“Raising Hope” – new fall Fox show beginning Tuesday, September 21

I just watched the pilot episode, and I found it hilarious! I get all engrossed in dramas which I also love, but shows like “Raising Hope” is just crazy funny and makes me laugh out loud. As the story goes, Jimmy is 23 and still lives at home with his folks and his MAW MAW, great grandma played by Cloris Leachman who runs around with just a bra on top. She thinks Jimmy’s her husband which makes for some uncomfortable moments for Jimmy. Martha Plimpton plays his mother, and I like her in this part more than I have in other parts she has played. It starts with Jimmy quitting his pool cleaning job, and he tells his mom as she’s going to the van with “Knock, Knock, Knock, Housecleaning” painted on the side. That’s where she works. He says, “There’s gotta be more to life than cleaning the same pool over and over again.” Mom says, “There isn’t” and jumps in the van.

As time goes on, Jimmy has a very, very brief encounter with a girl who turns out to become pregnant and somehow or other he turns out to be the one who has to take care of the baby girl. The mother is very much out of the picture as it becomes clear during the show. He knows nothing about raising a kid and neither do his folks as they were married at 15 and didn’t learn much when they had Jimmy. The mother has a cigarette in her mouth all the time until Jimmy tells her it will hurt the baby, and she says “It didn’t hurt you.” They also tell him he could drop it off at the fire station but he would have to hand it off, not throw it in the barrel which is just for canned goods and puppies. But Jimmy wants to keep her. The baby’s mom named her Princess Beyonce. No one is very wild about that name. As time goes on, he acquires things for the baby, and he goes to the grocery store where there is a cute, quirky clerk who asks about the baby seat he has. He said he got it used, and she says, “Who used it – baby Jesus?” That girl shows promise and may be the smartest one of the whole bunch.

There are many funny scenes and lines in this show. I like it and hope it makes it. Jimmy’s mom decides the baby should be named “Hope” and that’s that. You wonder if there are really people that lame among us, and I think there are – too many probably. In fact, I think that’s where the Tea Party started. But I think there’s hope for this family now that they have a little baby living with them. And maybe they can get Cloris Leachman to keep her shirt on! However, she’s pretty funny no matter what she is or isn’t wearing.