User Reviews

I've spent some time reading the comments on this site about "Listen Up." The show, although doing well rating wise, does not appear to be a favorite amongst IMDb users.

I think the show is a decent show. There are some great lines (i.e. "I had no idea this little hair could produce this much debris") among others. The show has good jokes. But it does lack something. One thing I can say is that if someone were to tell me what the first two episodes were about I wouldn't be able to provide the answer. The first two episodes haven't really been about anything. The daughter bans her father from her soccer games in episode 1. In episode 2 she defies him and gets more earring holes. These are not story lines with which to base an entire episode on. There's little substance there. The show doesn't have any meaning. Yes, comedies are supposed to be funny and are not to be mistaken for films that are supposed to inspire or deliver some great message. But there needs to be something.

"Seinfeld" didn't really have meaning either but the jokes centered around the little quirky things we do in our lives. This helped us relate. It made us interested. One of the better sitcoms we've had over recent years has been "Frasier" (mostly in its early years) but one thing that "Frasier" managed to do was to blend jokes with substance. Many episodes featured a serious conversation between characters that put life into perspective and revealed some truth. "Listen Up" has yet to provide something for us to grab onto. Each episode needs a conflict - one that can provide some humor but at the same time be resolved in the end such that Tony Kleinman learns something.

As for Jason Alexander and his acting thus far I have to say he's done a fine job. The little things he does is what makes his performance great - His pump of the fist when his son tells him that he's reading a book of zip codes for instance. The only thing I could perhaps fault him for is going into his yell voice too often and always with the same tone. But for the most part I have enjoyed his performance.

Everyone seems to be talking about how he's acting like George Constanza from "Seinfeld" and I'd have to say that he is. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Actors aren't generally supposed to act like a million different things. Actors are selling themselves. A director looks for a certain look, a certain quality in the actor's voice, and checks to see if the actor can act. Jason Alexander is Jason Alexander and he's going to be himself when he performs. He was cast to be the character he has always been. He's not a character actor. He's not going to seem like an entirely different person with each show or movie he is in.

A TV series treatment of Sportswriter and ESPN commentator Tony Kornheiser's articles and essays is the basis for this show,which pair's Seinfeld's sharp comedic loser extraordinaire Alexander with jovial sitcom vet Malcolm Jamal Warner as very thinly disguised surrogates of Kornheiser and his co-host on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" columnist Michael Wilbon,respectively.

There might be fertile room for comedy here,and Alexander seems a little better fit for this than the previous "Bob Patterson",but this show couldn't relay to you enough how completely out of control he was with his family. Sure,his wife(Wendy Makkena)is sweet and basically supportive,but their kids,particularly the daughter(Daniella Motta) but I suppose even the son(Will Rothar)to a lesser degree,seem to regard their dad with an unrelenting source of aggravation. To make matters worse,at work,he is almost constantly falling behind his popular co-star in terms of respect or attention. All of this may not SOUND like bad elements for the show,but the show seemed to kind of hammer away at the same note,episode after episode,and it becomes pretty tiresome in a hurry.

Not a terrible show,but could've been better.It seems like of late,other than "Duckman",he seems to be more comfortable in guest roles("Monk","Friends" to name a few). I honestly believe Mr.Alexander has a pretty good show left in him A.S.(After Seinfeld),but as of yet,I haven't seen it.

Every single episode that I have seen has made me laugh out loud, even when I'm at home alone watching the show. The writing is witty, charming and deals with situations that most people can relate with. The dynamics in Tony's family are well thought out as well- Jason Alexander plays a perfect Tony- who is lovable, funny, charming and a bit of the underdog- we always want to root for him. Malcolm-Jamal Warner is a perfect match for Jason. Malcolm has attitude and humor that keeps me coming back for more as well. I LOVE the flashback scenes! I love getting the insight into the life of Young Tony who seems to have experienced some pretty pathetic situations as a kid. This show is fun, clean and allows our entire family to share some great laughs without us(as parents)feeling nervous about the content that our kids might be seeing.

