Welcome to the joys of being old and retired, and still acting like you’re in high school. Fox has ordered a pilot of the show Cool Kids to be put into production featuring the trio from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, and Glenn Howerton, along with Kevin Abbot. What we know so far is that the show will be about three friends, all old men, who are the top dogs in a retirement home setting when they’re suddenly disrupted by a newcomer that challenges all that they know and essentially comes in with a rebellious, devil-may-care attitude that will set all of them on their heels.
The show sounds like something that could be insanely funny, or just insane. It’s hard to tell at this moment but if the pilot is successful it could be the TV version of Grumpy Old Men in a way. Of course the humor might be a lot different but it will still be something that might be worth a watch and even a second look. The Always Sunny trio could definitely spark some real life into the show and also bring it up to a respectable level of comedy that could make it a workable deal.
Any idea that works with the premise of using the elderly as comedy however does need to watch how they portray certain aspects and should probably take into account a level of realism that will be desired. Older folks that might watch this show will want to see a good accounting of their age group most likely and won’t take kindly to being made fun of in a way that suggests that they’re infirm or in any way fully dependent on other people. Those living in retirement homes are after all usually quite healthy and able to move about on their own. The idea of living in a retirement home usually comes along when an elder is living all alone and is beginning to feel the press of their years as they find that they aren’t able to do as much as they once did in their youth.
This offers up a lot in the way of comedy since the alternative is to give into the level of depression that many people tend to feel when they can no longer perform certain functions that used to be simple. That’s why the show needs to really watch what it considers to be worthy comedy versus what might be overly offensive. There are a great many people out there with a stupendous sense of humor that can laugh at just about anything. And the bar for humor is pretty low so there are a lot of times that it’s basically ‘anything goes’. But there still has to be some measure of decorum in the show just to make certain that it’s a hit.
I mean come on, we had Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men and those two movies were absolute hits. Why wouldn’t a show about living in a retirement home be capable of being funny?
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