THE ANDY MILONAKIS SHOW, SEASON 1
Starring Andy Milonakis, Ralphie, Larry, Revka

MTV2

Like a lot of people, I always thought Andy Milonakis really was an annoying 14 year old. His awkward, pudgy frame, gleefully destructive sense of humor, and his need for constant attention certainly suggests a personality as immature and impulsive as any hormone-damaged teen. But there was always something naggingly precocious about his 'comedy' – even a 14 year old would stop short of wearing a pancake on his face and then rapping about it, on national television. It takes a special kind of stupid for that, a visionary sense of the absurd, a truly enlightened fool. And so, enter Andy Milonakis, man-child. Stricken with one of those weird glandular disorders, Andy is pushing 30 as we speak, but he still looks like he's in the 8 ^th grade. This would be a truly revolting development to many – how the hell do you get laid in that condition? – but Milonakis has learned to turn tragedy into primitive comedy, and make an increasingly good living from it. I suspect most have seen this show before, but it involves Andy and his oversized pal Ralphie – a deadringer for one of those jug band bears at Disneyland –as they prank Hispanic pizza guys, bother old people on the street, or just sit around Andy's apartment wearing food on their faces and chortling. This two-disc set collects the entire first season of the show and tosses in a few extras, including an amusing featurette about Andy' supporting characters visiting him in California (the show is actually shot in New York), and an excruciating blooper segment that shows Ralphie flubbing the same simple line over and over, suggesting that his nearly retarded character may not be an 'act' at all.

At first showing, the Andy Milonakis show just seems like a grating public access cast-off, full of weird looking non-actors and impossibly juvenile attempts at humor. On second, third, or 15 ^th glance, it still looks like exactly that, but you end up falling into it's bizarre rhythm anyway. It may be the perfect brain drain, the first genuinely anti-intellectual show since Welcome Back, Kotter. It is, of course, wildly popular, and will probably make millionaires of the entire cast, even Ralphie, who will probably just eat his money. And Andy will get laid plenty. And it will be totally creepy. ________________________________________________________

- Sleazegrinder