Being a fan of both The Daily Show and Family Guy, I’ve been looking forward to The Winner and tonight’s pilot did not disappoint me. Family Guy creators Seth MacFarlane and Ricky Blitt successfully bring their oddball humor to the show’s main character, Glen Abbott, and I think there is no one better to portray the 32-year old loser than Daily Show expatriate Rob Corddry.First off, I love how the show is set in 1994. The subtle (and not so subtle) 90’s references cracked me up, among them Glen’s Party of Five mention and of course, the O.J. Simpson car chase. I think one of the funnier lines in tonight’s pilot was Glen’s mom, Irene (Linda Hart), declaring that O.J. “couldn’t hurt a fly,” rivaled only by Allison (Erinn Hayes) noting that Clinton “seems to be a good family man.” I love how the writers intentionally take us back to 1994 through these references and I’m excited to see more of them as the series continues....
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Fox, which does well with animated comedies, is overdue a live-action winner. The network may finally have found one in the unlikely form of a balding, bumbling, giggling, socially maladroit perpetual adolescent named Glen Abbott, who is also the season's most original comic hero.
Like Glen, The Winner (premiering Mar. 4 at 8:30 pm/ET) is deeply silly, endearingly sweet, a little creepy and undeniably weird. Told in flashbacks to 1994, this is the story of how, at the overripe age of 32, Glen (The Daily Show's Rob Corddry) awakens from life with Mom and Dad at home, where he has cultivated an unnatural fascination with the sitcom Wings.
New neighbors provide the catalyst for Glen's long-delayed coming of age, which he tells us in voice-over will lead him to become the richest man in Buffalo. Alison (the winsome Erinn Hayes
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