A Late-Night Snack With ‘Zach’

It’s been nearly a month since VH1, on a renewed mission to become something more than an anonymous video jukebox, handed the keys to a half-hour time slot to one Zach Galifianakis.

“Late Night With Zach” (weeknights at 11), an irreverent talk-variety show aimed at older teens and young adults, was seen by the cable channel as a means of developing an identity with viewers, part of the “New Face of VH1” promotion. For Galifianakis, a comedian and sometime actor (“Boston Common,” “Bubble Boy”), it was his game to lose.

VH1 wasn’t sticking its neck out too far, of course. The spartan set is little more than warehouse space, and after all the Acura, Audi and Intel commercials are subtracted, it seems as if Zach and his guests have all of 10 minutes to show their stuff. Fortunately, on most nights, they are up to the task.

The program puts a updated spin on the anarchic, anything-might-happen vibe of the old “Late Night With David Letterman” show, before that host left NBC’s clubby confines and began shouting his way to also-ran status at CBS in the cavernous Ed Sullivan Theater. Although not as glib as Letterman, Galifianakis generates some of the same intimate, late-night appeal. Even the usually amusing filmed bits have a Letterman-esque lunacy.

With his tousled hair, two-day stubble and a wardrobe out of the studied slovenliness school, Zach delivers a nightly monologue skewering Hollywood or current events, parries with an actor or two and a hip-squared musical guest, and then sends the studio audience into the night with some Zached-out observations.

It’s a watchable, deceptively neat package that only figures to get better.