Filmmaker’s sitcom available on Amazon Prime Video

Calvin “Caliko” Coleman is the creator of the sitcom, “The Coleman Show,” which is available on Amazon Prime Video. Photos provided by Melanie Brown
Calvin “Caliko” Coleman is the creator of the sitcom, “The Coleman Show,” which is available on Amazon Prime Video. Photos provided by Melanie Brown

 Filmmaker’s sitcom available on Amazon Prime Video

BY TIA CAROL JONES
     Calvin “Caliko” Coleman used to share his experiences as a family man on social media. People told him those stories should be a sitcom. Coleman decided to develop a sitcom, “The Coleman Show,” and now it is available on Amazon Prime.
     “The Coleman Show” follows Leroy Coleman, a father of three who is an Uber Driver and aspiring actor, with his family. Coleman said the shows has situations men can relate to in everyday life, with a twist.
     While Coleman had written poetry and stories, he had never done
screenwriting. That’s where writer L.A. Holts came in. He would give her the concepts and ideas and she would write them out. He said they worked together, hand-in-hand.
     Coleman, who is the owner of Caliko Media Productions, LLC, said it feels surreal to have the show available on Amazon Prime. He said it has been a long time coming.
     “It has been such a long process, such a grind. But, I’m very excited and proud. Proud of my team proud of my cast, everybody did such a great job,” he said.
      Coleman said development of the show began in 2019. It started
with concepts and teaser to see how people would feel about the show via social media. Once the team received feedback, they started working on the 10-episode season. Coleman said it was amazing to see his concepts being acted out by performers.
     “It was a pretty tedious casting process. A lot of the actors I casted were people I knew personally, people that I’ve been in productions with, so that was pretty cool,” he said. “I kind of knew going in who I wanted to play certain roles and who would really bring out the characters the way I needed them to.”
     Coleman said one of the struggles was getting distribution. He reached out to quite a few networks and there was some back-and-forth, but none picked it up. Coleman found Indie Rights, a movie and TV distributor. Indie Right helped Coleman get Amazon Prime and is also working on Tubi as the next platform for “The Coleman Show.”
     Coleman said the concept of the show is very loosely based. He said only a couple of incidents in the show are from his real life. In real life, he does have a stepdaughter, and Coleman’s son plays the baby on the show.
     Coleman said people who have seen the show love it. He’s received reviews on Amazon about the show and he’s seen the feedback from people on social media. He said people have been
reaching out to him and letting him know how much they enjoy the show. He said he appreciates people who watch the show and encourages them to share the show with other people.
     Coleman said it is his hope that people watch the show and get a
good laugh.
     “There’s so much going on in the world right now. The world is sick
and I think laughter brings a lot of healing. I hope people who are going through, people who are losing their jobs, people who are getting sick, people are dying and there aren’t a lot of Black sitcoms out there,” he said. “I just hope this show brings a lot of joy and laughter to people. And, possibly even bring up some conversations at the dinner table that may help address some issues in the home.”

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