BY JOHN KIESEWETTER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
UPN adds three new comedies tonight, to make it an uneven dozen sitcoms on Monday, as low-power WBQC-TV (Channel 25) officially becomes a UPN affiliate.
Two of the shows won't feel so new, because they use similar situations seen on other new fall comedies about blue-collar dads and single guys raising a kid.
The most creative of the trio -- a comedy set in Lincoln's White House called The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfieffer -- is so bizarre, so bad, that it's almost funny.
Here's a preview:
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Unlike ABC's Brother's Keeper or Fox's Holding the Baby, the child is not his own, but his 6-year-old brother (undeniably cute Maestro Harrell).
You'll feel like you've seen this all before when an unenthusiastic Jared (Mr. Robinson) tells his dad: "We'd like to have a social life that doesn't revolved around Rugrats and Kool-Aid." You will, too.
DiResta (8:30 p.m., Channels 25): Not only does John DiResta's comedy have the same premise of Kevin James' King of Queens, it also has the same time slot.
Mr. DiResta, a former New York City transit cop turned stand-up comedian, plays an overweight working-class New Yorker struggling to provide for his family. Leila Kenzle (Mad About You) plays his wife and the mother of their two children.
DiResta gets off a few good lines, such as when he tells a woman going into labor at a subway stop: "The paramedics will be here in 20 minutes, or your next delivery is free."
This sitcom is as good as CBS' King of Queens, and certainly better than Brian Benben, Costello or Conrad Bloom. If only it weren't so repetitive.
The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer
(9 p.m., Channel 25): Think of this as a Saturday Night Live sketch -- an uneven, unpredictable, outrageously broad comedy that's so bad at times you'll be unable to stop watching.
In fact, slavery jokes in the first episode of this show about a black servant to Mr. Lincoln were so offensive to black leaders that UPN will skip the pilot and start with the second episode.
Chi McBride, the janitor from the John Larroquette Show, stars as Desmond Pfeiffer (pronounced P-feiffer) in a comedy that has as much historical accuracy as Hogan's Heroes. It's more of a secret diary of the Clinton White House, with goofy Dann Florek (L.A. Law, Law & Order) as a sex-obsessed president, and Christine Estabrook (The Crew) as his sexually frustrated wife.
In today's "Abe On Line (AOL)," dishonest Abe becomes addicted to "telegraph sex," asking Desmond to tap suggestive telegrams in Morse code to a mystery lover. (Desmond tells Abe: "Sure, make the black guy tap for you!")
When Confederate generals intercept a telegram about "getting the licking of your life," they think it's a war plan. High jinks ensue, as they say.
No, this isn't the Ken Burns' version of the Civil War. And it probably won't last as long, either. Honest.
John Kiesewetter is Enquirer TV/radio critic. Write him at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.
