My Name Is Earl
Jason Lee/Ethan Suplee/Eddie Steeples/Jaime Pressly/624 minutes
Who would have thought that Jason Lee would find mainstream success playing a redneck low-life?
The former professional skateboarder’s first starring role was in Kevin Smith’s comedy Mallrats (1995) and he continued to act in several of the director’s films.
It seemed though that his appeal would remain cult, if fervent. All Girl Summer Fun Band even wrote a song called Jason Lee.
It took an unlikely TV series about ne’er-do-well and petty criminal Earl J. Hickey to turn Lee into a star.
After concluding that losing his winning lottery ticket was the result of bad karma, Hickey resolves to right his long list of past wrongs.
The path of true repentance never did run smooth but nobody expected it to be this hilarious.
Lee is deadpan funny and surrounded by an excellent supporting cast – Ethan Suplee as slow but sweet Randy Hickey and Jaime Pressly as Earl’s shrew of an ex-wife.
The audio commentaries were disappointingly blah, though you learn that creator Greg Garcia appears in the pilot episode.
Much better was the commentary done by the mothers of several cast and crew members for the Mother’s Day episode Dad’s Car.
There’s also a behind-the-scenes feature and an alternate-reality pilot in which Hickey’s epiphany is to screw those who have previously screwed him over.
The best measure of how strong the series is though, is the fact that even the deleted scenes are funny. Now that’s gold.
(ST)