‘Universal Basic Guys’ Adds A New Boob to TV’s Confident Idiot Hall of Fame

Truck drivers. Cashiers. Now even movie critics could be among the workers whose jobs are at risk of disappearing due to automation. We probably all hope there will be a plan to look after humans who get replaced in the labor force by some form of robot, and maybe Universal Basic Guys exists to give us a model for the future. If nothing else, it’s a more promising new addition to Fox’s Animation Domination lineup than we’ve seen in years.

The show, premiering September 8th, makes its first smart choice by not belaboring its high-concept premise. Instead of wasting a whole episode showing us how it’s come to be, we get an expository theme song performed by protagonist Mark Hoagies (Adam Malamut, who co-created the series with Craig Malamut): “Well, I used to work in a hot dog factory / Until dem robots came along / And now there is no job for me / But I get three thousand bucks a month / Thanks to UBI / Now we’re Universal Basic Guys.” (If you didn’t know where the show was set going in, the unmistakable Philly accent in which said song is sung lets you know.) 

For those not up-to-date on the latest Heritage Foundation fearmongering, “UBI” stands for Universal Basic Income, and is currently a topic of discussion due to the hundreds of millions of jobs likely to become obsolete as a result of advancements in A.I. 

Mark and his brother Hank (Adam Malamut again) have, by the time we meet them, settled into the post-employment phase of their lives, such that each episode revolves around a different short-term fascination Mark can spend $3,000 on. In the series premiere, it’s an ailing chimp sold out the back of Doc Tropic’s Exotic Animal Park. In the next episode, it’s a state-of-the-art fishing rig Mark uses to hook a whale. A crossbow, an Eagles Super Bowl ring, an elaborate flight simulator and an off-brand Jaws of Life are a few of the purchases that follow as the season goes on. 

Sweet, simple Hank cheerfully goes along with all of Mark’s temporary obsessions, seeming not to have interests of his own other than the acquisition of hot dogs. Filling out the cast are Mark’s wife Tammy (Talia Genevieve), a nurse at a local hospital; the Hoagies’ bougie neighbors David (Fred Armisen) and Andrea Jinglebells (Ally Maki); and surly 14-year-old Darren (Brandon Wardell), Tammy’s son from a previous relationship.

This might seem like an unlikely observation to make about a show whose premiere largely revolves around a character (a) getting maimed in an extremely graphic manner that (b) doesn’t get treated for most of the episode’s run time, but: the animation style is beautiful? Many of the characters aren’t designed to be, let’s say, conventionally attractive, but the art, from Bob’s Burgers and The Great North’s Bento Box, is smooth, polished and expressive, something I couldn’t say about either The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy or In the Know earlier this year.

Mark’s physical design is part of what makes him, on sight, one of the funniest new sitcom characters I’ve encountered this year. His Eagles-colored T-shirt and scrubby little goatee tell us volumes about him, and the restraint it must have taken for producers to wait several episodes before putting Mark in a situation that requires iridescent Oakley sunglasses is, honestly, breathtaking. Mark has some of Homer Simpson’s confident idiocy, some of George Constanza’s impulse toward implausible lies and some of Doug Heffernan’s intermittent enthusiasm for unlikely hobbies. Somehow, mixing all these antecedent types into one lovable jerk who, when he never shuts up, is doing so in an ear-splitting Philadelphia accent multiplies the character’s comic effect. 

So much care may have gone into developing Mark that other characters suffer. David is a former lawyer trying to start over as a writer, a luxury we assume he’s permitted thanks to his wife Andrea’s well-compensated job as the hot dog company’s communications director. As performed by Armisen, David is barely distinguishable from Elliot Birch, sensitive father to Nick (Nick Kroll) on Big Mouth. At least Elliot has a high-status job, though. The annoyingly sensitive nerd no one respects, cowed by his powerful wife, feels like a TV archetype we exhausted 10 years ago. Tammy’s flashes of independence from Mark — as when she sets out on a mission to convince the board of a local country club to admit women — are fun but too rare. 

A sitcom’s dumbest character is rarely its most compelling, and Hank is no exception; he’s judiciously deployed, but it takes too long for us to find out what he’s been doing with his UBI checks, at which point I realized I also didn’t know where he lived or what he’d been living on while he was saving them up.

The season was chugging along pleasantly enough when we arrived at “Sheet Stock.” David, Mark, and Hank are walking through town eating soft pretzels — one of many Philly delicacies that, even in animated form, made me wonder if I’m living in the wrong place (see also: cheesesteak pancakes) — when they notice a recruiter for the Navy reserves (Rob Riggle). Mark preemptively declines to enlist, whereupon the recruiter denigrates Mark’s fitness for duty so cruelly and accurately that Mark signs up out of spite. I reflexively sighed, “Simpsons did it,” only to be surprised and delighted by the unexpected turns of the season’s best episode. 

It’s a drag that it comes 11th in a season of 13, but given that the show was renewed for a second before its first has premiered, the prospect that the second season will immediately be even more assured than the first is a thrill. Don’t be concerned that the premise will be too much of a downer. In this case, UBI isn’t, primarily, the consequence of a society depleting its human workers. It’s the grease Mark can slide on to his various imbecilic adventures.