Oh, no — can it really be an other sitcom about a grown son moving back home after failing big time in the big city? Yes. But not, “oh, no.”
Even though it seems like that scenario has been worked over more than JFK assassination conspiracies on the Internet, Comedy Central’s new sitcom, “Big Lake” is, it turns out, a spoof on all that.
Not that it doesn’t start out like a reheated rehash. There’s a giant laughtrack, the living room set with the staircase in the back, the couch in the middle and the kitchen off that room. That goes along with the dysfunctional family and the returning old best friend.
I mean, seriously, wouldn’t you think, “same old/same old?” I did.
MORE: HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE STAR CHRIS GETHARD’S NAME
Then it started, and I started to giggle. But by the second episode I was spitting diet Coke out of my nose.
“Big Lake” centers on Josh (Chris Gethard), who has come home after a brief-but-meteoric rise and deep dive as one of those investment bankers who wrecked the entire economic structure of the US for their own personal greed. His idiocy brought down the bank where he worked and wiped out his father’s $375,000 retirement fund.
His father (James Rebhorn) hates him, his mother (Deborah Rush) is one diet pill over the line and his cute little 13-year-old brother in the kiddie pajamas (Dylan Blue) is packing heat — and sneaks out to run his criminal empire at night.
On his first day home, Josh reconnects with his old best friend, loser Glenn (Horatio Sanz), and their former high school history teacher (Chris Parnell), who used to care and is now a big slacker.
On tonight’s episode, “Josh Comes Home,” the three morons try to figure out how to make some money in order to pay back Josh’s dad. They come up with a scheme to sell Barry Bonds’ 756th home-run ball that Josh bought for $700,000 — but is now worth squat with Bonds’ implication in the steroid scandal. There’s a cameo by St. John the Baptist, and we get to see Glenn’s “The Color Purple” tattoo on his belly, which he got as a result of his harrowing experience in minimum security prison.
But it’s the second episode, “Lee Harvey Osworld,” with its “Bay of Pigs in the Blanket,” that had me screaming with laughter. I mean, we’re talking seriously funny.