The actor with the brightest smile
It was a sad day for the 99ers as the news of André Braugher’s passing was published yesterday. On the fateful evening of 17th September 2013, over 10 years ago, we were introduced to a character we would cherish for the rest of our lives, and I would see an actor with the brightest smile on TV.
The premise
I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch Brooklyn 99 as soon as it came out. You see, I was 13, still watching cartoons like Doraemon, Ninja Hattori, Power Rangers, etc.. Needless to say, adolescence hit a couple of years after that (has it hit yet?). I would still love to watch Doraemon to be honest. However, adolescence wasn’t the only reason I didn’t watch the show. It was also access. Due to the time difference and syndication rights, B99 among other shows was not a priority to be shown in India at that time. Shows like Friends, How I Met Your mother, and The Ellen Degeneres show had slots on channels like Star World, Comedy Central, Romedy Now, but they were reruns, not live! I am still annoyed that SNL is not on any channel in India and on YouTube, the clips are from years ago, never recent. Hence my bias towards the 2000–2010 cast members. They’re my favorite.
So I started watching B99 in 2018, thanks to Netflix and peer pressure. It was one of those rare shows that you don’t feel the urge to binge watch. It leaves you content after every episode. If I had watched 2–3 episodes in one day, I was left very satiated for the whole week. Sometimes I would also skip weeks. It never made me addicted to it, but also never made me not want to watch it or give up on. It was the perfect balance. Instantly, all characters were favorites (you can’t pick one), and before you knew it, we started using the show’s vocabulary in our daily lives. “Noice”, “toight”, “cool cool cool cool cool cool cool, no doubt, no doubt…..”, “binder”, “hot damn!”, “title of your sex tape”, “cheddar”, “dad and son”, people moving their pecs like Terry, and geeking about food and loving their bestie like Boyle, a full black leather attire like Rosa and someone’s lazy tone or obsession with their phone like Gina, everything reminds me of the show. The show just kept on giving!
Two of my favorite scenes were Jake admitting to Amy that he liked her before going undercover, and then again, after he was back. Why (you don’t ask)? Because I have done that too — admit to my crush how I feel, twice. In case they thought it was a mistake the first time. I might have even tried a third time thinking third time’s the charm. Things worked out for Jake as we know. I’ll let you guys ponder on whether third time was really the charm or not.
The connection
Simultaneously, I was also watching this amazing show called The Good Place. There are so many commonalties between this show and B99. For starters, they’re both created by Michael Schur. B99 was a team effort by him and Dan Goor along with Parks & Recreations among others, but this was all him (he also has a book out called “How to be Perfect” where in the cover, the “T” is out of place. I love the subtlety of it.)
Secondly, they have a lot of frequent collaborators, which also includes a few SNL cast members. Michael Schur used to work on SNL as a writer (during my favorite period), and Dan Goor worked on The Daily show, Late Call, and Last Night. So they know comedy like the back of their hand, and talented actors like Maya Rudolph, Adam Scott, Jason Mantzoukas, Tiya Sircar, Stephen Merchant, and more are on speed-dial. One of my favorite actors among these, and a man whom I think has one of the best voices for being a podcast host is Marc Evan Johnson (he is the host for The Brooklyn 99 Podcast and The Good Place Podcast as he starred on both the shows). He plays Kevin in Brooklyn 99, the husband to Captain Holt.
The actor and his roles
Kevin and Raymond’s is one of the best relationships in TV history. The non-toxicity and normal-ness of couples like them, Amy and Jake, is what makes this show sooo good. It’s not like they will never have fights, of course they will, but they’ll not be toxic about it. They’ll stop talking to each other or argue till the end of day, but love is at the core of all the fights, and it will prevail.
Captain Holt is one of the most beloved characters from the show. His and Jake’s is one of the best, if not the best “not dad and son biologically, but dad and son emotionally” relationship. The other I love is in The Last Of Us “not dad and daughter biologically, but dad and daughter emotionally”.
In the final episode when he calls Jake his “son”, there was not a room where someone was not teary eyed. A lot of the credit goes to the writers, of course, but most of it also goes to the actors. Andy Samberg is a household name, like Adam Sandler. We know him and we love him. André Braugher, while may not be a household name, is someone that people loved and respected as an actor, and as a person. You never read one bad thing about him.
The funny thing is, the role he is most known for is a comedy role, whereas he had done mostly serious roles before that. I first saw him in the film Frequency (starring Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel), which I really like. I then started watching B99 and realised that I had seen this man before. Googled him and found out that that wasn’t the only film I had seen him in. SALT (starring Angelina Jolie), House (titular role played by Hugh Laurie), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (starring Jessica Alba, Chris Evans), were all the different shows and movies I had seen him in. Baby Boomers, Gen X know him from Homicide, and Millenials and Gen Z from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
As you can imagine, I was amazed by how incredible of an actor he is to portray Captain Holt, a man who is unintentionally funny and manages to put a poker face the whole time in a comedy show, and the instances when he is intentionally funny, or when we do see him laugh, it makes us laugh harder (it’s the people who barely smile that when they smile make us so happy). Having not seen him smile or laugh as much in the movies as in the show, I realised something — he had the brightest smile I had ever seen on screen. André Braugher’s smile lights up his entire face. His eyes gleam, his teeth sparkle, and his soft face makes him the most genuine smiles I have ever seen. It’s the authentic and genuine ones that leave a mark and hurt you when they’re gone, but, it’s the art that will live forever, and André Braugher created some beautiful ones.
In honor of him, I leave you with the one phrase when repeated thrice made Jake and all of us lose our mind. The magic phrase is -
Hot Damn! Hot Damn! Hot Damn!
