Entertainment

It’s a ‘Hassel’

For a B-level celebrity with such promising kitsch factor, David Hasselhoff is one boring dude.

At least that’s how he comes across in “The Hasselhoffs,” A&E’s new reality show that fails to distinguish itself from any of the other “Stars as they really are!” exercises in forced phoniness. You can thank “The Osbournes” for spawning this genre, but that show rang true, at least initially.

“The Hoff,” as even he now calls himself, has been through several well-publicized battles with alcohol and other demons — his nadir, perhaps, coming with a viral video, shot in 2007 by his daughter Taylor-Ann, that showed him in a drunken stupor on the floor of a Las Vegas hotel room, mumbling incoherently and trying to eat a cheeseburger. Good times.

The former “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” star has gotten lots of campy mileage out of his late-career notoriety — judging “America’s Got Talent,” writing a book, appearing on TV commercials and, most recently, being hired to replace Simon Cowell on “Britain’s Got Talent.”

That doesn’t mean his off-camera life, which is what we’re supposed to believe we’re watching here, makes for interesting TV. It doesn’t, even with some obviously scripted scenes.

There’s nothing fresh or original, and certainly no reason to watch this show, unless you’re a fan of this ilk of staged “reality” (see “The Kardashians“). In tomorrow’s opening episode, we not only meet The Hoff, but his two daughters — the aforementioned Taylor-Ann and Hayley, who’s two years younger and in the process of auditioning for a TV show (which turns out to be ABC Family’s “Huge” — cancelled after one season).

Hasselhoff jokes constantly about his alcohol problems — so much so, that you get the old “Thou Dost Protest Too Much” feeling. The “drama,” such as it is, revolves around Taylor-Ann dropping out of college to form a band with her sister — just as Hayley finds out she’s won the role on “Huge.”

For hardcore “Hoff” fans only.