Comic plays reluctant dad on his slyly funny sitcom

NEW YORK -- Bernie Mac will never be confused with Dr. Spock.

Benjamin Spock, legendary baby doctor and best-selling author, urged parents to seek an understanding of their child's psychological needs.

Bernie Mac, gruff-love advocate and hero of a new sitcom bearing his name, calls for beating some sense into their hard little heads.

"C'mon, America," implored Bernie Mac, addressing the camera in the November premiere. "When I say I wanna kill those kids, YOU know what I mean."

And there you have the essence of this unexpected (and unexpectedly hilarious) comedy: From time to time, all normal adults are going to have it up to here with the small fry around them -- whether or not they are willing to admit it.

Luckily, Bernie Mac is eager to admit it for them. "Bernie Mac just say what you want to say, but can't," he tells America.

"The Bernie Mac Show" (8 p.m. Wednesdays on Fox) explores the plight of a successful standup comic and his dishy, corporate executive-wife: This blissfully childless, child-averse couple is suddenly slapped with his junkie sister's three kids to raise.

'Disease-carrying midgets'

Bernie Mac, of course, will learn to love these invaders. Even so, rude truths tumble from his lips: Kids are "nasty, dirty, disease-carrying midgets." Kids live to touch, and then destroy, all the stuff adults hold dear. Kids are "too sassy, too grown and talk back too much."

The devil spawn of "Family Affair" and the equally bland "Diff'rent Strokes," this show paints a portrait of parental aggravation anyone will recognize. Not only is it Bernie Mac's, it could be yours.

Starring as Bernie Mac is Bernie Mac, the real-life standup and actor who, during a recent interview, predicts his show "is gonna make you say, 'Yeah!' Because it's gonna make you see yourself."

Sure, the righteous observer may wince at the notion of putting to death unruly moppets. But remember the words of TV's most hallowed father figure, Bill Cosby.

As Cliff Huxtable on his 1980s sitcom, he once entered son Theo's bedroom to deal with the lad's latest infraction. "Your mother sent me up here," Dad began, poker-face -- "to kill you."