. So, you know, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you was because your show’s an original, and there are originals on other diginets, too, but it’s not been loaded with originals. I wonder, with so many people having to cut the cord to cable doing that and streaming getting also very expensive to pay for in an a la carte kind of way, do you think that gives an advantage to being on a network like Bounce and to a show like yours? There might be more discoverability of it now than even just a year or two ago?

Oh, absolutely. Because I think we’re at a point where if you make a good show, people will find it. And the bonus of this is that it’s free works in our favor. And I love the idea of people not only discovering us but discovering the whole Bounce network as just another alternative for something to watch. Because, you know, and not to pooh-pooh the streamers and everything, but those costs start to add up. You know, if you’re paying for different networks, Bounce and being free is really a bonus for us. I’m excited about it.

Once we got a good show and a good cast, I didn’t care where they showed it. You know, Bounce is great, and they’ve been fantastic with us. But it was just I like the idea of people discovering our show, you know, and that that means they made an effort to go watch it. So, I think this is great.

What’s your hope for the show, Alyson? What are your ambitions ultimately for it?

To open this world up even more to get to know these women and that at their age, life isn’t over. You know, when you’re 20 and you think about somebody in their 50s, you think, ancient. And honestly, we’re still learning. Life is still going. So, I want to open up these characters, show people, get them familiar with this kind of space.

You know, again, like I said, we don’t have a cast on TV that I’m aware of that looks like this, that’s enjoying life. And it’s comedic. And we have our two younger characters, Mariah Robinson and Nathan Anderson. And as their world opens up, it gives us a whole new universe to play with. I just love the fact it let these people join me in the shower every day, because that’s where I get all my thoughts. You know, I get all these ideas. I could do this forever. You know, I could easily see this show going seven seasons. But I can also see the spin-off of it again from that Norman Lear generation where we watch. You set up a whole universe of families and different backgrounds and ever everything, and I’m excited about it.

OK, well, “these people are with me every day in the shower,” I think has risen to the headline of this. Well, thank you so much, Alyson Fouse, for joining me today to discuss your new show, Act Your Age. I really appreciate it.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate it, Michael.

You can watch past episodes of Talking TV on TVNewsCheck.com and on our YouTube channel. Thanks for watching and listening to this one and see you next time.