Like Alan Sepinwall, I’m sort of fed up with Entourage. (Also like him, I thought it showed promise last year when they threatened to shake up the formula and ruin Vince’s career, suggesting a new dynamic where his career goes down while his friends’ careers are doing better. But they just couldn’t stick with it.) When I want to see Kevin Connolly in a socially-irredeemable show with weak writing, I will watch old episodes of Unhappily Ever After on YouTube. Here are several reasons why Unhappily Ever After holds up better than Entourage:
Like Alan Sepinwall, I’m sort of fed up with Entourage. (Also like him, I thought it showed promise last year when they threatened to shake up the formula and ruin Vince’s career, suggesting a new dynamic where his career goes down while his friends’ careers are doing better. But they just couldn’t stick with it.) When I want to see Kevin Connolly in a socially-irredeemable show with weak writing, I will watch old episodes of Unhappily Ever After on YouTube. Here are several reasons why Unhappily Ever After holds up better than Entourage:
1) Jack Molloy (Geoff Pierson) is a psychotic, racist drunk who murdered several people in the course of the series. And he’s still a more likable lead than Vince.
2) While horribly exploited Nikki Cox is still a smarter and better female character than those on Entourage.
3) Mr. Floppy rants just as endlessly as Ari, but Bobcat Goldthwait doesn’t get undeserved Emmys for playing the character.
4) “Lightning Boy” would make a much better superhero movie than Vince’s Aquaman film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyvyl4U49V0
5) Unhappily was completely re-tooled several times during its surprisingly long run. Entourage should have been re-tooled long ago, but hasn’t been.
6) The studio audience on Unhappily, consisting entirely of drunken frat boys, is at least not seen as well as heard. On Entourage, they’re the main characters.
7) Entourage never featured a character named “Bunny Muffowitz” who falsely claims to be a Vampire Slayer so she can get out of dating Kevin Connolly. At least, not yet there’s a full season yet to come.
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8) Entourage expects you to pay to watch it, while Unhappily is something you watched for free when nothing else was on. (We watched it in the ’90s when the other network shows were so bad we’d even flip to the WB in desperation.) That’s a better deal.
9) Entourage has had many celebrities playing themselves, but never Erik Estrada. Unhappily had Erik Estrada playing himself. That trumps everything. It’s also why Scrubs is better than Entourage.
10) Finally, Entourage never had an episode where Kevin Connolly pretends to be a guy from The X-Files so he can investigate the case of a Little Person pretending to be the Dancing Baby from Ally McBeal. Though, again, they probably will if they run long enough.
Extra bonus reason: Unhappily Ever After appears, based on a cursory YouTube search, to be more popular in Germany than Entourage. And if we’ve learned anything from the superior Vince — Vince Offer — it’s that the Germans know their stuff.