TV is the New Reading

There’s a reason ‘The Whitest

Kids U Know’ has an MA rating

“Saturday Night Live” hasn’t been interesting since I was a small child, and “MadTV” is pretty much headed in that direction as well.

This does not, however, mean you should run out and consume the first alternative you encounter. In lieu of these stale sketch comedy staples, may I issue a sternly worded caution concerning “The Whitest Kids U Know,” a sketch comedy show on the Independent Film Channel.

Certainly some of the stuff they do is clever. These five men are easily as funny as the “The Kids in the Hall” troupe, which if you remember those low-key Canadian cut-ups from like 20 years ago, you know that’s pretty funny.

The problem is that the language gets so graphic and coarse as sometimes to entirely overwhelm whatever comedy they’re doing. They’ll start out with a funny bit exploring James Wilkes Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln and end up with a barrage of profanity. Also, the bathroom humor will occasionally get entirely out of hand.

And as with all sketch comedy shows, sometimes it’s just not funny. I was staring at this one bit consisting mainly of one of the guys dancing in his underwear. The bit seemed to just go on and on and I wondered what it could possibly be building to. It slowly dawned on me that this was, in fact, the joke – that I was meant to be laughing hysterically throughout because the actor was a little bit out of shape.

OK ... not what I was expecting. Seriously, if we need to ingest something first in order to appreciate the humor, there ought to be notice posted.

All that being said, if you can get past the lower moments, there’s plenty of “there” there. There’s comedy on topics I’ve never seen explored before – wickedly dark and twisted stuff, including one bit in which some guy was having a blissful afterlife and all his fondest dreams were coming true and the tagline at the end was “Suicide. Look into it.” They also had one bit (which got old fast) about an insecure guy confronting his girlfriend’s past boyfriends about their relationship.

Some of the original songs are screamingly funny. And who could object to the “Scaring Babies” segment, in which one of them leaned over a crib and whispered what was going to happen to Social Security in the child’s lifetime, and also to the environment – and when none of these terrifying prognostications seemed to faze the little one, he just screamed really loud.

Well ... that scared ‘em.

So really, am I recommending it or not? As the second season gets under way, I give it a qualified pass. It’s funny enough and I know I’m probably going to watch it, but there are excellent reasons why it’s on so very late and carries an MA rating. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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