Tracy Morgan Brings Back Those Old-School Family Sitcoms Vibes

“I’m still here – and I’m still funny”

Whether it’s stand-up at The Apollo, playing Brooklyn auto mechanic Tracy Mitchell in The Tracy Morgan Show or the not-so-subtle personal satire of Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock – Tracy Morgan has cultivated many, many alter-egos in more than three decades in the limelight. For that, he credits Eddie Murphy.

“It was Eddie Murphy who told me, ‘You wanna become a household name? Always use your own name,’” the 56-year-old Morgan tells me over Zoom from his 22,000-square-foot mansion in Alpine, New Jersey (yes, the same neighbourhood Chris Rock jokes is filled with all the richest Black stars – and white dentists). While Morgan didn’t always take the sage advice literally, he’s earned his place in the comedy world playing wonderful versions and varieties of himself. His new show Crutch, where three generations return to live beneath their shopkeeper father’s roof, is no exception.

As you might expect, his character, Frank “Crutch” Crutchfield, has countless overlaps with the real-life Morgan: They both hail from New York City (The Bronx and Harlem, respectively). They’re both widowers, and when Crutch talks to his deceased wife’s portrait on the wall, he looks at Morgan’s real-life first wife, Sabrina, who died of cancer in 2016. When Crutch lovingly buys a bag of popcorn in return for a book chapter read with 12-year-old Raven, it’s his real-life daughter, Maven Sonae.

“That’s my real daughter, and she’s been in everything I’ve been in since she was born,” says Morgan, palpably proud of his fourth and youngest child – and only girl. “My daughter is my whole life, and she changed me as a person,” he says. “I just told her this recently, ‘When you were born, I knew how much you would need me. I just didn’t know how much I was gonna need you.’”

Tracy Morgan making me cry wasn’t on today’s Bingo card, but there it is.

If the former Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock star is nothing like the loud and brash comedian I expected, it could be because he’s a girl-dad now. Or maybe he’s 56 instead of 26. But it’s probably largely due to Morgan’s life-threatening 2014 accident, when a Wal-Mart truck crashed into his limo on the New Jersey turnpike. Morgan’s friend and mentor, 62-year-old comedian James “Jimmy Mack” McNair, was killed instantly; Morgan narrowly escaped the same fate. “I remember the day, vaguely, and I remember doing comedy that night. I remember getting on the road and then I don’t remember anything after that,” he says.

After waking from “the best sleep I ever had” – a 10-day coma – Morgan was blind for five days. Now, he says, he isn’t scared of anything: “You gotta understand what I’ve been through in my life. I’ve been hit by a truck. I’ve had a kidney replacement [in 2010]. I’m still here – and I’m still funny.” More importantly, he’s healthy and feeling well. “I feel great. I’m alive. I’m talking to you.”

That he is – about his new Paramount+ show, Crutch. It isn’t the next level meta satire he perfected on Saturday Night Live, where he starred from 1996 to 2003, during the last SNL golden age alongside Tina Fey and Amy Poehler: recall Morgan as Darius on Black Jeopardy, going head-to-head with “Tracy Morgan” played by old friend, Eddie Murphy, who declares “Big dog gonna make some big money!” Nor is it 30 Rock’s sleek and super-smart comedy: “What is this, Horseville? Cause I’m surrounded by naysayers. Wordplay!” And one more classic for the road: “I don’t believe in one-way streets. Not between people, and not while I’m driving.”

By design, Crutch – filmed in front of a live audience – feels like a throwback to the good-natured family sitcoms of yore. “It’s like Redd Foxx, Archie Bunker and Aunt Esther,” says Morgan, of ’70s staples like Sanford & Son and All in the Family. “I wanted the old-school stuff. But I’m not old – I’m awesome.”

Since this time out Morgan’s a producer with more creative control than ever before, he gets to make TV that he likes, his way. For the cast, he has hired his daughter, as always, but also Coming 2 America actor Jermaine Fowler as his son Jake, a new lawyer pivoting from lucrative corporate law to soul-feeding pro bono work; Tony-winning Kecia Lewis as his sister-in-law Antoniette; and fellow Broadway star Adrianna Mitchell as his newly single daughter Jamilah, who has relocated with her two kids – Crutch’s grandkids – from Minnesota. (“There are more Black people standing on your corner than in my whole school!” says one.)

Intergenerational and intercity comedy mean “there’s something for everyone,” he explains – even kids. “I think the kids ground the whole show.” Patriarch Crutch, much like Morgan himself, is a bit loud and brash on the outside while a tear-prone mushball on the inside. As Crutch, in fact, Morgan is softer than we’ve ever seen him before. “I faced death so I’m not afraid to be vulnerable,” he says.

He’s also a masterclass in living in the moment; he neither misses the past (except maybe SNL’s Astronaut Jones, when I really push it) or worries about the future (he’s about to collaborate again with Tina Fey and Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe in series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins). “I don’t look that far ahead because I wanna enjoy right now,” he says, reminiscent of Tracy Jordan’s mantra to live every week like it’s Shark Week. “My comedy is changing, I’m changing. I’m 56 years old now, so I’ve lived and learned and learned some more. The only thing that’s the same is my sense of humour.”