• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 3 hours ago

Comedian Sebastian Maniscalco is speaking out on behalf of everyone who does not love TV.

These are people -- like he and his wife -- who do not avidly keep up with the new shows on streaming (almost always on streaming) and do not feel as if they are missing anything. The fact is, they just don’t care.

How many such people are there? Studies on the number of people who do not watch TV, or do not have a TV at all, are not easy to come by in a Google search -- at least a cursory one. Some of the data, such as there is, goes back years.

When I asked Google this question, the query was misinterpreted as a question about how many people have abandoned linear TV in favor of streaming. To sum up: A lot of people have done this, particularly younger ones. No surprise there.

Maniscalco raises the TV topic in his newest stand-up special, “It’s Ain’t Right,” which started streaming on Hulu last month.

The performance was taped at the United Center in Chicago, Maniscalco’s hometown, and it appeared to be sold out. 

The United Center has a seating capacity of up to 23,500 for concerts. This performance used a theater-in the-round set-up, although the traditional circular stage was triangular.

In the show, Maniscalco talked about what he did the previous summer. “Watched some TV this summer, caught up on some TV,” he says.

“We’re not the TV couple, my wife and me. We don’t watch a lot of TV,” Maniscalco says. “I’m sure everybody knows a couple … that’s all they do, telling you what to watch!”

“Right? You see ’em, they go, ‘Oh my God, have you seen the Menendez brothers …’?” says the comedian breathlessly, sarcastically imitating them. 

“You gotta wait ’til the fifth episode and then it really …!” he says, still imitating them as his voice trails off in an expression of total disinterest in what they are saying.

Maniscalco also comments on the grotesque nature of some TV content today.

“Sometimes we’ll wind up on random stuff,” he says. “Like we’re watching this Jeffrey Dahmer [series] …. That’s a good one to watch right before you go to bed -- uplifting, positive message!” 

He was likely referring to “Dahmer -- Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” the 10-part, scripted series which premiered in 2022 on Netflix.

“If you don’t know who Jeffrey Dahmer was, he was eating people in the late ’80s. Turn it on,” he says.