Remember when so many sitcoms used to be so funny? Oh sorry, you weren’t born then.
Sure, some shows are funny now — but not in the spit-diet-Coke-out-of-your-nose kind of way.
Well, baby, put that diet soda down on the table or you’ll be in trouble.
On Sunday night, HBO debuts its hilarious new sitcom, “Veep,” about a female vice president of the United States, Selina Meyer, played with insanely good timing by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Meyer had a great, great political future ahead of her. Then she became VP, and she may as well have thrown dirt on her head and sat on a bench in some sad park for all the power she now has.
She has come to realize that veep is the most dead-end job one can have while still breathing.
Selina’s staff is made up of her “body man” (aka right-hand guy) Gary (Tony Hale); her chief of staff, Amy (Anna Chlumsky); her press guy, Mike (Matt Walsh); new hire Dan (Reid Scott), whom she’s stolen from a nasty senator; and Sue (Sufe Bradshaw), her executive assistant.
Into the mix is Jonah, (Timothy C. Simons), an extremely annoying White House liaison who is moronically inappropriate as often as possible.
But make no mistake, this is not a show of caricatures, like some of the idiotic movies or TV shows that have come and gone (thank God) about female presidents.
Nor is it a satire about fools on the Hill. Here, we have a female VP who is neither hapless, helpless nor over her head. She’s a divorced mother who is stuck in an extremely visible job with a boss who doesn’t like her anymore — the president.
What Meyer does is put out fires — and every misstep is a brush fire waiting to burn down the redwoods.
For example, on Sunday night, a senator says to her about her on-staff Twitter writer, “That guy’s a grade-A retard. You were hoist with your own retard!”
Then, somehow the dreaded phrase slips out of Meyer’s mouth during a speech.
Next thing you know, her “joke” is front page, and she’s making nice to the heads of every mental health organization.
But nothing made me laugh as hard as episode two, when a stomach virus hits Meyer during a photo op at a minority yogurt shop.
The show’s from the brain of Armando Iannucci, the smartest person making TV that you’ve never heard of.
Don’t miss it. Or you’ll be hoist . . . oh, never mind.