Luke's Parental Advisory

Since discovering Luther Campbell's new reality show, Luke's Parental Advisory, on VH1 yesterday, I have had the opportunity to view the first three episodes of the series. As I wrote yesterday, the series follows the daily life of former 2 Live Crew lead Luke as he raises his 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son, as well as preparing for his wedding and running his adult entertainment business.

The first episode basically just set up the premise for the series, which I wrote about in the previous paragraph. In the second episode, Luther finds out that his daughter, Lacresha, is going to have a party at his house. He learns this when his son, Luther Jr., snitches on his sister. Once Luuther learns of the party, he is going to have Lacresha un-invite everyone, but he relents and decides to let her go ahead with the party. Of course, Luther cancels his plans to be out of town so he can be at home to supervise. Luther discovers that the party seems kind of lame, so he tries to liven things up by playing some of his own music, much to Lacresha's embarrassment. None of the guests seem to care for the music, except for one boy who eventually gets out and dances to tunes such as the song "I Wanna Rock" from his solo album I Got S**t On My Mind. He then ends the party, causing everyone to leave earlier than Lacresha would have wanted. Later on in the episode, he comes home to find Lacresha and her "boyfriend," as well as another couple, in the hot tub. He decided that he should invite the boyfriend to a family get together at which Lacresha's relatives grill him about his intentions toward Lacresha.

In the third episode, Luther thinks that his 15-year-old son, Luther Jr., does not know how to talk to girls. So he begins by calling up a woman he knows on the phone then having Luther Jr. talk to her. That does not go well. So next, Luther takes his son to a bowling alley where he really finds out that Luther Jr. has no clue about talking to girls. It was at this point when Luther comes up with a plan. He has Luther Jr. carry one of the walkie-talkies his security guards use, wearing an earpiece. Luther can then give his son advice as to what to say from a distance. They go to Gameworks to try out the plan. Luther gets caught early on when one of the girls Luther Jr. is talking to asks why the guy in red, who Luther Jr. has identified as his dad, has a walkie-talkie. Later on, Luther Jr. talks to a couple of girls playing basketball, and does a bit better. Finally, Luther Jr. goes to a table with a couple of girls and talks to them, abandoning the script that his father gave him. He does well nonetheless, and even gets their phone numbers. Luther then tells his son that he has passed. All of this seemed to have the effect of boosting Luther Jr.'s confidence in talking with girls. At the end of the episode, Luther Jr. is outside playing with a couple of friends when he sees a couple of girls approaching walking a dog. He ends up going up to them and striking up a conversation.

Luther Campbell seems to be doing a fairly decent job of raising his kids, despite the fact that he seems to employ a bit of a double standard in their relationships. In one of the episodes, I do not remember which, Luther's fiancée finds a porn video in Luther Jr.'s room. When Luther discusses this with his son, and the son tries to use the excuse that it is what Luther does for a living, Luther comes back with the comment that what he produces is for adults, not for children, and his son can view these types of materials when he is older, but not now. Luther does separate his business life from his home life. His house is not full of strippers pole dancing.

So, while Luke's Parental Advisory is definitely not a TV show that is going to have any major cultural impact, I have found the first three episodes to be somewhat entertaining, and I will probably continue to watch it.