Martin Lawrence still can’t believe it. Even though it’s been 25 years, he’s still pleasantly bewildered by the rapturous success of Martin, his eponymous Fox sitcom. He’s humbled by the fact that the show is referenced by musicians on a near-daily basis (Kanye West, Chance the Rapper, SZA); that it’s on TV every day thanks to syndication; that fans regularly come up to him, asking him to do one of the show’s many characters (“Do Sheneneh! Do Jerome!”). If you ask him to pinpoint the moment he realized the show had become the stuff of legend, he replies with a super-sized bucket of modesty.
“It’s just hitting me just now,” Lawrence tells Vanity Fair in an interview. “I can’t believe it’s my show that’s so iconic. I thank God I’m alive to see it and I realize and know the impact that it has on us. I love that.”
The first episode of Martin made its debut on Aug. 27, 1992. It was a near-instant success when it was released, with fans regularly tuning in to the half-hour comedy about a Detroit-based radio host named Martin, who was puppy dog-style obsessed with his girlfriend, Gina (Tisha Campbell-Martin). The series was aided by a constellation of hilarious friends—including Tichina Arnold, Carl Payne II, and the late Tommy Ford—who made up the rest of the cast.
Every day on the set was a testament to Lawrence’s quick improv style. The comedian would often toss out comebacks on the fly, sparring with co-stars who would try to one-up him with barbs. He also played a handful of other characters, including oddballs like the loud-mouthed Jeromey Rome, the snot-nosed kid neighbor Roscoe, and the showy Sheneneh Jenkins (a portrayal that would be flayed alive by the modern think-piece industry).
“We did things just to bug out,” Lawrence says, recalling how the cast would crack each other up. “All of them was just sharp. They knew how to come back, they knew how to hold their own, and they made it perfect for me ‘cause all the pressure wasn’t on me to carry the whole thing.”
These days, the show is regarded as a cultural touchstone, part of a 90s golden age where black sitcoms ruled television. A Different World was coming to a close; The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had already premiered; Living Single arrived on Fox just a year after Martin’s debut. Back then, Lawrence was just an up-and-coming comedian, making his bones on HBO’s stand-up series Def Comedy Jam when he got his big sitcom break.
“A young kid at that time who was hot on the scene having the chance to get a show made after his own name,” he says. “It was a beautiful feeling . . . it was off and running from there.”
Lawrence hand-selected much of the cast, including Ford, whom he had met in Los Angeles in the late 80s while acting in a play called Homies. They became close and brought their kinship to the screen on Martin, with Ford playing as a tall, bespectacled, mysteriously jobless homie. The two remained close over the years, up until Ford’s death in 2016.
Relationships with other cast members were rockier; Campbell-Martin, for example, filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Lawrence in 1996 and refused to film the show’s final episodes unless they did not appear in scenes together. In more recent interviews, she speaks warmly of the show, politely side-stepping reunion queries. Meanwhile, cast members like Arnold and Payne still praise the show in interviews. The last time the core cast saw each other was at Ford’s funeral last year, Lawrence says.
“We spoke and hugged and everything and that was it,” he recalls. “Everybody’s doing their own thing.”
These days, Martin lives on in countless re-runs. It consistently serves as a 90s style flashpoint, with many looking back longingly at the show’s splendorous sneaker collection. (Alas, Lawrence swears he never kept any pairs, nor did he keep certain clothing items: “I got a little fatter.”) Lawrence himself is keeping the memory of the show alive by releasing a line of Martin-themed emoji, which were recently used in a texting scene on Insecure, the brilliant HBO comedy created by Issa Rae. He also catches a few old episodes from time to time, especially when his daughters are flicking through channels and happen to stop on a re-run.
But Martin’s legacy has largely come courtesy of the rappers who breathlessly and frequently reference the sitcom. Kendrick Lamar once walked out of an interview because the host said she’d never heard of the show. After the devastating “Shether,” Nicki Minaj issued a challenge to Remy Ma by dubbing her “Sheneneh.” Big Sean made a music video that was a painstaking replica of the series, complete with a cameo from Lawrence himself.
“I’m very proud of the way it’s impacted the culture—‘cause I am hip-hop,” Lawrence says. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. What God blessed me to be here to do.”
