FX is pairing its new comedy series Louie with Emmy and Golden Globe nominated drama Rescue Me beginning in June (date TBA). Rescue Me (10 PM) will serve as a lead-in for Louie (11 PM). Louie was previously scheduled to debut in April.
"Louie is a brilliantly funny and original series, and we are excited by the critical response to the show," said John Landgraf, President and General Manager, FX Networks. "Even though it is a drama, Rescue Me has always been regarded as one of the funniest shows on television and it will provide an outstanding, compatible lead-in for Louie. We successfully used Rescue Me as a lead-in for the majority of the first season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. We believe in Louie and want to provide it with the best possible platform for success."
Louie is a comedy filtered through the observational humor of Louis C.K. Each episode puts a spotlight on Louis' hectic life as a successful stand-up comedian and newly single father raising his two daughters. The single-camera comedy is a mix of Louis C.K.'s stand-up comedy and scripted stories. Louis C.K. serves as executive producer, writer and director, and Dave Becky and 3Arts are executive producers. FX has ordered 13 episodes of the series which is shot in New York.
In January, Louis' stand-up concert film, Louis C.K.: Hilarious, premiered at The Sundance Film Festival as the first stand-up concert film to be presented by the Festival. Directed by Louis C.K., the film received rave reviews with Variety declaring, "Standup comedy cinema has a new star in Louis C.K.: Hilarious." Producers are fielding offers for a theatrical release.
One of the funniest showpromosI've seen in a long time.
Last edited by WyldeMan45; 04-08-2010 at 11:38 PM.
His show Luckie Louie on HBO was hilarious. Only lasted one season though. I miss it.
Thank god this is on FX and the network loves it so much that they are putting it after Rescue Me. It was originally gonna air this month but John Landgraf loved it so much he decided to make sure it would get its best ratings draw. I would bet that considering how FX renewed The League and Archer, Louie is a safe bet to get picked up for the network.
I am looking forward to this. Never caught Lucky Louie, but his stand up is great and his guest spots on Parks and Rec were fanatstic. Plus my cable company just finally got FXHD.
I am looking forward to this. Never caught Lucky Louie, but his stand up is great and his guest spots on Parks and Rec were fanatstic. Plus my cable company just finally got FXHD.
Lucky Louie was hilarious, too bad it was cut so short, but I bet Louie finally gets his time to reign on FX.
Hey folks remember, Louie premieres tonight after Rescue Me on FX!!!
Review: FX's 'Louie'
Quote:
Louis C.K. is the creator, executive producer and star of the new FX comedy "Louie," which debuts tomorrow night at 11. He also writes, directs and edits every episode, and he is essentially playing himself, as a stand-up comedian newly-divorced and helping to raise two young daughters. It's entirely possible that he's also responsible for the costumes, the catering and painting the sets. In every way but the presence of other actors on-camera with him - because C.K. is funny but not exactly man of a thousand faces - this is a one-man show. If it's good, all credit goes to Louis C.K. If it's bad, he gets all the blame.
"Louie" is very, very good. It may even, based on the four episodes I've seen, be great.
C.K. has been a working comic for 20 years, has written for "Saturday Night Live" and "The Chris Rock Show" (and wrote and directed that show's spin-off film "Pootie Tang," which was almost universally-panned but which always makes me chuckle when I see it on cable). In 2006, he did the auteur thing with "Lucky Louie," an attempt to do a traditional-style family sitcom with a laugh track, but also with the kind of frankness about sex, class and race you expect on HBO. "Lucky Louie" was, like "Pootie Tang," slammed by critics - my review, in which I admired what it was trying to do even as I said "its rhythms are too conventionally sitcom-y, and the occasional chuckle isn't worth the long painful patches," was one of the kinder ones - and HBO pulled the plug after a single season.
"Lucky Louie" was a noble failure. Plain ol' "Louie," on the other hand, is a remarkable creative success, as engaging in the (intentionally) unfunny moments as the (many, many, many) funny ones.
The structure is similar to "Seinfeld" - if "Seinfeld" aired on FX late at night and Jerry were cruder and his misanthropy was interwoven with a healthy amount of self-hatred. Each episode intersperses bits of Louis C.K. stand-up with vignettes from his life that illustrate how he might have come to those jokes. (FX, perhaps fearful of residual "Lucky Louie" memories, describes the show in its press notes not as a sitcom, but "a unique mix of Louis C.K.'s stand-up comedy and scripted short films.")
And the key thing you have to understand about Louis C.K. as stand-up, actor, writer, dad, ex-husband, etc., is that he is one miserable bastard.
