Comedy Central's South Side taps into Chicago culture in wild, weird and hilarious ways

Paste Magazine

"A sense of place isn’t always necessary for a sitcom, but the best ones contain jokes that grow from their setting," says Jacob Oller of the new Comedy Central series, premiering Wednesday, from Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle. "Workplace comedies have bars, offices, and local government departments that often come together best after a season or two of casual definition. Comedy Central’s sunny South Side has half a city, yet finds its heart immediately. Creators and writers Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle tap into their locale and unleash just a little of its comic potential to hilarious results. It helps that they’re walking the walk. They show up in their own locally-shot series as a cop and a lawyer, respectively, in addition to their behind-the-scenes duties. Their heavy involvement is just one sign of the close-knit production that makes South Side one of the year’s most exciting and accessible comedies...The show is filled with endearing hometown references like wimpy-sounding suburbs, wacky-sounding rap names, name-dropped colleges and restaurants (a whole episode is spent attempting to replicate Harold’s sauce), and the most Chicago thing of all, corruption...This spin on the climber story engine works wonders because everyone’s goals are just so realistic. The show has a scheming, anti-establishment It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia energy that uses the madcap ambitions of its central characters to fuel its episodes. These aren’t even get-rich-quick schemes; South Side’s characters are happy with pay-my-damn-bills schemes."

ALSO:

• Chicago Tribune hails South Side as the most "Chicago show" on TV
• South Side’s tempo is unrelenting, and the jokes come quickly and often
• Creators Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle look back at their journey from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to South Side and Sherman’s Showcase
• Salahuddin and Riddle worked on two HBO pilots revolving around Atlanta before Donald Glover’s Atlanta ended up killing their plans