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STUDIO: Lionsgate
MSRP: $29.98
RATED: Unrated
RUNNING TIME: 266 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Outtakes/Deleted Scenes
• Locker Room Rewind
• Making the squad: The Cheerleaders of BMS
The Pitch
Let a group of horny 14 year-old boys write a half-hour comedy series, pay them in video games
The Humans
Actors- Darin Brooks, Chris “Romanski” Romano, Alan Ritchson, Sam Jones III
Writers- Chris “Romanski” Romano, Eric Falconer
The Nutshell
Alex, Craig, and Sammy are freshmen at Blue Mountain State University. Alex is the second-string quarterback, Sammy is the mascot, and Craig is a highly-touted runningback. We watch the 3 as they experience sex, drinking, hazing, and various other staples of cliched take-offs of National Lampoon’s Van Wilder and Animal House. The humor of those 2 films is never so much as glanced at. Hilarity ensues about as often as it does at a dialysis center. If shitting on coffee tables, stealing used condoms, or letting your professor’s elderly mother (Cloris Leachman…poor, poor Cloris Leachman) give you a handjob to get a good grade (yup!) is your idea of comedy, this is the show you’ve been waiting for!
The Lowdown
To be honest with you, I don’t quite know where to begin. Going into this, i’m not quite sure what I was prepared for. I knew that this show, created by Eric Falconer and Chris “Romanski” Romano, who is also one of the show’s stars, was supposed to be a take-off on films such as Porky’s, Van Wilder or Animal House. Those are fun movies, right? I also knew that it aired on Spike, home to TNA Wrestling, UFC, and a lot of guy-related stuff. So I knew that, hey, I was the target audience! I should like this show, right? Since i’m a guy, that is. Going in with an open mind, of course, I fired it up, sat back, and proceeded to experience maybe the worst 266 minutes of my entire life. When the coach of the football team includes in his motivational speech the line “Where do you come from? Your father’s balls!” you just know you’re in for a shitstorm of unfunny.
The jokes, if you’d like to entertain the notion of calling them that, are about as subtle as a Tobasco enema. Within minutes of starting the Pilot, we’re treated to a freshmen hazing ritual initiated by the team captain, Thad (Alan Ritchson), in which new guys have to wear a jock-strap and put a cream-filled chocolate cookie between their ass cheeks and run down the field with it. Whoever loses the race has to eat the cookie immediately afterwards. For most of the season, Thad is painted as some sort of closeted homoerotic jock. His hazing rituals always have sexual undertones to them and another one of them even involves the freshmen having to shave each other’s balls in front of him. Huh? Hilarious, right? Wait, it gets better. Within minutes of moving into his dorm, Alex (Darin Brooks), the main character, has 2 girls in bed. Sammy (Chris “Romanski” Romano) sneaks into the room, kneels down in front of the bed, and is masturbating fervently. I understand the show is trying to push the boundaries of what most people would find tasteful, and trust me, i’m no prude when it comes to exposure to this sort of thing in movies and television, but it needs to be funny! It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, anyone? As it stands the show is so tasteless that it cancels out any chance of being funny. Every joke falls flat.
Alex coasts through the show doing his best Ryan Reynolds impression. And as the main character, he has no redeeming qualities. Even in a show such as this, we have to identify with at least ONE of the characters, but most of the time that’s the main character. At least this gives us someone or something to care about. But since there’s nothing that even resembles a coherent plot in any of the episodes, there are no situations here that warrant the character needing to get from point A to point B in any meaningful context. Unless of course you consider the team sharing and taking turns with a silicon pussy replica that Thad got as a gift from his dad who served in Bosnia (I swear i’m not drunk or high) meaningful. Craig (Sam Jones III) is at least somewhat likable. His girlfriend is clearly using him for his impending stardom as he sets records and inevitably will head to the NFL, and she cheats on him behind his back and tells him that she’s sleeping with agents or accountants only to help secure his future. And he of course believes it. But the bottom line is that these are not BAD actors, it’s the material that is ultimately bad. There’s only so much that can be done with this stuff.
Getting back to the other actors, with the exception of Romanski, they are all solid and have potential. Darin Brooks had a run on the soap Days Of Our Lives, and Sam Jones III was on ER as Dr. Pratt’s brother. Alan Ritchson was the model that Robert Zemeckis used for Beowulf, so that was interesting to learn. If given more of a chance to shine with worthy material these guys wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s the show’s writers that bring them down. Anyone is gonna look like a moron with a condom in his mouth!
I’ve had root canals that were less painful than this show. And they were funnier, too. I simply find it hard to recommend this. I’m not a snob by any means and I do not stand on any moral high ground. For the love of God, I grew up worshipping Beavis and Butthead. I have no problem with low-brow humor but when you try to shock or offend with no basis in anything resembling comedy, you fail miserably. The show is barely watchable and even when it isn’t relying on the tired cliches that tv and movies have used to depict college life to garner laughs, it dive bombs thousands of yards shy of funny. Some will find it funny, though, and unfortunately those are the same people who have never watched Community. Hell, give me Outsourced over this drivel. There, I said it.
The Package
Deleted Scenes, along with some outtakes that I found funnier than the actual show. Also, a brief sit-down with a couple cheerleaders, and a video commentary of various scenes by Darin Brooks, Romanski, Alan Ritchson, and Ed Marinaro who plays Coach Daniels, along with writer Eric Falconer. I guess it’s an interesting look behind the scenes, but what kind of insight do we really need to gain from these guys after all of this? It’s really just 26 minutes of them laughing their asses off at the jokes. Did I miss something here?