The pubescent antics of Adam Sandler don’t inspire positive thought – or any thought at all. The overgrown man-child behaving like an adolescent is funny only to members of that particular club.
But late-bloomers can be endearing: Witness Steve Carrel’s “40-Year-old Virgin.”
Rob Corddry’s stunted protagonist in a new Fox comedy, “The Winner,” is more sympathetic and less cartoonish. He makes us rejoice for high-potential underachievers everywhere.
This guy is not proud of his awkwardness or inexperience. He’d like to do better. He’s embarrassed to be so out of step with regular human interaction.
The tone is edgy but kind.
Not to worry – “kind” doesn’t get in the way of funny. After all, this half-hour is from the guys who gave us the wildly irreverent “Family Guy.”
Show creators Seth MacFarlane and Ricky Blitt say they aim to be sweetly offensive.
“There’s a real heart to it, and it never crosses the line,” Blitt said. “It’s coming out of a thing of innocence. It’s never coming out of anything mean-spirited or cruel.”
“The Winner,” premiering at 7:30 tonight on KDVR-Channel 31, is a kind of “Wonder Years” in a later-stage parallel universe. It’s edgy, putting the inappropriate blurtings and bizarre questions of anatomically curious youth in an adult’s mouth. And like MacFarlane’s “Family Guy,” the humor can be politically incorrect.
The story is told by the now successful main character, looking back on the days when he still lived with his parents as a 30-something, had never held a job, knew nothing about women, experienced terrible social anxiety and related best to a kid less than half his age.
Blitt allows the character is somewhat autobiographical.
For Corddry, the character is a departure from his creation on “The Daily Show.” Here he plays a man painfully aware of his social ineptness.
On “The Winner,” Glen Abbott (Corddry) lets vulnerability shine through.
As narrator, Glen lets us know that he’s now “the richest man in Buffalo.” To understand how he got there, “You have to go back to the beginning of my ‘Wonder Years,’ Buffalo 1994, the summer I turned 32 and became a man.”
Lenny Clarke plays Glen’s foul-mouthed and fed-up dad, Linda Hart his forever doting mother.
When Glen spies his grade-school crush moving in next door, he senses his life is about to change.
There’s Alison (Erin Hayes): “The girl I had been pleasuring myself to for nearly two decades, but not in a sexual way – a poignant way, a spiritual way.”
Because of the character’s innocence, he sounds more pathetic than creepy.
In his head, Glen is still reliving a moment in 1976 when he last spoke to “my sweet Alison.”
Striking up a partnership that boasts terrific on-screen chemistry, Glen bonds with the divorced Alison’s son, Josh (Keir Gilchrist).
That’s yet another aspect of Blitt’s real life that translated to the script.
“When I first did the pitch,” Blitt said, “I felt I didn’t have a thing in common when I would see married friends and I would relate more to their kids and people that hadn’t experienced a lot.”
Josh and Glen trade anxiety and phobia stories, and check their pulses together. Josh works at a video store, which is more of a career than Glen has.
Through it all, Glen indulges in fantasy flashes and awkwardly fakes grown-up conversation. He knows nothing of the world, but he has the TV grid memorized.
Slowly, painfully, he begins his delayed adolescence. The producers say the story arc will reveal progress along the way, working toward the level of normalcy – happy marriage, children and financial success -that we know Glen secures in the future.
In subsequent episodes Glen worries about having to “put out” for the first time.
The series has been in development longer than most series are on the air. At first network executives couldn’t buy the premise. Even with the framing device that lets viewers know things work out for Glen eventually, those hearing the pitches had doubts.
“One of the things that helped is “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” (which) came out about three or four years after I did my pilot,” Blitt said. That made this character “more palatable.”
The time seems right.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
