I’m trying to think of things I’m less interested in than American football. The plant-based food section? Taking up my GP’s offer of a free Covid booster? Ed Miliband’s nostril depilation regime? No, apart from maybe baseball, I can’t think of anything so soul-crushingly tedious as a rigged game where men in shoulder pads and portcullised helmets shout numbers, bash into one another, then wait half an hour while the referee decides whether or not they’re allowed to throw a spinny ball and maybe one day end up being Taylor Swift’s latest boyfriend.
So you’ll never guess what the subject is of my favourite new American comedy series, Chad Powers… When I say ‘favourite’ I ought perhaps to mention that a) I don’t generally watch American comedy and b) this is not even remotely the new It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or Married With Children or Frasier or whatever your favourite classic comedy was/is. But if you’ve already subscribed to Disney+, and you’re stuck for something to watch that isn’t preachy, annoying, painful, razzy, overexcited, hackneyed or otherwise irksome, this eminently likeable show will do just nicely.
Chad Powers works because it has what life coaches call ‘congruence’. That is, it’s happy in its skin. It has taken a very silly idea, borrowed from Mrs Doubtfire – disgraced football star disguises himself as someone different in order to revive his career – and realised it with a joy, commitment and integrity that make you feel oddly warm inside even though you know it’s total tosh.
‘Chad’ is played by Glen Powell (an up-and-coming superhero actor probably best known for playing the most irritating character in Top Gun: Maverick), who co-wrote the series with Michael Waldron. His real name is Russ Holliday, a talented but obnoxious footballer who blew his career by losing his team the championship and then – on camera – insulting his only remaining fan, a little boy in a wheelchair, stricken with cancer.
Holliday is loathsome in almost every way. He drives a Cybertruck; he is a glib, arrogant, shallow, entitled drunk and cokehead; he’s far too good-looking. But, as with Flashman, his villainy is so guileless – when the cancer boy dies, threatening his last chance of ever getting a new contract, Holliday speculates hopefully: ‘Did he take the vaccine?’ – that you cannot quite stop yourself rooting for him.
Somewhat handily, Holliday’s long-suffering dad is an Oscar-winning make-up artist (he did the fat man in Whale, supposedly). This means that when Holliday impulsively decides to apply for the position of quarterback with a struggling college team – the Catfish – in Georgia, he has the bag of professional-grade prosthetics he needs to transform his appearance into that of a goofy hick called Chad.
Obviously in real life this would be impossible: Holliday is far too old, he’s not enrolled in the college, his birth certificate has the wrong name. But this is the source for half of the best comedy, as Holliday – creatively improvising with his new Southern backwoods persona – comes up with ever more elaborate excuses for his absence of verifiable background. Asked if he has ever played in front of large crowds, he stammers that where he comes from people were too frightened of wolves to come out to the games. As for the lack of video footage, he explains that his folk are more by way of the oral tradition.
It knows it’s meant to be a puerile comedy in the tradition of Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell
Another good running joke are the prosthetics, which afford all manner of slapstick opportunities: Chad being unable to remove his football helmet lest it pull off his wig; Chad having to avoid all contact with water – e.g., communal showers; the swimming-pool romps and water-balloon fights organised at Coach’s bonding-weekend barbecue – in case his nose and his cheeks fall off.
This being American, there is, of course, an emotional story arc with an underlying moral message, viz: by transforming himself into the nice, shy, modest person he is not, Holliday becomes the person he always ought to have been in order to avoid calamity, get the girl, etc. But it doesn’t hammer you on the head with it. It knows it’s meant to be a puerile comedy in the tradition of Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell rather than a self-help guide.
I enjoy a show that has no ambitions beyond succeeding on its own terms and Chad Powers is a perfect example. The characters are likeable and well cast (especially Frankie A. Rodriguez as Danny, the Catfish team mascot who is in on Russ’s secret and helps him maintain his cover; and Perry Mattfeld as Ricky, the junior coach and potential love interest). The script – though obviously I didn’t understand any of the bits about football – is witty and entirely devoid of piety. I wanted to end with a relevant American football reference, but apart from Hail Mary pass, I don’t know any.
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