"$#*! My Dad Says:" William Shatner Stands Alone in New CBS Sitcom
NEW YORK (CBS) More than a million people follow Justin Halpern, the son who chronicles the hilarious philosophical musings of his 74-year-old grousing father, on Twitter, but will those same people get hooked on the TV show adaptation?
"$#*! My Dad Says," the CBS comedy based on Halpern's Twitter feed, premiered Thursday and proved that it takes a lot more than casting William Shatner to successfully migrate a web property to TV.
The show focuses on the relationship between Shatner, who plays Ed Goodson (the sitcom version of Halpern's dad), a grumpy old man filled with offensive quotes, and his son, Henry, played by Jonathan Sadowski.
In the pilot episode, Henry, a struggling and strapped-for-cash magazine writer, is forced to move in with his father. As he builds enough courage to knock on his father's front door, Ed, thinking there was an intruder, bursts out with a shotgun and yells, "Guts or nuts, your choice!"
In a mix of barking one-liners and a few jokes referring to the male genital, Shatner is the only one that stands out and seems to be pulling the majority of the weight of the show.
Reviews for the show were pretty mixed. The Los Angeles Times says Shatner "gets better mileage from a Priceline commercial," while the Wall Street Journal said it was a "very watchable show with writing that produces gems of unexpected humor."
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