★★★★★ 0/5

The Hard Times of R.J. Berger

"Dude, you have something every guy in school would kill for." R.J. is a little guy with a huge appendage, and he instantly goes from zero to hero in MTV's new comedy.

10
Leave a comment

“I have more pairs of glasses than friends,” admits R.J. Berger.

R.J. (Paul Iacono) is a slightly less-than-average teenage boy at Pinkerton High School in Ohio, hovering around the lower rungs of classroom heirarchy. His partner in crime is a slovenly dude by the name of Miles (Jareb Dauplaise). They pass the time fantasising over the hot girl in class Jenny Swanson (Amber Lancaster), trying not to get beat up by school jocks and declining the zealous advances of the equally geeky Lily (Kara Taitz).

R.J. is a perfect lovable loser. He spends much of the time on the outside of high-school life looking in, and displays more maturity than his frisky but square parents. He quickly joins some of pop culture’s smart teens such as Ferris Bueller and Wonder Years‘ Kevin Arnold.

With not much going for him, his status takes a turn for the better when his secret weapon is unexpectedly revealed.

During a high school basketball game, R.J. is caught with his pants down before the entire fraternity. But their shock quickly turns from laughter to awe. R.J. is a little guy with a huge appendage. He’s hung. He’s an instant legend.

But while Miles is overjoyed at his friend’s manhood (“We’re saved!” he declares), R.J. is less enthusiastic.

“It’s a curse,” he explains, before detailing how a session of oral sex went awry with one of the high school girls.

“I almost killed her dude.”

But Miles will have none of it.

“Dude, you have something every guy in school would kill for.”

“That may be,” says R.J, “but they still find a way to tear me down.”

This MTV series will undoubtedly be compared to HBO’s Hung, but it’s tone is much sweeter. Like that show its best assets lay beyond its racy premise.

The half hour, single camera comedy draws upon fangtasy scenes and animation sequences -R.J. is a skilled artist. R.J. is endowed with attributes beyond his capacity, making this an awkwardly enjoyable coming (!) of age tale. The dialogue is wry, and Paul Iacono never overplays his role.

We’ve seen a lot of teenage films from America that attempt sexually driven storylines, but they trade on caricatures. Few play it as subtly as this series and not many have someone in the lead as strong as Iacono.

This is a promising debut.

After its premiere season on MTV this comedy will get an airing on GO!

The Hard Times of R.J. Berger premieres 8:30pm Thursday on MTV.

10 Responses

  1. I downloaded the premiere ep off iTunes and after the first ten minutes, I thought “this is just a try-hard version of Superbad. But I kept watching, and by the end found myself laughing constantly. It’s a great show and I’ll definitely keep tuning in.

  2. You can download the pilot episode for free on itunes. It was a good show better then a thought it would be i would like to see more shows like this on MTV not crap like The Hills, The City, Super Sweet 16 etc.

  5. Have not seen this show can not wait untill it premiers on GO!. This show could go two ways a) it could help people ie “nobody” students at high school get some confidents in the fact that a nobody became a somebody (even though it was through his apendige) or b) it could give people who dont have a big size apendige even more a reason to run and hide and feel even more self consious. This show could have a positive or an negative effect. A bit dicy

  6. if you want to judge an entire series based solely on the pilot episode –
    I am sure there are alot of great shows you must have missed out on…

  9. I found Hard Times to be a horrid little mess of a show that lacked the humanity, the cleverness and especially the laughs of the last great raunchy high school series The Inbetweeners.

Leave a Reply