COMEDY IN A HOSPITAL; TRAGEDY IN A STAND-UP CLUB: As the summer winds down (you can tell because it just got warm in San Francisco), it's a good time to say a few words about two pleasant additions to summer television -- FX's Louie and Adult Swim's Children's Hospital.
Children's Hospital is the less ambitious of the two, and all I've seen of it so far is old stuff that first aired on the web. It's broad parody very much in the style of its principal creator, Rob Corddry, so if you have a problem with that, you wouldn't like it. But the excellent cast -- a rotating stew of half the comic actors from the incestuous Greg Daniels/Daily Show/UCB/Human Giant ensembles -- seems excited about the format (each episode is roughly the length of two SNL sketches), the gag rate is high, and the shots the show takes at the enduring hospital-show format generally hit the mark. And the National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: SUV commercials are Veridianesque in their value-additivity.
Louie, on the other hand, is a show that Matt Ufford accurately described as not really a comedy so much as a show about the painful stuff that comedians use as comic source material. Louis CK puts his character into a lot of sit-com situations -- a playdate co-supervised with a brash single parent; a date interrupted by a bullying teen; a political argument with a friend; a poker game with some loudmouths and a gay man. Then he frequently mines them not for yuks, but for sharply observed examinations of flawed characters or insights about his own and others' shortcomings. Those, and not the more traditionally comic episodes (the airport episode; the lesbian mom episode) are the ones I have liked the most. At its best, the show is unlike anything I can remember seeing on TV.
Childrens Hospital is just great. Pay attention to the Airplanesque PA system announcements in the background.
ReplyDeleteShould I give Louie another try? The first ten minutes of the first episode had all of the uncomfortable awkwardness of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with none of the laughs, and I haven't returned.
If you didn't like the poker scene, you won't like the show. It's not a comedy. There is a lot of awkwardness, and half of it is not played for laughs. I think it is excellent, but I also thought the poker scene was amazing -- a bunch of laughs, then a serious discussion that told us a little about three of the characters.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Isaac on Louie, although your tolerance for verrrrrrry uncomfortable observations will be tested. This past week's episode on religion has an outstanding guest shot by Tom Noonan that was utterly riveting. That said, the funny stuff? Is really, really funny. I believe that Tuesday night Comedy Central is showing the last two episodes of the season back to back.
ReplyDeleteI think the poker scene was the 2nd episode (though aired immediately after the first episode), so it's possible that Ted made his decision without seeing it. That said, it does have a lot of awkwardness and, as you said, isn't exactly a comedy, so he still may not like it.
ReplyDeleteI love it, though. It's my favorite (non-Mad Men) program on right now, and I agree that it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Perhaps the best aspect of it is that I have little idea what I'm going to get when I tune in (though I almost always enjoy it), and I can't think of another television show that I could ever say that about.
Louie is funny, but it's not ha-ha funny. It plays the uncomfortable awkwardness for truth more than laughs, but I think it's great. And it is completely unlike anything else on TV -- Curb is probably the closest comparison, but Louie is far more subtle. (It is on FX, rather than Comedy Central.)
ReplyDeleteOne of the cool things about Louie is that it's practically a Web series for TV. He gets a (for TV) miniscule amount of money per episode, and FX leaves him completely alone. Its an interesting model that I'd like to see spread. I suppose he can get that deal in part because his HBO series proved that he could produce a show on a small budget. And the difficulty of just getting an airable half-hour (regardless of actual quality) to a network should not be underestimated.
ReplyDeleteHaven't watched last week's Louie yet but the date interrupted by the bully? Super uncomfortable to watch. I really, really dig this show and I don't even like stand-up comedy that much. I heard Louis CK on Fresh Air and that's what prompted me to watch. I sometimes think that single-dad Louie and single-dad Don Draper have a great deal in common.
ReplyDeleteI watched a couple of episodes of Louie, and while I found it pretty funny, the discomfort/squirminess level was just so crazy high that I haven't been able to bring myself to watch more. And actually, summer TV hasn't been bad this year--eventually, I'm going to post about how I think Leverage made "the leap" this year (in particular, its "Rashomon Job" episode was really excellent) and Covert Affairs has proven to be a more than satisfactory summer spy drama.
