In Defense of “Lucky Louie”

Louis CK’s first show is better than you remember

The following is an excerpt from Christopher Pierznik’s new book In Defense Of… Supporting Underappreciated Artists, Athletes, Actors, and Albums, in which the author defends and celebrates individuals and projects that were unfairly maligned or misunderstood from the world of music, sports, TV & film. It can be purchased in both paperback and Kindle.

What if The Honeymooners had been transported fifty years into the future and broadcast on HBO, where there were no constraints on language and nudity, with updated sensibilities? The result would be 2006’s Lucky Louie, the brainchild of Louis C.K. and his “reaction to what he felt was the unacceptable direction that sitcoms took beginning in the 1980s, when they became more elaborate, phony, and hollow.”[1]

The most jarring thing about Lucky Louie was the appearance. It looked like nothing else on television at the time. As single-camera shows without audiences like Arrested Development and 30 Rock were garnering critical acclaim and becoming the fashionable way to shoot sitcoms, HBO, which had already done that way back in 1984 with 1st & Ten, went the other way, allowing creator/writer/executive producer/star C.K. the freedom to create a modern twist on the old sitcom — a blue-collar family with money worries and…