A new trailer offers the best look yet at “South Side,” the series Comedy Central has been shooting in Chicago and plans to premiere this summer.
Packing the fly-on-the-wall, slice-of-life feel of Lena Waithe’s “The Chi” without the heavy drama, the two-minute batch of bits includes a pair of entrepreneurs setting up a sidewalk popcorn stand, an amorous police officer hitting the siren to catch the eye of a stroller-pushing daddy, and a retail manager ordering an employee to fix his hair.
“Gonna need you to pick that afro all the way out or pad it all the way down,” he says. “I don’t wanna see it in the middle.”
The scripted series, set in and around Englewood, centers around two friends (Bashir Salahuddin of “Glow” and Diallo Riddle of “Marlon”) who just graduated community college and are looking for business success while working at a rent-to-own shop.
“I’ve waited my whole life to do this from the point of view I know,” Salahuddin, who grew up in South Shore and Auburn Gresham, told the Sun-Times in July. “What you see on the news, we’re not doing that. We’re telling our truth and that encompasses more the joy and the laughter.”
Salahuddin and Riddle also wrote the series and are executive producers along with Michael Blieden. Among the guests promised in Season One: Lil Rel Howery, Nathaniel “Earthquake” Stroman, Jeff Tweedy, LisaRaye McCoy, Kel Mitchell and Ed Lover.
