Imagine a TV-14-rated version of “The Wonder Years,” designed with cable-ready raunch in mind, built around a notably well- endowed teen.
Or picture a high-school version of HBO’s “Hung,” indulging a young man’s fantasies about what his anatomical gift can do for his future.
Now update the dramedy by including an animation sequence depicting a dragon, a scorceress and other video-game phantasmagoria.
Put it all together and you have “The Hard Times of RJ Berger,” debuting on MTV tonight at 9. (The half-hour launches after the “MTV Movie Awards,” then moves to Mondays at 9 p.m. on June 14.)
When “Wonder Years” bowed in 1988, the journey inside the mind of a boyish adolescent was fresh for television (apologies to Dobie Gillis). The evolution from boy to man, the innocent young love of Kevin Arnold for Winnie Cooper, a kid growing up in a 1960s suburb narrated in voice-over by Daniel Stern as Kevin’s older self, carved out a distinct style.
Now, after years of gross-out movies about adolescent yearnings and enough high-school-based TV series to clog a schedule — from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to “Friday Night Lights,” “Gossip Girl” to “90210,” “Freaks and Geeks” to “Glee” — it’s tougher to be new and different.
The answer, apparently, is crass edginess. Opening with a prolonged masturbation joke and moving on to oral escapades, not only is the sexual humor unaccompanied by semi-polite innuendo, but the high-school archetypes are bluntly described. One antisocial loner is referred to as “five feet of pure Columbine.”
“The Hard Times of RJ Berger” grew out of a short film the creators made before “Hung” ever debuted. Tackling the coming-of-age genre through comedy and an in- your-face style the network likes to think of as “authentic,” they’re mining the adolescent humor that’s made Judd Apatow an industry.
Paul Iacono plays RJ Berger, the scrawny 15-year-old who is regularly bullied at school. He immediately telegraphs his role, saying he has “more pairs of glasses than friends.”
The mighty jocks intimidate the poor geeks in computer club, and the social travails of sophomore year have never been more grueling. (Kids getting drunk and throwing up on each other in swimming pools seems to be fairly standard.)
Each episode begins and ends with a “My name is RJ Berger” blurb, in which the protagonist sums up his challenges and what he’s learned that week. “My name is RJ Berger and being a loser has never felt so lonely,” begins one installment.
RJ does have the requisite overweight best friend, Miles (Jareb Duplaise), and a decent comic-book collection, but that’s about it — until a moment of revelation. Pants on the ground! His physical gift is accidentally revealed to the whole school.
Enough reality
“RJ Berger” represents MTV’s effort to get back in the scripted programming business after an avalanche of so-called reality shows.
Co-creators and executive producers David Katzenberg (“Survivor”) and Seth Grahame-Smith (who wrote the “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” best seller) have come up with a story geared more to underage viewers than families, another dissimilarity to “Wonder Years.” Naturally the parents, played by Beth Littleford and Larry Poindexter, are depicted as clueless and immature, less disciplined than the high-schooler they are supposedly raising.
The tone and visual style may be well suited to the MTV audience. Iacono has the range to make RJ a welcome addition to the long lineup of unlikely high-school heroes. And Kara Taitz as RJ’s obsessed admirer, Lily, could be another standout once the story settles down.
If the emotional tale at the core is allowed to take precedence over the gross-out antics, the series could have staying power.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
