Hulu released the first official trailer for their upcoming new series, Woke, starring New Girl alumni Lamorne Morris (Barbershop: The Next Cut). Deadline reported on the eight-part comedy series from TCA, where series co-creators Keith Knight and Marshall Todd (Barbershop) were joined by director Maurice “Mo” Marable (Blockmire, Wrecked) and showrunner Jay Dyer (Californiacation) to talk about the series and its thematic deconstruction of racial identity.
Woke is inspired by the life and work of series creator Knight and the challenges he faced as a Black artist navigating through a gentrified San Francisco. In the show, Morris plays Keef, a cartoonist on the verge of mainstream success, when he is suddenly thrown into an aggressive encounter with the San Francisco police. Following this traumatic incident, Keef becomes confronted by animated inanimate objects which make him hyper-aware, or Woke, about issues of racial injustice around him. With a fresh outlook on the world around him, Keef must now navigate the new voices and ideas that confront and challenge him, all without letting go of everything he’s built already. Though the show will deal with topics of racial inequalities and identity, the tone of the show is light and comedic throughout. “I use humor to address serious issues. The cartoons bring people in. We make you laugh and when you’re not looking we punch you in the face with something hardcore,” says Knight in Deadline.
As previously mentioned, Woke was developed by Todd and Knight. The two are executive producers alongside showrunners Dyer, Marable, Aeysha Carr (The Carmichael Show, Rel), Richie Schwartz (Mulholland Drive), John Will (Band of Robbers), Will Gluck (Easy A), and Eric Christian Olsen (Not Another Teen Movie). Kate Schumaecker (Anamorph) served as an executive producer on the pilot.
The series will premier all eight episodes on Hulu on September 9th this year. It was co-produced between ABC Studios and Sony Pictures Television, and shot entirely before the pandemic started.
You can check out the new trailer from TCA down below.