Is your sword on fire, or are you just happy to see me?

I have a New Yorker cartoon that speaks to me on our refrigerator door: the title is "The Sullen 40-to-54-Year-Old Demographic"; a man is slouched in an armchair watching TV, muttering, "Amuse me, for Christ's sake, just amuse me..." Some days, that's exactly how I feel about about television. Though I have the TV on quite a bit, I'm mostly watching DVDs, or Turner Classic Movies, or Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I'm not a fan of reality TV or the overwrought "documentary" channels or hour-long dramas, and the only one of those I'm currently watching is Castle, an average cop show with the always-charming Nathan Fillion. So that leaves me watching unfashionable sitcoms, like Big Bang Theory and Gary Unmarried.

If I'm like the sullen man in the cartoon, I must admit to being amused by a new Comedy Central show, Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire. It's one of those parody shows that harks back to Mel Brooks and Airplane that tends to toss in everything the writers come up with in hopes that enough bits will hit their mark to make the show worth watching. I'm not sure that quite enough sticks on the wall here, but to make up for that, there is the hunky eye candy of star Sean Maguire, from Meet the Spartans.

The show is a send-up of the Conan/fantasy, Robin Hood/medieval adventure genres, with elements of Star Wars and The Princess Bride. Maguire (at left) is Mändoon, a strapping but kinda dumb hero, leader of a small band of merry men/freedom fighters. There's the sorcerer who can't really do magic, the slutty but smart girlfriend, and the extremely gay ex-lover of Mändoon's late mentor (who himself shows up occasionally as an Obi-Wan-ish ghost). Their Darth Vader of Nottingham is Chancellor Dongalor, played by Little Britain's Matt Lucas, who is the closest thing the show has to a weak link. He's funny in small doses, but we get him in big doses, with almost as much screen time as Maguire.

The show is top-heavy with sex jokes and gay jokes, and the flaming character of Bruce could be on the edge of offensive for some, I suppose; for me, he's just one-note and therefore somewhat tiresome. Lucas' character is theoretically straight, but Lucas plays him with slightly more than a gay edge, which also gets tiring. But Maguire, in addition to being handsome and built, is genuinely funny as the deadpan center around which the rest of the characters spin wildly. The lovely India de Beaufort is also very good as the hot girlfriend who thinks nothing of having sex with 300 men in one night as part of a pagan ritual. It would be nice if it were a bit smarter, with wit in addition to humor, but as I'm slouched on the couch, I do find myself amused more often than not.