Super Frat

It’s been a while since I watched a sitcom that wasn’t animated by Seth McFarlane.  Perhaps I have made myself immune to them.  Perhaps I’m just a grumpy old man that hates TV, but I don’t think so.

Jesus Christ, Mulaney is one of the worst TV shows I’ve ever seen.

Lazy, poorly acted, stiff, unfunny—  WTF is this?

I’ve seen Mulaney be funny.  He’s been on the Kroll Show a bunch of times and that show is awesome.  WTF is this?

Okay, let me back up.  The show is supposed to be a kind of Seinfeldian show.  Main guy is a comedian (Mulaney) and it’s about the friends around him.  First, there’s his buddy, the generic black friend.  He has generic black guy reactions to things and is another comedian.

Then there’s Andre, the annoying hipster “friend” that everyone hates.  He’s supposed to be a comic relief, but considering it’s already a show about comedians, he’s kind of useless.  Plus you’ve already got the female character that’s kind of supposed to fill part of that role.  The female roommate who is his sorta love interest?  She’s supposed to be abrasive and off-putting, but really she’s just annoying.  There is no chemistry between them.  I mean, zero.  The four of them feel like you found four people on the street and said, “Hey!  You guys!  Wanna be in a TV show.  Memorize this script.”  I mean, it’s that bad to me.

But it gets worse.  The show is full of celebrity cameos and supporting characters.  There’s Martin Short, who is Mulaney’s boss.  He’s some kind of obnoxious game show host that keeps imposing on Mulaney.  Short is a genius and the scenes he’s in almost elevate it.  But he can’t lift the show on his own.

Elliot Gould plays Mulaney’s neighbor and he’s extremely superfluous.  I guess he’s supposed to be his mentor or something.  Then suddenly, Penny Marshall and Lorraine Bracco make a cameo as Elliot’s friends and it gets no better.  Horrible jokes, just brutally lazy bullshit.  There’s a whole subplot where the black guy starts watching Friends like only white people watch Friends.  It’s not funny or edgy it’s just bad.

But the absolute worst is the laugh track.  I knew I was in trouble when the show started with “filmed in front of a live audience”.  Maybe, but I can’t imagine these people were actually laughing.

It was so bad, half way through the show I was wondering if it was supposed to be bad.  Maybe it was one of those meta comedy adult swim shows?  No.  It’s just really, really bad.  I was wishing I was watching The Walking Dead.  That’s how bad it was to me.