An improbably hacky new laughtrack sitcom from writer-producer Charlie Grandy (“The Daily Show,” “The Office”), “Guys With Kids” stars Anthony Anderson (“K-Ville,” “Law & Order”), Zach Cregger (“The Whitest Kids U Know,” “Friends With Benefits”) and Jesse Bradford (“The West Wing,” “Item 47”) as fellows entrusted with childcare. It also stars Tempestt Bledsoe (“The Cosby Show”) and Jamie-Lynn Sigler (“The Sopranos”) and Erinn Hayes (“Parenthood,” “Childrens Hospital”) as the kids’ mothers.
It doesn’t take a lot of viewers to keep a show on NBC these days, but if the network elects to torture us with this woebegotten dud longer than a season, I will eat a Pamper.
... a bad, bad TV show.… It’s a cheap, stale, stereotype-addicted sitcom where no one, male or female, comes off especially well or likeable, excepting possibly the babies. …
... rests most of its humor on a very tired and ill-conceived hook: Men taking care of small children is hilarious because it's so unexpected! … And that makes me wonder: What rock have the people who created this show been living under? It's neither unusual or necessarily hysterical to see men caring for the their children, yet "Guys With Kids" would have you believe that dudes wearing baby slings is intrinsically guffaw-inducing …
... some of the jokes are amusing, but the show is a traditional sitcom that looks slightly dated. …
... insipid .…
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
... There’s not a single laugh-worthy line in the entire show … Notwithstanding the unfathomable reaction of the studio audience, the show certainly couldn’t survive on the basis of its humor, because there is none.
... fully prepared to lift the entire enterprise out of sitcom hell — are Gary (Anthony Anderson) and Marny (Tempestt Bledsoe), a squabbling couple who have twin babies plus a couple more kids. In their brief, cacophonous scene together in the pilot, Anderson and Bledsoe are a delight. The rest of the gang, including the other babies, should just get out of their way. Then we’d magically have that thing no major network seems capable of ordering: a funny comedy about black people.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:
... Truly, all the actors on “Guys with Kids” – even the unknown children used as props -- deserve better writing than what they get in this crummy, unimaginative sitcom.
… Jimmy Fallon co-created this series, and you’ll know it because he’s the one who announces the show was taped before a live audience. And right then and there, the magic — if there was any — vanishes. ... The adults muck it all up.
... a show that's as bland, generic and forgettable as that name implies. Guys Without Jokes would be even more accurate, but the one NBC chose will do.…
... Run, don't walk, from this depressingly generic retro-sitcom …
... it never garners more than a smile at best because it's so patently not unusual. In fact, it's less funny because the pretense that it should be unique is insulting. It's 2012, not 1955. …
... the execution brings such a stale approach to sexual politics as to feel dated by the first act break. Wait, men help out with child-rearing these days? Get outta here! … as these characters could attest, spare time is precious for harried parents -- probably too important to squander on a date with "Guys With Kids."
10 p.m. Wednesday. NBC.
