Redneck security
by David Koon
- 'SMALL TOWN SECURITY': Joan Koplan with Lambchop.
SMALL TOWN SECURITY
Sundays at 10 p.m. AMC
Though the channel recently got the boot from Dish Network, we're still in love with all things AMC. With a history of rolling the dice (and winning) on high-concept hits like "Mad Men," "Breaking Bad" and Frank Darabont's "The Walking Dead," what had been the Old Fart Network ("Stay turned for 24 more hours of movies you never heard of starring Spencer Tracy!") has positioned itself in recent years as the go-to place for great, smart television. Their newest series, while a little trainwreck goofy, is a hell of a lot of fun, and has a placement — immediately after "Breaking Bad" — that could make it a big hit. "Small Town Security" is a new "unscripted series" (what the kids used to call "reality TV") about JJR Security and Investigations, a small, family-owned security company based in Ringgold, Ga. Like a lot of small Southern companies, this one has a true cast of characters from the top down, starting with boss Joan Koplan, a 61-year-old who claims to have the sex drive of a high schooler and a deep and abiding love for a 14-year-old Chihuahua named Lambchop. That's the tip of the redneck iceberg. Week to week, the show is just a comedy of errors, so crazy at times that you'll think there's no way that some comedic genius isn't writing the script for this. That's probably got a lot to do with skilful editing, but by all appearances, it's not staged. Not only do the people involved seem too unsophisticated to pull off that level of acting, sometimes in the South, the truth is much, much, much stranger than fiction.
REGULAR SHOW
Mondays at 7 p.m.
Cartoon Network
There's nothing wrong with watching cartoons as an adult. Some of the best moments of my recent life have been working my way back through 30 years of original Looney Tunes and Tex Avery 'toons on YouTube (and man, ain't that Red Hot Riding Hood still foxy after all these years?). Now comes the new short series "Regular Show," from Cartoon Network. Based on a series of short films made by J.G. Quintel while he was a student at the California Institute of the Arts, the show is a hell of a lot of fun. I recently got turned on to it by a cartoon-loving pal, who swears he heard the writers drop acid before they start writing. Yeah, it's officially that weird. "Regular Show" revolves around the adventures of two 23-year-olds who happen to be a blue jay named Mordecai and a raccoon named Rigby. The friends work as landscapers in a local park, but the show is mostly just about them goofing around, having "Dude, Where's My Car"-style adventures, and trying to look busy any time their boss is around. As with many shows that air on Cartoon Network in prime time, "Regular Show" ain't for everybody, and probably goes from "pretty cool" to "I'm laughing so hard I fear I may have ruptured something" with the help of a few recreational substances. That said, if you are a fan of smart/dumb cartoon series like "Spongebob Squarepants" and the rest of the "Adult Swim" stable, tune in.
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