Reheated Sitcoms Boil Off Laughs

Just in time to break up the monotony of rerun season comes ... a show in which an ensemble troupe reenacts old sitcoms.

“The Rerun Show,” premiering tonight at 9:30 on NBC before shifting to Tuesdays, plays like a pair of tiring “Saturday Night Live” sketches. Each episode condenses two “word-for-word” scripts from 1960s, ‘70s or ‘80s sitcoms into 11-minute skits, using a talented newcomer cast that earns a few chuckles but can’t overcome the strained premise.

Tonight’s episode brings “The Partridge Family” and “Diff’rent Strokes” back to life. Guest Danny Bonaduce reprises his Danny Partridge role, crafting a jealousy scheme to woo a transfer student. In the “Diff’rent Strokes” skit, Arnold (Candy Ford walking on her knees, in the Gary Coleman role) and Willis (Don Reed in the Todd Bridges part) vie for the heart of a schoolmate (Daniele Gaither).

“The Rerun Show” tries for easy laughs with fat jokes, height jokes, enough innuendo for its TV-14 rating, and winking nods to the downfalls of former child stars such as Bridges (mug shots adorn the “Diff’rent Strokes” house, for example). What it lacks is the ease and simple incongruity of that bit on “The Late Show With David Letterman” in which two of Dave’s gruff, stone-faced stagehands read snippets of “Oprah” transcripts.

Different strokes, indeed.