Bad-example
01-31-2007, 09:08 PM
Tim Goodman is giving this new Comedy Central show a big thumbs up. Sounds like it is worth a look.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/31/DDG7KNR7BN1.DTL
It's not very often that a TV show bursting with imagination, audacity, rude charm and a relentlessly funny worldview gets on the air, much less appears fully formed. But Sarah Silverman -- she of the effervescent fearlessness that always catches people off guard in the likes of "The Aristocrats," her film "Jesus Is Magic" or her bluest of stand-up material -- has delivered an offbeat gem in her eponymous new series on Comedy Central.
"The Sarah Silverman Program" is a brilliantly realized reinvigoration of the sitcom as only Silverman could dream it. She has managed to create a lo-fi world of silly characters (who have depth), odd tics, sweet conceits and ironic detachment that wink-winks its way into your heart. Regardless of what else the series accomplishes -- like making you laugh consistently for a half hour, which is almost a lost art -- there's no overstating what is surely to be lost amid the descriptions of her ruthlessly politically incorrect material. And that is, in the first episode the audience gets her world view immediately. When an artist tries something complicated (but wants to make it look childishly simple or dashed off -- not to be confused with organic), it often takes five or six episodes or even a full season to create that look and make it indelible in viewers minds.
The few series that manage this immediately -- "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and "Strangers With Candy" come to mind -- have an original vision. The same is true of "The Sarah Silverman Program," which gives Comedy Central another piece of the essential-viewing puzzle.
All of that said, whether you love or dismiss Silverman's series depends entirely on whether you like her and her cute-caustic comedy. That Silverman will say and do just about anything whether it offends or not has made her a comic darling but also someone who sends the chaste, arrogantly righteous and humorless reeling.
So here's a good test of whether you're going to immediately add "The Sarah Silverman Program" to your TiVo or instead seek an injunction from the FCC: Silverman is discussing -- with her dog, Doug -- the relative, uh, thickness and plentitude, of her younger sister's pubic hair and says this: "Her vagina looked like Cat Stevens' face."
Later, she enters a dream-like state (after singing a fall-on-the-ground funny song about pooping her pants) where she ends up in heaven, looking at a man in an all-white suit. "Are you God's black friend?" she asks the man. He's not. He's God. Or, as Silverman calls him, Black God. Of course, she sleeps with him. And lies to him. Then kicks him out.
If you're not in now, you'll never be.
What Silverman manages to do with her "program" is take that next creative step in her career, the one that truly talented people always do -- they either carry a movie by being the breakout star or they carry a TV series (harder to do) by unleashing their imagination in a wholly original way. Let's face it, if Silverman made just another snarky sitcom she'd be lost in the pack. She's peopled her TV universe with enough likable characters to give it room to grow. There's her (real) sister Laura ("The Comeback"), who plays her sister the nurse -- and one person who truly looks after Sarah, since Sarah's laziness and selfishness in no way makes her employable or independent. Next door she has two "gigantic, orange and gay" neighbors, Steve and Brian (Steve Agee, Brian Posehn, both with orange-red hair), and Officer Jay (Jay Johnston), who Sarah can't stand but Laura ends up falling for.
All of the characters manage quickly to establish an identity. Laura, despite being the younger sister, is all the sweetness that Sarah lacks, plus she's a rock in Sarah's (very) unstable world. Both Agee and Posehn are nuanced in their roles as video game playing, action hero collecting, egregious TV watching, food-chowing, slacker gay guys. And Johnston ("Mr. Show") is a sketch pro whose understated mannerisms make his authority figure a lot more than expected. (Here's hoping, too, that Tucker Smallwood as Black God gets more appearances.)
Oh, and Doug the dog just flat-out works. For being found in the trash.
But it's Silverman, whose coquettishness is just a gauzy lie that masquerades her rude-girl love of fart jokes and raw sex references, who owns her show. As Black God says to her: "You are the most selfish, racist, manipulative, lazy, pompous human being alive today." And in this show, she is. And for the record, she's also damned cute and funny. Especially when her bad behavior allows her to learn something important (which she reveals a few times each episode with often wince-inducing, crass and riotous results). For example, she learned that God is black. "I think that's amazing. I mean, I'm not one of those people who's going to say, 'Oh, God is black. Is he going to steal the moon?' "
Silverman has created a vehicle for herself that does more than provide a forum for inappropriately hilarious comedy (she could do that onstage). The show allows Silverman herself to be fleshed out, to birth a character who redefines silly (she certainly makes it more dangerous in the process). She's a happy interloper in the world, bringing a pornographic insouciance to everyone's dull day. She's the 21st century "That Girl" -- except she's unemployed, uninhibited and a teensy bit unhinged.
In the first episode, Silverman congratulates Steve and Brian on the passage of an anti-discrimination bill for gays. "So now if someone tries to light you on fire or chop off your penis or something, they go to jail instead of getting a trophy."
She later tries to get out of helping a friend move by saying, "I stubbed my vagina."
With everybody and every issue a potential punch line, Silverman opens up the opportunity by creating all kinds of visual treats -- flashbacks, dream sequences and songs. Ah, the songs. No doubt those will be YouTube gems (provided Comedy Central allows it) since in a mere two episodes she's struck gold with each attempt.
In one sugary ode to being nice, she sings about all the things she would change: "I wish the retarded/were resmarted." Another is about sticking "doody" in your mother's eye.
Well, at least you know what you're getting into.