Did you ever watch the very earliest episodes of Seinfeld back in 1990? I can remember seeing them when they were new, and thinking that the show was nothing to get excited about. It improved at an almost imperceptible rate, until I eventually realized I was watching something inspired. I think this show, too, has shown gradual improvement in the quality of its scripts and the interaction of its cast. The show is really built around its star, Jason Alexander, and as an old Seinfeld fan I have a lot of good will toward Alexander and am willing to give any project of his a fair chance. Is there a certain amount of George Costanza in the role of Tony Kleinman? Undoubtedly, but it's a shtick that I still enjoy.

You can't go far wrong with Malcolm-Jamal Warner, a seasoned sitcom veteran and just plain likable guy. The interaction between him and Alexander is fun to watch, and they make a good team.

I know almost nothing about sports, and absolutely nothing about Tony Kornheiser, so that element of the project means nothing to me. To me it's not important, anyway, because as an earlier commentator pointed out, the show isn't about sports in the slightest. Although every once in a while a sports figure is trotted on to add a bit of color to the show, these scenes are just brief distractions.

I will admit, though, that the very tired sitcom stereotype of "smart wife and kids, dumb dad" is a little grating at times, and I'd appreciate it if this formula was not quite so overstressed in the show. One kink in that formula, though, is Will Rothhaar as Tony's son Mickey. This character started out as a cipher because of the scant amount of lines and screen time accorded him (the earliest plots seemed to be dominated by the relationship between Tony and his fairly obnoxious daughter). But Rothhaar, a highly experienced young actor, seems to bring a much-needed element of calm and softness amidst the more grating personalities of the other characters. The delivery of his lines are never overdone in the slightest but always note-perfect, and always get a laugh out of me. He turns what could be a cartoonish stereotype of a simple-minded slacker kid into an interesting, likable, and funny character, and I get a big kick out of the scenes where he's intimidated by his harpy sister.

I hope this show is given a chance to continue to grow and improve. I like its progress.

This based on the writing of Tony Kornheiser or the Washington Post, ESPN and ESPN Radio. If you have not read his columns or seen his show Pardon the Interruption or had ever listened to his old ESPN radio show you probably will not see the inherent humor. I personally enjoyed the episodes shown so far as I have read, seen and heard the previously mentioned media outlets. The sit com is not dead, just misunderstood, we as a society are taking things too literally and seriously. Keep an open mind and just enjoy a show like this for what it is simple fun and pretty darn clean humor and not try to find some great social meaning or political statement in it.

This is by far the worst sitcom, since My Mother the Car. Jason Alexander is a fine actor, but his George Costanza routine does not work outside of Seinfeld. It's grating and more embarrassing than funny. I tried to give the show a chance, but after four shows I gave up on it. It gets old, seeing the same idiotic, unbelievable behavior show after show

This is the First Monday night CBS sitcom I have refused to watch in many years. With their tradition of excellent sitcoms, it's beyond comprehension why they put this clunker between such fine shows as Still Standing, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Two And a Half Men. I prayed that the show wouldn't make it past mid-season, but my prayers weren't answered. One can only hope that somebody at CBS comes to their senses, and realizes that there is absolutely no substance to the show, and that it is "not" entertaining.

I'm a sports guy and I watch ESPN rather regularly, including Kornheiser on PTI. I also was a HUGE Seinfeld fan. So naturally, I thought this would be a show worth watching. Boy, was I wrong. "Tony" is one of the most wimpiest characters ever created next to Screech from Saved by the Bell and Mark from Step by Step. His character and his relationship with his daughter really give parenting a bad name. This show pretty much follows the new age mantra of "don't punish your kids, listen to what they have to say" BS. In one episode, Tony punishes her daughter only to feel - you guessed it - bad about it. So he tries to find ways to reward her so he wouldn't have to go through with the punishment. My God!

It seems they are really only trying to develop two characters in this show, Tony and his daughter. The "son" has a handful of lines in each episode and is portrayed as semi-retarded or highly addicted to the wacky weed. The mother hardly says a word and seems overly passive towards her kids. If someone was walking down the street and saw this group of people together, they wouldn't think they were a family. The show hardly talks about sports (Gee, wouldn't you think that a show based on a sports writer would have something to do with sports). I give this show the rest of the season and then the Axe. Side note: The opening credits sequence....LAME. Feels like something out of the 80's.

