''Lucky Louie'' is an American television

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

created by

Louis C.K. Louis Alfred Székely (; born September 12, 1967), known professionally as Louis C.K. (), is an American stand-up comedian, screenwriter, actor, and filmmaker. C.K. won three Peabody Awards, three Grammy Awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and a ...

, which aired on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

in the U.S. for one season in 2006 — and in Canada on

Movie Central Movie Central (occasionally abbreviated as "MC", mostly in program guides) was a Canadian English language Category A premium cable and satellite television channel that was owned by Corus Entertainment. Movie Central was designated to operate ...

The Movie Network Crave (formerly The Movie Network or TMN) is a Canadian premium television network and streaming service owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc. Launched in 1983 as the national service First Choice, early difficulties and a subsequent ...

, and

The Comedy Network CTV Comedy Channel (often shortened to CTV Comedy and formerly known as The Comedy Network) is a Canadian English-language specialty channel owned by Bell Media which focuses primarily on comedy programming. The channel first launched on Octo ...

. As the show's creator, writer and executive producer, C.K. also starred as the eponymous central character, a part-time

mechanic A mechanic is an artisan, skilled tradesperson, or technician who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially cars. Duties Most mechanics specialize in a particular field, such as auto body mechanics, air conditioning and r ...

at a muffler shop. A first for HBO, ''Lucky Louie'' was filmed before a live

studio audience A studio audience is an audience present for the recording of all or part of a television program or radio program. The primary purpose of the studio audience is to provide applause and/or laughter to the program's soundtrack (as opposed to canned ...

, in a

multiple-camera setup The multiple-camera setup, multiple-camera mode of production, multi-camera or simply multicam is a method of filmmaking and video production. Several cameras—either film or professional video cameras—are employed on the set and simultaneous ...

. Inspired by

Norman Lear Norman Milton Lear (born July 27, 1922) is an American producer and screenwriter, who has produced, written, created, or developed over 100 shows. Lear is known for many popular 1970s sitcoms, including the multi-award winning ''All in the Famil ...

s, the show depicts the life of an average

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

family while using spartan sets and wardrobe. Dealing with a range of topics including

sex Sex is the trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing animal or plant produces male or female gametes. Male plants and animals produce smaller mobile gametes (spermatozoa, sperm, pollen), while females produce larger ones (ova, oft ...

and

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, the series uses considerable

adult language Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, rud ...

and featured guest stars best known as

stand-up comedians Stand-up comedy is a comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of one-liners, stories, ...

, including Jim Norton,

Laura Kightlinger Laura Kightlinger (born June 13, 1964) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She was a writer and consulting producer on ''Will & Grace'', while also occasionally appearing on the show as the character Nurse Sheila. She was also a write ...

Nick DiPaolo Nick may refer to: * Nick (given name) * A cricket term for a slight deviation of the ball off the edge of the bat * British slang for being arrested * British slang for a police station * British slang for stealing * Short for nickname Places ...

Todd Barry Todd or Todds may refer to: Places ;Australia: * Todd River, an ephemeral river ;United States: * Todd Valley, California, also known as Todd, an unincorporated community * Todd, Missouri, a ghost town * Todd, North Carolina, an unincorporated ...

and

Rick Shapiro Rick Shapiro (born April 13, 1959) is a Los Angeles-based comedian and actor. Life and career Shapiro was born in New Jersey. Spending his early years in New York City and New Jersey, Shapiro started his career in the early 1980s as a comedian ...

. HBO ordered 12 episodes, which aired during the 2006 summer season, as well as eight scripts for a second season, before canceling the show in September 2006 — for numerous reasons ranging from the nature of the show to network economic pressure.

Plot

The show follows the life of Louie, a

part-time

at a

muffler A muffler (North American and Australian English) or silencer (British English) is a device for reducing the noise emitted by the exhaust of an internal combustion engine—especially a noise-deadening device forming part of the exhaust sys ...

shop owned by his best friend Mike; Louie's wife, Kim, a full-time

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

and the family breadwinner (

Pamela Adlon Pamela Fionna Adlon (; ; born July 9, 1966) is an American actress. She is known for voicing Bobby Hill in the animated comedy series ''King of the Hill'' (1997–2010), for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award. She also voiced Baloo in ''Jungl ...

