Listen Up

The Cubs Curse, The Red Sox Curse....and now again the Seinfeld Curse. OK, I admit it. I watch Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. Or the show with the Yelling Guys, as my wife calls it. But I watch it for the sports info. Not because Tony Kornheiser is funny. Which he's not. Although he seems to think he is. He also seems to be under the delusion that he's clever. But all he's really good at is being loud. A sitcom based on him, and the characters he's created, would seem doomed. Especially a sitcom dogged with the tired writing, cardboard characters and banal situations of Listen Up.

On one level, I can see where the casting of Jason Alexander as the Kornheiser character (similar types) makes a certain kind of sense. But, of course, that still begs the question as to whether it was worthwhile to develop this stale show in the first place. And while the character of George Costanza was often hilarious as a cog in the big Seinfeld machine, Jason Alexander, now carrying the whole load on Listen Up, is forced to trot out all his old tricks. But, in the end, all he's really good at is being loud.

Did you ever watch the very earliest episodes of Seinfeld back in 1990? I can remember seeing them when they were new, and thinking that the show was nothing to get excited about. It improved at an almost imperceptible rate, until I eventually realized I was watching something inspired. I think this show, too, has shown gradual improvement in the quality of its scripts and the interaction of its cast. The show is really built around its star, Jason Alexander, and as an old Seinfeld fan I have a lot of good will toward Alexander and am willing to give any project of his a fair chance. Is there a certain amount of George Costanza in the role of Tony Kleinman? Undoubtedly, but it's a shtick that I still enjoy.

You can't go far wrong with Malcolm-Jamal Warner, a seasoned sitcom veteran and just plain likable guy. The interaction between him and Alexander is fun to watch, and they make a good team.

I know almost nothing about sports, and absolutely nothing about Tony Kornheiser, so that element of the project means nothing to me. To me it's not important, anyway, because as an earlier commentator pointed out, the show isn't about sports in the slightest. Although every once in a while a sports figure is trotted on to add a bit of color to the show, these scenes are just brief distractions.

I will admit, though, that the very tired sitcom stereotype of "smart wife and kids, dumb dad" is a little grating at times, and I'd appreciate it if this formula was not quite so overstressed in the show. One kink in that formula, though, is Will Rothhaar as Tony's son Mickey. This character started out as a cipher because of the scant amount of lines and screen time accorded him (the earliest plots seemed to be dominated by the relationship between Tony and his fairly obnoxious daughter). But Rothhaar, a highly experienced young actor, seems to bring a much-needed element of calm and softness amidst the more grating personalities of the other characters. The delivery of his lines are never overdone in the slightest but always note-perfect, and always get a laugh out of me. He turns what could be a cartoonish stereotype of a simple-minded slacker kid into an interesting, likable, and funny character, and I get a big kick out of the scenes where he's intimidated by his harpy sister.

I hope this show is given a chance to continue to grow and improve. I like its progress.

Let's say you own a hot dog stand. You hire this jerk to make hot dogs. He burns them all day long. For every customer, he turns the dog into charcoal when he tries to grill it. This goes on for a while, and nobody buys hot dogs. So you fire the jerk. Next day the jerk comes back, you re-hire him, and he starts burning hot dogs again. You lose a lot of money. The cycle repeats itself. This is how the networks run their business.

The sit com has been dead for years. The genre is just not funny anymore.It has run its course. Yet every year, the networks trot em out again, and lose more money. Jason Alexander was only funny in 'Seinfeld' because he was an unlikeable jerk. In anything else, hes just an....unlikeable jerk not in 'Seinfeld'. Hes got no warmth, no comic talent, no timing, no appeal. Yet this is what, the second or third attempt they've tried to use him to snatch some sort of audience? When are these execs gonna stop burning their dogs?

I watched this show for 30 straight extraordinarily dull minutes and didn't even grin. not once. I didn't smirk. I didn't breathe heavy. It was so dull it wasn't even embarrassing. I give it possibly 2 more weeks. The grill is on fire again.

Every single episode that I have seen has made me laugh out loud, even when I'm at home alone watching the show. The writing is witty, charming and deals with situations that most people can relate with. The dynamics in Tony's family are well thought out as well- Jason Alexander plays a perfect Tony- who is lovable, funny, charming and a bit of the underdog- we always want to root for him. Malcolm-Jamal Warner is a perfect match for Jason. Malcolm has attitude and humor that keeps me coming back for more as well. I LOVE the flashback scenes! I love getting the insight into the life of Young Tony who seems to have experienced some pretty pathetic situations as a kid. This show is fun, clean and allows our entire family to share some great laughs without us(as parents)feeling nervous about the content that our kids might be seeing.

I've spent some time reading the comments on this site about "Listen Up." The show, although doing well rating wise, does not appear to be a favorite amongst IMDb users.

I think the show is a decent show. There are some great lines (i.e. "I had no idea this little hair could produce this much debris") among others. The show has good jokes. But it does lack something. One thing I can say is that if someone were to tell me what the first two episodes were about I wouldn't be able to provide the answer. The first two episodes haven't really been about anything. The daughter bans her father from her soccer games in episode 1. In episode 2 she defies him and gets more earring holes. These are not story lines with which to base an entire episode on. There's little substance there. The show doesn't have any meaning. Yes, comedies are supposed to be funny and are not to be mistaken for films that are supposed to inspire or deliver some great message. But there needs to be something.

"Seinfeld" didn't really have meaning either but the jokes centered around the little quirky things we do in our lives. This helped us relate. It made us interested. One of the better sitcoms we've had over recent years has been "Frasier" (mostly in its early years) but one thing that "Frasier" managed to do was to blend jokes with substance. Many episodes featured a serious conversation between characters that put life into perspective and revealed some truth. "Listen Up" has yet to provide something for us to grab onto. Each episode needs a conflict - one that can provide some humor but at the same time be resolved in the end such that Tony Kleinman learns something.

As for Jason Alexander and his acting thus far I have to say he's done a fine job. The little things he does is what makes his performance great - His pump of the fist when his son tells him that he's reading a book of zip codes for instance. The only thing I could perhaps fault him for is going into his yell voice too often and always with the same tone. But for the most part I have enjoyed his performance.

Everyone seems to be talking about how he's acting like George Constanza from "Seinfeld" and I'd have to say that he is. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Actors aren't generally supposed to act like a million different things. Actors are selling themselves. A director looks for a certain look, a certain quality in the actor's voice, and checks to see if the actor can act. Jason Alexander is Jason Alexander and he's going to be himself when he performs. He was cast to be the character he has always been. He's not a character actor. He's not going to seem like an entirely different person with each show or movie he is in.