Sounds like Lucky Louie might be based on The Honeymooners, Ralph Cramdon was also the child character.

I'd like to say that New England (NE) is the country's coolest area right now, but not so much. Having just moved north of Boston to Newburyport, I have to say although the quiet is bliss--no neighbors up at 3am and no church choir blasting through our windows nightly--the mosquitos are killer here in the suburbs, and no matter what you're watching on HBO, whether it be crappy recent re-runs of the Sopranos, brilliant year old re-runs of Six Feet Under, or these new fangled shows that like to keep Stephanie what's her name watching, NE is very much under a heat wave of its own. Between the tunnels collapsing and killing people to the crime rate to the low population, I'd have to say I'm missing NYC right about now. Either way, don't have the misconception that NE is cool with locals playing croquet... because it's locals eating ice cream and going to bed at 9:30pm, which by my city standards is horrifying.

I've been watching this show since the start, & the first thing I noticed was that the bare bones set was very reminiscent of "The Honeymooners". The bedroom door is even on the left side of the screen, although the entrance is on the right, instead of on the the rear wall as in Ralph & Trixie's apartment. The viewer has to pay atention to the characters & not focus on the "landscape".

The characters talk like real people...foul language & all.

The only sitcom on the broadcast nerworks that has approached this level of honesty is "Roseanne". Kim's character is supposed to be nurse but their standard of living doesn't seem to reflect the money she is earning; maybe RNs don't make $20.00-$30.00 an hour in her city. Do they live in New York? I can't recall the location being mentioned.

I think it's a well written show & Iim glad to see this genre on HBO.

We wanted an adult, taped-live comedy to work. So, my wife Barb and I watched every episode. We're waiting for an award for our task.

We have given up on Lucky Louie!

I, a 59 year-old whose construction and military background certainly inured me to any reticence to spew profanity, can't believe that the writers(?) got comedy and profanity mixed up. They seem to think that "Fuck!" is the world's funniest joke and "shit" comes in a very close second on their comedic scale.

At times, it seems apparent that cast members are inwardly cringing at the lines they must quote. (One giveaway to me is the fact that, with some of the most egregiously scatological, but non-germane, burst of prose, the cast member who was given the degrading task of screaming "pussy" or "cock" out to the accompaniment of a flashing "Applaud You Assholes" sign before the audience suddenly shouts the entire line out at about double the already loud ambient level of inane "Lucky Louie" conversation. (Just because you decide to use a live audience does not mean one should "project" as if microphones weren't yet invented and you're on a stage with poor acoustics and your audience resides in the next State.)

If someone could force those idiots on the FCC to watch a few Lucky Louie horrors, followed by a few Deadwood episodes, they might learn that expletives are sometimes obscene and pornographic additions to an already failed recipe, but sometimes they are the spice that adds some extraordinary ( and factually honest}flavor to the dish.

I can't help but be reminded of Justice Potter Stewart's famous quote regarding obscenity/pornography in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964)(Stewart, J., concurring): "I know it when I see it."/

I've seen Lucky Louie. Had Justice Stewart reviewed the HBO lame comedy, he would surely

"know it."

Heather misses the point of the show; it's not All in the Family, it's The Honeymooners, only completely raw and uncensored. It's actually almost the exact same formula.

There's the dumb working class guy and his shitty apartment and his idiot friends and his contempt for his life, always to be overcome by his undying love for his dish of a wife who for some reason tolerates him. Their troubles never overcome their committment to one another. And of course, the humor is generously laced throughout and slathered on top. With Louie it's more direct and course, a sign of the times, but remarkably similar.

Lucky Louie is truly groundbreaking stuff that, for this ancient adolescent, is the best show to come around in decades.

"Look, fat losers in a shitty apartment who say "fuck" a lot. I relate because it's the story of my life!"

Does it get any easier than this to hand out signs to people?

I can't fathom the relatively good reviews "Lucky Louie" has received. Remove the "potty mouth" language, as it is so coyly called, and you are left with a nitwit situation comedy (with an equally nitwit live audience) that's trite, crude, unimaginative and most noitably of all, NOT FUNNY. If this turkey had appeard on a commercial network you'd have dismissed it for the crap that it is.

best show to watch rapidly on DVD. My friend got me hooked on it in the 3rd season so I had to go and buy the mini-series and the 1st and 2nd seasons. Watched them all over a period of 2 days when I had the flu.

I have to agree with your take on Lucky Louie. I'm not sure if we're supposed to surmise that it's really cool to say fuck, i.e. saying fuck with the underlying sense that your expected reaction is "Wow! She just said fuck!" or if the writer's just think that all low-income people speak in this manner.

But I love the realism of the show - one of the reasons that I have always avoided having children is my apprehension that they would turn out to be "fucking assholes." It is comforting to know that this is not an unusual fear.

Lori