- Network: NBC
- Series Premiere Date: Dec 17, 2012
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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1600 Penn's tone may be apolitical, but it is also very funny.
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By the second episode, 1600 Penn neatly has found its compass on how to be a show about the first family and how to define the ensemble.
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1600 Penn may not be as sophisticated as the hysterical HBO series "Veep," but it's still pretty funny when all the cylinders are firing.
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Then the second episode, and then the third, come along, and 1600 Penn evolves into a surprisingly likable single-camera comedy.
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1600 Penn has the unfortunate habit of milking every joke, even the most artificial and obvious ones. And its absurdist humor is hit-or-miss at best. And yet it has an undeniable charm, however superficial and ingratiating.
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Like many a new comedy--and new presidential administration--it needs a little time to get settled in before we can expect it to really make its mark.
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The series starts wobbly but improves with each of the episodes [seen so far]. [21 Dec 2012, p.62]
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It's not ground-breaking or cutting-edge, and it's by no means the funniest show on TV. But it has the potential to get more lovable with time if viewers vote to give it a chance.
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Loud and silly as it is, the show also manages to create and define its characters skillfully.
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Cute, initially, the bull-in-a-china-shop premise wears a little thin until you realize there are others in the family capable of embarrassing dad, too.
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All in all, Skip, an unkempt ball of puppyish energy to whom the writers feed a wealth of good material, is by far the best thing about this show. Jenna Elfman is all right as first lady and the rest of the cast hovers around the edges not making much of an impression.
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The broad comedy in 1600 Penn derives from familiar sitcom clichés being magnified by the Oval Office fishbowl. It's a gimmick that may have trouble holding up to a second term, though the cast is certainly game.
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1600 Penn has charm and some funny riffs, but it's a 2013 sitcom that at times seems like it was written in 1983.
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1600 Penn comes off as a fairly formulaic yet occasionally bright return to an old premise.
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When Skip is used more as a garnish and not the focus, his character is less annoying and more amusing.
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Your enjoyment of the show will hinge on how much you can stomach the antics of the First Screw-Up.
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A sitcom that has moved from agreeably silly to disagreeably dumb, a regression no network should want to see.
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It's not that these are shoddily crafted personalities, it's that their predicaments have been done to death, and frankly, executed with much more thoughtfulness on other shows.
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As funny as 1600 Penn can be, after a while the laughs grow fewer and further between. And the misfires are more frequent and painful.
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Problem is in 1600 Penn they are shooting for "Animal House" in the White House but too often end up with nobody home.
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The set-in-the-White House comedy starts off more annoying than funny in its Monday debut, overwhelmed by a single character, first son Skip (Josh Gad), a perennial college student and first-class screwup. Over the next couple of episodes the show becomes a little less grating and, occasionally, mildly amusing.
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The series doesn't generate nearly enough highlights to merit a filibuster-proof yea vote, much less a ticker-tape parade.
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There's nothing to get outraged about, unless you want to rail against substandard comedy.
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This is a very good cast laboring through terribly weak material.
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[Josh Gad's] an adroit actor, and his breathy, singsongy way with Skip feels original, until it feels tiring--as that there's just a lot of him here. He obscures the view, or becomes it, and he can make the rest of the show seem sort of beside the point.
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The show is "clever" in a way that makes me mourn how far standards of cleverness have fallen. If it's the best new comedy that NBC has in the pipeline, the network is in more trouble than anyone knew.
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[Skip's] part is virtually unplayable, especially since Bill Pullman and Jenna Elfman, as the first couple, give restrained, relatively natural performances, and Skip's siblings are written more along the lines of Modern Family. [14 Jan 2013, p.52]
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1600 Penn mines none of the more subtle and satisfying possibilities of poking fun at a staid institution. It's more like a drug-fueled "Saturday Night Live" sketch that won't end.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 21 out of 52
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Mixed: 10 out of 52
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Negative: 21 out of 52
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Dec 18, 2012
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Jan 28, 2013
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Dec 20, 2012