‘Wayne Brady Show’ Can Be Funny but Ragged

Remember that endangered species, the variety show? ABC is giving one a late-summer tumble, launching “The Wayne Brady Show” tonight with a back-to-back pair of uneven 30-minute episodes whose likable young star--a comic/impressionist/dancer--is more promising than his new series.

Some of this raggedly stitched-together hour will be familiar to those who know Brady from his work on ABC’s “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Only this time he is backed by his own comedy ensemble, dancers and band, while getting to address the camera as host and speak from the studio audience in drag, as his grandmother.

Brady is a superior mimic. He does a world-class Stevie Wonder, and tonight also provides what could be TV’s first impression of Cartman from “South Park.” It’s just a taste.

Brady is devastatingly funny as singer James Brown answering a 911 call and later helping “talk down” an amateur pilot.

He scores big also as a Shaquille O’Neal superhero and as Chris Rock starring in “Annie.” (“If Daddy Warbucks is so rich, why don’t he buy Annie some pupils?”) Credit the writing along with Brady.

Elsewhere, however, results are spare. The show’s improv bits don’t click at all (or seem very improvisational), nor do a boy band parody, other short sketches and the grandmotherly sequences, Brady’s family values notwithstanding.

If ABC is so rich, why don’t it buy him better material?

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“The Wayne Brady Show” premieres at 8 tonight on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG-L (may be unsuitable for young children, with an advisory for language).