Why did they have to use a black cast

on the "hanging with the honeymooners" dvd special feature, they talked about casting and how they didn't intend for it to be an all black cast at first but once they thought about Cedric as Ralph then it really opened up that possibility. At least they didn't use Eddie Murphy in a fat suit

Beatles Apple Scruff.

I just saw this movie today and agree with you. Why did they use an all black cast? It's almost nothing like the old original show. It's a bit insulting. It's like if they decided to make a Fresh Prince of Bel Air movie and decided to use an all white cast. It wouldn't work. It doesn't in this case.

i will say this first: i think THIS is the major reason this movie is rated so lowly.

i felt epps and cedric played their parts and played them well. i couldnt imagine anyone else right now that do those rolls so naturally. from there it would be natural to assume that their family and relatives would also be black.

at first i heard about this movie and expected it to be half assed black marketed comedy (not all are but the ones that are tend to stand out). then i watched it and its a fairly solid and enjoyable film. and i realized partway through that it actually makes sense that some of the cast (if not all) would be black. lets face it. its a sad fact that in american society poor communities have a disproportionally large amount of black people. why shouldnt this be portrayed in the film? do you not wanna think that black people more commonly than white people are poor? because it doesnt make it any less true.

This movie was made just after Cedric the Entertainer had starred in both "Barbershop" and "Barbershop 2" - films that made a lot of money and crossed over to mainstream audiences - so he was hired for this film, which resulted in much of the cast being cast with other African-American actors.

There's no deep meaning to it. They thought they'd do better at the box office with a movie star who was "on fire".