I have watched all the "Listen Up" episodes to date. It started, as most TV sitcoms, rather slowly, but now the cast have hit their stride. The teenage son, Mickey, played by Will Rothhaar, has gradually become a main character of the ensemble cast. Rothhaar is a gifted comedian with truly inspired deadpan delivery. He's on his way to becoming a Major Talent, someday! The show's episodes are now well-crafted plots acted out by cast members who are really "clicking" together. In one recent episode, Mickey dated a girlfriend who turned out to be into Civil War Reenactment; she took him to Gettysburg in full 1860's regalia, and when he walked into the room dressed as a Confederate soldier, I nearly fell out of my recliner laughing. The look on his face was perfect! The boyfriend who can't believe he's really doing this for his girlfriend. Every show is a gem, now. Watch "Listen Up!" regularly and you'll find yourself becoming a delighted fan.

The Cubs Curse, The Red Sox Curse....and now again the Seinfeld Curse. OK, I admit it. I watch Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. Or the show with the Yelling Guys, as my wife calls it. But I watch it for the sports info. Not because Tony Kornheiser is funny. Which he's not. Although he seems to think he is. He also seems to be under the delusion that he's clever. But all he's really good at is being loud. A sitcom based on him, and the characters he's created, would seem doomed. Especially a sitcom dogged with the tired writing, cardboard characters and banal situations of Listen Up.

On one level, I can see where the casting of Jason Alexander as the Kornheiser character (similar types) makes a certain kind of sense. But, of course, that still begs the question as to whether it was worthwhile to develop this stale show in the first place. And while the character of George Costanza was often hilarious as a cog in the big Seinfeld machine, Jason Alexander, now carrying the whole load on Listen Up, is forced to trot out all his old tricks. But, in the end, all he's really good at is being loud.

Let's say you own a hot dog stand. You hire this jerk to make hot dogs. He burns them all day long. For every customer, he turns the dog into charcoal when he tries to grill it. This goes on for a while, and nobody buys hot dogs. So you fire the jerk. Next day the jerk comes back, you re-hire him, and he starts burning hot dogs again. You lose a lot of money. The cycle repeats itself. This is how the networks run their business.

The sit com has been dead for years. The genre is just not funny anymore.It has run its course. Yet every year, the networks trot em out again, and lose more money. Jason Alexander was only funny in 'Seinfeld' because he was an unlikeable jerk. In anything else, hes just an....unlikeable jerk not in 'Seinfeld'. Hes got no warmth, no comic talent, no timing, no appeal. Yet this is what, the second or third attempt they've tried to use him to snatch some sort of audience? When are these execs gonna stop burning their dogs?

I watched this show for 30 straight extraordinarily dull minutes and didn't even grin. not once. I didn't smirk. I didn't breathe heavy. It was so dull it wasn't even embarrassing. I give it possibly 2 more weeks. The grill is on fire again.

Every show has a catch. Whether it's a nutty neighbor, or an out of the "norm" situation. Listen up, having the huge star Jason Alexander was enough to make me watch. Before the debut in the fall of 2004, I was looking forward to this show more than any in the fall line up. But, once the plot was laid out, we found rather quickly the show lacked. Jason Alexander was surrounded with very serious characters. Everyone was expecting Alexander to mimic his George Costanza persona. He did, or tried to at least. The problem was there was nobody within the cast to bring out the hot tempered, overreacting character, Jason Alexander preforms so well.

Listen up needed a sidekick for Alexander. An overbearing parent, a busy body next door neighbor type, someone to fuel the fire of Alexander's character. Listen up would be the equivalent to the Jeffersons with out Tom and Helen Willis, Florence the maid, and Mr. Bentley. Without those people, who would have pushed George Jefferson to his limits? The same can be said here. There was nobody to push Jason Alexander to his limits. We were left forcing ourselves to laugh at Alexander, living around characters that lacked depth.

brilliant written scripts, excellent storey lines and cast. This brilliant sitcom about a father & his family, and his best friend who finds himself obsessing about what goes on. and how his daughter reacts is a class twist to each storey plot. His son who is not so bright but has skills in golf, his father takes control, he also over reacts when his daughter plays football, causing stress for all concerned. His best friend does his best to try and see what he can do, in all the crazy things that Tony gets up to. each episode has a great storey line and keeps you laughing. Tony played by Jason Alexander, takes the role to a great level of comedy acting.

