Oftentimes comedies take a while to develop, it takes a
while to smooth out a character around the edges and figure out what works and
what doesn’t in their world to make it funny and enjoyable. The most recent,
and obvious, example of this is Parks and
Recreation as it went from pretty bad to the best comedy on television.
Even other great shows like 30 Rock and
The Office are contextually hard to
recognize in their first season compared to where they ended up. But with that
being said, there’s no sugar coating a comedy of this ilk. Although Dads technically has no place to go but
up, it’s easy to imagine that what got thrown out there in the pilot was what
they wanted it to be.
The show stars Seth Green (Eli) and Giovanni Ribisi (Walden)
as a couple of friends/video game moguls who seemingly have their lives figured
out and are generally happy with the exception of each their Dad’s, Peter
Riegert as Green’s father and Martin Mull as Ribisi’s, who are forced to live
with their sons because of economic hardships. What they aren’t forced to do,
however; is act like a couple a misogynistic, xenophobes who are leeches to
both their sons and society as a whole which is what this show unfortunately leans
upon for laughs.
What makes this show truly awful is how lazy the whole thing
felt. In terms of jokes, the writers must have essentially made a checklist of
one-liners to zing out every minority group they can think of and exploit
stereotypes associated with them all. At one point Ribisi’s character is
playing video games and his father enters the room to ask him “whatcha playing?
Punch the Puerto Rican?” Zero set-up, zero payoff. We’re not even sure he’s
playing a fighting game. The only joke
that was purely a stand-alone, original one was based off the fact that neither
of the father’s would want to pick-up the check. The writers must have thought
this “gem” was so hilarious that it deserved not only Eli and Walden discussing
techniques both of their fathers have used in the past to get out of paying for
a check, but also a visual component to accompany it as we witness said
practices play out when the Dads are at a diner. Apparently this diner doesn’t
allow for splitting a check?
But hey, maybe this show redeems itself by representing
women well. Oh… it’s the exact opposite of positive portrayals of women? Well,
can’t say that wasn’t expected. In the first scene we see Eli’s girlfriend she
has just woken up after his father ruins the surprise of the birthday she was
throwing for him. Eli tells her: “I hate surprise parties. You’re a terrible
girlfriend.” Yup. This beautiful woman tries to do something nice for her
schlubby boyfriend and instead of fighting back she just bows down to him
because he is man and man is right. This scene was only to be topped later on
when Eli and Walden insist that Brenda Song’s character who works for them, put
on a Sailor Moon type schoolgirl uniform to impress their potential Asian
clients. Able to check off a couple of boxes there, huh guys?
Hopefully this won’t fall into the mold of Two and a Half Men where American
viewers simply watch because it seems familiar to them and they don’t have to
put any thought into the idiotic humor that ensues. Of course we’ll probably
get 29 seasons where by the end Green and Ribisi are now the obnoxious, racist
fathers who are forced to live with their kids after their Dad’s sucked them
dry. Come on FOX, what are you doing here?
Other moments of note:
- In a show where many things are “off” the theme song seemed particulary out of place. I was waiting for it to shift into goofy shenanigans or something along those lines but it stays steady as a sweet song about sons and fathers. Whatever.
- Sad to see Dan Castellaneta (voice of Homer Simpson) attached to this in any way, and in the opening scene no less as Green tells him to act more wizard-like. He must have been doing a favor for someone.
- Not one, but two cancer jokes. Riegert has a “say yes to breast cancer” bag that he got cheap because of the typo and we find out he faked Green’s character had cancer as a kid in order for him to get a free lunch with Goofy.
- I think what bothers me most is that Seth Green’s character has an upstairs but he puts his bed right off of the living room. So impractical.
What did everyone else
think? Comments are always welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment