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June 12, 2007
What to Watch: Coming Up on Cable
Seth Arenstein takes on Oxygen's Fight Girls and hangs with Comedy Central's Lil' Bush
Tube Stake: Programming Reviews by Seth Arenstein
• TUESDAY, JUNE 12
Fight Girls, 10:30pm, Oxygen. Nothing succeeds like success, right? Last year’s special about women training to fight in the brutal national sport of Thailand, Muay Thai, was such a hit (no pun intended), that Oxygen has expanded the concept into, yes, you guessed it, a reality series.
This time it’s 10 young women who live and train together in a house in Las Vegas (hey, it’s a reality show, there’s always a house involved) for the chance to go to Thailand to fight for a championship. While we wanted to know more about the personal lives of last season’s fighters, in part because they were not all well-trained fighters as this year’s crop is, from the pilot it appears we’ll learn too much about the ladies. Blame it on that darned house.
• WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13
Lil' Bush, 10:30pm, Comedy Central. Not that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart needs a lead-in, but Comedy Central couldn’t have found a better vehicle to fit the bill than this low-brow cartoon spoof of the Bush administration that began life as Amp’d mobisodes for cellphones.
The jokes and the series’ premise are silly, but at 10:30pm, isn’t it time for some shallow nonsense at the expense of the President? Lil’ Bush delivers that in loads, purporting to show the President as a tike (but with adult features), cavorting in his daddy’s White House (good timing that, since it allows Lil’ Bush to interact with his daddy’s Middle East crisis).
Lil’ Bush is joined by his pals, Lil’ Rummy, Lil’ Condi and especially Lil’ Cheney, whose incoherent muttering make him a one-joke character, but one that consistently produces belly laughs as he breaks the neck of any animal he finds and proceeds to drink the poor creature’s blood. And obviously his mother knows the drill—while the other ‘kids’ are eating their lunch at school, Lil’ Cheney opens his lunch box to find a live chicken, which he gleefully strangles and slurps down its blood.
Once in a while the gang is joined by Lil’ Jeb, Lil’ Bush’s brother. Even though Lil’ Jeb “is special,” Lil’ Bush’s mother tells him, “you must treat him nicely…you might need him to rig an election for you one day.”
As we said, the jokes aren’t deep—Lil’ Bush is, of course, a moron—but they’re funny, as are some of the voices, particularly Chris Parson as Lil’ Bush. The other voices—big Poppy Bush, Barbara Bush, Lil’ Rummy, Lil’ Condi— aren’t nearly as good, but it doesn’t matter. On the other hand, when Lil’ Bill (Clinton) counsels Lil’ Bush about the specifics of dating, the imitation is perfect.
As Lil’ Bush says, this series really does "Ir-Rock and Roll."
All times ET/PT unless otherwise noted.
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CABLEFAX MAGAZINE
