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Showtime's 'Happyish' is an intelligent, outraged comedy

There's nothing like watching the Geico Gecko spew a filthy barrage of obscenities and invectives, then get the stuffing kicked out of him by an enraged Steve Coogan.

(from left) Kathryn Hahn, Sawyer Shipman, and Steve Coogan in the comedy "Happyish." (MARK SCHAFER / Showtime)
(from left) Kathryn Hahn, Sawyer Shipman, and Steve Coogan in the comedy "Happyish." (MARK SCHAFER / Showtime)Read more

There's nothing like watching the Geico Gecko spew a filthy barrage of obscenities and invectives, then get the stuffing kicked out of him by an enraged Steve Coogan.

It's one of the many pleasures Happyish, which will premiere at 9:30 p.m. Sunday on Showtime. It's an intelligent, surreal, mildly outrageous - and most certainly outraged - satire of life in post-industrial America.

Created and written by novelist and essayist Shalom Auslander (Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir), Happyish stars Coogan (I'm Alan Partridge, The Trip) as Brit Thom Payne, who adores his adopted country save for one thing: our obscene obsession with being happy.

Happyish originally starred Philip Seymour Hoffman, who shot a pilot before his death last year. It's impossible to tell what kind of show Hoffman would have created. What is certain is that Coogan is more than up to the challenge.

The pilot opens with a shot of Mount Rushmore. An arrow singles out Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson, Thom complains, ruined us all with "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" because he never defined what that last word was supposed to mean.

He rails against the idea that happiness can be attained by buying cars, beers, and breast enlargements.

He should know: Thom is a creative director at a New York ad agency.

"I work for Satan," Thom tells viewers as he walks into his office, "I have served the Dark Lord for 20 years, so I can say this with a fair degree of authority: [forget] Mad Men! There's nothing cool about advertising. There's nothing interesting. We do the same thing everyone else does these days, we kiss the zit-covered [derrieres] of arrogant, know-nothing teenagers."

The series gives him room to launch into the kind of intelligent, funny riffing he has so brilliantly perfected.

Happyish features straight narrative, asides, surreal dream sequences, and animated sketches.

In one animated segment, Thom watches helplessly as the elderly Keebler Elves' patriarch slaughters his entire crew with a shotgun. In another, Thom's wife, Lee (the amazing Kathryn Hahn), has an extended war of words with an Amazon delivery box.

Much of the series follows Thom's quixotic attempts to inject a level of human decency into his job. He is frustrated at every turn by his cynical friend, corporate headhunter Dani (Ellen Barkin) who criticizes his hypocrisy. Meanwhile, his happy-to-be-shallow boss Jonathan (The West Wing's Bradley Whitford) warns him that his days are numbered - the company has hired two 20-something Swedish kids to run the creative department.

 Its critique of consumerist culture isn't new, but Happyish has an amazing grasp of the empty double-talk that passes for discourse in corporate America.

If the substance of the show is its freewheeling critique of Western values, its heart resides in Thom's relationship with his family.

Unlike that of other anti-heroes, Thom's personal life is not a mess. He has a loving - if not always smooth - relationship with his artist wife. They both dote on their 6-year-old son, Julius (Sawyer Shipman).

The family live in what Thom describes as a bubble of safety in their idyllic country home in Woodstock, N.Y.

The trouble is that Thom and Lee both know the bubble is anything but pristine. They know the only way they can afford their little corner of the American dream is to continue to pay obeisance to Satan.

TV REVIEW

Happyish

Premieres 9:30 p.m. Sunday on Showtime.

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