Fox’s Animated UBI Comedy Premieres

There’s surely nothing more basic a critic could possibly do than describe a show with “basic” in its name as basic. But it’s difficult to come up with a more fitting word to describe Fox’s Universal Basic Guys, a cartoon that, at least initially, seems rooted in all the hoariest sitcom clichés of the ’90s.

The series, created by Adam and Craig Malamut, does reveal occasional glimmers of a potential to become something more distinctive — typically in moments when it ditches the road well-traveled for stranger, more outlandish and often downright fantastical detours. But such moments are spread too thin over the course of a 13-episode first season better described as fine than fun.

The “basic” in that title actually refers to the concept of Universal Basic Income, which ostensibly drives the plot. As explained in the theme song that opens each episode, South Jersey brothers Mark and Hank Hoagies, both voiced by Adam Malamut, were enrolled in a pilot UBI program after their hot-dog factory jobs were made redundant by AI-powered robots. With a no-strings-attached $3,000 to burn each month and no gainful employment to take up their time, the Hoagies spend their days getting into wacky scrapes. Most of those are driven by Mark’s misguided ambitions or inflated ego, while the far mellower Hank is generally only along for the ride.

Despite a premise that would seem to touch on salient political issues, Universal Basic Guys has no interest in pointed social commentary. If anything, UBI functions as an excuse for it to avoid talking about anything too real. You never have to wonder why Mark isn’t looking for a new gig or how he’s paying for all his harebrained schemes when UBI is there to hand-wave away your questions. (And if you’re wondering whether that money wouldn’t just be replacing the paychecks he used to get from work, or whether some of his ideas wouldn’t cost way more than three grand to execute — stop, you’re already thinking about this way more that the show has.)

Unfortunately, the comedy does less than it could with that freedom. The first half-hour sets the tone with a storyline about Mark purchasing a decrepit lab chimp from a Joe Exotic-type figure. The plot beats that follow aren’t necessarily easy to guess — it involves Mark literally getting his entire face ripped off, and then refusing to get facial reconstructive surgery out of sheer stubbornness. But they feel unsurprising, rooted as they are in the tired trope of Mark as the blustering buffoon and his wife, Tammy (Talia Genevieve), as the disapproving wet blanket.

References to the likes of Britney Spears and Seal do little to dispel the impression that the series is stuck somewhere around 2002. Nor does the next episode, which involves Mark trying to sneak in some fishing during a romantic dinner cruise. Husbands, am I right?

Universal Basic Guys does eventually reveal a few saving graces. One is that it’s rarely mean-spirited. Mark might be hardheaded and inconsiderate, but he’s never purposefully cruel. The jokes may not be especially fresh, but they also avoid the faux-edgy provocation of, say, Netflix’s Tires, set in a similar dudes-will-be-dudes blue-collar milieu. If its characters tend toward stereotypes, they’re treated with more amused affection than disdain. Even Mark’s neighbor David Jinglebells (Fred Armisen), an effete ex-New Yorker whose disinterest in Eagles football and love of books like A Delicate History of Parisian Daisies make him stick out like a sore thumb, is treated like just another quirky neighbor rather than a punching bag for Mark and his bros to tear down. (Though Murph, an alpha male type in a pink polo shirt, does sometimes try.)

Mark’s marriage with Tammy eventually gets some nicer shading, as she comes more into her own as a lead. A midseason episode opens with the couple debating over chicken wings whether Gremlins or Oompa Loompas would make better nurses. The conversation isn’t remotely relevant to the plot, but it’s a fun little reminder that underneath all their bickering, these two really do enjoy each other; I only wish it had come earlier, because by that point I’d already spent several episodes wondering why she wouldn’t want to leave a man who causes her so many headaches.

Its other big boon is sweet, innocent, well-meaning Hank. As inane as Mark’s schemes can be, there’s also a certain predictability to them. You know the moment someone tells Mark he can’t do something that he’s going to insist on doing it in the most reckless way possible, whether it’s passing himself off as a pilot after a few hours in a flight simulator or “saving” a bunch of citizens with the help of a scrap-metal robot costume. Hank is the true wild card, blessed with an almost pathological level of chill that allows him to take everything from mermaids to human sacrifices to Navy Seals BUD/S training in stride.

I understand why Hank can’t be the main character; to pull references from an era this cartoon might understand, that would be like making Kramer the main character of Seinfeld or Dwight the main character of The Office. But the series does best when it follows his lead, and lets its characters drift into bizarre corners. My favorite moments tended to be the most outrageous, like when the “Jersey Devil” is revealed to be an actual devil befriending Mark’s disaffected teenage stepson Darren, or when the Philadelphia Eagles’ stadium turns out to contain a secret “mascot and fan engagement lab” full of horrific sci-fi abominations.

These are the moments when Universal Basic Guys finally lets its imagination run loose, and the show is better for them. But too much of the time, it seems content to simply kick back in its garage, getting up to the same old silliness day in and day out.