Australian story-telling comedian Jim Jefferies will be appearing on FX on Thursdays at 10:30 p.m. in his show Legit. In the show, Jim is trying to become legitimate by dropping his party-going lifestyle and becoming more stable. With jokes about religion, women, sober people, homosexuals, pandas, war, and sex, Jim’s stand-up routine is regularly considered offensive. Jim’s life is an open book. Anything that’s funny, no matter how sad, rude, disgusting, or personal, goes into Jim’s stand-up. We may see this style in Legit.
Jim Jefferies is following in the footsteps of Louis C.K. and his award winning show Louie. Though Jim and Louie do many of the same gigs and both appear on the Opie and Anthony radio show, they have very different comedy and lifestyles. It’s a pretty safe bet that Jim’s show will be original enough to stand alone and not be lumped in with Louis C.K.’s more abstract and artsy sit-com.
On the show, Jim plays himself. D.J. Qualls plays Billy Nugent, a man in an advanced stage of muscular dystrophy who is confined to a wheelchair. Dan Bakkedahl plays his brother, Steve, a cyber-law library salesman who is struggling with a recent divorce.
The advertisements for the show include quotes from Jim’s stand-up, a clip of Jim and Steve taking Billy to a brothel (which is based on a true story from Jim’s stand-up), and a sequence where Jim states what it would take for him to bed whoever walks past him.
If you get past the corporate bits of the advertisements (where they play Jim off as a crazy, manly-man bad boy) and just watch Legit, you’re sure to not only laugh at but sympathize with the characters. If you watch Jim’s comedy, you’ll see it’s a bit deeper than nearly x-rated stories.