• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 12, 2022

The two party-hearty wastrels who take a kook’s tour of U.S. high points in TruTV’s “101 Places To Party Before You Die” will be lucky if they make it to 101 episodes.

For one thing, the show would have to be successful indeed for it to reach the 101-episode milestone the title implies. Most shows of this type do not.

It is also reasonable to wonder if there are 101 places in America where the partying is so spectacular and not-to-be-missed that they rate inclusion on everybody’s bucket lists.

But the thing that might present the greatest obstacle to this show’s progress toward 101 episodes is the stamina of its two fellow travelers -- actor/comedians Adam Pally (above photo, left) and Jon Gabrus.

In this half-hour, unscripted show premiering this week, the two long-time friends are seen visiting a different location each week where they gorge on fatty fried foods paired with innumerable craft beers and unique, high-octane cocktails.

Episode One has them visiting Denver, currently the nation’s capital of legal marijuana. Among other adventures in the episode, they light up a fat joint in a psychedelic house of worship called the International Church of Cannabis.

Other party places on the pair’s itinerary are Atlanta, Maui, Moab (Utah), Miami, Puerto Rico, Portland (probably Oregon) and Richmond (Virginia).

Throughout their travels, the two play the role of party animals on a fancy-free spree through gastropub America.

This may or may not be the dream of young men not yet tied to a single location by marriage or employment, but the show is clearly aimed at this group who one assumes are in their early- to mid-20s.

But this partying pair may not have quite the partying power as the young audience they wish to reach.

Each of them happens to be 40 years old, an age when the urge and opportunity to run away from home to party in 101 places is long passed for most of us.

To give them their due, they acknowledge from the outset of the show that they are married. One of them, Lally, even has children.

They both position their party trip as being sanctioned by their wives, possibly because their wives recognize the show as a job, and not as a case of husbands gone wild.

Most of the show consists of the two seated in various eateries where they order the house chicken wings and sip cold cocktails with unusual garnishes, such as the one drink whose glass is rimmed with ground pepper.

While eating and drinking, they issue off-the-cuff quips about the food and drink that have each other in stitches. But for the rest of us, their clowning has a you-had-to-be-there quality.

As it happens, watching people partying, having a good time and exchanging good-natured jokes is really only fun when one is actually there. Watching two people doing it on TV is another thing entirely.

After partaking of the black pepper garnish on his glass rim, Gabrus declared that experiencing this garnish was like eating dirt.

That’s OK with him, though, because he exclaims more than once on the show that if he dies partying, then that’s a great way to go.

This is debatable, especially by many for whom binges involving alcohol and drugs have taken them to the brink of death.

“101 Places To Party Before You Die” premieres on Thursday (July 14) at 10:30 p.m. Eastern on TruTV.