TV Reviews : ‘Heroes’: Smart Writing, Dopey Characters

Its four male buddies are borderline bozos, single adults still wallowing in adolescence. They pull juvenile pranks and spend their free time ogling females in a neighborhood tavern-eatery and extolling the joys of bachelorhood. In real life, you’d keep your distance, just in case they get into a food fight.

Yet Fox’s new “Local Heroes” is that rare comedy that regularly makes you laugh out loud. Most of its characters tilt toward dopey, but its writing by executive producer Frank Mula is consistently smart and funny.

Jake (Jake Bartholomew) and Stosh (Jason Kristofer) are the least humanoid of these blue-collar pals-since-high-school. Easier to take are Mert (Justin Louis), who resists marriage pressure from his girlfriend, Bonnie (Kristin Dattilo-Hayward), and Eddie (Ken Hudson Campbell), a young, short-fused Ralph Kramden who is endlessly irritated by his mother (Rhonda Gemignani) and sister (Tricia Vessey).

The group’s designated sisterly female buddy is Gloria, the barmaid-waitress (Paula Cale).

Campbell and Cale seem especially in tune with the sharpness of the material, which is sprinkled with ambush punch lines. In one scene, Gloria gives Bonnie advice on how to deal with Mert’s balking at matrimony. “I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told my mother about my father. If he’s not going to marry you, drop him.”

Heroes, no. Heroic writing, yes.

* “Local Heroes” premieres Sunday at 9:30 p.m. on Fox (Channel 11).