TMC
04-17-2013, 06:24 PM
http://splitsider.com/2013/04/right-before-the-sainting-of-louis-c-k-there-was-lucky-louie/
We all have our favorite alternate history scenarios: What if Columbus wasn't bad at his job and didn't accidentally discover America? What if Kennedy invaded Cuba? What if Lucky Louie wasn't canceled after thirteen episodes?
That last one might not seem to be as historically important as the others, but consider the repercussions of what a renewal to Lucky Louie would have brought: Louis C.K. said unequivocally on WTF with Marc Maron that had his show been brought back for a second season, he would have quit stand-up comedy and supported himself and his family starring in and co-executive producing the HBO series, under the belief that had it been renewed once, it would have lasted ten seasons (tell that to Mike White and Laura Dern.) While waiting for the show to premiere after all of the episodes were taped in the spring of 2006, C.K. went on tour to build his hour for Shameless, which we now know was the beginning of C.K.'s ascent to achieving comedy deity status. Instead, had Lucky Louie not received mixed reviews from critics and retrieved some more eyeballs, Shameless would have served as a really funny hour long commercial on HBO for season 2. C.K. would have hung up the mic unknowingly at the start of his creative apex. Even if the show didn't last beyond 2007, the momentum that was built from living and breathing stand-up comedy would have been derailed, and it's unlikely Chewed Up, Hilarious, Live at the Beacon Theater, WORD – Live at Carnegie Hall, this Saturday's Oh My God, and the historic television series Louie — which was created and funded off of all of the stand-up success — would have ever existed. (We would still be speaking English, but presumably a less funny English.)
This raises another question: What exactly was Lucky Louie, besides an unknowing Lee Harvey Oswald?
Some of you already know that it was Louis C.K.'s reaction to what he felt was the unacceptable direction that sitcoms took beginning in the 1980s, when they became more elaborate, phony, and hollow. But instead of shooting a single camera comedy without a studio audience, which was well on its way to becoming the "right" way to do things in the mid 2000s, Lucky Louie was a multi-cam that went out of its way to make the sets as unadorned as possible, keeping all of the audience reactions, for better or worse: if there was an extended applause break because C.K. fired off a particularly inspired one liner, the cast had to wait a few extra beats. If Laura Kightlinger mused that "She's a teenager, not a person" and there was dead silence where it is very likely the writers believed a decent sized laugh would appear, the cast just kept on going.
C.K. had The Honeymooners (with a lot more profanity) in mind, but because the pilot episode dealt with socioeconomic and race issues, the comparisons to All in the Family and Roseanne cropped up, muddling the conceit a little bit for critics. Coincidentally, the pilot episode was really, really good, and really funny. The very first scene was basically C.K.'s first memorable stand-up bit: "Why?" — which was from Louis's HBO One Night Stand half-hour the year before. On Lucky Louie, it gave the audience the background information on the characters of Louie and his wife Kim without them being aware of the exposition being exposition even before the title credits.
We all have our favorite alternate history scenarios: What if Columbus wasn't bad at his job and didn't accidentally discover America? What if Kennedy invaded Cuba? What if Lucky Louie wasn't canceled after thirteen episodes?
That last one might not seem to be as historically important as the others, but consider the repercussions of what a renewal to Lucky Louie would have brought: Louis C.K. said unequivocally on WTF with Marc Maron that had his show been brought back for a second season, he would have quit stand-up comedy and supported himself and his family starring in and co-executive producing the HBO series, under the belief that had it been renewed once, it would have lasted ten seasons (tell that to Mike White and Laura Dern.) While waiting for the show to premiere after all of the episodes were taped in the spring of 2006, C.K. went on tour to build his hour for Shameless, which we now know was the beginning of C.K.'s ascent to achieving comedy deity status. Instead, had Lucky Louie not received mixed reviews from critics and retrieved some more eyeballs, Shameless would have served as a really funny hour long commercial on HBO for season 2. C.K. would have hung up the mic unknowingly at the start of his creative apex. Even if the show didn't last beyond 2007, the momentum that was built from living and breathing stand-up comedy would have been derailed, and it's unlikely Chewed Up, Hilarious, Live at the Beacon Theater, WORD – Live at Carnegie Hall, this Saturday's Oh My God, and the historic television series Louie — which was created and funded off of all of the stand-up success — would have ever existed. (We would still be speaking English, but presumably a less funny English.)
This raises another question: What exactly was Lucky Louie, besides an unknowing Lee Harvey Oswald?
Some of you already know that it was Louis C.K.'s reaction to what he felt was the unacceptable direction that sitcoms took beginning in the 1980s, when they became more elaborate, phony, and hollow. But instead of shooting a single camera comedy without a studio audience, which was well on its way to becoming the "right" way to do things in the mid 2000s, Lucky Louie was a multi-cam that went out of its way to make the sets as unadorned as possible, keeping all of the audience reactions, for better or worse: if there was an extended applause break because C.K. fired off a particularly inspired one liner, the cast had to wait a few extra beats. If Laura Kightlinger mused that "She's a teenager, not a person" and there was dead silence where it is very likely the writers believed a decent sized laugh would appear, the cast just kept on going.
C.K. had The Honeymooners (with a lot more profanity) in mind, but because the pilot episode dealt with socioeconomic and race issues, the comparisons to All in the Family and Roseanne cropped up, muddling the conceit a little bit for critics. Coincidentally, the pilot episode was really, really good, and really funny. The very first scene was basically C.K.'s first memorable stand-up bit: "Why?" — which was from Louis's HBO One Night Stand half-hour the year before. On Lucky Louie, it gave the audience the background information on the characters of Louie and his wife Kim without them being aware of the exposition being exposition even before the title credits.