Working-Class Palooka Delivers Crude Zingers in 'Still Standing' - Los Angeles Times
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Working-Class Palooka Delivers Crude Zingers in ‘Still Standing’

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Bill Miller (Mark Addy) opens his bathrobe to his wife, Judy (Jami Gertz) and proclaims: “I’d like you to say hello to a friend of mine.”

No accident that he sells toilets for a living, for the new CBS comedy “Still Standing” overflows with gross toilet humor. If that’s your aroma, this is your series.

It’s a blue-collar comedy with occasional laughs. It’s also a “King of Queens” wannabe whose sheer banality stands in sharp contrast to the Emmy winner it follows, “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

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You suspect many fewer will love Bill and Judy, who are about as mismatched as couples get. She’s a looker, he’s a palooka with a crude mouth and a big belly fronting a slobby body that looks like an unmade bed. No wonder she fell for him.

British actor Addy (“The Full Monty”) needs to work on his Americanspeak. He can skillfully deliver a punch line, however, and this comedy squirts raunchy ones continually. As when Bill pops in on his precocious, computer-whiz son for a chat about the facts of life. “Do you want to be smart,” he asks, “or do you want to touch a booby?”

The working class, fall-season style.

“Still Standing” will be shown at 9:30 p.m. Mondays on CBS. The network has rated it TV-PGD (may be unsuitable for young children, with advisory for suggestive dialogue). Howard Rosenberg can be contacted at howard.rosenberg @latimes.com.

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