I could never quite place how Joe Buck would fare with his own TV show. Known for dry baseball and football play-by-play on FOX — and we're talkin' dry dry, even for Aaron Sorkin — he has the ability to turn any exciting sports event into your great aunt's scrapbook.
Nonetheless, Buck is crossing over into HBO territory with Joe Buck Live, and his premiere show featured interviews with the king of off-season NFL melodrama, Brett Favre, and his inevitable incumbent, Chad Ochocinco. But ... interviews with athletes? Everybody does this. Joe Buck does this. The hook on this show is he wants to be in the center of some comedy.
His only experience with this, that I know of, are those amusing Holiday Inn commercials, where the guys in the elevator want to touch his golden throat. And you're not going to believe this, but Buck played the straight man.
Fast forward to the end of Joe Buck Live, where he brings in three celebrities: actor Paul Rudd, Saturday Night Live's Jason Sudeikis, and verbal trainwreck Artie Lange. Rudd was present, not to pitch a movie (I Love You Man is already off the cinematic radar), but because he's Joe Buck's friend and Joe Buck goes to Paul Rudd when he wants to get a project off the ground. Sudeikis was there because, apparently, they had extra furniture on the set. And Lange, one of Howard Stern's foils, was there perhaps for his opening line.
Calling Joe Buck and Tony Romo gay so quickly is quite a feat. Of course, it's HBO, so nobody can really get offended ... except Joe Buck, of course. But Tommy Craggs had a fantastic point. You booked Artie freakin' Lange. What the hell were you expecting?
Article comments
1 - RJ
In other entertainment news, The Goode Family has been moved to Friday nights after just three episodes. This is the television equivalent of an elderly person being transported to Oregon for some "alternative medical treatment" by Jack Kevorkian.
2 - El Bicho
Saw the 1st episode of TGF and enjoyed it. Must not have been able to draw as well as MXC, I mean Wipeout. Too bad. Should have gone to a cable channel and given it time to grow
3 - Russ Evenhuis
"It's like he wants the laughs of a pie-in-the-face gag, yet he wants his eyes to be custard-free." And that so perfectly describes Joe Buck. I cannot stand listening to him call a game so there is absolutely no way I will be watching this show.