High expectations for Fresh Off The Boat television sitcom

Premiere is on Feb. 4

Eddie Huang's television family.

I WISH I could just sit back and watch Fresh Off The Boat, the sitcom featuring an Asian American family, without all the hoopla about the show's social and cultural significance. But watching the show without expectations is impossible now.

I want it to succeed so much. I want America to view the show and welcome the Huang's into their living rooms like I use to do with the Partridges, the Cunninghams, the Bunkers, the Keatons, the Cleavers, and of course, the Ricardos.

But what if it fails? What if FOB is a dud? What if it doesn't live up to the hype? What if its - GASP - not funny?

If FOB doesn't succeed - coming on the heels of the cancellation of Selfie starring John Cho - that might mean the death knell to any future attempt to put on a show centered around Asian characters. When Margaret Cho's All-American Girl ingloriously ended, it took the networks 20 years before one of them decided to take a chance with FOB.

FOB, the story of a Taiwanese American family based on the autobiography of restauranteur Eddie Huang, has already stumbled out of the gate.

First off, Fresh Off The Boat, is a derogatory term directed at new immigrants. I guess by making FOB so common, it is supposed to take the sting away from the term, much in the way African Americans turned around the use of Black. Still, couldn't the producers come up with a better title?

Next, Huang wrote an article for New York Magazine expressing his disappointment in the producers who, he said, are trying to make the show less edgy to make it more palatable to the mass market. Here's an excerpt:

“Just say the line,” said Melvin, our executive producer. 

“Did you read the book?” I asked. “If you can find any crumb of a complete thought in the book that remotely infers ‘America is great,’ I’ll read the line. 

“Eddie, we need it for the episode. It’s a big moment! You have a black kid and a Chinese kid breaking bread over a Jewish hip-hop concert. Where else could this happen? America IS great!”

A week before the show's premiere, the production's social media contractors tweeted this:

Oops!

Huang was furious. He tweeted, "maybe people are just fucking morons. you have to be a mouth breathing psycho to make that graphic."

The producers were embarrassed and apologetic. The social media promoters were given a serious dressing down for their ignorance and lack of sensitivity, according to Jeff Yang, "Wall St. Journal" blogger and father of Hudson Yang, who portrays Eddie Huang, the series' main character.

With great trepidation, I await the premiere of Fresh Off The Boat. There is lot more at stake here than just another new situation comedy: The Huang's could become the next great American sitcom family, giving the TV audience a view of Asian Americans that go beyond the old stereotypes, or ... it could be the last time a television show features Asian American characters as its main protagonists. 

If all that piques your interest, tune in on ABC on Wednesday evening's two episode premiere at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. ABC hopes to get some of the audience of their hit Modern Family, which is squeezed between the two FOB episodes. Let's hope it works.

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