June is often a tough month for me. I’m always late with graduation stuff which really takes place in May with the bulk of the US (d’oh!). I thought about weighing in my last Summer as a college student but then decided, why bother, it was a mediocre time since 1989 was the toughest act to follow. Five years later, I did get the hang of living in Austin. This translates into doing more than surviving or how I spent the first five months of 1995 while I seriously considered returning North.
Instead I chose an obscure little BritCom (really Irish) starring Chris O’Dowd because it looks back on the same time period filtered through the eyes of young boy living in West Ireland. Despite it being in another country, there are common themes Americans, especially Catholics, can relate to. I also found it to be an amusing little history lesson on how the Irish saw the same events we Americans try make all about ourselves: the Berlin Wall being torn down especially. Hell, just as they settled marriage equality recently, they elected a woman as head of state (Mary Robinson) in 1989.
The premise is pretty funny. Martin Moone is the youngest child of four and the only boy. His father runs a sign company and the mother has various roles. They do alright financially given that Ireland was about on par with Greece, an EU member with a borderline third-world economy. The backdrop is a small town (by US standards) called Boyle in the West; we’d call it North but I think they prefer the other direction due to Northern Ireland still being a part of the UK. Like all small communities, one major industry/family dominates (a fishery owner played by Steve Coogan), there’s a clique of bullies who harass Martin and practically everybody knows each other. I experienced this in Beulah, ND and to a limited extent in Bloomington-Normal, IL; there’s little chance of a dumb stunt/incident going under the radar from a tattletale adult. Being Ireland, the Catholic Church has a larger presence in the people’s lives.
What keeps Moone Boy from being an Irish The Wonder Years is Chris O’Dowd’s role as Martin’s imaginary friend Sean Murphy. Firstly, the name is an inside joke to the Irish because it’s the most common name in their country like John Smith is here. The rest of the time, Sean’s advice is really what Martin is thinking at the time and the imaginary character is subject to the boy’s whims. For example, Martin got mad at Sean so Sean always appeared wearing high-heeled shoes. There was a more complicated one involving a famous soccer player.
Alas, the show concluded after three seasons. Even if Chris O’Dowd’s schedule wasn’t getting gobbled up by more lucrative appearances in US-based media (HBO’s Girls, Thor: The Dark World and St. Vincent), the Europeans usually have the sense to conclude while the show is good. They don’t let it drag out until the show is a pathetic, hollow shell of its former glory: Happy Days, Seinfeld and Married with Children. Yes, I know Absolutely Fabulous came back a couple times I think Are You Being Served? had a revival.
My only annoyance is Hulu being the exclusive distributor in the US. It was produced by Sky (aka Fox in the UK) so it doesn’t fall under the BBC umbrella and probably prevents Netflix or other streaming services from carrying it. Rumor has it O’Dowd has been asked to develop a US version. I hope this falls through. We may have a common language with the UK and Ireland; we don’t have the same sense of humor or perspectives. Either the gist fails to translate (The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, Fawlty Towers and The IT Crowd) or its so heavily modified, I’m not sure why anyone bothered (Three’s Company, Sanford and Son and All in the Family). I still recommend checking it out. Enduring Hulu’s teeth-gritting ad breaks is worth the “price.”