“You’re not a great dad. You’re more of a … uh … tribe leader,” jokes Kevin Hart, referring to his close friend and fellow comedian Nick Cannon. It’s a Saturday afternoon in early June at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, and Cannon is uncharacteristically irritated. The sketch he’s taping for Monday’s BET Awards had a call time of 11:30 a.m., but due to a mix-up involving his ride, he didn’t arrive until almost one in the afternoon. He pulls up in a black SUV, and I ask him how he is doing. “Mad. I’m late,” he replies tersely.
The sketch, which is being filmed in an underground greenroom, reunites the cast of Real Husbands of Hollywood, a BET comedy series Hart created in 2013 that pokes fun at the personae of actual entertainers. Along with Hart and Cannon, the actor Boris Kodjoe, the singer Robin Thicke, the comedians Duane Martin and J. B. Smoove, and the rapper Nelly make up the core cast. The script imagines what would happen if Walmart, a sponsor of the awards ceremony, presented a Father of the Year prize to this pathologically competitive group of meta-characters. Cannon’s role is to act like he’s a shoo-in as a matter of simple arithmetic. “Just because you got the most kids, it does not mean that you automatically win,” snaps Hart.