But then again, you don't. "The Sarah Silverman Program" can't and shouldn't be broken into parts for laughter (or, you know, to appall people), because the fully formed whole is so much sillier and sweeter and creative than you might imagine.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/31/DDG7KNR7BN1.DTL
It's not very often that a TV show bursting with imagination, audacity, rude charm and a relentlessly funny worldview gets on the air, much less appears fully formed. But Sarah Silverman -- she of the effervescent fearlessness that always catches people off guard in the likes of "The Aristocrats," her film "Jesus Is Magic" or her bluest of stand-up material -- has delivered an offbeat gem in her eponymous new series on Comedy Central.
"The Sarah Silverman Program" is a brilliantly realized reinvigoration of the sitcom as only Silverman could dream it. She has managed to create a lo-fi world of silly characters (who have depth), odd tics, sweet conceits and ironic detachment that wink-winks its way into your heart. Regardless of what else the series accomplishes -- like making you laugh consistently for a half hour, which is almost a lost art -- there's no overstating what is surely to be lost amid the descriptions of her ruthlessly politically incorrect material. And that is, in the first episode the audience gets her world view immediately. When an artist tries something complicated (but wants to make it look childishly simple or dashed off -- not to be confused with organic), it often takes five or six episodes or even a full season to create that look and make it indelible in viewers minds.
The few series that manage this immediately -- "Pee-wee's Playhouse" and "Strangers With Candy" come to mind -- have an original vision. The same is true of "The Sarah Silverman Program," which gives Comedy Central another piece of the essential-viewing puzzle.
All of that said, whether you love or dismiss Silverman's series depends entirely on whether you like her and her cute-caustic comedy. That Silverman will say and do just about anything whether it offends or not has made her a comic darling but also someone who sends the chaste, arrogantly righteous and humorless reeling.
So here's a good test of whether you're going to immediately add "The Sarah Silverman Program" to your TiVo or instead seek an injunction from the FCC: Silverman is discussing -- with her dog, Doug -- the relative, uh, thickness and plentitude, of her younger sister's pubic hair and says this: "Her vagina looked like Cat Stevens' face."
Later, she enters a dream-like state (after singing a fall-on-the-ground funny song about pooping her pants) where she ends up in heaven, looking at a man in an all-white suit. "Are you God's black friend?" she asks the man. He's not. He's God. Or, as Silverman calls him, Black God. Of course, she sleeps with him. And lies to him. Then kicks him out.
If you're not in now, you'll never be.
What Silverman manages to do with her "program" is take that next creative step in her career, the one that truly talented people always do -- they either carry a movie by being the breakout star or they carry a TV series (harder to do) by unleashing their imagination in a wholly original way. Let's face it, if Silverman made just another snarky sitcom she'd be lost in the pack. She's peopled her TV universe with enough likable characters to give it room to grow. There's her (real) sister Laura ("The Comeback"), who plays her sister the nurse -- and one person who truly looks after Sarah, since Sarah's laziness and selfishness in no way makes her employable or independent. Next door she has two "gigantic, orange and gay" neighbors, Steve and Brian (Steve Agee, Brian Posehn, both with orange-red hair), and Officer Jay (Jay Johnston), who Sarah can't stand but Laura ends up falling for.
All of the characters manage quickly to establish an identity. Laura, despite being the younger sister, is all the sweetness that Sarah lacks, plus she's a rock in Sarah's (very) unstable world. Both Agee and Posehn are nuanced in their roles as video game playing, action hero collecting, egregious TV watching, food-chowing, slacker gay guys. And Johnston ("Mr. Show") is a sketch pro whose understated mannerisms make his authority figure a lot more than expected. (Here's hoping, too, that Tucker Smallwood as Black God gets more appearances.)
Oh, and Doug the dog just flat-out works. For being found in the trash.
But it's Silverman, whose coquettishness is just a gauzy lie that masquerades her rude-girl love of fart jokes and raw sex references, who owns her show. As Black God says to her: "You are the most selfish, racist, manipulative, lazy, pompous human being alive today." And in this show, she is. And for the record, she's also damned cute and funny. Especially when her bad behavior allows her to learn something important (which she reveals a few times each episode with often wince-inducing, crass and riotous results). For example, she learned that God is black. "I think that's amazing. I mean, I'm not one of those people who's going to say, 'Oh, God is black. Is he going to steal the moon?' "
Silverman has created a vehicle for herself that does more than provide a forum for inappropriately hilarious comedy (she could do that onstage). The show allows Silverman herself to be fleshed out, to birth a character who redefines silly (she certainly makes it more dangerous in the process). She's a happy interloper in the world, bringing a pornographic insouciance to everyone's dull day. She's the 21st century "That Girl" -- except she's unemployed, uninhibited and a teensy bit unhinged.
In the first episode, Silverman congratulates Steve and Brian on the passage of an anti-discrimination bill for gays. "So now if someone tries to light you on fire or chop off your penis or something, they go to jail instead of getting a trophy."
She later tries to get out of helping a friend move by saying, "I stubbed my vagina."
With everybody and every issue a potential punch line, Silverman opens up the opportunity by creating all kinds of visual treats -- flashbacks, dream sequences and songs. Ah, the songs. No doubt those will be YouTube gems (provided Comedy Central allows it) since in a mere two episodes she's struck gold with each attempt.
In one sugary ode to being nice, she sings about all the things she would change: "I wish the retarded/were resmarted." Another is about sticking "doody" in your mother's eye.
Well, at least you know what you're getting into.
But then again, you don't. "The Sarah Silverman Program" can't and shouldn't be broken into parts for laughter (or, you know, to appall people), because the fully formed whole is so much sillier and sweeter and creative than you might imagine.