THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN UPDATED
There’s a new show on AMC and AMC + (I didn’t know there was such a thing as AMC +) called KEVIN CAN GO F*** HIMSELF. (Is there anyone on the planet who does NOT know what the F*** stands for? If so, they’re pretty FUCKing dumb.)
The title is a send up of KEVIN CAN WAIT, the ill-fated Kevin James CBS show that went from highest rated new comedy in year one to cancelled in year two (a nifty trick indeed). In the typical family sitcom set up, Kevin was the buffoon husband and Erinn Hayes had the unenviable job of playing his tolerant wife. Eventually her character was unceremoniously killed after the first season (which some might argue was a little hostile and harsh for no reason). Guess who made the decision to explain away her departure with death? (Hint: He can go F*** himself.)
Playing the wife of a typical dufus sitcom husband (Tim Allen, Kevin James, Ray Romano, Bill Engvall, Sherman Hemsley, Jackie Gleason, Patrick Warburton, Jim Belushi, Drew Carey, Matt LeBlanc, Mark Addy, Anthony Anderson, and dozens more) is the world’s most thankless role. You’re either the wet blanket always scolding the star for wanting to sell their children for whiskey, or you go along bemused thus looking like an idiot yourself.
And rarely do you get to be funny. With the possible exception of Audrey Meadows’ Alice Kramden, the “voice of reason” is not funny.
My heart goes out to Erinn Hayes, and Nancy Travis, Jamie Gertz, Patricia Richardson, Patty Heaton, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Megyn Price, and all the others.
This new series is seen through the eyes of Allison McRoberts, as played by SCHITT’S CREEK Emmy winner, Annie Murphy. She’s the mom on a witless multi-cam sitcom starring “Kevin” (Eric Peterson). And she loathes it. But that supposedly is either a fantasy or alternate world because the other half of the show is apparently her real life marriage to Kevin, which is also a nightmare. Those scenes are played very dark.
The show is shot two ways — multi-cam when you’re watching the actual sitcom, and single-camera when the red light is off. So it’s a meta behind-the-scenes look at sitcoms and an exploration of a woman trapped in a horrible marriage. I haven’t seen it. Obviously, I’m curious and will give it a look.
It seems intriguing and odd. Will the sitcom scenes seem like a bit that wears out its welcome? And is there escape from either nightmare? There certainly is for the sitcom actress. She takes her money, quits the show, and does something else. Even if she sticks it out, it's only for a few years. Extricating yourself from a real abusive marriage is something else.
The premise is ambitious and I'm anxious to see it. I'm sure it'll be an interesting follow-up when I do.
I think you've misunderstood the premise of this show. Murphy's character isn't an actress playing the role of Kevin's wife -- she's actually Kevin's wife.
ReplyDeleteFrom Vogue: "Allison is looking for a way out of her airless, claustrophobic marriage, and the show manifests her drive through a unique, genre-bending form in which Murphy’s character lives in two worlds: a multi-cam sitcom where she grins and bears the indignities of her situation and a dark, single-cam prestige drama that underlines her suffocating rage and anguish. Murphy walks through doors or other passageways and the format changes—a jarring and effective shift that, in its contrasts, highlights the artifice and contrivances of the sitcom world."
It's magical realism, not a behind-the-scenes kind of thing.
I've been awaiting this one for a while and I'm cautiously optimistic about it. That's entirely due to Annie Murphy though -- she was brilliant in Schitt's Creek and I'm interested to see if she can carry a show on her own.
ReplyDeleteSounds a little WandaVisiony...
ReplyDeleteIn my uneducated in the TV industry opinion (but a lifelong sitcom fan), I think a better title would be "FU Kevin".
ReplyDeleteSounds like the premise of the Will Ferrell / Nicole Kidman "Bewitched" movie.
ReplyDeleteI thought Debra Barone was closer to Alice Kramden more than any of them. She had to be the voice of reason, of course, but Patricia Heaton did it with such a sarcastic delivery it probably would've made Audrey Meadows proud.
ReplyDelete"Just so ya know!"
Should have called it "If You See Kevin"...
ReplyDeleteKevin Can Wait was shot at Gold Coast Studios in Bethpage, New York (Long Island), which is about ten minutes north of my house in Wantagh. Knowing that, I tried to watch the show and enjoy it. I'm sorry, Ken, and Annie and Jonathan, but I couldn't bring myself to like it. For one thing, the Chale character really bugged me.
ReplyDeleteFor my money, the only great show with the "doofus father" family was THE SIMPSONS. At least Homer is funny, and even capable. The best comedies like FRASIER, MASH, and CHEERS entirely eschew the regular nuclear family structure, but re-create a kind of comedic "family" on their own terms.
ReplyDeleteTrue to form, the middle fingers in the promos are pixillated.
