Whenever Adam Corolla and Jimmy Kimmel guest on the Howard Stern show (as they did to hilarious effect earlier this week), Herc is always left puzzled that the duo’s own show isn’t funnier than it is. Left entirely to their own improvisational devices, L.A. radio vets Corolla and Kimmel can generate some of the most pointed and irreverent comic commentary Herc’s ever heard, and “The Man Show” – for all its politically incorrect veneer – seems only to skim the surface of the pair’s low-maintenance subversiveness.
Is it too much to hope that the duo’s “Crank Yankers” – because it employs cuddly, brightly-colored marionettes – will be allowed to stray into the darker realms pioneered by Comedy Central’s “South Park” and “TV Funhouse”? You can bet we’ll be watching every episode, just in case.
Comedy Central premieres “Yankers” 10:30 p.m. Sunday (opposite HBO’s “The Wire” and ABC’s “The Hamptons”).
TV Guide says:
Comedy Central premieres “Yankers” 10:30 p.m. Sunday (opposite HBO’s “The Wire” and ABC’s “The Hamptons”).
TV Guide says:
Debut: Series about the town of Yankerville, populated by deranged puppet inhabitants who re-create phoney phone calls.
Variety says:
Twisted doesn't even begin to describe "Crank Yankers," Comedy Central's perverse puppet show that breathes sick life into the lost art of prank phone calls. Taking divine inspiration from the Jerky Boys, a cult act that hit it big years ago, this way-out-there half-hour pushes the language envelope along with multiple taste barriers but does so in such a sweet fashion it will be hard to take any watchdog group seriously when they zero in on the content. And boy, will they ever. As if there is any legitimate comparison, "Yankers" one-ups Fox's "Greg the Bunny" in almost every category: The puppets are funnier, the bits are cruder, and the overall sense of cutesy reality is more genuine.
The ultimate in frat boy television, "Crank Yankers" works so well because it's completely fresh. There never has been a collection of skits so warped and so oddly produced as this, with caricatures enhanced and stereotypes highlighted.
The Hollywood Reporter says:
Imagine if "The Man Show" were a puppet show and you have a pretty good gauge of the level of humor that drives "Crank Yankers," which might be described as "Sesame Street" meets "Howard Stern." If those two sensibilities seem a bit at odds, it should lend some insight into just how painfully unfunny this show tends to be.
If anything can make "Man Show" seem erudite and scholarly by comparison, this perky perversion of puppetry is it. It's not merely that the show is wholly offensive. That's more or less expected. It could be excused if the comedy were something greater than the cheap and insipid attempt to humiliate the unsuspecting that it is.
The Los Angeles Times says:
It sounds funny enough. But looks are a different matter, and this is where "Crank Yankers" falters. The creatorschose puppets to provide the visuals to the often profane and stereotypical material.
Half the fun of listening to a prank call is envisioning the participants, and for each listener the mental picture is tailor-made to his or her funny bone. "Crank Yankers," however, bows to an age in which nothing is left to the imagination by having its Muppet-like creatures mouth the words. What's worse, by Episodes 2 and 3, there is full-frontal, anatomically correct puppet nudity.
On a closing note, does it strike anyone else as bizarre that “Greg the Bunny’s” inventive and appallingly attractive Sarah Silverman, a swell comedian who’s been kicking around showbiz forever, can only seem to find steady work on puppet shows? Because Herc would like to see what she can do when not surrounded by felt (if you know what I mean).
Appease me!!
