We’ve been fairly hard—bordering on rude!—on Hulu’s new original series Chad Powers, in which Glen Powell, inspired by the improv prowess of no less august a comedy titan than former NFL quarterback Eli Manning, does “a Mrs. Doubtfire, but with football.” (That’s not us casting aspersions, by the way: It’s a direct quote from the show’s first trailer this morning, which is not shy about laying out either its premise, or its “they literally put Robin Williams on the screen” inspirations.) But all of our little jabs and mockeries were clearly premature, the product of uninformed minds, which had foolishly not given Chad Powers his fair shake. Because holy shit, we had not yet heard the voice Powell is doing for this show.
We’ve been sitting here for a couple of minutes now, trying to think of a way to put Powell’s choices here into words, and the best we can come up with is “What if Porky Pig got bit by a rabid Matthew McConaughey?” Listen to his character—hotshot football asshole Russ Holliday, who slathers himself in prosthetics to get a second chance at collegiate football—intone “That red rocket is big and dirty” in a sort of nasal swagger, speaking like no human being ever has. Listen to him somehow manage to fit, by our count, four distinct vowels into the name “Chad.” Listen to him babble out interview answers in a way that is supposed to be comedically awkward, but instead comes off like the “funny guy” in the office bombing Baby’s First Improv Scene.
And it’s only made more discomfiting by surrounding Russ/Chad with genuinely good and grounded actors like Toby Huss, Steve Zahn, and Freddie A. Rodriguez, the latter playing the guardian angel who’s apparently decided to help this clearly deranged man fake his way onto a football team because “no one is beyond second chances.” (The trailer also plays up the inspirational, “let’s all believe in ourselves” aspects of the show, which, owing to the preferences of the show’s producers, we will not note feels pretty blatantly Ted Lasso-esque.) We will acknowledge that there’s at least one good joke in here—Russ, in asshole mode, proudly noting that his ear stud can’t be cubic zirconium because he’s confirmed it’s “a blood diamond”—but our grim fascination with this thing has now formally kicked into overdrive.
