-- From 2000--

“Got Balls?"

In Praise of "The Man Show"

In these politically-correct, feminized times, it’s getting harder and harder to turn on the set, unless you’re turning to traditional sports, to find entertainment programming that’s skewed to guys -- real guys, meat-and-potatoes guys, not P-whipped advertiser-targets.  Sure, there’s wrestling, which is, was, and probably always will be the people’s choice in your basic low-brow entertainment buffet.  And believe me, I don’t hate wrestling; I was one of those people who fell in love with it in the early ‘80s when Vince McMahon revived it, made it fun again, even made it witty.  There’s not much of that in it nowadays, and I no longer see it as filling a fascinating multicultural performance niche somewhere between opera and a Punch and Judy show.  It’s gotten uglier than that now, and more’s the pity. 

The men who *are* looking at what's out there will find several programs vying for their rapidly-diminishing attention spans, and it would help if mentally you're about 23 years old going on eleven.  Which is just fine -- eleven year old boys have pretty great taste, entertainment-wise.  They like excitement, action, humor, the opposite sex (if they don't yap too much), and low-brow antics.  Of course this doesn't match the profile of most networks' talky, soap-opera-plotted, relationship-filled, "important" primetime dramas, so cable has stepped in where cooties fear to tread.  In addition to MTV's success with "Jackass" and their other series, and FX's "Son of the Beach," the other big player is Comedy Central with its whole slew of original programs designed for good-time guys.

Now entering its third season, Comedy's “The Man Show” may be the funniest and freshest show on in primetime.  If you routinely stay up late you might be getting your fix from Conan O’Brien, but if you don’t mind trying out cable and usually close up your tent by midnight, “The Man Show” might be just the thing.  With new episodes every Sunday night at 10pm (and several repeats during the week), TMS offers a half-hour of overwhelmingly goofy, intentionally puerile, and generally hilarious comedy, presided over by Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel.  One thing I like is that these guys are silly as hell, and they’re old enough to know better (38 and 34, respectively).  All good fart jokes shouldn’t be wasted on the very young.  If you’ve gotten too old to laugh at flatulence humor, then it might be time to pop some Geritol and see if you can fix things before it gets too late.

Part variety show, part talk show, part Candid Camera, “The Man Show” is a celebration of all those behavioral tics that feminized society has lately been trying to breed out of men, like boob-fixation, incessant masturbation, beer guzzling, cereal-worship, midget deification, and just general tastelessness.  Not that I’m advocating de-shackling civilized conduct in public, but in terms of comedy material, there’s nothing more amusing than getting back to the basics.  And at the core of TMS is the easy-going, evidently genuine friendship and kindred-spirit relationship of Adam and Jimmy.  They’re wonderful together, natural and obviously they crack each other up, and it’s infectious.  If you can’t stomach the fakey shitcom acting of most network comedy shows, it will be a delightful revelation to you.  In many ways their onscreen relationship brings to mind a scatalogical, Rabelaisian Hope and Crosby. The Road to Onanism has never been so much fun....

It’s almost easier to describe the things that some people might not like about “The Man Show” than to try to pinpoint its good points.  Such as, if you don’t think the idea of a chubby little boy – Aaron, the Man Show boy -- going out dressed as a chubby little Girl Scout, setting up a cookie stand and messing with potential customers sounds hilarious, you might not like the show.  On the other hand, if it does tickle your fancy, believe me, it was great.  Or the time he hit a college campus and tried to convince the coeds passing by to have sex with him.  This was an example of their Candid Camera-type material,  when they go out into the world and wreak havoc, such as the time Kimmel asked people to show him their underpants, or Carolla set up a handyman hints booth outside a hardware store (and he really could talk the talk, as he used to be in construction – talk about real man credentials!).  If the mere mention of the word “underpants” isn’t enough to get you smiling, then don’t tune in to this show. 

