I am – Hercules!!


HBO has taken the acclaimed podcasts by Ricky Gervais -- Golden Globes host and writer-director-star of the BBC’s “The Office” and the major motion picture comedy “The Invention of Lying” -- and animated them. One of the better moments from episode one:

I find HBO’s “The Ricky Gervais Show” too sporadically amusing to grant it access to my DVR, and quite tame next to the more fearless American mockfests hosted by Adam Carolla (whose newer podcast almost instantly eclipsed Gervais’ in terms of worldwide popularity) and Sirius satellite radio lynchpin Howard Stern.

I also got bigger and more frequent laughs out of HBO’s “Funny or Die Presents,” a sketch-comedy spin-off of the website overseen by “Anchorman” creators Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Judd Apatow. One hilarious segment co-starring dreamy Zooey Deschanel from the first episode HBO sent along for review:

Drunk History: Douglass & Lincoln (Starring Will Ferrell & Don Cheadle) from FODPresents

HBO has already greenlit a second season of "Funny Or Die Presents."

USA Today says of “The Ricky Gervais Show”:

… The purposely retro animation, which turns Gervais into a more cheerful Fred Flintstone, not only adds nothing to the mix — it subtracts. … After his woefully unprepared stint as Golden Globes host (a job that was, just as he seemed to believe, beneath him), this is another attempt to get by on TV with the least possible effort. …

Entertainment Weekly says:

… magnifies everything venal and childish about the original (jokes about dildos on sticks and monkeys on benders) while masking its incredible wit. Fans are better served reading Karl's book spin-offs, with his own edgier drawings and some new musings, instead. …

The New York Times says:

… Podcast purists may despise the cartoons as pandering — animated subtitles for slower audiences — but they don’t detract from the comedy. … The series is not a full-blown comedy show; it’s a collection of Web-styled sketches and proof that big laughs can come in small doses.

The Los Angeles Times says:

… the least of [Gervais’] series, but it is generally amusing and pretty to watch, and I like the way it rambles. (Rambling is a quality largely absent from professional television.) … On one level, the animation is just a way to get the soundtrack onto television -- to give you something to look at while the talk happens. But at its best, it points up the way that conversation works -- it can follow its twists and turns, even word for word. In doing so, in making all their stories and characters concrete, it can distract from what's being said as much as underscore it, but you can always close your eyes; the jokes will work just as well.

The Washington Post says:

… Using the audio from the radio episodes and then supplying a sort of 1960s-style Hanna-Barbera wash of cheap animation to more fully illustrate the inanity of their conversations, Gervais has landed on something quite special that can be scorchingly funny. (Others may find it to be a bizarrely lazy use of Gervais's talents.) …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

… Media Rights Capital, an independent production company, took an offbeat idea and made it work surprisingly well. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

… The animation adds some humor but probably not enough to justify adding this series to my already overbooked TV viewing schedule.

The Boston Herald says:

… Gervais isn’t the funniest guy here. That distinction falls on Pilkington, who is either a brilliant performance artist or one of the dimmest mammals on the planet. … Oh, you’ll laugh. But you probably won’t remember much of it the next day.

The Boston Globe says:

… Alas, HBO has come up with a dull, unimaginative interpretation of the podcast, essentially giving us animated versions of the three men sitting in a sound booth talking into microphones. … On a podcast, it works, drawing your imagination into bizarre places as you listen. But accompanied by such static imagery, Pilkington’s unique idiocy loses its allure. …

Variety says:

… This inspired idea works just fitfully -- such as when illustrating Gervais' strange fascination with monkeys. Still, anything that brings Gervais into homes more frequently is welcome, if not necessarily, as the Brits say, brilliant. …

The Hollywood Reporter says:

… The static nature of three talking heads (even in cartoon form) is dull, and the intermittent non-studio interstitials used to illustrate the discussion fail to provide enough of a change. Watching cartoon characters laugh at one another feels recursively silly, and not in a good way. … But the main issue is that this show is not really about Gervais, or even Merchant. It is the Karl Pilkington show, because the essence of all content involves Gervais or Merchant prodding Pilkington into sharing his odd theories about the world (for example, nothing worthwhile was invented post-1900), then turning into his sneering, slightly hostile peanut gallery. Gervais even calls Pilkington a "little round-headed buffoon." This makes Pilkington seem the kinder person in the room, and the tone rings wrong. …

“Caprica”: 9 p.m. Friday. Syfy.
“The Ricky Gervais Show”: 9 p.m. Friday. HBO.
“The Life and Times Of Tim”: 9:30 p.m. Friday. HBO.
“Real Time With Bill Maher”: 10 & 11 p.m. Friday. HBO.
“Funny Or Die Presents”: 11:59 p.m. Friday. HBO.