During the summer press tour "Mike & Molly" (CBS, 9:30 tonight) executive producer Chuck Lorre (also creator of "Two and a Half Men") insisted the show wasn't all fat jokes. The show, he said, was about the beginning of a relationship with people who just happen to be fat.
I can't say he lied; the first episode is perhaps 80 percent fat jokes, with the rest of the material featuring stereotypes about Africans, random crudeness, and some sweet moments. Maybe the percent changes in later episodes.
But the first episode of "Mike & Molly" made me sad. That's mostly because the two leads are actually quite good. Billy Gardell ("My Name Is Earl") is Mike and Melissa McCarthy ("Gilmore Girls") is Molly; both are completely likable and have a nice chemistry. He's a beat cop, she's an elementary school teacher (Working and lower class people are big this TV season). They meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting.
Besides the leads, there's Mike's partner Carl, (Reno Wilson); Molly's pot-smoking, boob-exposing sister Victoria (Katy Mixon); Molly's mom Joyce (Swoosie Kurtz -- I blame ABC for her having to slum and take this part because they canceled "Pushing Daisies") and diner waiter Samuel (Nyambi Nyambi), whose role seems to be to remind us that Africans are starving and that's another reason to mock fat Americans.
"Mike & Molly" pretends to be treating fat people like everybody else by showing the couple in a relationship, and making them the kindest, smartest people in the room, while it also undercuts all that by making them the brunt of jokes, having them mock themselves, and be sad and dateless and a little desperate. But, of course, just by making their girth a focus of the show, the show makes "Mike & Molly" them, instead of us.
As I suggested, Gardell and McCarthy do the best they can, squeezing the 'comedy' out of the situations (there's a bizarre scene with a broken finger that seems to come out of nowhere), and their coming together is sweet. I'm just not sure their charisma is enough to get you through the dreck.
Assistant Features Editor Adrienne Johnson Martin would like to have her life turned into an animated cartoon.
Comments
Mike and Molly
Sat, 10/02/2010 - 02:29 — WendyR11I agree. The show was a complete disappointment. It was puerile and pathetically trite in the usual fat jokes and stereotyping. I turned it off midway thru in disgust and will not be watching it again.
Considering that most Americans are overweight and many are obese, this show is painful for many to watch at worst and not funny at best. It had the potential to be heartwarming and funny with a subject that so many could relate to but blew it.
Eh...
Tue, 09/21/2010 - 08:06 — michaelbirdConsidering that Chuck Lorre is exec producer, I shouldn't have been surprised at some of the quite tasteless humor in this show. Specifically the cracks like (I paraphrase) "if you want to lose weight, go back to my country [in Africa] WHERE THERE IS NO FOOD" and something tasteless about how lesbians like fat chicks. Being neither a lesbian nor a fat chick, I was not personally offended, but I could see where someone else might be.
I think the two main characters have great chemistry and I could see this show becoming quite good, if Chuck could just leave his tasteless comments for 2.5 men and concentrate on the clever stuff for this show.