'Big Time in Hollywood, FL': Meet Your New Cult Favorite Comedy
The two brothers in Big Time in Hollywood, FL want to be movie-makers. This pair of adult slackers film scenes in the dark of their parents’ garage, and of course Mom and Dad mess things up by pulling into the driveway and hitting the electric door — the blinding Florida sun pours in and ruins the shot. The guys yell at their parents. They scheme and dream. They’re two goofballs with no taste, and it’s the clever way creators Alex Anfanger and Dan Schimpf show us their tastelessness that makes this new 10-episode series on Comedy Central so funny.
The brothers, Jack and Ben, played by Anfanger and Lenny Jacobson, take advantage of their parents, played by wonderful actors Kathy Baker and Stephen Tobolowsky. Jack and Ben beg them for money and don’t have paying jobs. Early on, Mom and Dad tell them they have to move out. But they’re in the midst of shooting a horrible Scarface rip-off starring a former drug addict turned 12-step lecturer and actor — he’s played by Ben Stiller, one of Big Time’s producers — and something awful happens.
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Another show would just use the Stiller character and the awfulness that befalls him for a one-episode joke, but Big Time uses it as a wily jumping-off point for an ongoing plot that becomes ever more complex, eventually involving guest stars such as Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Michael Madsen as a sleazy private eye.
By episode three, Big Time in Hollywood, FL is offering a used-car salesmen subplot that’s one of the best depictions of cheerful venality I’ve seen in a while. Deceptively loose and shambling, Big Time is one of those shows — like the show it follows, Workaholics — that’s going to quickly attract a cult following. Get in on it now.
Big Time in Hollywood, FL airs Wednesday nights at 10:30 p.m. on Comedy Central.