I was amazed that Listen Up was canceled. I miss the show so much. I enjoyed the chemistry among the characters, and the acting was superb. Will it ever return? Jason Alexander's character made me forget all about 'George'. Jason Alexander was able to portray Tony in a totally different format. Malcolm Jamal Warner also put a lot of distance between 'The Cosby Show' and his other sitcom. Was there ever an option to try another time slot? How many episodes were taped? I would be willing to buy the series on DVD, if possible. I made the mistake of erasing the season off of my DVR. Unfortunately, I didn't know that it wasn't going to return. What can be done to bring this show back?

This show got canned and for very good reasons. For one thing, the son and daughter look nothing a like. Of course you'll get that with a lot of shows, but I mean, come on, so unbelievable. One thing I've noticed is shows that have a "show within the show" barely last ("Sports Night," "LateLine," etc.). Of course there was "Home Improvement" that worked well, but the writing was actually good. It had a Perfect story line; with this show, however, I didn't really know where it was going. I think they put way too many eggs into one basket. Too many plots. They put seven seasons of writing into one season.

One thing that may be a factor to this disaster is Jason Alexander trying very hard to escape his role as George Costanza from the greatest show ever made "Seinfeld." Unfortunately, it just may never happen. I think he has over stayed his sitcom welcome and should just move on to making crappy movies like he has been doing before, during and after "Seinfeld." And he really should of gotten a clue after the terrible "Bob Patterson" series which sank faster than the titanic. Don't get me wrong, he is a terrific actor, but sometimes he picks the wrong projects to work on.

Well, it was like I predicted. The show was a bomb and it will be long forgotten within a week if not sooner. This deserves no stars overall, not even for effort.

Network: CBS; Genre: Family Sitcom; Rating: TV-G; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 – 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season)

"Listen Up" is the weirdest freaking' thing. A family sitcom based on the life of Tony Kornhiesher, host of the currently running ESPN debate show "Pardon the Interruption". Having never seen Kornheiser or "PTI", I'm left to wonder why in the world the guy would want or allow his life to be gutted and presented as another in the gluttonous assembly line of CBS family sitcoms.

"Listen" has all those familiar family sitcom clichés that families in the audience supposedly cling to like a security blanket for fear that venturing out of them will lead them to Hollywood filth. All these shows are the same, the only difference is the cast a network can plug into the roles, and "Listen" does have a halfway decent one. In its corner is Jason Alexander as Tony Kleinman (Kornheisher), Malcolm Jamal-Warner as his cool, popular on-air partner and Wendy Makkena ("The Job") in the "I'm the real boss around here" wife role. Like all of these shows Makkena's part is to emasculate and embarrass her inept, portly, balding husband in front of their kids and the world whenever possible. As you may have guessed, the show within the show is called "Listen Up".

Frankly, I don't know what else to say about this show that you haven't already heard about "The King of Queens", "Yes, Dear", "Still Standing" or any other family sitcom. We've seen this show before and as long as CBS pumps out these clones for the sake of familiarity we will continue to see the same thing.

The draw here is undeniably Jason Alexander. I've always said that it's easy to be good in a good product, but to be good in a bad product – that's talent. I wanted to enjoy him in it. Alexander could have easily run rings around this show and instead lowers himself to the mediocrity of the material given to him. Alexander is a logical fit for the role. Kleinman's character is not that unlike the put-upon George Costanza which allows Alexander to sleepwalk through it, collect the paycheck and still fit the part perfectly and get a few laughs. But why would the actor, supposedly trying to distance himself from being type-cast go for these similar roles over and over. There is still time for Alexander to get back into the spotlight. The best advice somebody could give him would be to find a juicy supporting role in an ensemble series, maybe a drama or Dramedy. He wouldn't be the star, but it would do more for him than another lame leading role.

* ½ / 4