In prime time, these boys will always be boys

These days, to label a grown man a ''Peter Pan" is to accuse him of being Michael Jackson. Ever since the owner of Neverland Ranch blamed his freakishness on his love of childhood, telling a documentary filmmaker, ''I am Peter Pan," the phrase has been doomed to connote ''wack job."

But there are other Peter Pan icons on TV, adult men who act like boys -- who love acting like boys -- and who don't look like ghouls. They don't use Jacksonian baby talk, and they don't wear gloves unless they're playing baseball with the guys. Steeped in money and fame (''Entourage"), bravery (''Rescue Me"), and medical brilliance (''House"), they are men who pass among us with adult-like normalcy, but whose unconscious mantra is straight out of J. M. Barrie: ''Never grow up."

The Big Boys Club has always had a popular place in prime time, especially in the context of fluffy sitcoms. Watching an oversize kid, like Ray Romano on ''Everybody Loves Raymond" or Jerry, George, and Kramer on ''Seinfeld," has been a mainstream sport since the tantrums of Ralph Kramden on ''The Honeymooners." Usually, the man is seen squirming under the thumb of a woman who's pushing him to be responsible -- or, in the case of Charlie Sheen on ''Two and a Half Men," to commit. But no matter how socially retarded these sitcom schlubs may be, laugh-tracked TV endows them with lovability, even as they bemoan the slings and arrows of female empowerment. They are light cartoons of arrested development, like Buster the panic-stricken mama's boy on ''Arrested Development."

But on ''Rescue Me," ''House," ''Entourage," and even the reality show ''Hell's Kitchen," the big boys are harder to embrace, and harder to dismiss. They're the kind of troublesome dudes who paraded through years of ''Sex and the City," men as emotionally disabled as they were handsome.

They can be quite funny -- particularly on HBO's ''Entourage." Think of Jeremy Piven's slippery agent, Ari, who likes to ''hug it out" after disagreements with other men, or Kevin Dillon's Johnny Drama, who's obsessed with the girth of his calves. And there's something blackly comic about Denis Leary's Tommy Galvin on FX's ''Rescue Me," like when he's relieved that his teen daughter's a lesbian since he knows guys are scamps. Even Hugh Laurie's Dr. Gregory House can bring smirks on Fox's ''House" thanks to his antisocial quips. When a colleague confronts him with ''I think your argument is specious," House replies, ''I think your tie is ugly."

But these guys and their immaturity bring tsoris to those near them, as well as to themselves. Tommy Galvin is a great burden to everyone in his life, except the strangers he carries from burning buildings as a firefighter. ''You're a Neanderthal," his girlfriend, Sheila, yells at him, quite correctly. The ex-wife whom Tommy still loves has fled the city with their kids, solely to avoid his hostile intrusions. And his detective brother is tired of bailing him out of legal trouble. P.S.: He's drinking himself to death.

In many ways, ''Rescue Me" is a portrait of a peculiarly masculine inability to cope with adult feelings. Tommy can do battle with flames, but he can't face the realities of loss and bad luck. And it's not just Tommy who's having trouble growing up. All the men in his life are stunted, locked into a locker-room mode that finds the buddies at Ladder 62 comparing penis length, making gay jokes, and teasing the rookie for dating a ''fat chick." These guys rush into fires like the heroes they are, but otherwise they're infantile. When the ''fat chick" dumps Mike (Michael Lombardi), he practically has a breakdown, as if he's not accustomed to hearing ''mommy" say no. Meanwhile, Tommy's father, played with comic passivity by Charles Durning, floats through elderly life still hoping to be a boy toy.

Watching Tommy rage through his days, attacking sidewalk vendors and spitting out insults, is not so different from watching the boyish fits of chef Gordon Ramsay on ''Hell's Kitchen." On Fox's restaurant reality contest, Ramsay presides over a group of wannabe chefs, abusively screaming and throwing food at them. He is a major brat with big britches, a little man whose success as a renowned chef, restaurant owner, author, and TV host does not change the fact that he's rabidly juvenile. Indeed, his success enables his bad behavior, just as Dr. House's uncanny ability to diagnose and cure compensates for his psychological shortcomings. These men are snot-nosed kids who get by in the adult world thanks to the attractiveness of their particular talents. They're emotional idiots, professional savants.

Of course, there is pleasure in behaving like a child. There's a freedom to it in the moment, a spontaneity, a creativity, a self-satisfying indulgence. That's the beauty of a show like ''Entourage," which weds the pickup moves of the movie ''Swingers" with the Hollywood satire of Robert Altman's ''The Player." Actor Vince Chase (Adrian Grenier) and his posse, Turtle, Drama, and Eric, are living like kids in the Hollywood candy store. Thanks to Vince's rising star, they stay in mansions and enjoy an unending flow of beautiful women. Like Disney's animated Peter Pan, who complains to Wendy that ''girls talk too much," the boys of ''Entourage" want their women seen but not heard. Girls generally destabilize boys clubs. When Eric (Kevin Connolly) gets jerked around by new girlfriend Kristen and stops partying, his buddies are there to make sure he hooks up with someone else.

Clearly, these boys won't evolve into painful and complex figures, like those on ''Rescue Me." ''Entourage" is pure comedy. The show is built to make us laugh; except that it does repeatedly hint at the pathos behind its big-boy giddiness. Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) is already tired of being Vince's errand boy. With enough coddling, Vince could clearly wind up as a sort of Gordon Ramsay of film sets, just as Ari is already the Dr. House of Hollywood deal-making. And Eric is already trying unsuccessfully to secure a girlfriend, rather than play the field. While ''Entourage" certainly celebrates the excess of its big boys' pleasures, it also expects us to be somewhat astonished by their emotional shallowness and their casual chauvinism.

Vince and his pals are products of a culture that encourages them to remain boys with toys (including one very expensive flat-screen television), to stay young, and to have fun for as long as possible. But the ultimate cost to that kind of endless adolescence becomes crystal clear on a show like ''Rescue Me." Peter Pan's future may not look like Michael Jackson, but it still isn't always pretty.

Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.