'Crossballs' scores points mocking debate shows
Talk shows such as CNN's "Crossfire" and MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" can be parodies of themselves, especially when the spit flies and the cant won't quit. Like talk radio, they thrive on the Energizer Bunny babble of squawking heads. As long as the hot air flows freely, everyone -- the network, the host, the guests, the dazed viewers -- stays afloat.
"Crossballs," a new Comedy Central series premiering tonight at 7:30, is an aggressive satire of cable debate shows. "Out of the `Crossfire,' beyond `Hardball,' " is how the pumped-up announcer describes it. The half-hour weekly show falls into a new category of TV series that openly mock contemporary TV genres, such as Spike TV's "Joe Schmo," a fake reality show that upends the likes of "The Bachelor," and MTV's forthcoming "Apprentice" goof, "The Assistant." Essentially, these offbeat series are parodies of self-parodies, which makes them either unnecessary or doubly funny.
Actually, "Crossballs" is a bit of both. It has some great moments, as it ridicules Fox News-style ideologues and their sound-bite-size theories. An episode on how to make the roads safer, for instance, features an actor (sketch comic Matt Besser from Upright Citizens Brigade) plying the sexist, racist views of the "Ozark Mountain Driving School." With a redneck accent and a committed delivery, he spews ready-made comments such as "The faster you get home, the faster you can sober up" to "Crossballs" host Chris Tallman. He also argues that women should not be allowed to drive SUVs, and stops a fellow panelist from criticizing people who have road rage. "It's a disease, and you shouldn't make fun of it," he argues.
Some of the absurdities on "Crossballs" are just this side of reality, which makes them amusingly provocative. Turning road ragers into a special interest group, for instance, is somehow not completely outside the realm of the possible. And neither is the woman from MAAAD, "Mothers Against Advanced Age Driving," who condemns older drivers, argues that anyone over 55 should have to drive a bright orange car, and instructs viewers about how to keep their elderly parents off the roads.
Like the shows it mocks, "Crossballs" can become tiresome, even though the yammering is being improvised by a comically sharp cast, which includes Andrew Daly ("Mad TV") and Jerry Minor ("Saturday Night Live"). Faux or no, the going can be slow. But the more serious problem with "Crossballs" has to do with its "twist," a phrase that has come to signify "ugly manipulation" when it comes to reality TV.
The twist here is that one of the experts in each episode is real, and not an actor, and he or she is supposedly being duped. Yes, "Crossballs" incorporates a touch of reality humiliation in its format, even in an episode that finds the panelists debating the humiliation on reality TV. Skewering the army of cable blowhards is a worthy and funny endeavor; ensnaring actual ones to ridicule them is less enjoyable.
Of course, these experts can't be very shrewd if they think they're on a real debate show. With a howling audience and panelists in favor of hunting animals with cars, the atmosphere is unmistakably, and sometimes hysterically, surreal.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. 
