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It isn’t bad enough that males had to sit through the insult of watching a CBS comedy, “How to Be a Gentleman,” that has already been canceled.
Tonight at 8:30, ABC premieres another show, “Man Up!,” that illustrates that men just aren’t who they used to be when they fought wars and did other manly things.
It follows Tim Allen’s “Last Man Standing” and in the process makes Allen’s show lamenting the decline of the strong male species look like an Emmy winner.
“Man Up!” (which seems to have gotten its title from a beer commercial) even manages to waste Teri Polo (see above), an actress who usually makes every series or movie (think “Meet the Fockers”) better than it deserves to be.
Polo plays Theresa, the wife of a one of the three adults, Will (Mather Zickel) who play video games. Will is an insurance salesman who knows how to play games all right. He knows the way to get time to play video games is by asking his wife to have sex.
One of his friends is a chubby guy, Kenny (Dan Fogler), who loves Tobey Maguire and used to be married to a pretty woman (played by Amanda Detmer) who now makes him extremely jealous by dating a handsome guy (Henry Simmons of “NYPD Blue”). When you look at the looks-challenged Kenny, it is even more amazing that Polo is playing his sister.
The other friend is Craig (Christopher Moynihan), who still pines for his college girlfriend and becomes a wedding crasher on the day she gets married.
The point is that these three video buddies are still weak children who might consider being called “manish” a compliment and make all men look like idiots.
In tonight’s pilot, Will’s assignment is to find the perfect birthday gift for his 13-year-old son, which can be more difficult than proving he is a man.
As is the case in just about every comedy this season, the writers think shouting “vagina” a couple of times is hysterically funny.
It isn’t. But then not much in “Man Up!” is funny.
Real men might need a six-pack nearby to survive it.
Rating: 1 and a half stars out of 4
Stefan Mychajliw used to be a Channel 2 reporter, which many viewers might have forgotten since he has a new modern look. He’s been on the station so often recently as the spokesman for Erie County Executive Chris Collins than one might think he’s working for the station again.
He certainly seems to be influencing Channel 2’s coverage of the upcoming election between Collins, a Republican, and Democrat Mark Poloncarz.
On Monday, Channel 2’s Michael Wooten bit on a Mychajliw-inspired story about a claim that Poloncarz made during a debate last week that Collins was the Wall Street candidate and he was the Main Street candidate.
Mychajliw noted that Poloncarz used to do legal work for Wall Street firms, which would have made his debate claim somewhat ironic. However, Wooten’s story needed some perspective. One wonders if doing legal work for Wall Street firms was routine practice for former corporate lawyers like Poloncarz and corporate firms. It certainly was a question the reporter should have asked.
* Sometimes, I’m surprised by news decisions. Take the tragic story Sunday of the death of Indy 500 winner Danny Wheldon in a race in Las Vegas. On Sunday night, Channel 4 made it a prominent part of its late newscast. That surprised me, partly because I’m not a big race fan and partly because I thought there were more important things going on. But on Monday night, The CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley also made Wheldon’s death a prominent part of its newscast. So I admit I was wrong.
pergament@msn.com

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