‘Blue Mountain’ turf is the lewd and crude

January 12, 2010|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

It’s a party for the Blue Mountain State Goats football team, and beautiful young women in various states of undress are rubbing up against all the players, who are drunk and getting drunker when they’re not bonging and snorting coke, and a guy named Sammy is in the corner puking into a feeding bowl, and a live goat is standing beside him chowing down in between Sammy’s heaves.

And if that image inspires a smile, rather than a constriction of your throat, you may be the ideal audience for Spike TV’s “Blue Mountain State.’’ The new show, a rare scripted effort from the young-guys’ channel known for the likes of “UFC Fight Night’’ and “1000 Ways to Die,’’ is clearly meant for guys who love lewd, adolescent humor that revolves around fluids and gasses going into or coming out of the body. Created by Watertown native Eric Falconer and his writing-producing partner Chris Romano, “Blue Mountain State’’ is an unapologetic take on movies such as “Porky’s’’ and “Animal House.’’

Alas, it’s an amateurish take that feels more like a string of failed “Funny or Die’’ sketches than a fully developed series with distinct characters. “Blue Mountain State,’’ tonight at 10, unfolds through the eyes of three freshmen: arrogant backup quarterback Alex (Darin Brooks), his geeky best friend and mascot wannabe, Sammy (Chris Romano), and star recruit Craig (Sam Jones III, also originally from the Boston area). In the premiere, these three types get caught up in hazing rituals that involve countless gay jokes, the shaving of body hair, and a race in jock straps that involves Oreo cookies. It’s all stock, predictable hazing shenanigans, with the sadistic and homoerotically inclined team captain, Thad (Alan Ritchson), taking special pleasure in doling out his torture.

The women? Oy. Almost all of them are subservient students who apparently live to sleep with the football players. Only one - Craig’s girlfriend, Denise (Gabrielle Dennis) - seems to have a name, and she’s a shrew who won’t sleep with him and who is obsessed with making him into a rich pro player. Classic teen-boy fears and desires run rampant through the show. Fittingly, it airs after Spike’s reruns of “Entourage,’’ another comedy that traffics in teen-boy fantasy.

Falconer and Romano have worked on “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’’ and “The Sarah Silverman Program,’’ shows that also get raunchy to some extent. But those two comedies hold onto a self-conscious wit and an original sense of plotting that “Blue Mountain State’’ fumbles.

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