Attempt by 'Blue Collar TV' at unhip humor is unfunny

July 29, 2004|Globe Staff

There's something artless about the title "Blue Collar TV." It's plain and direct, addressing the target audience of the new WB skit comedy by its socioeconomic status and cultural sensibility. By the rules of this show-naming technique, "Mad TV" would be simply "Welcome Media Savvy 18-34-Year-Olds," and "Will & Grace" would become "For Liberals Only."

The humor on "Blue Collar TV," which premieres tonight at 8 on Channel 56, is equally lacking in imagination, as it relies on overused bits about redneck family life. The show, starring Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, and Bill Engvall, three of the four comedians in "Blue Collar Comedy Tour: The Movie," proudly avoids the pop self-consciousness of "Saturday Night Live" and the racial provocations of "Chappelle's Show." It's designed for people who don't identify with urban hipness -- which isn't a bad thing, if you have fresh material to offer them. But "Blue Collar TV" is stubbornly humdrum, a showcase of generic down-home jokes by men with no interest in challenging their audience.

One of tonight's skits features Foxworthy, Engvall, and Larry as three children fighting in the back seat of a car, with Larry as the infant who repeatedly announces "I made brown." It's like Lily Tomlin's Edith Ann without the slyness, or Mike Myers's Phillip, the kid with attention deficit disorder, without the politically incorrect edge. Another overlong skit finds the show's troupe -- which includes Brooke Dillman and Ayda Field -- playing an obese family who worry about their daughter's dieting "problem." The standup that surrounds the skits is not much funnier, with subpar one-liners such as, "I think there should be an application process for anyone who wants to wear a thong."

Naturally, the audience laughs insanely hard, so hard that they couldn't possibly be extras wearing regular folks' costumes. No paid professional would so blatantly overact.

The WB is using this show, along with its forthcoming Drew Carey improvisation series, as part of a new effort to attract older audiences. No longer interested solely in the youth market as it reaches its 10th birthday next year, the WB is trying to reach beyond its demographic roots. Now all the network needs to remember is that its intended viewers do have brains underneath their graying hair.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.

READER COMMENTS »

View reader comments » Comment on this story »