The star's new show with his real-life mother, Doris, premieres Oct. 7 on Discovery+.
Anthony Anderson is fighting for the title of Family Comedian, but it seems like his mom might have him beat! The Black-ish star and his mother, Doris Bowman, spoke with ET about their new Discovery+ series, the final season of Anderson's ABC series and debated the all-important question: Who is the funnier one in the family?
For Bowman, there was no doubt, and she boasted that the rest of the family would agree with her reigning as the funniest. But according to Anderson, that's just a familial obligation.
"The family is laughing with you because you're the mother and they don't want you to feel bad," he reasoned. "You gave birth to them, you are the matriarch of the family, so they're going to make you feel good about yourself."
When Bowman listed several of her son's famous friends who have told her that she's funnier than him, including Cedric the Entertainer and Jay Leno, the 51-year-old actor questioned how that could be true when he's the one who made it to show business first.
"You're light-skinned, Anthony. You're light-skinned," Bowman quipped.
That rapid back-and-forth is only a taste of what fans have to look forward to with the duo's new show, House Haunters. The actor and his mom serve as hosts of the Discovery+ series described as a "hidden camera real estate and home renovation prank series." Rather than the usual premise of homes getting grand renovations into beautified versions of themselves, the show features homes becoming terrifying haunted houses filled with wild pranks.
Anderson explained that he and his mom make the perfect team for the hosting job since one (Bowman) "works for the check" while the other (Anderson) "just works for the love of the art."
"Sometimes the pranks didn't work as we intended. What we thought might have been scary was not scary, so that's the beautiful part of doing what we do and doing what we did with Discovery+ and HGTV on House Haunters," he said. "They allowed us to lean into what didn't work and if it didn't we were allowed to laugh at ourselves and make fun of what we tried to attempt."
Despite not being a fan of real-life frights, Bowman shared that she enjoyed the chance to work with her son, who teased that his mom could make an appearance in the final episodes of Black-ish's last season. The actor previously told ET that working on the final season has been "bittersweet" for his TV family and admitted, "It's gonna be hard every day because we know it's the end."
He echoed that sentiment, sharing that filming has progressed "slightly past the halfway point."
"Sadness is creeping in. Every day we go into work, we are one day closer to ending this chapter," he added. "It has been a truly amazing ride for the past eight years. I believe we could go on for another four or five. But we are going out on top and it’s getting sad now."
But it'll be far from the end of fans seeing Anderson (or Bowman) on their TV screens. The actor previously played Dr. Kevin Bernard on Law & Order when it first began in 2008, and the network announced a series revival on Sept. 28. The original crime drama will return to NBC for its 21st season and continue the classic format created for its first run -- examining "the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders."
When asked about potentially reprising his role for the revival, Anderson teased that "anything is possible."
"I did have a conversation with Dick Wolf about them bringing back Law & Order for the 21st season and, like I said, anything is possible," he added.
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