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'Naked Trucker and T-Bones,' forget it A Southern-fried mess, at once awful and boring Jan 17, 2007
With long stretches of bland, semi-impromptu stage banter interrupted by sketches that are rarely amusing and almost always pointless, “The Naked Trucker” has the distinction of being both awful and boring. There's a place for this kind of sketch/variety/performance programming if it’s done well or at least makes sense. “Hee Haw” wasn’t highbrow television but it still ran for 24 years. “Blue Collar TV,” which more recently tapped into the Southern-fried NASCAR ethos by mixing Southern-themed sketches and variety-show sketches, had a brief, moderately successful run on the old WB. “Mr. Show,” which aired from 1995-98 on HBO, was a brilliantly surreal concoction in which the end of one sketch bled directly into on-stage performance and then back into a new sketch. It felt like a comedy fever dream, with no real beginning or end, but it was consistently weird and funny, which more than made up for its lack of structure. "Trucker," the brainchild (a generous description) of comic actors David Koechner and Larry “Gruber” Allen, attempts to merge self-conscious, winking redneck humor with the alternative comedy of “Mr. Show.” The series, which originated as a stage show, relates the nominal adventures of a Zen-like long-haul trucker called Trucker (Allen) and his ne’er-do-well, scheming, permanent hitchhiking companion Gerald “T-Bones” Gibbons (Koechner). The show alternates between their highway exploits and onstage standup banter in which Allen is naked and covered only by a guitar. Their banter consists of meandering conversations about prison weapons and gambling in Vermont, as well as seemingly improvised songs about, well, nothing much worth singing about. That “Trucker” is a complete misfire is a bit of a surprise. The stage show was a cult hit at the L.A. alternative comedy hotspot Largo, and Allen and Koechner have impressive comedy pedigrees. Allen has had small parts and guest spots on some of the best shows of the last decade, including “Freaks and Geeks,” “Arrested Development,” “King of the Hill” and “Gilmore Girls.” But in this new series his mellow nudist Trucker comes off as condescending and self-satisfied. Allen seems to think that simply standing around naked with just a guitar to cover him gives him license to blather on about the minutiae of Americana. Koechner, a master at playing blowhards full of blustery machismo, is best known for his guest spots on “The Office” and as cowboy sports anchor Champ Kind in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.” He at least brings some energy to his role, relying on his potbelly, comb-over and indecipherable accent to squeeze some humor out of a character type that was already a cliché back in the days of “Smokey and the Bandit.” “Trucker” may have worked on stage, where the characters’ laid-back personas and casual, languorous storytelling styles had time to breathe. But in a half-hour show those four-minute songs about stuff they like (burgers and monster trucks) are deadly. And T-Bones' routine about how they’re like an old married couple because he can finish Trucker’s sentences is the sort of humorless material that interrogators at Gitmo might use on especially uncooperative detainees. Even a marginally clever sketch about T-Bones wanting to fight a hitchhiking bear fades away without a conclusion. Obviously cheap to produce, “Trucker” may survive for a while because of Allen and Koechner's devoted cult following, but even a 10:30 p.m. Comedy Central show has to deliver something to stick around for. The only thing “The Naked Trucker and T-Bones Show” consistently delivers is yawns.
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