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• The Underground on Showtime
• Mr. Wayans' bio

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Tavis: (Laugh) Pleased to welcome Damon Wayans to the program. The talented actor, comedian, and producer has been a force in film and television dating back to his work on the groundbreaking series 'In Living Color.' He's back on TV this fall in the new Showtime series 'The Underground.' He also serves as the show's executive producer. Here now, a scene from 'The Underground.'

Tavis: (Laugh) Still cutting-edge. Still-cutting edge. What's up, Damon?

Damon Wayans: What's up, Tavis?

Tavis: You doing all right?

Wayans: I'm doing good, man.

Tavis: I say 'The Underground' gets two snaps up. (Laugh) I was teasing you before we came on the air, 'cause I'm not gonna call no names, but one of the brothers who works on my staff rode up on you, like, two minutes ago, and knew, like, all your dialogue.

Wayans: That's a good thing. I was saying that when they know the words, then you're doing your job. That's the key. The key is to have them, in their subconscious mind, be able to repeat it to you.

Tavis: But I said to you, if you had a dime for ever Negro who's walked up on the street and gave your dialogue back to you, you'd be...

Wayans: I'd be rich and walking down the street holding out my hand. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) Does it ever get old? 'Cause everybody, especially now that they run 'In Living Color' every day somewhere.

Wayans: It's a great thing. For me, I can't just live on the laurels of what I've done. I got people who love Major Pain. But if all I did was run around going, say the word turd, (laugh) I'd be in trouble. 'Cause I wouldn't be looking for someone new to do. That's my biggest fear, is to be J.J. I love Jimmie Walker, but he's in hell, 'cause people still come to him and go, "Dy-no-mite." (Laugh) And this is like, 40 years ago?

Tavis: (Laugh) Have you ever been concerned that at one point in your career, that might be the case?

Wayans: Oh, yeah. Well, Homie The Clown, Homie The Clown was so, I don't know, big to people, and they just, like, people would read in stuff to Homie The Clown that I didn't even think of. Like man, I love what you're doing with the clown, brother. (Laugh) The white stuff around your mouth, like you bit into Whitey's ass. (Laugh) Am I right? No. It's makeup. (Laugh) Makeup, bro. But people loved Homie the Clown. And it was kind of, it was big. It scared me.

Tavis: Did it surprise you - see, we all love Homie the Clown, "Homie don't play that." We loved it. Did that surprise you, though, that that character, everybody has their own taste. Did it surprise you that that was the character that people seemed to really, really gravitate to?

Wayans: The whole show surprised me. The success of the show. Because we were basically doing stuff to get canceled. (Laugh) It was just like, what could we do to make them go, uh-uh, ya'll stop. And so when - it took us about nine months to get on air, because we started out as a midseason replacement and they didn't put us on, 'cause they had to check with everybody Black to make sure it was all right.

They were waking up old slaves, hey. (Laugh) Would this be all right to put on? And then it went through Jesse Jackson, the NAACP. Just everybody. And then we missed the fall season, and then they put us on as a midseason.

Tavis: I wanna get to 'The Underground' here in just a second. One more question on this, 'cause I'm fascinated now by your formulation that you were doing everything you could, you and the family, to get canceled. On the one hand, it's funny, Damon. On the other hand, that might not be a bad way of thinking for a comedian or anybody who's producing who's trying to push the envelope where comedy is concerned. Because it means you're taking some risk. It means you're trying some stuff that's groundbreaking. That might not be the worst formulation.

Wayans: No. My theory is if the critics love it, then I didn't do my job.

Tavis: Right.

Wayans: The critics have to go, what the hell is this? (Laugh) And then I go, (laugh) all right, I'm doing something right. They killed me in 'The Underground,' (laugh) and I went okay, cool. Now how do I take that and flip it so that people will go what is this raunchy, out there, subversive stuff, Mr. Wayans is up to.

Tavis: Let's talk about that raunchy, subversive stuff you're up to, 'cause it is called 'The Underground,' on Showtime. Tell me about the concept, and how you decided you wanted to do this right about now.

Wayans: Well, after they canceled 'My Wife and Kids...'

Tavis: Stop, stop. Were you cool with the way that went down?

Wayans: No.

Tavis: Okay.

Wayans: No. They looked me in my face, (laugh) they told me the show is picked, go write shows. We went off and we wrote 16 outlines for next season, and then right before, I got a phone call saying, 'Your show's on the bubble. You need to go basically kiss the chairman of ABC's ass and make him put your show on the air.' And I said, 'Well, if it's on the bubble then pop it, 'cause I'm moving on.'

I don't want - I was worried that they would try to punk me. I'd go in there begging, and they'd go, 'Ha-ha, we got you on tape. (Laugh) Look what Homie plays.' So I was like, 'Nah.'

Tavis: You said no, I'm not going for that, yeah.

Wayans: So I went and I took my own money, that's the beautiful thing about working on ABC, I made a lot of money. And I was able to do what I wanted to do, which is you know what? 'The Underground,' if I would have tried to pitch this to a network, they would have said no. We did 'Vagina Monologues' with real vaginas. You can't tell nobody hey, this is gonna be funny.

