Robin Thede And London Hughes To Serve Odd Couple Comedy In HBO Max’s ‘Perfect Strangers’ Reboot

A Black Lady Sketch Show mastermind Robin Thede and comedian London Hughes are set to star in the reboot of Perfect Strangers at HBO Max. This is such good news that I think we should do the Dance of Joy!

Actually, maybe not. There might be something racist and culturally disrespectful about that dance that was invented in the original series from the ’80s that featured Bronson Pinchot as Balki Bartokomous who came to America from the fictional Greek island called Mypos to live with his Cousin Larry (played by Mark Linn-Baker) in Chicago — by surprise of course. It may have been cool in the ’80s to have culturally insensitive comedy, so this new iteration will be updated because, well, most of us are more aware of putting malarkey on TV.

Perfect Strangers is part of Thede’s overall deal with Warner Bros. Television. She will write the half-hour multi-cam comedy which is currently in development. The redux will follow the titular perfect strangers, Dejay (Thede) and Poppy (Hughes) who unexpectedly discover they are half-sisters when they both inherit a one-bedroom apartment above a trap yoga studio in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Polar opposites, they must learn how to live and work together.

When it was first announced, I wasn’t diggin’ this Perfect Strangers reboot, but now I’m totally on board.

Thede is repped by WME and Ziffren Brittenham and Hughes is repped by UTA, Curtis Brown, Haven Entertainment and Ziffren Brittenham.