ReplyDeleteOther than the Abraham/Isaac stuff, I actually think the stand-up is the least enjoyable part of Louie (the show, not Louis CK the person). I'm not really a fan of stand-up, and the rhythms are too familiar. Louie (the character) as an observer is far more interesting to me than Louie as a describer.
ReplyDeleteOops - you're right -- thanks for the correction.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The stand-up is used more like a segue, ala.Seinfeld, than for actual laughs. It's almost as though you only see a snippet of a much larger joke so I tend to feel like I've missed the set-up and the punch-line. I guess the idea is that the joke is based on whatever siutation the 'real life' elements in the episode show you, and you are left to devise your own buildup and punch line?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I am not a fan of Curb, the comparisson is fitting. However Louie has this likeable 'not-quite everyman' quality whereas Larry David really gets under my skin for some reason.
I couldn't disagree more about the standup. I can't believe how freakin' good it is. It's some of the best I've ever seen. And I say this as someone who also doesn't love standup, since it often looks so worked. I feel like I finally get what everyone sees in him with the bits he includes in Louie.
ReplyDeleteI am consistently floored by Louis C.K. Every time he does his stand-up, it feels fresh and unrehearsed, as though he's constantly going off-book because what he came in with is nothing compared to what just occured to him while telling the joke, and he can't be bothered to refine it before telling us, it's so awesome, and then there's the self-edit, onstage, for all the world. It's so great.
ReplyDeleteThe show, I can't say enough good things about. Either it's highly composed or the effect of throwing lots of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, but there are a lot of great set-ups and knock-downs from ep to ep -- like the upper hand he gains over the heckler against the absolute demolishing he gets from the bully. What every situation seems to have in common, though, is that Louie the character speaks to other people in situations that cow most other people, especially in the who-knows-what-psycho-you're-dealing-with atmosphere of a big city. In just about every situation, he's speaking -- I don't want to say "out of turn," so much as "in awkward turn" -- and finding the unsavory consequences delivered to him that keep us from doing so ourselves.
It's as relatable as all get-out. Sure, it's awkward, but who isn't?
Also, I just watched the poker scene, and how often is it that we see the credits to a 22-minute show 7 minutes in? NOT OFTEN. That's great respect for the segment.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the Louie train as well. I do find the stand-up my least favorite part of the show, but that's only because I like the rest of it so much. The episode with the bully is one of the best things I've ever seen on TV - so real, so uncomfortable, and managed to surprise me at almost every turn. Then after all that fear and discomfort to make me smile at the end when he's talking to the dad... just brilliantly done.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who started watching it because I loved Louie CK on Parks & Rec?
That said, the other show y'all should have been watching this summer was Huge (ABC Family). Fantastic show, and I'm about 25 years too old for their demo. Wonderful acting by both the teens and the adults, fabulous writing, interesting situations, and the first TV character I can recall being described (by herself) as asexual. I really hope it comes back.
Amy Landecker is so good in the Bully episode, too -- I really got the vibe from her that Louie was on the verge of finding love when the bully deflated the whole thing. I hope we see her again, in total guilt mode over the last date, because there was no good exit from that situation. There have been a LOT of good actors on this show, but she ranks well among them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think she ALSO played Louie's mother in the flashbacks to his childhood in the "God" episode last week, right? Which says....something.
ReplyDeleteSomebody claiming to be Louis CK (and who sounded like Louis CK) said essentially that she read for both parts, that she was by far the best actress for them, and that he didn't view the show as a series so much as a set of independent short films, so he thought there was no problem. He wasn't trying to say anything about an Oedipal complex or anything, and he noted that the character of his mother in the religion episode is based on real life, while the same character 30 years later in the episode where she is selfish and comes out of the closet is completely fictional. He also pointed out that his older daughter is played by two different actresses subbing in and out for different episodes.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't mention, but could have mentioned, that young Louis CK is also played by at least two different actors. I think the one who has the flirtation with the bad girl in junior high is the same as the one who learns from his father about how to pleasure a middle-aged woman until she explodes, but they're not the same as the one who drove the nails into Jesus's hands body by sinning.
The point being that the show does not care about continuity from episode to episode.
He (or whoever claimed to be him) said it on the Onion AV Club comments re the episode.
ReplyDelete