I’ll say this: I have never liked Jerry Lewis movies. With back-handed apologies to the French, I have never found it appropriate to laugh at some poor shmuck who is indequate, inept, and pitiful, and knows it. (Of course, if he imagines himself brilliant and capable, like Inspector Closeau, then it’s funny.)

Kröd Mändoon is rather like one of those Jerry Lewis characters, it seems. So to me the very premises puts me off. Sean Maguire’s (Meet the Spartans) earnest, pleading hero is the sword and sorcery Charlie Brown, always having the football pulled away. I never thought he was a funny character either. Most of the poor reception Krod got from Howard fans seems to be because of the poor taste, the pure offensiveness of some of its humor. “Truly awful” was one succint response. And a lot of it is truly offensive. But I can accept offensive humor in such shows as Reno 911! and the long-running South Park, because these shows are funny. Unfortunately, for the most part, Krod is simply not funny.

You have Krod in a relationship with a woman whose sexual appetites he cannot begin to fill. That is funny how? You have this shaman who cannot cast spells, and a pig-man who cannot shoot straight — well, OK, that last might be a little funny. You have the flaming gay hispanic – please, if you can’t do it as well as Hank Azaria’s Agador/Spartacus in “The Birdcage“, why bother?

To castigate this show as sophomoric is to degrade sophomores everwhere. Still, there are a few bright spots. India de Beaufort is one steaming hottie, especially when stripped down to chainmail bra and the hottest of hot pants, as in episode four. And then there’s the villians.

British improv comedian Matt Lucas as Dungalor is a hoot. While he rates Dungalor as somewhere between Pol Pot and Blofeld on a scale of villianny, I see him as Baron Harkonnen on drugs. Alex MacQueen, playing his henchman Barnabas as a refugee from the staff of Slithering, is a perfect foil. When they are onscreen, the show is funny. They even succeed in making the plague funny.

I really wanted to like this show. I thought a sword and sorcery farce was something with potential. But aside from the villians, there’s really nothing much here to enjoy.