Up All Night is a new sitcom on NBC. It’s described as an irreverent look at modern parenthood, with the mom going back to work and dad staying at home to care for their young girl. Any show with a stay-at-home dad character can’t be all bad, so a real stay-at-home dad (with Mojo!) gave the pilot episode a try.
The cast for Up All Night is impressive and funny. Christina Applegate is Reagan, the career woman that works for an ultra successful talk show host. Maya Rudolph is Ava the talk show host and Will Arnett is Chris, Reagan’s husband. If that abridged premise sounds great to you and you want to watch the show DO NOT WATCH the following trailer.
That trailer was good wasn’t it? It has lots of jokes and situations crammed into 4:43 of television. All of the jokes in the pilot episode were in that trailer. You can watch that video again and save yourself 25:17 by not watching the pilot episode.
It’s not that Up All Night isn’t entertaining; it’s just that the pilot episode wasn’t funny. As the show is a sitcom and not a dramedy, that issue could be concerning. If you didn’t see the trailer for the show and just turned the TV on to the show then your opinion could be upgraded from ‘not that funny’ to ‘mildly enjoyable.’
The premise has potential to be very funny. The episode had many situations and dialogue that’s true to life. My wife and I have had similar conversations as the characters and I’ve said exactly the same things as Chris. Is it possible that Up All Night was too accurate about the life of a stay-at-home dad to be funny?
The humor in Up All Night is just a bit over the top and dry at times. In an interview one of the producers said that the show was akin to Seinfeld in that it was believable and life real life; just funnier. Seinfeld took a year or two to really take off and be consistently funny. In today’s television market shows don’t have that much time to prove themselves.
Will Arnett is one of the funniest people alive. He built up so much good will on Arrested Development that I’d watch him in almost anything, and I have. We’ll continue watching Up All Night, partially because of his involvement and to see if the show improves. It will be interesting to see if the second episode is better when the audience don’t know the jokes in advance.
What do you think? Did you watch Up All Night? If so, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the show.
Rare is the time when this dad blogger is able to watch television. The only shows we go out of our way to watch are Fringe and Burn Notice. Granted we may end up in front of the television, but that’s usually during nap time or when we just need something to de-stress. Occasionally we’ll watch TV shows to see if they’re worth the time of a stay-at-home parent.
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I hate it when all the good lines are in the previews, and those are shown 10000 times.
The Cranky Old Man
Where was the “daddys aren’t allowed in mom’s club”? Where was the POOP?
Humorous enough, but I tend to prefer dry humor. The cheese joke fell flat, surely he would have gotten supermarket experience while mommy was on leave. The “Oprah” character is going to get old real fast.
Still, I will give it a few more episodes to see if the sparks catch.