The Great Gordo’s TV Show: Average Gordo

Thumbs down to John Mellencamp's new album cover. And Gordon Keith's prime-time TV debut.

I’m going to couch this review of Gordon Keith’s prime-time TV performance last night with two pillowy caveats:

1. Gordo is by far the funniest guy on Dallas radio.

2. He’s better than I’d be on TV.

Now, on to the barbecue.

See, Keith – whose usual late Saturday night show stepped up in class to 7 p.m. Tuesday – is at his best when he’s unplugged and unscripted, making everyone on both sides of The Ticket hilariously uncomfortable. When the tables are turned, he ain’t that great.

At least not last night, when I seriously didn’t know if some of his awkward moments were funny bits or merely vice-versa. I want to love his show. I want Gordon to be a home-grown host gone national, as good at his craft as Nora Jones is at hers.

But this Gordon Keith Show just didn’t do it for me. You?

My main complaint is that it was too much generic and too little Gordo. He delivered a hands-in-pockets monologue. He tapped notecards. He sat at a desk and sipped out of a mug.

That’s not giggly Gordon. That’s lame-ass Leno.

At one point Keith prefaced a question to Mark Cuban with “you’re kind of known for the Mavericks …” Still not sure if I was giggling with him, or at him.

Of course he had his moments. He said the show’s Victory Park set was so close to American Airlines Center that “you can almost hear Josh Howard inhaling.” He offered to unbutton Cuban’s jeans (to reveal the owner’s hip surgery scar), but was rebuffed because Cubes was going commando. In a taped interview he asked Adam Sandler what was the oldest woman he’d have sex with. Sandler’s rejoinder: “Triple digits.” And when Keith announced it was “Wet T-shirt time!” the studio audience got bombarded with damp shirts.

I’m ragging on the show because I know it can be better. He can better. As is, it’s better than Grey Lost Her Anatomy While Dancing with Jason Taylor or whatever the hell network TV tries to trick us into watching.

But, still, I wanted more of Gordo’s improvisational man-on-the-street interviews and less horrible George Bush imitators and mundane Photoshop pics.

I guess what I really want is my Gordon Keith to be less like this Dave, and more like this one.-- Richie Whitt