Pair of comedies play up anatomical shock value

When "The Real World" debuted back in 1992, the idea of ordinary people being followed by camera crews seemed like bad science fiction. And when "Survivor" started in 2000, being stranded on a remote island sounded downright barbaric. Now, both are considered viable career options.

So perhaps in another decade or two, it will seem somewhat quaint that it was a big deal, so to speak, that during the summer of 2010, there were two comedies on the air about guys with giant penises.

But for the time being, there are two comedies on the air about guys with giant penises!

It all started last summer with "Hung" (10 p.m. today, HBO) and continues this year with "The Hard Times of RJ Berger" (10 p.m. Mondays, MTV). Other series sound like they might be part of this large-member trend, but ABC Family's "Huge" is about a weight-loss camp, and "Two and a Half Men" just has one as its star.

"Hung" initially generated a great deal of tittering in the press, but the series is actually fairly grim.

Set against the bleak economy of Detroit, "Hung" follows Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), a well-endowed but down-on-his-luck high school coach. Ray pines for his ex-wife (Anne Heche) while he lives out of a tent in his backyard and slowly -- ever so slowly -- rebuilds his fire-ravaged home with the proceeds from his side job as a prostitute.

This season, with his school's budget slashed -- there's enough money to bus the kids to away games, but not enough to drive them home, which doesn't even make sense, but whatever -- Ray begins subsidizing the baseball team with his earnings in the sex trade.

But that's just one of several things in "Hung" that don't ring true, making the series both phallus-y and fallacy.

"How the hell can he do just women?" a seasoned pimp played by the sadly underused Lennie James asks Ray's poet-turned-"manager" (Jane Adams). "That is not where the money's at." And, somewhere, Nye County's former prostidude ruefully nods in acknowledgement.

MTV, meanwhile, takes the same general genetic conceit and spins it off into territory that's vastly more entertaining with "The Hard Times of RJ Berger." (And if you're not used to thinking of MTV as a home to scripted comedy, I've got two words for you: "The" and "Hills.")

In this case, the hero is scrawny, birdlike high school sophomore RJ (Paul Iacono), whose secret is exposed, quite literally, during a wardrobe malfunction. But instead of making him the big man on campus, so to speak, this revelation only adds to his status as an outsider.

RJ admittedly has "more pairs of glasses than friends," but like high school losers since the dawn of time -- or at least since the dawn of high schools -- RJ doesn't let this derail his quest to win the girl of his dreams (Amber Lancaster), who, naturally, just happens to be the stuff of fantasy, a sort of Winnie Cooper for the sexting generation.

The whole thing is far more clever than it sounds -- it would almost have to be -- as each episode burns through a different high school TV cliche: RJ has a chance to win the big game but blows it; RJ has a chance to be student government president but blows it; RJ has a chance to kiss his dream girl in the school play but blows it.

And Iacono turns in a fairly subtle, nuanced performance, all things considered. His RJ, always the smartest person in the room, has all the agita of a 50-year-old accountant, and his Adam's apple works so hard, it deserves its own spinoff.

Despite its teenage characters, though, "RJ Berger's" content is decidedly adult. RJ's friend Lily (Kara Taitz) openly lusts after him with disturbing come-ons of the "any time, any place, any orifice" variety. And his parents are open swingers whose frequent lovemaking in the bedroom next to RJ's has all the urgency and cacophony of a Maoist uprising.

But the comedy's shock value is bound to anger more viewers than it entertains. The school's creepy Goth freshman, for example, is "five feet of pure Columbine." And when RJ auditions for that school play, a mashup of "West Side Story" and "Twilight," his best friend, Miles (Jareb Dauplaise), can't contain his disgust. "Why don't you just hire a couple of guys to fly planes into our reputations?"

Still, "The Hard Times of RJ Berger" is way more entertaining than it has a right to be. And for all its bluster, the series strikes an optimistic chord.

"Miles, they're gonna destroy me," RJ sighs, worried about his classmates' reaction to his anatomical unveiling. "Maybe they will, maybe they won't," he's reassured. "But at least they'll be paying attention."

Unlike "Hung's" Ray, whose best days seem to have passed him by, you can't help but think that RJ has something big ahead of him.

So to speak.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.