Men Behaving Badly aired from September 1996 until December 1997 on NBC.
" Men are dogs...They just are" was the slogan displayed at the beginning of this gross sitcom, set in Indianapolis. Exhibit #1 was unemployed photographer Jamie ( Rob Schneider), a weasley, sexist slob who couldn't understand why he had no luck with women. His roommate Kevin ( Ron Eldard), a manager at a security systems company, was only slightly smarter when it came to the opposite sex. Together they sat around guzzling beer, wolfing down dry cereal and debating the merits of continued lovemaking if your girlfriend has fallen asleep. Sarah ( Justine Bateman) was a sensible nurse who loved Kevin despite his quirks and Cherie ( Julia Campbell) the sexy next-door neighbor and target of many of the boys' pranks. NBC started tinkering with the show almost as soon as it premiered. About 2 months into the run Kevin and Sarah's last names were changed for no apparant reason. At the beginning of the second season, Kevin married Sarah and moved to Chicago; Cherie was also gone. Jamie's new roommate was Steve ( Ken Marino), who was coming off a long relationship and needed to get in touch with his hormones. His girlfriend Katie ( Jenica Bergere) was a young art teacher with an unexpected wild streak , while Nurse Brenda ( Dina Spybey), who had been seen occasionally during the previous season, was the boys' new target.
Based on the British sitcom of the same name.
Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner were the Executive Producers.
A Review from The New York Times
Men Will Be Boys, And Slobs and Dogs
By CARYN JAMES
Published: September 18, 1996
With a title as juicy as ''Men Behaving Badly,'' you almost don't need a show to go with it. Fortunately, the series behind the title is a blithely funny and sharp, though often impolite, battle-of-the-sexes comedy.
Like so many new series, this one begins with a pair of roommates. Ron Eldard (Shep from ''E.R.'') plays Kevin, the one with the job and the girlfriend. He is marginally the more mature roommate, which is a lot like saying Moe is the smartest Stooge.
Rob Schneider (the copy-room guy from ''Saturday Night Live'') is an unemployed photographer named Jamie, who in his more enlightened moments realizes he is a loser and tries to turn that to his advantage with women, whining and pleading when necessary.
Though the first episode of ''Men Behaving Badly'' will be shown tonight, it will seem familiar to anyone who watched the Olympics. NBC relentlessly showed scenes from this episode, including one in which Jamie runs out of coffee filters and substitutes his undershorts.
But the series works better as a whole. There is a neat balance between the characters, so the show is not all about crude uses for underwear. Mr. Eldard's well-meaning Kevin might actually grow up one of these years. Mr. Schneider's Jamie will always be brushing his teeth in the car and rinsing with coffee on his way to a job interview. Far from being mean-spirited, the series seems fond of these big babies, deftly played by actors who make their behavior unnervingly natural.
And equal sympathy is extended to women. Justine Bateman plays Sarah, Kevin's longtime and, needless to say, long-suffering girlfriend. In tonight's episode they wonder whether to have a child. ''It's not like I don't love her,'' Kevin tells Jamie in a serious man-to-man talk. ''But fatherhood? That's, like, a 10-year commitment!''
The best clue to the bemused tone of ''Men Behaving Badly'' comes in its stylish opening credit sequence, the most cathartic in recent memory. In a black-and-white montage from a century of movies, women slap men's faces with gloved hands, fists and purses, while Marshall Crenshaw sings the Beatles' ''Bad Boy'' (''Now, Junior, behave yourself'').
In fact, the series' secret appeal may be that it offers vicarious thrills for everyone: the men act any way they want and the women bluntly tell them off about it. Tonight, in one of the mock-sociological voice-overs that crop up between scenes, a woman's professorial voice explains everything. ''Amid the chaos, one constant remains,'' she says. ''Men are dogs; they just are.'' That might as well be taken as a compliment. It also turns out to be a pretty good assumption on which to build a sitcom.
A Review from Entertainment Weekly
TV Review
BOOS TO 'MEN'
'BEHAVING' SUFFERS FROM A CASE OF MALE-PATTERN BADNESS
The dicey appeal of MEN BEHAVING BADLY (NBC, Wednesdays, 9:30-10 p.m.) can be summed up by quoting one of the men, Kevin (Ron Eldard), who says women are ''like cats: moody, demanding, aloof, and they act like they're doing you a favor when you want sex.'' Sexist sentiments exploded by the stupidity of the guy expressing them is what this show's about.
Based on the hit British comedy of the same name, Men stars Eldard, soft-eyed puppy dog Shep from ER (you know, Julianna Margulies' sweetie, who had the bad-temper breakdown), and -- as his pal and roommate, Jamie -- Rob Schneider (you know, the one who was funny for a couple of weeks on Saturday Night Live as the copy-machine guy). Kevin and Jamie are supposed to be men's men -- perpetually hungry (they snack on beer and Fudgsicles), perpetually horny, perpetually adolescent. Penetrating their hormonal haze is Kevin's girlfriend, Sarah (Justine Bateman), a nurse who behaves pretty badly herself. She says of her patients, ''Sometimes I wish they'd all die so I could sleep in.''
Combine the jokes I've quoted with the fact that when Jamie runs out of coffee filters, he uses dirty underpants, and you get a pretty good idea of just how low Men will go. But, as overseen by creator Matthew Carlson, this bad-taste extravaganza isn't tawdry like, say, Married...With Children. The lines are a little sharper. The main problem is that Men's male-piggy premise leads to too many obvious jokes. When Kevin says he envies babies because they get to breast-feed, you wonder how many times you've heard that one before. Similarly, Schneider tends to mug like Seinfeld's Kramer and go all slack-jawed a la every dumb-cluck character on TV since Gomer Pyle.
But Eldard and Bateman are likable; if Men can transcend its cliches, it might prove fun watching them misbehave. C+
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