Lucky Louie arrived in my life as a dream sequence. One day last year I had a vague memory of flipping through the channels and seeing a snippet of this really vulgar but hilarious sitcom filmed in front of what seemed like a live studio audience. It seemed like a false memory or a great dream, as where in the hell would I have seen something like that? NBC? CBS? ABC? Definitely not. So I passed it off as something that would be a really cool idea to do one day - that is, if I ever get off my ass and write that sitcom, try to get it picked up and then attempt to get the big wigs at NBC to let be as vulgar as what my imagination had seemingly conjured up.
I came across a clip of Lucky Louie on Youtube and it all came flooding back: the sitcom was real and it was hilarious. Not hilarious in a Seinfeld or Arrested Development way, but in a way that is hard to define. It's not funny because it's vulgar; that's not the point. It's funny because it makes you question every sitcom line ever delivered from Lucy to Charlie Sheen. It's funny because it's the first and only sitcom that you'll ever see that literally could be your life that day. It's funny because while it's turning convention on its head and destroying decades of sitcom pap, it's doing it while in the guise of "filmed in front of a live audience" sitcom pap.
Fast forward to now and me, being a huge fan of Louis CK stand-up and his Louis show, I started watched Lucky Louie. Lucky Louie as a sitcom makes more sense now then it most likely did back when it aired in 2006. To me, Lucky Louie exists outside our reality. It is a sitcom that would be playing on a TV in the background of Louis' current show. It pushes the boundaries of our television experiences and allows us to see how ludicrous "TV sitcom reality" really is. Sitcom reality is nothing like reality "reality" but Lucky Louie manages to be a bridge between what TV was/is and what it could/should be. The fact that it features many of the same actors as the current Louis show, makes the existence of the sitcom Lucky Louie even more "meta".
It's extremely unfortunate that the sitcom only lasted one season. Many shows are touted as "ahead of its time" but Lucky Louie is ahead of its time by quite possibly centuries. I have no idea when or if America will be ready to see something as profane and funny during prime-time. I can only assume when that time comes, say, oh the year 2278, someone will say "Finally! A sitcom that really tells it like it is!" but someone will dig out Lucky Louie and say "Check this out. It's from 2006." And at that moment, history will recognize Louis CK's brilliance and he will become The Shakespeare of the future. I can only hope.
Watch this show and watch Louis. They're a packaged deal.
I came across a clip of Lucky Louie on Youtube and it all came flooding back: the sitcom was real and it was hilarious. Not hilarious in a Seinfeld or Arrested Development way, but in a way that is hard to define. It's not funny because it's vulgar; that's not the point. It's funny because it makes you question every sitcom line ever delivered from Lucy to Charlie Sheen. It's funny because it's the first and only sitcom that you'll ever see that literally could be your life that day. It's funny because while it's turning convention on its head and destroying decades of sitcom pap, it's doing it while in the guise of "filmed in front of a live audience" sitcom pap.
Fast forward to now and me, being a huge fan of Louis CK stand-up and his Louis show, I started watched Lucky Louie. Lucky Louie as a sitcom makes more sense now then it most likely did back when it aired in 2006. To me, Lucky Louie exists outside our reality. It is a sitcom that would be playing on a TV in the background of Louis' current show. It pushes the boundaries of our television experiences and allows us to see how ludicrous "TV sitcom reality" really is. Sitcom reality is nothing like reality "reality" but Lucky Louie manages to be a bridge between what TV was/is and what it could/should be. The fact that it features many of the same actors as the current Louis show, makes the existence of the sitcom Lucky Louie even more "meta".
It's extremely unfortunate that the sitcom only lasted one season. Many shows are touted as "ahead of its time" but Lucky Louie is ahead of its time by quite possibly centuries. I have no idea when or if America will be ready to see something as profane and funny during prime-time. I can only assume when that time comes, say, oh the year 2278, someone will say "Finally! A sitcom that really tells it like it is!" but someone will dig out Lucky Louie and say "Check this out. It's from 2006." And at that moment, history will recognize Louis CK's brilliance and he will become The Shakespeare of the future. I can only hope.
Watch this show and watch Louis. They're a packaged deal.