Boob Tube
By Erin in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 7, 2006 6:58PM
Mo Ryan, the Trib's genius TV critic and FOC*, poses an excellent question, one for the ages: "Why [have] some of the lamest sitcoms ever been set in Chicago?"
If word on the latest scourge released by the overlords at Fox is true, tonight's debut of "Happy Hour" will do nothing to dispel the notion that if 
you need an urban setting for a manufactured, trite, overly packaged sitcom, then Chicago is the city for you. Honestly, what hath Chicago done to the kids in Hollywood to keep associating this pap with us?
Let's look at the past offenders, shall we?
* "Freddie"
* "Perfect Strangers"
* "Webster"
* "According to Jim"
* "Family Matters"
* "Modern Men"
* "Pepper Dennis"
* "The Loop" - has anyone actually seen this one?
Now, we know that Chicago also was the home base for television classics such as "Good Times" and "The Bob Newhart Show" but those ran more than 30 years ago. Don't even dare bring up "Punky Brewster" because the only thing that show did for the collective consciousness was give spunky, freckle-faced girls the world over the false hope that they, too, could grow a really amazing set of breasts once they hit puberty.
We're still waiting on ours.
This brings us to "Happy Hour," a show that former Chicagoist editor and current Time Out Chicago TV vixen Margaret Lyons literally boo's in her scathing review of it. While we've only seen previews of HH, there is nothing about this show that seems even remotely interesting to us and we assume that we're the show's target audience. We can't even bring ourselves to read through the entire show synopsis without feeling some of our insides die. We feel pretty badly for the reception this show has gotten since by all accounts, co-star and DePaul alum Beth Lacke is a talented comedienne, or at the least, a very nice person. There are some unfortunate things going on in her bio pic if you know what we mean, but maybe those account for how the show got the green light in the first place.
No matter. We're just curious: any thoughts as to why Chicago sets the stage for good drama and not good comedy? Did we screw ourselves by allowing "Jenny Jones" to stay here for as long as she did?
*FOC = Friend of Chicagoist