Comedy Deserves a Green Light

Leave it to Denis Leary to put things into sarcastic perspective. On the heels of Fox’s “American Idol” and its ilk arrives Comedy Central’s “Contest Searchlight,” a self-described documentary whose premiere tonight at 10:30 seems too funny to be true.

The cable channel earnestly calls it a behind-the-scenes look at the development of a comedy series, to be directed by the winner of a contest held by Leary’s production firm. The first four episodes focus on the creative process, to be followed in January with six installments of the winning series, according to the media notes. If this sounds suspiciously like “Project: Greenlight’s” filmmaking foray on HBO, it is. Or it isn’t, depending on whom you ask and when.

“ ‘Contest Searchlight’ was a completely original idea by Denis Leary,” executive producer Jim Serpico says, just as the scene switches to Leary swearing at his staff for dragging him into this crazy idea. Later, Leary protests that the show is not like “Greenlight” at all.

But soon he and his executive-producing partner in crime (Lenny Clarke, with whom Leary was teamed on ABC’s dear departed police comedy “The Job”) are saying they were inspired by the HBO series. “We’re like the Japanese.... We steal a good idea and improve on it,” Clarke says.

Leary plays his acerbic, profane shtick to a T as he and his cohorts struggle to get the project off the ground. To ease their anxiety, they down mass quantities of the sponsoring alcoholic beverage, another jab at “Greenlight.”

This “contest” includes 10 stereotypical semifinalists. Beautiful, spacey Amber pitches a show about four friends--and multiple incarnations of Jesus (“Jesi!” Leary interjects)--living in New York; dashiki-wearing Dwight boils everything down to race; and uber-yuppie A.D. stresses about the shame of failure.

Everything, from the characterizations to the camerawork, is just a bit too smooth to be considered real, but who cares when it’s this much fun?