ReplyDeleteIt occurs to me that one of the great doofus sitcom husbands was Archie Bunker. Carroll O'Connor was a genius ... but so was Jean Stapleton.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of this starts in casting -- these shows are mostly headed by a man who began as a stand-up comedian, and a woman who trained as an actress. It stands to reason that the wife is expected to be the "straight man" to the husband's antics. On the very few marriage-themed sitcoms built around a female stand-up comedian -- the only ones I can think of off the top of my head are "Roseanne" and "Whitney" -- it was the other way around. But female comedians are more likely to play a character who's single and looking. Meanwhile, TV studios clearly think audiences are more comfortable with the "wacky dude married to tolerant wife" set-up.
ReplyDeleteLike most everyone I thought the original KEVIN CAN WAIT was terrible, but even the worst sitcom has a great line occasionally. I recall an episode where Kevin and his wife decided to switch sides of the bed for one night. The next morning when their daughter asked how they slept, the wife said "Not good. That Memory Foam had a tough time forgetting your father." Whoever wrote that line has my undying admiration.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to mention Wilma Flintstone, Marg Simpson and to a lesser extent Jane Jetson.
ReplyDeleteGARY, Ken's daughter may have written that line.
M.B.
FQ; You’ve mentioned on several occasions that during your time on MASH, it filmed on the soundstage next door to CHARLIE’S ANGELS. Given that is an iconic show as well, did you have any particularly memorable encounters with the actresses, JACLYN SMITH especially, or see filming of any memorable scenes that stand out?
ReplyDeleteBeauty and the Goof goes back to the dawn of film, and probably long before that. Silent comics, beginning with ungainly features enhanced by grotesque makeup, pursued and often won pretty heroines. Chaplin, pretty dashing in real life, went to pains to make his tramp an improbable and not especially appealing lover. Young Buster Keaton, also quite presentable, emphasized his short stature and gave his screen character an oddness that acted as an obstacle (only in "The Cameraman" is he a really plausible romantic lead, and there he play it -- charmingly -- like an adolescent trying to be an adult).
ReplyDeleteLater, pinup beauties would regularly fall for clownish Red Skelton, childish Lou Costello, cowardly Bob Hope, annoying Jerry Lewis, neurotic Woody Allen, and on into television.
Sometimes they didn't get the girl, and the audience was expected to shed a wistful tear rather than let out a "whew" for being spared that fadeout / mental picture.
AMC+ does that mean no commercials? I rarely watch AMC with no + because of all the damn commercials.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of the new show, so I was struck by the title of this blog post. My heart sank a little, and I honestly was thinking, "Who is Ken so angry at?" I assumed there was some news I hadn't heard about. But at the same time, I always enjoy a good Ken Levine rant.
ReplyDeleteSo I wondered. Was it Kevin Bacon? Kevin Costner (what's he been up to)? Kevin Durant? Kevin Love? Did Kevin Spacey confess to another wrong doing? Was there someone in the Trump administration named "Kevin"?
I'm relieved to hear that Ken's not really angry, and life is good.
I missed this one yesterday. I only just heard about this show as the lead actress was promoting it on LIVE WITH KELLY & RYAN this morning. I, also, immediately thought of WANDAVISION (that show's being part of a superhero comic book series in the MCU turned me off from watching it, though the premise otherwise being right up my alley did cause me to see the analyses and other videos dealing with it on YouTube. I love comic books as a medium, but resent how it's all seen, inside and outside the medium, as only superheroes for the Nerd/Geek Culture. There are comic books and graphic novels for all types of storytelling).
ReplyDeleteI also thought of the old comic book version of MAD magazine satirizing the comic strip BRINGING UP FATHER. That story used the idea of showing it from two angles: straight-up MAD parody (drawn by Will Elder), and darker, more realistic drama (drawn by B. Krigstein), alternating pages. In the serious side, the "Father" character was being abused by his wife, whereas in the comic strip world it was the slapstick reaction to his antics. Similarly, they also had one called BOOK! MOVIE!, contrasting the adult, grimy storytelling from a "typical" novel with the sleek, cleaned-up Hollywood version of the time.
As far as KEVIN CAN GO F*** HIMSELF is concerned, I definitely need to check it out.
Sounded a bit like the premise of The Strange World of Gurney Slade
ReplyDeleteI always found Patricia Heaton terrific in the role as Ray's wife. Strong character, perfectly poised against Marie on one hand and Ray on the other. Never backed down, but not the shrewish wife. And while she didn't get a lot of laugh lines, I really found her character funny anyway due to the structure of the show. She was the one almost sane one caught between the lunacy of Ray, her parents in law, and Robert.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like it's cribbed from the March 1964 issue of Mad Magazine which featured "Strange Interlude With Hazey", a mashup of the "Hazel" television show and Eugene O'Neill's "Strange Interlude". The mechanics are a bit different, but it sure sounds familiar.
