• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 13, 2016

What’s the difference between HBO’s new comedy series “Vice Principals” and the other schoolhouse comedies seen elsewhere on TV lately?

Well, it really comes down to the f-word -- and a whole host of other naughty words and phrases I’d rather not assault you with here.

Actually, “naughty” is too tame a word. I’m tempted to characterize the language in “Vice Principals” as “dirty.” But what a quaint word that seems like now! It begs a question I ask frequently in these TV blogs: If everyone uses them all the time, is there really any such thing anymore as a “dirty” word?

Whatever the answer, there’s no debating that the principals behind “Vice Principals” -- mainly its star and creator Danny McBride, and his producing and writing partner Jody Hill -- have a facility with profane language that will take your breath away. That is, if it is still possible in this day and age to be shocked by language.

It might not be. And yet, it’s also true that language is one of the areas that still sets HBO apart from commercial-supported basic cable.

As a result, you get a show like “Vice Principals,” which bears similarities to this year’s other school-based comedies “Those Who Can’t” on TruTV and “Teachers” on TV Land. All three shows cover similar ground: educators behaving badly and immaturely, like the students they are supposed to be educating. But with “Vice Principals,” you get extreme cursing, and some very extreme behavior.

In the first two episodes of “Vice Principals” that I watched earlier this week in advance of the show’s premiere this coming Sunday, the most extreme of the behaviors occurs in episode two (airing a week later). I won’t tell you what it is, but it’s the kind of scene from which comedy legends are born. And it pays off later in the episode with a very unexpected punchline.

Yes, I liked “Vice Principals,” even though there’s very little new here, it’s dirty as hell, and the behaviors and situations on display in the show are just wrong on so many levels.

But there’s something about Danny McBride (seen at left in the photo above) that I find irresistible. He is a funny, funny man. The fact is, his character in this show -- Neil Gamby, one of two vice principals in a typical suburban high school -- is no different from the one he played in his last HBO comedy, “Eastbound and Down.”

In that show, he played a fallen baseball star named Kenny Powers: a character who became a legend of comedy, at least in some circles. No wonder McBride has brought back the same kind of guy: a completely narcissistic egomaniac, whose every action and statement is wholly inappropriate.

The other vice principal  is Lee Russell, played by Walton Goggins (right, in the photo), who’s best known for dramatic roles in series like “Justified” and “The Shield” (both on FX). In “Vice Principals,” he’s locked in a fight-to-the-death competition with Neil Gamby for the job of principal of the school following the resignation of the long-time principal (played by Bill Murray in what might be a one-off cameo).

I highly recommend “Vice Principals,” a show in which the principal characters have many vices and no principles.

“Vice Principals” premieres Sunday night (July 18) at 10:30 Eastern on HBO.