TV: Friday Night on IFC

Last week, the Independent Film Channel debuted three new shows which I had been looking forward to. Well, two shows I'd been looking forward to, Hopeless Pictures and Greg the Bunny, plus a third one, The Festival.

Unfortunately, none of them really worked for me. Hopeless Pictures seemed like the best bet: a critically-praised-to-high-heaven cartoon created by actor Bob Balaban, who is a veteran of all those Christopher Guest mockumentaries, and who is awesome. The cartoon has the feel of one of those mockumentaries; the voice actors sound like they're just playing off each other and improvising as they go. I mean, look at the cast. Michael McKean, Jennifer Coolidge, Martin Mull, Balaban -- they probably are all just improvising. The animation has got a unique, eye-catching visual style, like pastel chalk drawings inspired by Picasso. And it's on IFC, so it's uncensored (there's plentiful strong language, and even a raunchy sex scene, in the first episode), which you'd think would give it a freedom no other cartoon series can match.

But it just isn't funny. The whole concept feels tired right from the start: it centers around Hollywood producer Mel Wax (McKean), who is a neurotic mess from all the stress of his wheelings and dealings, as well as his many extramarital affairs. Yet another Hollywood-sticking-its-head-up-its-own-ass production. I mean, I like Entourage, but there have been just so many of these kinds of behind-the-scenes, satirical show biz exposes out there recently. Kirstie Alley and Fat Actress, Lisa Kudrow and The Comeback, Pilot Season on Trio, the George Clooney-produced Unscripted... Hopeless Pictures would've had to have been very good to be worth adding to this already overstocked pond. And I don't think I laughed once. The funniest bits involved Jonathan Katz as Mel's therapist, and even they weren't that funny. Katz, of course, was hysterical as Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist for many years, but his performance here is repetitive and uninventive. "Have you got a minute?" "For you: two minutes." He must've said that a half dozen times in this one episode. I think there's a lot of room for this show to improve, and I think there's a tremendous amount of talent behind it, but this first episode was very disappointing.

Next up was Greg the Bunny. After the failed Fox sitcom, Greg returns to where he started, IFC, making short parodies of independent films. (And I mean short -- the show is ten minutes long.) The show's opening credits, a funny take on The A-Team's credits, gave me hope that this would be better than Hopeless Pictures, but the actual meat of the program, a parody of Annie Hall called Bunnie Hall, again fell flat. Greg plays the Woody Allen part, and the parody starts with the classic lobster scene. Only here, Greg dumps his girlfriend and starts dating the lobster. And that's what the whole ten minutes was about -- a lobster plays the Diane Keaton role. Maybe the idea of a bunny puppet doing an impression of Woody Allen is supposed to be inherently funny, but it wasn't enough to make me laugh, and the bit as a whole wasn't crazy or clever enough to make me laugh, either. Again, like Hopeless, I see promise, but the first episode was poor.

The comedy block wraps up with The Festival, a mockumentary about an independent filmmaker's adventures at a Sundance-like film festival. The festival is called M.U.F.F. (Mountain Union Film Festival), which should give you an idea of the level of humor in general. The cast is mostly unappealing, and the pace is glacial; in this first episode, all the main character has done so far is check into his room at the festival. The festival stuff is interspersed with interviews with the festival's progammers, sponsors, the filmmaker's Harvey Weinstein-like producer, etc., but none of these people are especially entertaining or interesting. But hey, there's gratuitous nudity! Well played, IFC, well played.

Still, I don't see any reason to check out the second episode tomorrow. The other two shows -- probably worth keeping track of. For a little longer, at least.