ReplyDeleteGave it a try since the concept sounded incredibly sophisticated. Turns out it wasn't. The funny parts weren't nearly funny enough, and the drama parts lacked any, um, deepness really.
ReplyDeleteWhich is a pity, because I loved the clever WANDA VISION concept very much - up to the part where all the usual superhero stuff came into play and it deteroirated rapidly, least in my opinion.
Tried this show last night. I enjoyed the single cam parts greatly, but the multi cam was, well... crap. I'm currently living in Worcester, MA. and the jokes are either picking fun at the shitty city and not getting laughs, or the jokes are FORCED like most shows taping around here lately are doing. Nobody cares if it takes place in Worcester, MA more than the person with the camera for some reason. It's forced, fake, and the thing is... this wasn't taped here, and it's obvious. Brings me to Liam Nelson's latest film "Honest Theif" which takes place in Boston. Well it's all shot in Worcester, with very iconic buildings, bridges, statues, etc, including the END scene that shows a building with the word WORCESTER right on it. It's main street Worcester. They did the opposite, forced Boston into Worcester and flopped big time with the attempt. Why are shows trying so hard lately to be in Mass and not use the correct spots or even forcing it and making it so obviously not that area? I know that obviously most shows/movies are not taped on location, I get it, but I don't recall seeing a movie taking place in a major city like NY, and then seeing a building prominently display a city elsewhere on it front and center. A lot of fake accents forced Boston jokes that don't work (we love being picked on, but that wasn't the case here), this Kevin show is just not working for me at all. It's hard to watch during the multi-cam parts, very hard, cringe worthy. It's not funny, the guys overact or don't act, and it's just unwatchable.
ReplyDelete"Playing the wife of a typical dufus sitcom husband (Tim Allen, Kevin James, Ray Romano, Bill Engvall, Sherman Hemsley, Jackie Gleason, Patrick Warburton, Jim Belushi, Drew Carey, Matt LeBlanc, Mark Addy, Anthony Anderson, and dozens more) is the world’s most thankless role."
ReplyDeleteI know you mean Still Standing, but I just realised that Mark Addy also played a "dufus sitcom husband" with a long-suffering wife in Game of Thrones. Didn't end well for that guy.
The TV series Mr. Robot had some episodes that very effectively used the multi-camera sitcom 'style' to good 'ironic' effect in a few episodes, and I'm pretty sure this 'trope' has been used sporadically for years but can't put a finger on where (the movie "Natural Born Killers" maybe is one?).
ReplyDeleteI think "Blackish" is great at dealing with the spousal situation. At first glance Tracee Ellis Ross seems like the 'sane' hotter wife to the funny husband, but really the show bounces that dynamic back and forth, at any given time, one plays 'straight "man"' to the other pretty seamlessly. Ross is a great clown in her own right.
I watched it - the laugh track killed it for me. You can't be edgy and have a laugh track these days.
ReplyDeleteI watched the first two episodes that premiered on AMC last Sunday over two nights this week.
ReplyDeleteI wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue after the first. On the multi-cam side you have a loud stupid sit-com husband that is married way out of his league. The laugh track, and I’m assuming this is in no way shot in front of a live audience, is annoying as hell. The characters are not all that relatable or funny. But two days later after watching the second episode I’m hooked, at least for now.
I like quirky premises. The two modes of the show intrigued me. This is not a comedy. The sit-com portion is bad. I hope that is intentional.
It’s only seen as a sit-com if Kevin is on screen, otherwise it’s a single cam drama. The single cam side is such a dark contrast to the brightly lit sit-com side it leaves me with a feeling of depression when Kevin leaves the room and Allison’s world becomes dark and real. Is this her coping mechanism?
Why is Allison with this jerk? It turns out she is pretty f***ing flawed herself. We see that as she finds, probably poorly, ways to cope. The show is exploring her self destructive tendencies along with the characters surrounding her. At the end of episode 2 I want to see more.
I don’t know where this can go for a season 6, but if it continues to be a good story for this first season, I will be satisfied. Limited run series have their place. For now, I have a new show on AMC to watch while I wait for Better Call Saul’s final season next spring.
Satire folks, the loud, the bright, the bad laugh track, the over the top situations are all meant to be uncomfortable and bad. It is a satire of all of these shows that really exist. This also makes the transition between worlds more stark. I suspect that as the show goes on, Kevin will change and more of the past will come out to show why these two are together. This could be very interesting to see where it goes. Remember, the sitcom part isn’t meant to be truly funny, it’s disturbing. Another one of those shows that bills as a comedy, that really aren’t, like Russian Doll or Dead to Me.
ReplyDelete