‘Donny!,’ lots better than you’d think

The only thing worse than spending time with a loudmouth who thinks he’s charming is when the loudmouth actually charms you.

This is painful to admit, but that actually happens with USA’s new sitcom “Donny!”

Although we’re starting from a low baseline, the show, starring the advertising executive and TV talking head Donny Deutsch as a fictionalized version of himself, is better than one would expect.

Viewers will be surprised at how much they can stand Donny and at how often they smile.

In the premiere episode, airing this Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 10:30 p.m., Donny, who hosts a talk show called “Donny!” (the real Donny’s last show, “The Point,” ran for only a week on CNN), gets in trouble when, after doing an episode on the dangers of “sexting,” he inadvertently sends what he calls a “suggestive pic” to one of his daughter’s teachers.

Deutsch, who created the show with Angie Day, strives to make Donny as obnoxious as possible. He’s self-centered, vain, glib and ignorant, and he dates a much younger woman, a model named Galina (Tina Casciani).

Donny lives in an echoey modernized town house with his two children, Coco (Fiona Robert) and Jagger (Jacob Thomas Anderson), whom he picks up from their private school in a chauffeured SUV.

He has three young personal assistants, Zoe (Meera Kumbhani), Jackie (Hailey Giles) and Violet (Jessica Renee Russell). When he addresses them as “my Deutschettes,” Zoe says, “I think I liked ‘Donny’s Angels’ better.”

The show captures the inanities of TV.

Donny, sounding a lot like Jerry Springer, fakes concern ably while interviewing his guests. He tells a woman who was virally shamed online after she sent a boyfriend a half-naked photo that he’s going to showing the “mems” it inspired.

When the woman panics, Donny’s producer, Pam (Emily Tarver), tells him via his earpiece, “She’s helping a little girl out there who’s about to do the same thing.”

Donny says to the woman, “There’s some girl out there who’s about to do the same stupid thing, and you’re going to help her not do it.”

As the woman weeps while variations on the photo are shown on the studio screens, Pam repeats to herself, “My job does not define me.”

Donny manages to recover from his own sext mishap during an appearance on “Morning Joe.” That show’s actual stars appear.

Deutsch got other stars from the NBC News family to appear in the episode on still photos.

The second episode features appearances by Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, as well as Christie Brinkley. In it, Donny does a “very special show” titled “Foxy at Fifty,” in which he tells his guests, “I have no use for 20-year-olds….Give me a plus-50 powerful woman.”

Galina decides it’s time for them to take “a pause.” So Donny gives his assistants a list of age-appropriate possible dates, including Punky Brewster, Jan Brady and Pam Grier.

“Literally,” says Zoe, “we have never heard of a single one of these.”

When Donnie and Brinkley start dating, she proves to be a good sport, but some of her comical moments won’t help her image.

Deutsch is surprisingly skilled at playing Donny. Emily Tarver quietly steals nearly every scene she’s in.

The fact that the first season is only six episodes long suggests that USA’s expectations for the show are low. But “Donny!” shows that beating low expectations can be better than failing to meet high ones.

Tags: comedies, Donny Deutsch, donny!, donny! review, usa