Carolla ("Loveline") tends to have the bigger mouth, but Kimmel, whose stints on “Win Ben Stein’s Money” and NFL broadcasts have introduced him to a broad audience, more than holds his own with his Father and Son segments, where he instructs his kid – and this kid is a real kid, and unlike most other funny tykes on TV, he’s truly amusing – in the arcanum of masculinity.  It’s right on the edge of being unacceptably cheeky, and therefore of course hilarious.  Kimmel’s wife has also shown up on the show, with such great bits as a hidden video of her daily routine, where she screws deliverymen and visiting basketball players, and eats Jimmy’s favorite Pastrami sandwich – guess which bothered him more?  Another favorite bit of mine was Carolla’s dream date with his mother, where after ordering his father to stay in the house like a bad dog, he whisks Mom off to a music video-like visit to a carnival with all the romantic touches, and ends up on a deserted beach with her.  It was the absurdist version of Oedipus, and it was priceless. 

Not every comedy bit works, and some episodes are simply funnier than others, but the pace is usually fast enough that the flat skits don’t seriously drag down the show.  On the other hand, when a segment is great, it’s gone too fast.  Imagine Kimmel getting a pair of X-Ray specs and touring the city with eyeballs wide open, treated variously to lovely girls in their underfrillies and the hideous, hilarious flipside as he comes upon a bulky older woman in her iron girdle, plus he gets to trade an X-Ray vision high-five with Superman.  There’s an amiable Everyman quality to Kimmel that makes his solo comedy forays real charmers, and if he isn’t a nice-ish guy in real life (and he may well be), he definitely plays one on TV. 

Beer drinking is also celebrated big-time, each show-closing toast now an homage to the amazing piano player/entertainer Bill “The Fox” Foster, their third partner-in-crime on the show who died last year of prostate cancer.  The show survives without him, but if you catch a rerun of earlier programs, The Fox added a delightful touch, and Adam and Jimmy’s relationship to the elder statesman of suds was palpable.  He’s definitely missed, but his legacy of rapid and enthusiastic beer-guzzling goes on. 

And I can’t forget the Juggies, the beautiful dancing/performing females who doll up the set and offer good comic back-up.  They’re theme-dressed each week, from storybook characters to baseball players to babydoll nightgowns, and they are yummy and pulchritudinous playmates indeed.  One week Adam and Jimmy challenged identical twin Juggies to a game of strip basketball, and suffice it to say the girls lost (but acquitted themselves admirably), with delightfully revealing consequences, including the men jiggling around in *their* briefs (not a sight for the faint of heart).  Each show ends with a sequence of women jumping on trampolines, and if we have to explain why that’s something that makes sense on “The Man Show,” as I said before, you’d better not tune in.  Sex is a big part of “The Man Show,” with its unabashed worship of the female form and frequent references to solitary man’s favorite sport.

 It’s great to see masturbation so enthusiastically and wickedly discussed, and let’s say that in general the entire male crotch area is almost like another member of the cast.  In one episode, audience members got to spin a huge wheel of fortune, and one loser had the misfortune to endure having his wallet peed on by Adam.  And he really peed on it – discreetly not facing the camera, naturally…this is basic cable, not pay cable – and they picked it up, dripping, with a long pair of barbeque tongs.  This was something I guarantee you won’t see on any other show.  Maybe not the funniest thing they ever did, but these guys deliver in a consistently unexpected way, and that’s probably the most refreshing thing about the show. Another highlight was Adam and Jimmy's visit to a sperm bank, where they tried to ascertain whose "little guys" were the strongest. 

“The Man Show” is a delightful -- if you don’t get your panties in a wad (or maybe a wedgie is more the thing here) -- celebration of crude humor.  Crude humor delivered smartly has always been an important branch of comedy, and the tradition is proudly carried on by TMS.  This show knows its audience, and loves it.  Not much contempt on display here; it’s pretty much a pure meld of demand and supply.  And though it might be the last thing you’d expect, “The Man Show” has a heart, and it  -- as well as all of the hilarious naughty bits – is firmly in the right place.

World Wrestling Federation

Official Website

An Unoffical fansite -- check out the list of Man-O-Vations!

Juggy Vanessa Kay's Website

Comedy Central.com