Commentary

On Showtime, Jim Carrey As Fictional Mister Rogers

In a year when a film about Mister Rogers has become the highest-grossing biographical documentary of all time (more than $22 million, reportedly), along comes a new Showtime series about a fictional version of the great kid-show host.

Predictably, the Showtime version -- titled “Kidding” and starring Jim Carrey -- tells a much sadder story.

That's the nature of TV today: If you plan to write a scripted show about a kiddie-show host, then you must make sure that his real life off camera is tragic and unhappy.

That isn't necessarily a complaint about this new show. It just seems these days, television is the saddest place on Earth.

More often than not, creative choices will gravitate toward darkness rather than light, where the private lives of fictional characters are concerned.

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This is the case for “Kidding” and its lead character, played by Carrey. Jeff Piccirillo, aka “Mr. Pickles,” a public television kiddie-show personality, has a show in the series not unlike “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

The premiere episode, airing Sunday night, even has Jeff begging his producer (played by Frank Langella) to permit him to do a show about death, a subject Fred Rogers famously addressed on his show to great acclaim.

Mr. Pickles wants to explore this subject because one of his young twin sons was killed about a year earlier in a car accident. In the aftermath, his family and his marriage are unraveling.

His producer does not grant him the permission; the producer fears that such a show would drive away his kid audience and their parents, while alienating the PBS stations that carry it.

At stake is a $112 million merchandising empire stemming from the “Mr. Pickles” brand. And yet, Jeff and his family live a decidedly middle-class lifestyle, since he favors giving the majority of his money to charity.

This also creates rifts in his home life, but it also happens to be an endearing quality. In fact, the Mr. Pickles character has a number of endearing traits that place him mostly at odds with the world he lives in.

And that's the show’s central theme: This man has been in the business of teaching positive values to children for so long that the lines between his two lives -- the one he lives on TV and the tumultuous life he leads in real life -- have become increasingly blurred.

Jim Carrey is terrific as Mr. Pickles -- so much so that it is hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

It is probably worth mentioning that just because this show is about a fictional kiddie show, the contents of this show are definitely not for children. After all, this is Showtime.

“Kidding” premieres Sunday night (September 9) at 10 Eastern on Showtime.

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