Say what you will about Pauly Shore, at least Bio-Dome has an audience of sorts. Pauly Shore is basically a very one-note comedian, performing that note as off-key as he possibly could. However, when it comes to throwing shit at him, it feels more like an obligation, like someone wants to immediately set up a negative perspective on something they're about to review. While I do agree Pauly Shore is shit, he didn't appear in Norm of the North (and I bring that up because Rob Schneider was the biggest star they could get, call it desperation.), no one knew how bad Bio-Dome would be and that would apply to a potential TV series. Which happened.
Pauly
In 1997, Pauly Shore made his first foray into sitcom territory. For better or worse, the show wound up on Fox, and something tells me the big three would've somehow made it worse had they picked it up. The show is part of a sub-genre related to sitcoms that have the first name of their stars (Jenny, Freddie, Sammy, Ellen, Emeril, if you could figure out what I'm referring to... eh screw it, you all probably just googled it)
Whatever'd be said about this show coming up, just know it wasn't necessarily a vanity project. Pauly starred in and produced it, but he didn't create it. The show was created by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman. Both have worked together quite frequently prior to this series, working on The Golden Girls (hey, I'm getting The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer vibes here), Roseanne, Gilmore Girls and A Very Brady Sequel.
Okay, this is too big of a coincidence, for Pauly and Pfeiffer, they were created by two individuals, both of which had worked on The Golden Girls as well as a movie from 1996, and their respective sitcoms blew. Well at least Berg and Zimmerman received WGA nominations for their work on Golden Girls. Maybe they just couldn't salvage Shore.
Anyway, they produced this show, Shore did as well and they were represented through 3 Arts Entertainment, who within the same year helped bring us King of the Hill.
Seven episodes were made, but only five of which wound up airing. The show was very short-lived, even by Fox standards, then again this was only not even a year after Bio-Dome was released. Going back to Pfeiffer, the two episodes that didn't air were both directed by Matthew Diamond, and he directed the Pfeiffer episodes that did air. Maybe Fox did us a service.
Anyhow, Pauly fever was low to the point of nonexistence. It's essentially lost media, with only one episode available. The pilot was briefly available, but the channel it was posted on got terminated, and the only evidence of that is a logo combo from the end of it. It's a recurring trend for lost sitcoms, their episodes aren't on YouTube, but the logo combos sure are. We have a chance at preserving lost media, and all we aim for are the logos.
Aside from Pauly, this is the first I heard of many of the main actors on this. The show included Theo Greenly from Jerry Maguire, David Dukes who would pass away in 2000 and Amy Hill, who's the Asian equivalent to Hattie McDaniel in that she's most likely found as a maid in her roles.
Premise
Going by recurring summaries for the show at large, the series centers on Pauly, who's living it up in California with his rich dad. He had recently been hooked by a gold digger and Pauly wants to ruin their relationship because... He wants to get in the golddigger's pants? He realizes that she wants more from his dad than what she promised? He hates his dad and wants to make his life miserable by ruining his chance at love? Okay, I only have one episode to go by, and it's not the pilot, so unless someone managed to save the copy of that before it got deleted, I'm gonna be lost.
The one surviving episode features Pauly getting swooned by a woman who happened to be a co-star for the golddigger's adult film days, and the golddigger threw her his way to keep him from ruining her plan to get a celebrity spokesperson for a vein cause.
I saw this episode once, and recently as well. Nothing stuck with me from it, not even Pauly's obnoxious comedy. Would it be good or bad that I forgot about Pauly Shore in this? I can piece together fragments of most of the characters, and the only one I forgot cold turkey was David Dukes' character.
Basically, what unites Pauly and the golddigger is that the faux fiance the latter found intends to exploit Pauly's father in order to live lavishly for the rest of her life, so the latter's celebrity spokesperson deal comes into play. Previously, she sent her son (and by extent Pauly's stepbrother) to find a schoolmate with a celebrity parent.
What did we get out of that? Erik Estrada, though to be fair this is a better gig than what he did on Cool Cat Saves the Kids. They had tried to find a fake celebrity to get rid of the fiance, but Estrada wasn't it, and they're left with a fake Michael Jackson.
Basically, Pauly's attitude makes up a bulk of the episode, they make some attempt at visual humor, but I could only recall one gag from the cold open. Maybe deep down I really hate Pauly Shore and I blocked this episode from my memory. And since this is a comedy with no grounded continuity, it's just a matter of one episode to inspire confidence to check out the rest of the series... and frankly I'm in no hurry.
The one surviving episode features Pauly getting swooned by a woman who happened to be a co-star for the golddigger's adult film days, and the golddigger threw her his way to keep him from ruining her plan to get a celebrity spokesperson for a vein cause.
I saw this episode once, and recently as well. Nothing stuck with me from it, not even Pauly's obnoxious comedy. Would it be good or bad that I forgot about Pauly Shore in this? I can piece together fragments of most of the characters, and the only one I forgot cold turkey was David Dukes' character.
Basically, what unites Pauly and the golddigger is that the faux fiance the latter found intends to exploit Pauly's father in order to live lavishly for the rest of her life, so the latter's celebrity spokesperson deal comes into play. Previously, she sent her son (and by extent Pauly's stepbrother) to find a schoolmate with a celebrity parent.
What did we get out of that? Erik Estrada, though to be fair this is a better gig than what he did on Cool Cat Saves the Kids. They had tried to find a fake celebrity to get rid of the fiance, but Estrada wasn't it, and they're left with a fake Michael Jackson.
Basically, Pauly's attitude makes up a bulk of the episode, they make some attempt at visual humor, but I could only recall one gag from the cold open. Maybe deep down I really hate Pauly Shore and I blocked this episode from my memory. And since this is a comedy with no grounded continuity, it's just a matter of one episode to inspire confidence to check out the rest of the series... and frankly I'm in no hurry.
Overall
This is another one of those short-ass-fuck reviews, or as I'd like to call it, another reminder that something existed. So, is there anything nice I could say about this show? Well the intro was good, and given Pauly's level of comedy it's saying a hell of a lot. I didn't quit the episode early so I guess I was able to stomach Pauly throughout, then again I'm in no hurry to see the episode again.
Now this leaves one of those ever famous questions. Is this worse than The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer? Honestly, no. Why compare both shows? Again, created by duos who worked on The Golden Girls.
At the very least, Pauly was just a thing of its own, a vehicle for a comedian who had been on thin ice at this point. It was a shot at the dark for him to regain some footing in the comedy industry, and did it prevail? Well sorta. He tried his hand at voice acting and some lesser known family films, but he didn't get as lucky as Adam Sandler (say what you will, but Sandler knows what he's doing). Pfeiffer went on an offensive route and did nothing to commentate on it. Plus its comedy sucked ass.
Perhaps it's for the best that this series remains obscure, Shore has gone through enough grief as is, because at the end of the day, he didn't appear in Norm of the North.
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