A Minute with Stan Hooper

Thursday, November 13, 2003

A while back, I was complaining that new TV shows seem to be ripping off the same shows over and over, shows that I'm really not too wild about to begin with. So I'm pretty pleased to see a show rip off a show I liked the first time around. A Minute with Stan Hooper is pretty much Newhart. Easily flustered uptight guy moves to wacky small town. People drive him nuts. Wackiness ensues. It's a good formula, especially with the right cast, which Stan Hooper certainly has.

Norm MacDonald stars as the title character, who is an Andy Rooney or Charles Kurault type commentator who decides to move to small town America. Norm plays a very slight variation on his usual character, which is to say he gets to do his "what the hell is wrong with you?" shtick but drops the smug comebacks and put-downs. Personally, I have no problem with Norm's usual persona, but this version of Norm (Norm 2.0?) may be palatable for viewers with lower levels of smugness tolerance than I have.

More exciting is the supporting cast, most notably Penelope Ann Miller. I missed Penelope Ann Miller, so I'm very pleased she's back. Her character (Stan's wife) is a little less loopy than her usual character, but she seems to be fixing that as time goes on. Other notable castings include Fred Willard and Reagan Dale Neis, both of whom were on the unfairly unwatched Maybe It's Me.

Overall, the show's nothing fabulous, eliciting maybe 3 or 4 real laughs in each half hour episode, but that's more than have been induced in the entire runs of Everybody Loves Raymod, Will and Grace, and The King of Queens put together, so I can't really complain.

Rating: B (Nothing groundbreaking, but made me laugh)

Reviewed by Padgett Arango
Contents
The Hills Have Eyes 2

Hostel Part II

Six Degrees

Shark

Jericho

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Justice

The Hills Have Eyes

Love Monkey

Out of Practice

Head Cases

Crunchwrap Supreme

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Batman Begins

Garden State

Hero

13 Going On 30

LAX

Starman

quirkyalone.net

Kill Bill, Vol. 2

Line of Fire

We Shall All Be Healed

Happy Family

Arrested Development

Love Actually

A Minute with Stan Hooper

Tarzan

Karen Sisco

Stop All the World Now

Cold Case

Skin

10-8

Joan of Arcadia

Eve

Luis

Lost In Translation

House of 1000 Corpses

Bubba Ho-Tep

Darkness Falls

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Amazing Race

Treasure Island

FearDotCom

Adaptation

To Hit Armor Class Zero

Without A Trace

8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter

Life With Bonnie

JalapeƱo Cheeseburger

The Mothman Prophecies

Happy Campers

The Man Who Wasn't There

Kiss of the Dragon

Josie & the Pussycats

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Dr. Pepper

Know By Heart

Waking Life

L.I.E.

Thirteen Ghosts

Earthlink presents Chang and Eng

New York and Country Bar

Change

Motivation and Water Tower Grammar

Crossing Philly

Makeout Club

Undeclared

The Gap

The Abolition of Work

3000 Miles to Graceland

Kolobos

Duets

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Diesel Sweeties

The Cold Six Thousand

The Grilled Stuft Burrito (Rebuttal)

60 Second Wipeout

The Patriot

Grilled Stuft Burrito

Cowgirls

Crystalline

Frankenfinger E.P.

One Force Down

Shake

Both Our Secrets

Happy Birthday Captain Columbus!

Fight Club

Whatever It Takes

Committed

That Skinny Motherfucker with the High Voice?

Joe Dirt

The Veggie Whopper

Taco Bell Nachos

Palmetto

Godzilla vs. Monster Zero

The Terror of Mechagodzilla

To The Center

Infiniti+Infiniti

American Psycho

The Del Shredder

What Lies Beneath

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch

Bring It On

Chill Factor

Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars

Bad Company

The Blair Witch Project

Hyacinths and Thistles

Lake of Dracula

We'll Have a Time

Home Depot

Snow Day

The Virgin Suicides