Phil at the Gate

I've always loved Phil Hendrie's radio show. His development of "guests" who are outrageous, but just believable enough to be "sold" to the unwitting has provided me with hundreds of hours of entertainment. His own role as the moderator between his own creations he did the voices for and the suckers who bought into the act was pure magic. It worked because watching a con artist in action sell the most ridiculous situations to an unsuspecting public is gold.

But as original and funny as his characters are, it just doesn't translate when the entire audience is in on the joke.

What Phil failed to realize in his unsold pilot was that his characters are not as funny as his ability to sell the con. That was the problem; in his radio show the characters were actually the straight man in the situation (no matter how outrageous) and the callers were the funny ones. People laughed at the caller's reaction to an outrageous situation, not the situation.

Phil Hendrie himself claimed that he was somewhat happy that Phil at the Gate wasn't picked up for NBC. He worked on this show for nearly two years, and throughout that time his ideas and intelligence were challenged by network executives. While Family Guy and other shows go as far as the censors will allow, it was clear from the pilot of this series that Phil was not allowed to do so. Despite a talented cast, the show fell short in many ways but is still worth seeing if you get the opportunity. Having listened to his radio show for five years, I will admit I am biased, but I thought the show was adequate. In Phil Hendrie's world of comedy, however, adequate just doesn't cut it. Phil's humor brings the ignorance of certain aspects of society out in the open where they can be ridiculed as needed. The majority of the ideas he put forth about what his show would be simply did not come to pass, and his disappointment in the whole process was evident long before he got the news that the show wasn't being picked up. The premise of an ex-cop starting a security firm in a gated community was sound. Gated communities are the butt of some of Phil's most prominent jokes on his radio show, which led to Laurie Metcalf's portrayal of Phil's most popular radio character, the "suburban Nazi soccer mom" Bobbie Dooley, and French Stewart's suspicious and super-anti-terrorist character was so realistic that it was scary. Wealthy people who treat their neighborhoods like their own private dictatorships, old people who don't like children, and the trials of raising stepchildren gave this show an edge, but apparently it was too sophisticated for NBC's tastes. Phil changed a lot more than he felt comfortable changing, and the end result was a sitcom that lost out during its initial season to shows like Coupling, most of which were canceled after one season or less (perhaps the worst pilot season for NBC this century). NBC seems to be picking up some strength now, and hopefully the negative impact they had on this series will not repeat itself in the future. Phil's return to NBC this year for Teachers seems a good indication. Dumbing down comedy for a demographic market is a disaster, and Phil at the Gate is one of many examples.