Previewing Glory Daze

If you ever wondered whatever happened to the tradition sitcom that you grew up with, they are currently on TBS from the recently canceled Bill Envall to all the Tyler Perry sitcoms. But much like all those family sitcoms from the eighties, they are moderately funny at best and look very cheap. But with the recent signing of Conan O’Brien (not to mention landing March Madness), it seems like TBS has a bit a swag to them, and they are branching out from their safe sitcom fare for the first time since the embarrassing Outback Jack.

Case in point, Glory Daze, their first post-Conan offering. An hour long set in the eighties at college that actually looks like they spent money on, with the college setting, large cast, period clothing, and an actual eighties soundtrack that includes the Talking Heads, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran, The Cars, Shannon, The Pretenders, The Fixx, Kim Wilde, Spandau Ballet, Trio, The Clash, Madness, The Ramones (and for some reason Jefferson Airplane) and that is just in the first episode. Of course we will have to see if TBS spent their entire licensing budget on the pilot or if this signs of things to come.

Like any real college, our main cast is a rag tag group of friends who only hang out due to their placement in the same dorm. Kelly Blatz (Aaron Stone’s Aaron Stone) is the pre-med student who gets wrangled into pledging. Drew Seeley (Another Cinderella Story) has the chance to be the most entertaining Republican on television since Alex P. Keaton. Hartley Sawyer (Glory Daze, this is basically the only thing on his resume) is there on a baseball scholarship that can get any lady he wants, as long as Mike Schmitt does not (expletive delete) block him. And what college story would be complete without the dork that can’t get any loving, here that comes in the form of Matt Bush (you may remember him best from AT&T’s roll-over commercials).

Rounding out the cast is Callard Harris (Sons of Anarchy) as the care free fraternity recruiter the guys rush. Juilianna Guill (the stupendous actress from the Friday the 13th reboot) is the object of Blatz affection who manages to avoid all the bad eighties hairstyles. Then Tim Meadows (The Bill Envall Show) pops up as your token liberal college professor who undoubtably will have a few run ins with the quite literal Reagan-hugging Sealy.

Knowing the greenness of the main cast, Glory Daze has signed up quite a few comedy veterans besides Meadows to show up throughout the season. The pilot boasts Brad Garrett (Everybody Love Raymond) and Cheri Oteri (Saturday Night Live) as Blatz oversharing parents, and David Koechner (The Comebacks) as the college’s baseball coach who gives some interesting works of wisdom. Also showing up sometime this season are Kevin Nealon, Fred Willard, John Michael Higgins, Andy Richter, D.L. Hughley, and Michael McKean. For those keeping track at home, that is six SNL alums.

Lame title (why they went with the name of the unwatched Ben Affleck movie instead of the awesome Bruce Springsteen song, even writing the review in Word, it wants me to change the name to Glory Days every time I write it), plot lines we have already seen on ABC Family’s Greek (and Animal House and ever other fraternity themed movie) and cheesy tongue and cheek modern references (electronic mail will never catch on) aside, Glory Daze is the first original TBS program that lives up to the network’s Very Funny tagline. The over eager Bush steals most of the scenes he is in but it is his Asian roommate who gets the biggest laugh of the first episode as he visits the Asian fraternity.

TBS has long been the red-headed step child to TNT, but with Glory Daze, TBS finally has a show the matches the quality of their sister station.

Glory Daze airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on TBS.