Oh Grow Up Review
The Boston Globe, September 22, 1999
'Grow' is lame roommate comedy
I've got to admit, the subtitled dog made me laugh. Named Mom, she barks little catty remarks like 'Back off sister, he's mine" and "Get a room" to the humans she must suffer. She also made me feel less alone while watching her show, Oh Grow Up, a randy new sitcom that is never quite as funny or newfangled as it thinks it is.
The idea of Oh Grow Up, which premieres tonight at 9:30, is to put some new kinks in the traditional male-roommate, Men Behaving Badly setup. That means that in addition to the two frat-house-esque guys -- the womanizing Hunter and a caustic artist named Norris -- we get a newly out gay man named Ford, who just left his wife, who clings onto the trio dropping pathetic lines that only the laugh track adores, like 'I don't need you, I have wine.' Ouch.
The half-hour relies almost entirely on sexual jokes and gender slights, from the opening scene in which we hear Hunter's lovemaking through Ford's quip, 'You guys are so married -- and I know which one is the wife.' Oh Grow Up also makes a misguided stab at sappiness by giving Hunter a long-lost teenage daughter who tracks him down.
'Dude, she thinks I'm a total loser,' he says to Norris.
'Dude, maybe this isn't about you,' Norris poignantly notes.
As Mom might say, 'Ruff.' Translation: 'Make it stop.'
-- Matthew Gilbert