Put On A Party Hat For The Birthday Boys

I'm already on the record loving sketch comedy on TV (and in life). I've already heard various combinations of cast members on the "Comedy Bang! Bang!" podcast. And yet when the promos started airing for The Birthday Boys, my itchy DVR finger didn't itch even a little, and for that, I blame IFC.

Look, I love Portlandia. We all love Portlandia. But every other original comedy series on IFC has left me cold. The fake "the points don't matter" game show Bunk was a poor showcase for the talents of the great Kurt Braunohler, and probably of the comedians he had on as fake contestants, though I'll never know because I shut off the series premiere about ten minutes in. The TV version of Comedy Bang! Bang! has laboured so mightily to distinguish itself from the podcast that spawned it that it's overcorrected, losing the weird anarchy that makes the podcast so much fun. (That, and Paul F. Tompkins should be in every episode.) And as for Maron, I really can't top the observations of my esteemed colleague Omar Gallaga. Sure, the Bob Odenkirk name -- he's on board The Birthday Boys as executive producer -- meant something in comedy circa Mr. Show, but since then he's also made Let's Go To Prison, so...you know.

As if all these deficits weren't enough to prejudice me against it, The Birthday Boys also, I thought, was just another The Whitest Kids U Know, a pre-Portlandia sketch show featuring (like The Birthday Boys) an all-white, all-male cast. "If I feel like watching a bunch of white guys do sketch comedy, I'll just do what everyone else does and watch SNL," I thought, and then high-fived myself.

But then, curious for no real reason other than that the series premiere was on again two days after its original airing, I decided to be magnanimous and give The Birthday Boys a shot, and it turns out I owe it/them an apology, because it's pretty great. Here's the opening sketch that won me over.

The Garage Gang was followed by the mischievous pranksters of Pinewood.

Admittedly, yes, okay, there's a dud in the middle, when Odenkirk's computer impresario comes back and does a lame, predictable Steve Jobs bit that feels like the unfortunate result of an ill-conceived network note. But there's also a sketch that more or less hinges on male frontal nudity -- not the sexy kind, but still.

I can imagine that even comedy supernerds like me may have written off The Birthday Boys, for all the above-stated reasons. But as these clips suggest, it's closer to the Mr. Show end of the spectrum than Whitest Kids, and for that reason alone, I'm on board and excited to see where it goes for the rest of the season. Join me!

The Birthday Boys airs Fridays at 10:30 PM EDT on IFC.