dvdjamm
All Star
When the universe closes a door, it opens a window. On December 12, Comedy Central confirmed the cancellation of “Detroiters,” a joyous comedy co-starring and co-created by Sam Richardson. On December 13, YouTube Premium released the first season of “Champaign ILL,” co-starring Richardson and co-created with David Caspe (“Happy Endings”) and a slew of his former writers.
“Champaign ILL” isn’t quite the second coming of “Detroiters” — its black comic elements stemmed from characters more jaded than Sam (Richardson) and Tim (Tim Robinson) ever were — but the two shows share more than Richardson’s increasingly bankable charms. They both rely on chemistry and creativity, track two best friends who rely on their artistic prowess to succeed in life, and take their show titles from the Midwest. (“Champaign ILL” references Champaign, Illinois, home of the University of Illinois and the best gosh darn Italian restaurant West of New York.)
Most significantly, the new buddy comedy is an absurd, fun, and fresh spin on adults stuck in arrested development. Kicking off in 2003, “Champaign ILL” introduces Ronnie (Adam Pally), Alf (Sam Richardson), and Lou (Jay Pharoah) as three best friends who just graduated high school. Ronnie is a “certified genius” with plans to go to Yale and start a non-profit. Alf insists he’s going to marry his third-grade sweetheart, and Lou has a secret: He just signed a recording contract to become the next hip-hop superstar. Though nothing is guaranteed — as his cohorts quickly remind Lou — he’s heading to Miami to put down his first album and asks his friends to come along for the ride.
Thinking they can defer college for a year without any damage, they agree. Next thing you know, it’s 15 years later, Lou has hit the big time, and Ronnie and Alf have been totally corrupted by the fame and fortune provided by their friend. Selfish, image obsessed, and sporting some seriously questionable hairstyles, they have become so wrapped up in Lou’s luxe world they forgot to grow up and become their own men.
Through a blunt and nicely timed twist not to be spoiled here, Ronnie and Alf soon find themselves broke, adrift, and “slumming it” in their respective parents’ houses back in Champaign. After bouncing between Miami and Paris for $40,000 dinners, the quaint confines of suburban Illinois feel a tad, well, confining. Will the two men languish without the lucrative support of their peer, or rediscover and realize the potential they had before the mooching began?
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