Comedy television series. We all love them, we all have our “favorites.” However, there are so many gems out there that never got or don’t get the credit they deserve. Mentioning any comedy series that airs on a major network is too obvious and easy; I am talking about late cable specials here, folks. Now let’s go ahead and mention some non-primetime shows up front so no one sends me hate mail about it later. Arrested Development, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc. will always be frontrunners in my book (also note that I am excluding Bravo shows, because we all know that My Life on the D List, Housewives, and Flipping Out are amazing).
Furthermore, I don’t necessarily consider The Wonder Years a comedy, but many do. Let me make it very clear that The Wonder Years will always be at the top of my list.
Alas, I digress. The point is, I’d like to take a deeper dive and explore some series that never got the craze that they deserved (or still have a chance to get it).
Strangers with Candy
Knowing that I have a love for a sick sense of humor, my brother introduced me to Strangers with Candy a number of years ago. What a pleasant surprise! This show is absolutely beyond inappropriate at times, and consistently hysterical, which is why it's one of my favorite shows ever.
Created and written by Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello, Stephen Colbert, and Mitch Rouse, (all second city alumni) the show was a spoof of the after school specials of the 1970s and 1980s and features main character Jerri Blank (played by Sedaris), who was a runaway returning to high school as a freshman at age 46. According to the show's animated introduction, Jerri ran away from home and became "a boozer, a user, and a loser" after dropping out of high school as a teenager, supporting her drug habits through prostitution, stripping, and larceny. She has been to prison several times, the last time because she, in her words, "stole the TV." Amy Sedaris, while very pretty, looks absolutely hideous in this show, which makes it that much better.
I challenge you to watch every episode. Sadly, the series only ran from 1999 - 2000, spanning 3 short seasons. Thank goodness I repaid my brother years later by introducing him to Always Sunny.
Campus Ladies
Campus Ladies is an American sitcom that ran on Oxygen from 2006 - 2007. It stared Christen Sussin and Carrie Aizley as two 40-something women who decide to go enroll at the fictional University of the Midwest. The humor comes from the various situations the "ladies" get involved in while trying to fit in with their much younger friends and classmates. This is a hilarious show that definitely didn’t get the credit it deserved, as it was cancelled after only 2 short seasons – perhaps that was due to the fact that the show was on Oxygen… the Oxygen audience probably wasn’t very suited for the show’s humorous (at at times controversial) content.
The Hard Times with RJ Berger
Okay, I know it’s a little MTV series, and to be quite honest it looked horrible to me. However, one late night I was stumbling through the channels and ended up landing on this ruby. While its first season made its debut just this year, I find the show to be… well, very funny. It is a typical high-school outcast tale, featuring RJ Berger (Paul Iacono), an unpopular sophomore at the fictional Pinkerton High School in Ohio. Berger's two best friends are Miles Jenner (whose extreme ambitions for popularity cause him to clash with Berger), and Lily Miran (who has been lusting after Berger for several years). Quite honestly his two friends get a little obnoxious and over the top at times, but they server their purpose well as staple characters. Berger's love interest is Jenny Swanson, a "girl next door" who is involved with (surprise!) the school jock/bully, Max Owens.
However, there's a catch. As nerdy as RJ is, he happens to have a huge...man part. And the whole school knows about it. If you happen to catch it, you should definitely watch, although as with the other shows, it is definitely best to watch it from the beginning). As long as you take it for what it is, you'll appreciate it.
Rob Drydek’s Fantasy Factory
We all (or most of us) saw Rob & Big a few years ago, which made a decent splash and then slowly fizzled. What most don’t know is that Rob continued his escapades by starting Fantasy Factory, a new show that basically has the same premise – doing stupid shit. Big is no longer featured; rather, Drama (a.k.a Chris), Rob’s cousin, has stepped into the sidekick shoes. I guess it is doing alright and gaining steady notoriety, because the third season wrapped up this summer (but is still featured at a late night time slot). While the show simply features Rob clowning around (inventing a new sport, entering a grilled cheese contest, pimping his mom’s house out when she was on bedrest, etc.), I think he is just absolutely hilarious, entertaining, and amusing. Every show leaves you thinking must be nice to have his life.
While I realize that this is not a comprehensive list, I think it’s a good start for now. I’ll keep building onto it as more under-kudosed shows cross my mind. J
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