"I know too much about life to have any optimism," he tells the audience in one stand-up bit. "I know that if you smile at someone, and they smile back, you've just decided that something shitty is about to happen."
Later, he says that any father who gives his kids a puppy should acknowledge that they'll outlive it with the warning, "I brought home us crying in a few years!"
Each episode tells two stories, though the length, style and tone of those stories varies wildly. The first of tomorrow's two episode is an even split, first with Louie playing chaperone on a school field trip gone horribly awry (easily the weakest of the four stories you'll see tomorrow) then with him going on a first date where everything that can go wrong, does. The date story unfolds almost like a silent film - albeit one where Buster Keaton is frequently saying inappropriate things about his daughters - and I was almost crying with laughter by the end of it.
(FX is putting "Louie" on Tuesdays at 11 in part because C.K. seems a good Angry Middle-Aged White Guy partner for Denis Leary on "Rescue Me," but also because much of the show - particularly the stand-up bits - is just shockingly filthy, even for the network that's been home to "The Shield" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.")
The most impressive achievement of "Louie" may be the way it at times doesn't even make a pretense of humor outside the stand-up scenes, which are plenty funny enough to carry you through other parts that are just trying to illustrate the melancholy that comes with being divorced, balding and overweight at an age when, as C.K. explains, there will never be a year of his life that will be better than the one before.
Tomorrow's second episode opens with one long scene set at a poker game with C.K. and his comedian pals (including "Lucky Louie" sidekick Jim Norton). The guys swap R-rated insults until everyone's attention lands on the one gay comic at the table, and Louie asks, sincerely, how the guy feels about Louie using a popular slur for gay people in his act. The scene takes a very serious left turn at this point, but in a way that manages to remain completely true to the spirit of what came before, and then to the jokes that come immediately after. It's so thoughtful and human and warm that I would have easily watched an entire episode that was just Louie and his friend debating the ethics of a stand-up comedy act. As it is, I was perfectly happy with the comic vignette that followed, with Louie turning to his brother for moral support after the divorce, and the brother being too depressed to cheer him up, telling him, "What's sad is, you're too old to get anybody else."
Later episodes include a cameo by Ricky Gervais as an old doctor friend of Louie's who tries to play comedian while giving Louie a physical, Louie making the surprising acquaintance of a groupie, and Louie bonding with a divorced mom (Pamela Adlon, who played his wife on "Lucky Louie" and is a producer here) while their kids have a playdate. None of the stories feel quite like the one before it, and C.K. is even willing to toy with the stand-up/story format in one episode where some of the stand-up sequences are replaced with Louie visiting his inappropriate, incompetent therapist. (When Louie complains that he doesn't have any friends, the therapist asks, "Do you think it's because you're fat?")
"Lucky Louie" tried to bring a new sensibility to a format that came with too much baggage. "Louie," while it has elements of other comedies from both movies and television, doesn't feel quite like anything I've seen before. As a TV critic, I find that exciting. But as a plain old fan of comedy, I'm even more excited by how painfully funny this show is.
I was literally in tears laughing so damn hard during the first episode. I am a huge Louis C.K. fan and he is most definitely back. His humor is identical to my own and we both have the same outlook on nearly everything so his jokes tend to reflect things that i've either said or thought about at one time or another. I was laughing so damned hard that after awhile sound just stopped comin out and the tears replaced em. I hope this is a huge hit and is around for a long damn time, because this show is pure fun in the most inappropriate un-politically correct ways, and I LOVED it!
Oh man! That bit about the futility of getting a puppy was priceless. Its very rare that I am laughing hysterically while simultaneously feeling depressed, but that's the magic of Louis C.K.
Oh man! That bit about the futility of getting a puppy was priceless. Its very rare that I am laughing hysterically while simultaneously feeling depressed, but that's the magic of Louis C.K.
Every bit he did had me rolling, even though I've seen all of his specials multiple times seeing them again and some new material was just as much fun. He really had a way of making you feel miserable and shitty about your life while making you laugh till it hurts. He has got to be my favorite modern comic. The puppy bit was excellent, "I brought home us crying in a few years!" not to mention the relationship one about "best case scenario your lose your best friend and the love of your life". I also found his conversation with his buddy the gay comic and the evolution of the word f*gott to be rather informative. Who would have thought you'd learn something like that from Louie's show?
