The funniest show you aren't watching

[originally posted to Blogcritics]

Poor Drew Carey. ABC did all it could to bury his old sitcom until it was finally cancelled this summer, and now the WB network has given his new Green Screen Show an impossible time slot against Survivor, Will and Grace and - starting next month - The O.C.

So, just as I wouldn't blame you for not knowing The Drew Carey Show was still on earlier this year, I can't blame you for not knowing Carey has a new series. Now that you do know, I encourage you to check it out, because it's as funny as anything else on television.

Drew Carey's Green Screen Show is pretty much the same as Whose Line Is It Anyway, except for the green screen mentioned in the title. Filmmakers put human actors in front of a green (formerly blue) screen when they want to put animation and special effects in the background, and Green Screen adds surprisingly good animation to the sketches improvised by Carey and his buddies, including Whose Line regulars Colin Mochrie and Greg Proops. (No Wayne Brady, yet.) After acting out, say, a game show called "Catch That Knife" on the green stage, animation is added to show knives flying through the air and hitting the poor "contestant" strapped to the "cutting board of adversity".

Trust me: it's a lot funnier than it sounds, and it deserves a shot. Not all of the sketches work (in last night's episode, the participants had no idea how to start a "freeze-tag" skit, and it still ended up going way too long), but those that do are hilarious.

It would be bad enough if the show was up against just one wildly successful program - but when it's up against two (three, if The O.C.'s ratings hold up), you can pretty much write it off before the season even begins. (I don't know Green Screen's Nielsen ratings, but the WB averaged an almost CNBC-like 1.7 rating on Thursday, Oct. 21. Even UPN's ratings were almost twice as high.) Unless you have a DSS dish with stations in more than one time zone, you won't even be able to tape it if you're already taping something else.

Watch the Green Screen Show while you can - and hope the WB moves it to a better time slot, or that another network picks it up. Because this innovative, funny show deserves a chance.

Posted by damian at October 22, 2004 08:29 PM