Screens: TVLand
Should You Heat Up Some Hot Pockets And Settle In For The Jim Gaffigan Show?
The comic plays 'himself' in a new sitcom. Does it sizzle like bacon, or kind of suck like McDonald's?
What Is This Thing?
Standup comic Jim Gaffigan tries to live, love, and snack in Manhattan, but his five kids and bossy wife frequently get in the way, when he's not sabotaging himself with his own essential irresponsibility.
When Is It On?
Wednesdays at 10 PM on TV Land.
Why Was It Made Now?
If you're a standup comic in the post-Louie landscape and you don't have a sitcom in which you play an unflattering version of yourself, you ain't shit -- just ask Billy Crystal or Marc Maron or Garfunkel and Oates or John Mulaney. (And yes, I know Curb Your Enthusiasm got there first, but it wasn't a whole genre until Louie came along.)
What's Its Pedigree?
Gaffigan created the show with Peter Tolan, formerly of Rescue Me; Gaffigan's wife Jeannie is also on board as a writer (which scans, since he's frequently credited her with co-writing his standup material). Onscreen, the role of Jeannie is performed by Ashley Williams (How I Met Your Mother's Victoria). Also on board are Adam Goldberg and Michael Ian Black as Jim's friends; guest stars in the episodes released for early viewing include Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofalo, among many others.
...And?
Jim Gaffigan is a tremendous comic -- for real, one of the greats; if he's playing in your city, you should go. And over the past ten years or so, he's also been building a solid résumé of acting roles, comic and not, in movies like Away We Go, 17 Again, and It's Kind Of A Funny Story, among many others. He's already headlined the short-lived Welcome To New York and played a supporting series regular role in My Boys (R.I.P.), but as he's become better and better known for his standup act, it makes sense that this latest sitcom vehicle would hew much more closely to his actual persona -- literally as closely as it can without starring his actual wife and children: if some of the material in his act is inspired by events from home, then why not watch those stories acted out?
If you've ever seen him in any other project, you know Gaffigan is an affable presence, and as a producer on his own show, it's clear he knows what his own strengths are: in "Super Great Daddy Day," the second episode of the series (which airs July 22 but has been on Hulu and other platforms for a few weeks), his second scene finds him in bed, explicitly ignoring his kids, and it doesn't take long after that for him to end up on the couch in his boxers. Truly, this is a man after my own heart.
By far the best relationship in the show so far is between Jim and Daniel (Michael Ian Black), who have a throwbacky sitcom frenemyship that cuts through the family stuff with some real acid. Coming in after a shopping trip with Jeannie to see Jim on the aforementioned couch, Daniel snits, "You look like a dead marshmallow, Jim." Jim: "You look like every bad guy on Downton Abbey."
Nailed it. (This episode also has a subplot involving Goldberg's character and a Café Gitane barista that I won't spoil but that pays off beautifully.)
Finally, though it's not exactly part of the content of either episode that's already come out, it's worthy of praise: TV Land made a Jim Gaffigan mascot that has been wandering around Times Square the past few weeks taking photos with tourists.
Brilliant.
...But?
Considering that actual Jeannie Gaffigan is a writer on the show, I don't understand why fictionalized Jeannie Gaffigan is such a scold. "Jim, those [Fudgsicles] are for the kids!" is a line TV Jeanne utters more than once in "Super Great Daddy Day"; the plot is catalyzed by his wish to prove he can do the tasks she is not quite prepared to hand off to him, and when he (of course) screws them up, the two get into a very predictable fight. The real Jeannie must be fun and funny if she and Jim are such close collaborators; why doesn't her TV avatar get to evince those qualities?
"The Bible Story" -- another episode that's already been released, and which TV Land will air on July 29 -- also revolves around Jeannie giving Jim an annoying errand that ruins his life. When Jeannie charges him to pick up an absolutely enormous Bible and forbids him from putting it in a garbage bag (seriously, the only kind of bag that would hold it: this thing is gigantic), he has to take it out to his set, and is holding it in a photo he takes with a fan. The photo goes viral, leading to a hurricane of news around Jim's proud Christianity. And when he tries to correct the record, he seems to cast himself as an anti-Christian comic...long story short, the thing blows up -- for a while -- to a level reminiscent of the more fantastical episode of Louie, or even of Man Seeking Woman. TJGS would do better to stick to realistic stories lest it be accused of being derivative of those shows, which have leaned more determinedly into that style.
...So?
Given how much I dearly love Gaffigan's standup, I really had high hopes that The Jim Gaffigan Show would be reminiscent of his act at its goofiest and best. I was not expecting it to be so generic, in the "fat guy/skinny wife" mold. I'll give it a few more chances to win me over, but if "Super Great Daddy Day" and "The Bible Story" are typical of the whole season, it's not for me.