Universal Basic Guys is utterly basic
Fox's animated sitcom feels notably retrograde
Image: Fox Media Inc.
Titling your show Universal Basic Guys is quite the gamble. Sure, the animated FOX sitcom created by Adam and Craig Malamut follows a group of Jersey men who find themselves living a life of leisure once their factory jobs are given to robots and they’re offered $3,000/a month as part of a universal basic income pilot program. In that sense, the title is self-explanatory. But putting “basic” in your title almost makes negative reviews of your show write themselves. For this is, in both premise and execution, a rather pedestrian outing. It’s utterly basic, in fact.
What is most striking about this latest addition to FOX’s storied Animation Domination programming block (home of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob’s Burgers) is how unconcerned it seems with engaging with its central concept. Universal basic income is but a narrative crutch (explained not in a pilot but in the show’s opening credits) that allows its core group of men to go about their days with no care in the world. Mark and Hank Hoagies (both voiced by Adam Malamut) and their neighbors spend their days, in fact, getting into an outrageous series of hijinks that run the gamut from violent encounters with exotic pets and hooking a whale while fishing to encountering the Jersey Devil and interacting with a real-life sex doll. There is no rhyme or reason for these skit-like A- and B-plots, let alone for the central conceit of the show: What would a group of regular guys do with a regular monthly stipend? Hang around and buy needlessly expensive stuff—all while getting into ripped-from-’90s-sitcom storylines that stress the differences between the sexes. (An entire episode revolves around the importance of having a guys’ day, which, yes, involves failed TikTok challenges, beers, and greasy food.)
Here is a neighborhood where it’s the women who go out and make money and remain exasperated at their slacker husbands. And yes, it even includes a slightly more emasculated figure (Fred Armisen’s effete David) as a foil for the beer-bellied, goatee-sporting lead who’s the butt of every kind of joke you can imagine. In many ways, Universal Basic Guys almost feels like a throwback to the kind of sitcom men of yore that have only gotten a slight update in this 2024 offering. These are men who forget they’re supposed to go out to fancy dates with their wives, who begrudgingly bond with their stepsons, and who are often more focused on being right than on doing the right thing.