Cole Brown, 1967 age 57 Tommy Strawn (Thomas Mikal Ford), is one of Martin's two best friends from childhood, is a main character who appears on Martin. The part of Cole is played on the series by Carl Anthony Payne II, but well-meaning and known for his eclectic taste in headgear, Cole proudly cleans jet airplanes at the airport for a living, drives an AMC Pacer, and lives with his mother Maddie Brown, until early Season 5. For a time in Season 3, Cole appeared to be attracted strictly to plus-sized women and dated a security guard named Big Shirley (who is fully seen in only one episode; another episode only showed "her" below the neck to portray her as being a quite large woman, who's much taller and bigger than Cole, and even taller and larger than Tommy, who stands about '6'4"). In the final season, after Cole meets a cute girl named Shanise McGullicuddy (Maura McDade), whom he began dating in the episode "Snow White" early on in Season 5 (episode #8)and moves into his own apartment in a rough neighborhood, he dates Shanise, who appears to be even more dimwitted than he is.
In the Season 1 episode "Baby It's Cole'd Here" (#10), Cole and Martin's friendship is put to the test as Cole, after an argument with his overbearing mother Maddie Brown (Miss Laura Hayes) in which she kicks him out and he's forced to temporarily stay with Martin, who tries to get him to stand wp to his mom, as he also tries to get him out of his place by getting Cole reconcile with his mother so she could invite him to move back home with her.
Martin and Cole's relationship is also severely tried in the Season 3 episode "C.R.E.A.M." (#22), when Martin and Gina, on a whim, after they recently received a windfall, a $4,000 tax refund from the IRS, decide to invest their money in a opening a restaurant (Cole had a dumb suggestion: serve the patrons free soup, and, as was his idea for the eatery's name, was "Rent 'em Spoons!") which they named "Marty Mart's Meat Loaf & Waffles".
Anyway, the business, which seemed to be doing quite well, as the place was packed with customers, and they were running out of food to serve (and Pam was pulling in big tips from the customers, turned out to be a colossal failure, as Cole, (who also was the frycook) who was responsible for printing the flyers for the eatery's opening, made a mistake in having the flyers include redeemable coupons which offered "5 for 1" instead of "2 for 1" meals, which Martin wanted, and which the patrons all were using to pay for their meals with, as a fumingly angry Martin tells Cole "This is just about the dumbest thing you've ever did!".
During the series finale, he becomes engaged to Shanise, as he and Martin's friendship is also put to the test when Martin and Gina were initially not exactly approving of he dating her because of her dimwittedness.