Review of Clark and Michael

Clark Duke and Michael Cera, of the sadly defunct Arrested Development, star in the CBS-sponsored comedy mini-series, Clark and Michael. The ten-episode series debuted in May 2007, in which the actors play themselves attempting to peddle their script in an unreceptive Hollywood.

In the style of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Clark and Michael follows a now-basic formula for the sophisticated adult sitcom—awkward showbiz hi-jinks mixed with unpredictable improvisation. Add to that a faux reality show premise in which a camera crew tracks our awkward, delusional duo and with three deceptively simple ingredients you’ve got a hilarious, hilarious show. The key is the performance of the lead actors—despite each looking about twelve years-old Duke and Cera play off one another perfectly, with shy, quick tempered Michael (in episode five he freaks out in a video rental store when he learns it doesn’t carry Touched By an Angel) complementing overconfident, blustering Clark.

Since the series often diverges from its original script-pitching premise, in which Clark and Michael are summarily rejected and/or screwed by the studio heads to whom they try to sell their script, the protagonists’ chemistry and absurd actions get the show through some fairly standard situations (friendship break-ups, driving school, meeting girls, etc.) For instance, in episode four

, Michael’s girlfriend breaks up with him. Clark offers condolence by mocking the shape of her posterior: “You had to be sick of putting your —- in that leather vacuum, anyway. Like a hairy elevator.” Clark and Michael delivers this kind of raunchy, silly humor in spades. The website also contains a Clark and Michael blog, photo gallery, and photo diary to for fans craving some extras.

Episode three is my favorite. Its centerpiece is a meeting between Clark and Michael and their “superagent” Ramsay. When Michael guesses Ramsay loved their script the latter interjects, “I didn’t like it, and let me tell you why I didn’t like it. I didn’t read your script, my reader read your script, and didn’t like. It wasn’t that there wasn’t talent in the writing of it, because there wasn’t. It wasn’t that the characters weren’t there, and they weren’t. It was because it was offensive to the Chinese.”