Just watched the 1st episode....Jesus is this horrible. I mean, don't get me wrong he's a funny guy, but this show 80% of it is just painfully unfunny. Reminds me of some of the Borat stuff where it's just painfully unfunny even though it's kinda supposed to be that way and kinda supposed to be funny. Only it's not funny, it's just...uncomfortable. Maybe it's supposed to be that way though (this show I mean).
The school bus skit thing was funny, although there was some "wait...is this a comedy?" moments. The date thing was horrible from start to finish with a few sprinklings of humor "PIIIIIIIIIIG!" littered throughout.
And they pull the "Seinfeld" thing with putting standup routines throughout? Maybe that was done before Seinfeld, but still...
Gonna watch the second one, just because it's there...hopefully it's better. Otherwise I doubt I'll watch anymore.
This may just be another in a long line of funny people who are so horrible unfunny in TV shows.
EDIT: Watching Episode 2.
The intro was fantastic! Actually better than anything in the first episode.
This episode was a lot better than the 1st one.
I found this article that sums up my thoughts...
Quote:
Monday night, Caroline's in New York hosted FX's premier of "Louie," the Seinfeld-esque series by Louis C.K., that follows his life in New York, going through a divorce and raising two young daughters. The show relies on gag-riddled skits to show the awkwardness and abuse that comes with making this major life transition, but only succeeds when Louis C.K. goes Norman Lear on us, tapping into the times as the legendary producer did with Archie Bunker and "The Jeffersons."
Case in point from "Louie": Over a game of poker with the guys, Louis C. K. asks his friend, a comic who is gay, whether he's offended by the word "f*ggot." The man pauses, and says no, then goes on to gently explain how "f*ggot" was the British word for kindle during the Middle Ages, and that when they burned witches, they burned homosexuals too but did not bother with the stake, and instead threw them on the f*ggots. Then someone makes a stupid joke to break the tension. Just like Louis C.K. in one skit moves all the white children away from the windows when the school bus for the field trip he's chaperoning breaks down in Harlem, he's only engaging when he's poking political correctness in the face.
His stand-up, which opens each episode, airs the same frustration that makes "The Daily Show" and "Real Time with Bill Maher" huge hits and news sources. I hope "Louie" evolves to rely less on gags--(an awkward date bails on him by escaping into a waiting helicopter)--and tells us more about the Jamaican lady, the only adult watching over all the kids at his daughters' public school. Just like his stand-up on "The Daily Show" sent waves through the blogosphere, Louis C.K. succeeds when he gets social, doing things like pissing off the Catholic Church. In the gaggy stuff punctuating his post-divorce dating and Facebook searching, he tends to sport a blank, helpless expression when there's a political she-cat under there that we, as an audience, and a society on the brink, need to take the lead.
Last edited by Groo The Perverted; 07-05-2010 at 09:51 AM.
Just watched the 1st episode....Jesus is this horrible. I mean, don't get me wrong he's a funny guy, but this show 80% of it is just painfully unfunny. Reminds me of some of the Borat stuff where it's just painfully unfunny even though it's kinda supposed to be that way and kinda supposed to be funny. Only it's not funny, it's just...uncomfortable. Maybe it's supposed to be that way though (this show I mean).
The school bus skit thing was funny, although there was some "wait...is this a comedy?" moments. The date thing was horrible from start to finish with a few sprinklings of humor "PIIIIIIIIIIG!" littered throughout.
And they pull the "Seinfeld" thing with putting standup routines throughout? Maybe that was done before Seinfeld, but still...
Gonna watch the second one, just because it's there...hopefully it's better. Otherwise I doubt I'll watch anymore.
This may just be another in a long line of funny people who are so horrible unfunny in TV shows.
EDIT: Watching Episode 2.
The intro was fantastic! Actually better than anything in the first episode.
This episode was a lot better than the 1st one.
I found this article that sums up my thoughts...
I still loved both episodes. Louie is one of my favorite comedians and the guy just has me rolling most of the time. Say what you will about Jesus but leave Louie alone!
I still loved both episodes. Louie is one of my favorite comedians and the guy just has me rolling most of the time. Say what you will about Jesus but leave Louie alone!
On a side note, Elias is exactly like one of my friends from high school, EXACTLY right down to the love for Transformers. He too probably would have believed in pillow pants, but he waited till marriage so since his wife had already passed her 21st birthday there's no way to know....
Last night's Louie was fantastic. I absolutely LOVE the serious type stuff such as the conversation between Nick and Louie, and last week's poker table conversation.
THAT is where I'd love for the vast majority of this show to be. Not the uncomfortable type stuff like the Date segment in the 1st ep.
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