March Madness continues.
This particular fever has nothing to do with bouncing balls and “student”-athletes. It’s happening in prime-time television, where the networks have been unveiling a crowded slate of post-February programs.
Wednesday is the busiest March day of all with the debuts of three new shows that, more or less, cover the contemporary comedy waterfront.
Aiming for the cutting edge is Fox’s “Greg the Bunny” (8:30 p.m., WFLD-Ch. 32), which is shot more like a film than a play, has no laugh track and posits a world in which puppets (or “fabricated Americans”) exist, as a semi-oppressed minority, alongside organic Americans.
As traditional as is possible without starring Tony Danza or the Olsen twins is ABC’s “George Lopez” (7:30 p.m., WLS-Ch. 7), featuring the comic of that name as a factory foreman and family man.
And in the middle rests the cleverly titled “Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central)” (8:30 p.m., WLS), an often-acid satire of the network-TV business that neutralizes some of that acid by including a laugh track and more broad material than seen on such predecessors such as “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Action.”
The best of the trio is “(8:30 Central),” as we in the earlier-to-bed heartland are obligated to call it on second reference.
From Peter Tolan (“Sanders,” “The Job”), it comes off in two episodes as a solid second-tier comedy, with a lot of sharp laughs dulled by a few too many clunkers. Its skeptical vision of network life is vivid enough to be diverting but not so creative as to demand your weekly attention.
The credo, familiar to anyone who knows the genre, is expressed early on: “There’s only one thing you need to know about this business. Everybody is lying.”
Tolan’s audience-identification character is Danny Weiss (Ivan Sergei from “Jack & Jill”), a theater guy from Minneapolis recruited by cranky IBS network head (John Cleese) to a programming job.
Immediately he’s quizzed by a rival executive (James McCauley) who wants to know if Danny is gay and/or Jewish, which could make him a double threat in the Hollywood power structure.
Sergei gives his character a winning naivete and the outline of a backbone, but the standout is Ed Begley Jr. (“St. Elsewhere”) as the network’s borderline ineffectual head programmer.
“So you’re Jewish?” he says to Danny. “Good choice.”
Tolan, obviously exacting a kind of gleeful revenge for every bad meeting he’s ever taken, whistles things along with a kind of Catskills pacing that keeps you eagerly anticipating the next joke.
Yet his characters remain generic and stereotypical enough so that the producer avoids delivering more than a little nibble to the hand that feeds him.
“Lori, have you ever done this with a network executive before?” Danny breaks out of an embrace to ask ex-“Full House” star Lori Loughlin, playing herself.
She pauses, before saying brightly, “Not this season.”
While “(8:30)” is a pleasant surprise, “Greg the Bunny” has to count as a major disappointment.
Developed out of NYC public access by way of an Independent Film Channel series, “Greg” arrived with a whole hive’s worth of positive buzz.
And there are good moments in this story of life behind the scenes at the fading hit kiddy show “Sweetknuckle Junction,” especially from Eugene Levy, as the show’s smarmy producer, and in the relationship between Greg, who lucks into a “Sweetknuckle” starring role, and his human roommate, played by Seth Green.
But while the puppets-among-us conceit is persuasively filmed and potentially hilarious, the producers, who include two of “Greg’s” creators and another “Larry Sanders” veteran, Steven Levitan, can’t think of much to do with it beyond saddling these Muppet-like critters with foibles characteristic of human celebrities.
One of the surest signs of trouble is when you rely on a puppet passing gas in each of your first two episodes.
As for “George Lopez,” it’s nicely cast but pretty much a pure formula piece from the Bruce Helford (“The Drew Carey Show”) factory.
The welcome diversion from the family sitcom recipe is that it puts a Latino (who happens to be pretty funny) in the lead role. But Helford drops in altogether too much gratuitous crudeness to make this acceptable as family viewing.
