In his ABC sitcom, Rodney Carrington plays a guy who got married too young, became a father too young and, against all the odds, is pursuing a career as a stand-up comedian.
Which isn't much of a stretch for Carrington, who got married too young, became a father too young and, against all the odds, pursued a career as a stand-up comedian.
"It's very close" to his real life, Carrington said of "Rodney," which airs Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. on Ch. 4. "I know what it's like to struggle. . . . I identified with all that.
"I met my wife and she got pregnant and we got married. And there was never a courtship. It was three months. And, (shoot), here we are."
Not the most romantic of stories, but it does play into both Carrington's stand-up act and his sitcom. As does Carrington's extremely meager beginnings as a comedian.
"I had a truck and a camper shell with a mattress in the back, and I slept in rest areas," said Carrington, who added that he met his wife in a lounge at a Holiday Inn. "I met her sister first. And I told the bartender, 'That is a good-looking woman.' And he said, 'That is my girlfriend.'
"Then, about 15 minutes later, her identical twin sister walked in and I thought, 'Well, (shoot), there's two of them.' Within the course of an hour, I told my wife . . . that I was going to get her pregnant and marry her. I didn't know how serious I was until three months later."
Not exactly a fairy-tale romance, but it worked out for them — several years, three sons and a lot of work later. And, despite the fact that he was making "$500 a week, maybe," he seemed like Prince Charming to his wife, Terry. "My wife was living in an apartment with a console TV where the picture worked on one and the sound worked on the (second TV) on the top. So she thought, 'He's got it going on.' "
The fictionalized Rodney and his wife (Amy Pietz) don't have it quite so tough. But they are a struggling middle-class family whose relatives don't exactly approve of Rodney's dreams of comic glory. Just like real life.
"Her parents and my parents thought we had lost our minds," Carrington said. "And, I mean, by all odds we should have never made it. I was pursuing a stand-up career and she quit her job at Dollar Rental Car to go on the road with me. Are you crazy? And then we had a baby. And then we had another baby. It was a struggle."
Carrington sold T-shirts out of a suitcase. And he recalled one time when they stopped at a burger joint and the only money they had was the change in the ashtray — enough to buy a cheeseburger and fries, which they split. "We laugh about that. . . . all those memories. Those are the things we came from."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com