A smart show about dumb stuff

WHEN VH1’s “Best Week Ever” debuted in 2004, some critics viewed the show an unfortunate byproduct of the network’s many incarnations of the nostalgia-heavy “I Love the . . .” series. After the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s were picked apart and reminisced about, what was left to be dissected but last week? Some talking heads bemoaned the program as a symbol of the country’s collective short attention span and television’s lack of originality. After all, why come up with new material when you can just comment snidely on old stuff? Others felt that the network was simply taking a dead horse of a format and beating it until things got really unpleasant.

Well, those who disdain pop culture as being a sugary, fizzy mess full of empty calories may still look down upon the show. But for the rest of us -- that, is, Americans who enjoy their pop culture with a big grain of salt -- “Best Week Ever” (9 p.m. Fridays) continues to be a sharply funny and smart show.

In some superficial ways, the show does resemble its VH1 predecessors: quick and colorful cuts, “talking-head” comedians and performers weighing in on various pop culture nuggets with opinions and satire. And like the “I Love the . . .” shows, it aims to provide a CliffsNotes edition of the past: It’s the perfect recap in the week of pop culture for someone who has been in another country, or maybe another planet, for the last several days. “While you were winning the Nobel Prize, Al Gore, here’s what you missed!” is one of the lead-ins to the show that changes from week to week.

Each episode leads in with pop culture news, touching recently on topics such as Marie Osmond’s fainting on “Dancing With the Stars,” the outing of the character Dumbledore in “Harry Potter” and the wildfires in California. What’s best about the show is when its commentators, largely made up of New York comedians, sink their teeth into the material. Mocking the media’s obsession that celebrity homes were not immune to the fires, frequent contributor Paul F. Tompkins asked, “You’re telling me celebrities don’t have control of the elements? I thought that when there was a mudslide, Cher would hold out her hand and go, ‘Hold, foul earth. I command thee!’ ”

“Best Week Ever” is the rare show that caters to smart people who have a fondness for dumb things. Take, for example, “The Sizzler” segment, a celebrity-gossip roundup (think babies, weddings, breakups, fights) with punny writing and with the surrealistically manic host, Chuck Nice, mocking other entertainment shows such as “The Insider.”

Part of “Best Week Ever’s” charm is that the commentators seem like people you might know (granted, more camera-friendly and derisively funny) instead of the breathless, hysterical, cheesy celebrity reporting we see everywhere including “Access Hollywood,” “The View” and the “Today” show.

Another appealing element of the show is that no bit of amusing pop culture news, if it’s weird or stupid enough, is too small. While shows such as “Entertainment Tonight” may be interested in covering only the most major celebrities, “Best Week Ever” also champions stars of obscure television shows and Internet phenomenons, such as Tay Zonday, the songwriter whose tune “Chocolate Rain” swept YouTube a few months ago.

For audience members not too proud to indulge in trashy celebrity talk but not too stupid to believe every line fed to them by publicists, “Best Week Ever” helpfully points out some of the more idiotic current events in pop culture. Things you might not believe actually happened, such as when “The View’s” co-host Sherri Shepherd allowed that maybe the Earth is flat or that a “Survivor: China” challenge involved giant chopsticks, a wok and fireworks. Recently, the comedy duo Frangela questioned the wisdom of Britney Spears deciding to give her video for “Gimme More” a stripper theme during a custody battle for her kids, offering alternate suggestions: “An ‘I’m tucking my kids into bed’ video?’ ” or a “making a nutritious meal” video.

The Nov. 16 episode, meanwhile, hilariously augured a grim future for television without writers during this strike, featuring possible programming ideas (a 30-day weather forecast!) and a James Lipton sendup called “Inside the Non-Actor’s Studio,” wherein comedian Jessica St. Clair interviewed New York, the eponymous VH1 reality-show personality from “I Love New York.” It included a Proust questionnaire that both began and ended with a profanity. (“Best Week Ever” is unaffected by the strike, by the way: Its writers are not guild-represented.)

Clearly, the “Best Week Ever” writers have an opinion when it comes to insipid celebrities, bad-mothering pop tarts and even labor relations. So what is it that keeps the show from becoming too cutting or holier-than-thou? Its very existence. If those involved with the program found pop culture to be too shallow to comment upon, they would move on to other arenas, such as global news, literature or politics -- things that, you know, have never been sullied by something so common as scandal, intrigue or pettiness.