Funny business: 'Factory' installs laughs in assembly-line humor
"Factory" is a new improvisational comedy series on Spike, and if that makes a viewer dreadful there's just cause. For the most part, improvised cable comedies are an excuse to leave out the laughs, as in TBS' "10 Items or Less," not to name names.
Yet "Factory" never forgets that it's not enough for comedy to be merely spontaneous; it also helps for it to be actually funny. While I'm not proclaiming "Factory" a great show, it is amusing enough to be worth a try when it debuts at 9 p.m. Sunday.
Spike is probably best known as the home of "Most Extreme Elimination Challenge," or "MXC" for short, the Japanese game show with comical overdubbed dialogue in the tradition of Woody Allen's "What's Up Tiger Lilly?" Yet last year Spike made a successful foray into original scripted programming with the bank-heist-standoff dramatic miniseries "The Kill Point." Now it tries its hand at an original comedy with "Factory," a workplace sitcom devised by Mitch Rouse, formerly of "Strangers With Candy."
Rouse stars as Gary, one of four tightknit working stiffs at, yes, a "Factory." Yet the interesting thing is he turns most of the screen time in the pilot over to David Pasquesi's Smitty, a tall, thin malcontent still living with his ex-wife ("Why should I move?") even as he lusts for her "stepfather's sister's daughter" who is staying with them.
Michael Coleman is the redheaded Chase, and Jay Leggett is the tubby Gus to fill out the foursome. Yet just as Rouse takes a charitable attitude toward sharing the screen with his co-stars, the same goes for them all with the supporting cast. In the pilot, Christopher Allen Nelson steals a scene as Don, explaining the difference between regular time and "death time" as he talks about how his father was killed when a necktie Don gave him got caught in a pneumatic blander. With his lantern jaw and squinting blinks, Don also makes an impression next week when he finagles a way to "hang out with you guys," while Mark Beltzman comes in and creates instant comedy as the shyster car dealer Tovar. It's the sort of guest spot that typically turns into a recurring character.
So while "Factory" is never brilliant, it displays a nice ensemble feel, in that if an actor finds a way to be funny Rouse finds a way to get him (or her) on the screen (although the wives and girlfriends tend to get short shrift early on as the other characters establish themselves).
They're skilled and experienced improvisers. Rouse and Pasquesi were in "Strangers With Candy," and Pasquesi and Coleman are both veterans of Larry David's highly improvised "Curb Your Enthusiasm," while Leggett was the token overweight comic on Fox's "In Living Color" toward the end of its run.
"Computer skills, I'm fat with 'em," he says in an obvious if still funny one-liner.
The actors don't just mug; they project a real working-class weariness. "I don't wanna come here and work," Rouse's Gary gripes, while Smitty deadpans, "On the positive side, we did not get sucked into a machine today." They call their officious nibby-nose co-worker Todd "T-bag," which seems an authentic bit of workplace humor, and next week, in a bid to impress a bunch of college girls, Chase proclaims they're all "precision machinists."
The most promising thing about "Factory" as an improvised comedy is it has the freedom to move where the laughs are. I'd look for Don and Tovar to get more emphasis in the episodes to come, as well as Rick Hall's Todd, and the women should come more to the fore. (In the premiere, they're pretty much given a Ritalin-popping joke left over from "Desperate Housewives" and then largely forgotten.) For now, the cast and the work-weary attitude are intact, and "Factory" should have fun riffing off them for the foreseeable future. This is a summer job with the potential for lasting employment.
In the air
Rapper Ice Cube steps in for Vin Diesel in "XXX: State of the Union," the 2005 sequel to the original slacker take on super-spy movies. You end up missing Asia Argento a lot more than Diesel. It's at 7 p.m. today on WFLD Channel 32.
Contestant 'Pursuit'
The new game show "Trivial Pursuit: America Plays" comes to Chicago looking for contestants and trivia questions from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today at Water Tower Place downtown and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday at Northbrook Court. The show debuts this fall on WPWR Channel 50; see my50chicago.com for details.
Death becomes them
The late Cyd Charisse and George Carlin are recalled today with a Charisse film marathon on Turner Classic Movies and a Carlin standup gig on HBO. TCM presents the leggy hoofer in "Singin' in the Rain" at 7 p.m., followed by "The Band Wagon" at 9 and "Silk Stockings" at 11, while HBO reruns Carlin's last comedy special, "It's Bad for Ya," at 8.
'Me-Too' movies
Upstart WMEU Channel 48 begins a summer festival of classic films with the Depression-era screwball comedy "My Man Godfrey," starring William Powell and Carole Lombard, at 7 p.m. Monday. The self-proclaimed "Me-Too" station will present a different movie Monday through Saturday with a single five-minute commercial intermission each night.