Three Mid-season TV Premieres Worth Watching

Some of you may have gotten a letter in the mail, asking you to take part in an important survey. No, not the census, no one cares about that. I'm talking about the Nielsen ratings survey. March is when the networks make their mid-season line-up adjustments in preparation for April, when Nielsen determines network ad rates. This spring's pre-sweeps premieres include a few worth watching.

"The Celebrity Apprentice," Sundays @ 9 on NBC
(New episodes available following Monday via Hulu and NBC.com)
A common gambit with a declining reality show is to add celebrities to the mix. In the case of "The Celebrity Apprentice," it works well, if only for the surreal situations: like disgraced former Illinois Governor Rob Blogojevich waiting tables along side WWE wrestler Goldberg. Or The Donald and Cyndi Lauper arguing about Rosie O'Donnell. This is the ninth season of Trump's show and the third season to pit celebs against each other for their favorite charities. It's a battle of the sexes; Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Lauper, a former WWE diva, a model, a stand up comedienne and an Olympian make up the women's team, which they named Tenacity. The name sounds like a perfume, so of course the Donald likes it. Pop quiz: What is Rocksteady? A: a villain in the old 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' cartoon; B: the name of Brett Michaels' clothing line; C: the team name Brett Michaels tricked the guys into choosing to shamelessly promote his clothing line of the same name; D: all of the above. If you guessed 'D,' give yourself a cookie. No seriously, Brett Michaels is diabetic, so don't give him the cookie. On the two-hour season premier, his team raised $100,000 for the American Diabetes Association. Rocksteady, which coincidentally is also the name of a No Doubt CD, consists of Michaels, Darryl Strawberry, Goldberg, Blago, Sinbad, plus a celebrity chef and an Olympian. Trump clones Ivanka and Donald, Jr. return to assist their genetic donor in the boardroom. Donald's hair is provided by Jim Hansen's creature shop. Rob Blogojevich's hair is provided by DuPont, maker of Teflon.




"Sons of Tucson," Sundays @ 9:30 on FOX
(New episodes available following Monday via Hulu and FOX.com)
It's hard to talk about this show and not reference "Malcolm in the Middle." Justin Berfeld, who played Malcolm's older brother Reese in the 90's family sitcom, is one of the show's producers. Also on board is Todd Holland, who directed 26 episodes of "Malcolm in the Middle" as well as "The Wizard," a 1989 film that introduced the world to Fred Savage and Super Mario Brothers 3. Imagine Malcolm and his brothers being raised by an reluctant schemer, like Bernie Mac mixed with Earl Hickey. The three boy's real dad is in prison for stock fraud. Their mom was out of the picture long ago, so they're on their own. They travel from New Jersey to Tucson to claim some of their dad's ill-gotten money and a home he hid away. To stay off child services' radar, the boys need to enroll in school and for that they need a parent, so they enlist down-on-his luck Jack Black look-alike Ron Snuffkin to portray their papa. The writing is superior, delivering exchanges we haven't heard since "Malcolm." For example:

Oldest Brother Brandon: We’re working too hard. Let’s just put an ad out on Craigslist. ‘Wanted: Father to three boys.’ Bam. We’re done.
Middle Brother Gary: Great idea. A footrace between the pervs and child services. Bam. We’re screwed.

Gary is played by Frank Dolce, who starred on Broadway as "Billy Elliot." You may recognize Tyler Labine, who plays fake father Ron Snuffkin, as the slacker sidekick on CW's "The Reaper."





"Ugly Americans," Wednesdays @ 10:30 on Comedy Central
When it comes to slackers, Comedy Central's new cartoon trumps "Sons of Tucson" with the ultimate loser loafer, zombie roommate Randall Skeffington. Unemployed and undead, Randall spends his days doing odd jobs and finding replacements for his decaying body parts. "Ugly Americans" bills itself as an animated horror-comedy series. It follows Mark Lilly, social worker at the Department of Integration, as he helps new citizens both human and "other" adapt to hectic life in New York City. There are easier tasks than weaning vampires from blood, socializing land-whales, and housebreaking werewolves, but Mark is up to the challenge. Besides Mark and roommate Randall, season one introduces twenty-eight odd characters including a robot, a cyclops, a floating brain and Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, as well as several characters not stolen from "Futurama." Oh, and magician "Christ Angel."

New Fox Cartoon Needs Night Class in Comedy

I never was a 'King of the Hill' fan. Nothing against it– I watched it when nothing better was on and it was funny, but not my type of humor. I like 'Frasier', if that helps. No wonder I didn’t notice that FOX has canceled the show, the second longest-running animated show in America. D’oh! 'The Simpsons' are first. Hank Hill fans can watch creator Mike Judge’s new cartoon on ABC this Fall. In the meantime, ‘Arrested Development’ is back on FOX. The critically-acclaimed– no, critically dry-humped show was canceled by some network exec, likely the same cokehead who axed ‘Futurama’, ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Gumbel & Gumbel’. But enough fans complained that FOX had to return the show to the air. Except now instead of ‘Arrested Development’ they’re calling it ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ and instead of it being about the Bluthe family it’s about a school. And it’s now a cartoon, all the characters are different and it’s no longer funny. But other than that, exactly like ‘Arrested Development’.

‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ was conceived by ‘Arrested Development’ creator Mitch Hurwitz. Based on a live action Australian ‘The Office’ knock-off, Hurwitz eventually changed to an animated format– another example of outsourcing the jobs of American actors to third-world animators. Mitch recruited writers from ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Two and a Half Men’, which I am told is some sort of sitcom and not, as I had supposed, about two police detectives, one of whom is a conjoined twin.

Jason Bateman returns as the leading man. Will Arnett and Henry “The Fonz” Winkler, who worked with Hurwitz and Bateman on ‘Arrested Development’ reunite to provide voices, adding Kenan Thompson, Will Forte and Cheri Oteri, all from Saturday Night Live, to round out the cast. Oh! The guy who does Spongebob Squarepant’s voice is on the show too!

However, from the beginning the show fails to deliver on all that potential. The pilot episode introduces the characters, replete with double entendre names– Principal Sue Sezno and a German teacher named Mr. Deutschebog, just to name a few. But that’s it– nothing funny happens. Subsequent episodes do the same, build up hope for a great pay off of funny, but never deliver. Watching this show leaves me with comedy blue balls. Luckily it’s part of FOX’s ‘Animation Domination Sunday’ lineup, so Seth McFarlane can give me some release. I won’t give up on ‘Sit Down, Shut Up’ just yet– FOX plans to air the full season before deciding the show’s fate. If a coked-out executive can be that patient with a show that delivers cheap, easy, high-school level jokes, I can too.