So we went out and we just shot it. I took my own money, I shot 31 sketches, and then we put together eight of the funniest, and we went out and showed it to HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central, and BET. And for whatever reason, Showtime looks like the best place for the show. So we went with Showtime.

Tavis: You ever get concerned, back again to your formulation, that you're pushing the envelope too far?

Wayans: Yeah. It's like when they tell you you can do anything; this season, I call it shock and awe.

Tavis: Yeah. (Laugh)

Wayans: Because (laugh) I'm still shocked that they let us do it, and now I need to find, now that I've figured out I can pretty much do anything I wanna do, next season, if there's a next season, then I'll take it to another level in terms of putting a little more thought into it.

Tavis: How many of the Wayans clan are attached to this project?

Wayans: Well, this one is just my son. You have to have at least one Wayans, yeah.

Tavis: Is that a family rule?

Wayans: Yeah.

Tavis: You got to have at least one.

Wayans: Yeah. My son, he was the one you saw in the clip, the one that was running. That's Damon Jr. And I had him on 'Wife and Kids' as a writer, and he went from a PA to a writer. He earned his steps. And I let him do a little acting on the show. He was awful. (Laugh) So, I really didn't see him as, like, the go-to guy in 'The Underground.' But he came in and he, I guess sketch is different, because you only have to be funny for three to five minutes, you know what I mean?

You don't have to really - you could commit to a character. And he started doing stand-up. But really, he just came on 'The Underground' to write, but he started writing stuff for him. Or writing stuff that I said, 'You should probably do this.' And then when he was in the rehearsal period, I saw a light go on. And I was like, oh my God, maybe I did put some (sounds like) pain in this boy. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) I would love to have been around the family dinner table - by the way, how your mama doing?

Wayans: Mama's doing great.

Tavis: Tell your mama I said hello.

Wayans: I will do that.

Tavis: I ran into your mama in New York, and she walked up to me, introduced herself, gave me a hug like I was a Wayans. It felt good. She's just a wonderful, that hug was just, I could see, just in meeting her for, like, a couple of minutes, why your family is so tight-knit. I could just see it in her. Just the way she approached me.

Wayans: Yeah, my mama is very affectionate. And, like, as kids, if we got into an argument with each other, she'd make us kiss on the mouth. (Laugh)

Tavis: So you had to kiss Keenan.

Wayans: I kissed Keenan. Tongued him down.

Tavis: Tongued him down. (Laugh)

Wayans: No. (Laugh) No, but you had to have the kiss, and that kept you from ever, like, wanting to fight with your brother, especially in front of Mom.

Tavis: (Laugh) Exactly.

Wayans: But now, we're really close. So I kiss my brother, on the cheek, hello and goodbye. Even if I argue with him.

Tavis: That's back to my point, the point I was trying to make. What was it like being at the meeting when you all next got together after this major magazine in town labels ya'll the most powerful family in Hollywood?

Wayans: I said, well, let's do something powerful. It's like, they can call you anything, but the proof is in the pudding. What are you doing? And I think right now, we're all coming together. First we wanna spread out like roaches, do our own thing. 'Cause if you move as a team, they can just take you all out. They take out whoever's leading the team. Now that we're all off doing our own things and got our own little irons in the fire, we'll come back together and build something special, I think.

Tavis: Tell me about the story that I'm not still sure I fully understand, but it was all over the Internet about you trying to buy the word nigger and do something with it. That's not a joke. That's a true story. Everybody on the set start laughing like I'm joking. That's a true story.

Wayans: Yeah. I tried to get the word, because I got tired of hearing it. And like, my nephews, my sons, and it's just the younger generation. They use it like the. And I sat back and said, well, you know what? Maybe if they had to pay to use that word, (laugh) they'll stop. So I went and I registered it. But the funny thing is, the White man that owned it told me no, I can't have it. (Laugh) 'Cause they may bring it back. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) They may bring that back, huh?

Wayans: Yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna hold on to this one, it's a good one. That's what they said. (Laugh)

Tavis: (Laugh) I don't know how to follow that up, Damon. That was good. So, it's cool to be, like, the owner of this property, isn't it? This 'Underground' project.

Wayans: Oh, it feels real good, because worse come - I'll never be in a position where I was on 'Wife and Kids' or 'In Living Color,' where they say we don't wanna do it no more. 'Cause if they don't wanna do it, I can take it somewhere else. So it's like that, it really sucks when you understand what you can generate off this. ABC, 'Wife and Kids,' the money it generates, especially, like, merchandising, t-shirts, hats, that's nothing to them. To me, that's good money.

Tavis: (Laugh) Yeah.

Wayans: You know what I mean? So it's like, in terms of fully exploiting the value of your asset, I can do that now. And I will do that.

Tavis: And he will do it.

Wayans: 'Underground' drawers, coming out soon. (Laugh) Underground underwear.

Tavis: 'Underground' underwear coming. (Laugh) He can do it, he will do it, and I, for one, will help him do it. Damon is a funny guy, and I'm honored to have you on the program. Give my best to your family, man.

Wayans: Thank you, Tavis.

Tavis: Glad to have you here.

Wayans: Much love.

Tavis: And to you, as well. That's our show for tonight. Catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. See you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles, thanks for watching. Check out 'The Underground' on Showtime, and as always, keep the faith.