); and their four-year-old daughter, Lucy (

Kelly Gould Kelly Victoria Gould is an American former child actress. She is known for her role as Shannon Clemens on the Lifetime original comedy series ''Rita Rocks'', and as Lucy on the HBO sitcom ''Lucky Louie''. Gould appeared in many television serie ...

Cast

Crew

served as creator, star, head writer and executive producer.

Mike Royce Mike Royce (born 1964) is an American Screenwriting, screenwriter and television producer. Education Raised in Syracuse, New York, Royce graduated from Jamesville-Dewitt High School in 1982, then went on to film school at Ithaca College where he ...

served as showrunner and executive producer. Other executive producers included Dave Becky and Vic Kaplan. Writers included C.K. and Royce, Kit Boss (co-executive producer), Patricia Breen (executive story editor), Jon Ross (executive story editor), Mary Fitzgerald (staff writer),

Greg Fitzsimmons Gregory Sebastian Fitzsimmons (born April 5, 1966) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, producer and radio host. He hosted ''The Greg Fitzsimmons Show'' on Howard 101 until December 2018. Life and early career Fitzsimmons was born in New Y ...

(staff writer),

Dan Mintz Daniel Alexander Mintz (born September 25, 1981) is an American actor, comedian, and writer best known for his role as Bob's oldest daughter Tina Belcher on the animated show ''Bob's Burgers''. As a comedian, he is known for his extremely deadp ...

(staff writer),

Dino Stamatopoulos Konstantinos Pollux Alexandros "Dino" Stamatopoulos (born December 14, 1964) is an American writer, producer, and actor. He has worked on TV programs such as ''Mr. Show'', ''TV Funhouse'', ''Mad TV'', ''The Dana Carvey Show'', ''Late Show with ...

(writer), and

Aaron Shure Aaron Shure is an American television writer, director, and producer. He is known for his work on several comedy series, including ''The Office'', ''Everybody Loves Raymond'', ''Lucky Louie'', ''George and Leo'', ''and The New Adventures of Old ...

(consulting producer), formerly of ''

Everybody Loves Raymond ''Everybody Loves Raymond'' is an American sitcom television series created by Philip Rosenthal that aired on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005, with a total of 210 episodes spanning nine seasons. It was produced by Where's Lunch and ...

''. The theme, entitled "Lucky Louie Theme", was composed by Mark Rivers. The animated title sequence was by David Tristman. Andrew D. Weyman served as the series' main director. Producers on the show were Leo Clarke and Andrew D. Weyman. The associate producer was Ralph Paredes. and the consulting producer was Tracy Katsky.

Episodes

Critical reception

''Lucky Louie'' received mixed reviews from critics and holds a

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

score of 47 out of 100 based on 19 reviews.

Home media

HBO released the entire series of ''Lucky Louie'' on January 30, 2007.retrieved December 10, 2006
It includes an unaired episode "Clowntime is Over". The DVD also includes four commentaries and a look at the taping of an episode.

Criticism

In August 2006, during the show's run,

Bill Donohue William Anthony Donohue (born July 18, 1947) is an American Roman Catholic who has been president of the Catholic League (U.S.), Catholic League in the United States since 1993. Life and career Donohue was born in the borough of Manhattan in ...

, president of the American organization

Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, often shortened to the Catholic League, is an American Catholic organization whose stated purpose is to "defend the right of Catholics – lay and clergy alike – to participate in Ame ...

, issued a news release about ''Lucky Louie'', calling the series "barbaric". The release provides a bulleted list of content from the show that the organization finds obscene, from the ten episodes that had been broadcast at that time. In January 2007, Louis C.K. was a guest in studio on the ''

Opie & Anthony ''Opie and Anthony'' was an American radio show hosted by Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia that aired from March 1995 to July 2014, with comedian Jim Norton serving as third mic from 2001. The show originated in 1994 when Cumia took part in ...

'' radio show (co-hosted by Jim Norton, who plays Rich on ''Lucky Louie''). Donohue appeared on the show as a phone-in guest that day, and C.K. started a conversation with him about his comments on ''Lucky Louie''. C.K. challenged Donohue's news release and accused him of misrepresenting the show by taking things out of context. Donohue admitted that even though the press release bears his name, he had never seen an episode of the show. Textual recap of the show:

References

External links

* {{HBONetwork Shows HBO original programming 2006 American television series debuts 2006 American television series endings 2000s American sitcoms English-language television shows Television series created by Louis C.K. Television series by 3 Arts Entertainment Television series by Home Box Office Television series by HBO Independent Productions