I must admit all those promos for “Glory Daze” that ran during “Conan” and the baseball playoffs on TBS had me hoping for the best.

Unfortunately, this hour comedy about a fraternity set in 1986 doesn’t live up to the TBS motto.

 It isn’t very funny. Or original. Or smart.

 In other words, the 10 p.m. Tuesday lead-in to “Conan” isn’t going to make you forget “Animal House.”

 Creators Walt Becker (“Wild Hogs”) and Michael LeSieu (“You, Me and Dupree”) appear to have studied the Judd Apatow School of Humor in that the dialogue is loaded with disgusting sexual and bodily-function jokes.

 But they didn’t take the Apatow course that makes viewers care about the stereotypical college characters:

 * There is the smart pre-med guy who has spent a lifetime pleasing his parents.

 * The buttoned-down Republican guy who has to go to college to learn how to have fun.

 * The Asian guy who is expected to study and join the supposedly fun-challenged, secret Asian fraternity. If TBS’ release is any indication, he isn’t an important or even a continuing character.

 * The good-looking baseball star who dreams of Philadelphia Phillies baseball star Mike Schmidt when he should be focusing on the pretty girl he is kissing.

 * And the awkward Jewish guy who tries to hide his virginity by talking about sex all the time and will do just about anything to be branded cool.

 An additional star is the musical score, which makes one nostalgic for all the things that parents who were in college in the 1980s tell their children to avoid.

I advise those parents to keep their college-bound kids away from “Glory Daze,” which deals with so much pot and drinking that it plays like a course in Hypocrisy.

The cast is full of relative unknowns, except for the adults played by Brad Garrett (a conservative parent) and Tim Meadows (a liberal professor).

Kelly Blatz (see above) plays Joel, the pleasing son from a Catholic high school who gets extremely awkward sitting next to a pretty girl in class and eventually veers from his dad’s advice to keep his “eyes on the prize.”

Blatz is the closest one comes to a series lead. Matt Bush plays the masturbating virgin, Hartley Sawyer plays the baseball player and Drew Seeley plays the Republican who is in love with Ronald Reagan almost as much as the girlfriend who dropped Yale to be with him on this fictional Indiana campus.

 Of course, the first week of college can be a little rough for freshman and parents alike. I’m guessing – or at least hoping – that there will be much better days for “Glory Daze” as the series continues.

 But the pilot won’t get me to pledge to take another look for awhile.

 Rating: 2 stars out of 4

 pergament@msn.com    

Be Sociable, Share!

•