The fact that "Normal, Ohio" is unwatchable garbage has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the central character is gay.
No, this new Fox sitcom is unbearable because it's loud, crude, obnoxious and pretty much without any redeeming value whatsoever. Imagine your nightmare of what a family might be — people screaming insults at each other morning, noon and night — and that'll give you a pretty good idea of what watching "Normal, Ohio" is like.
There's a lot of talent in front of the camera here, and all of it is wasted. John Goodman, whose talent carried "Roseanne" while its star went into regular meltdowns, stars as Butch, a middle-age man who, four years earlier, decided to come out of the closet. He abandoned his wife (Mo Gaffney) and son (Greg Pitts) to live as an openly gay man in Los Angeles.
In Wednesday's pilot (7:30 p.m., Ch. 13), Butch returns to his hometown for a bash celebrating his son's approaching matriculation to med school, where he encounters his trampy sister, Pamela (Joely Fisher of "Ellen") — a single mother of two — and his parents, Bill and Joan (Orson Bean and Anita Gillette), who are extremely uncomfortable about his lifestyle. Not that they aren't loud about it.
"Well, well, if it isn't my gay, homosexual son," dear old Dad exclaims when he first sees Butch.
It's not homophobic to hate this show. As a matter of fact, it might be homophobic to like it — Bill's shtick is to call Butch everything from "a big showgirl" to "fluffy" to "a piccolo player."
And Butch isn't much better, what with his adoration of show tunes and his admission that he's "a big girl." That's supposed to be funny, because he's really a manly man who screams at the TV during football games and likes to hang out in bars and chug beer.
The joke here is supposed to be that while Butch is gay, he's the best-adjusted member of his family. His son is a slacker, his ex-wife married a bore (Charles Rocket, who got fired from "Saturday Night Live" two decades ago), his sister picks the wrong man — over and over again.
And the second episode revolves around his parents, who have been less-than-faithful to each other.
Charming.
In Wednesday's premiere, Joan has a bit of a problem with Pamela's revealing dress, and says so in a very vulgar manner that is not funny.
After which, Bill adds, "It's not bad enough our son dances with wolves, our daughter has to look like a Pop Tart."
That's shortly before Bill asks Butch to step outside so he can "kick his (expletive)."
Charming.
And it's offensive to viewers of every lifestyle when Butch tries to torture his young nephew, Robbie (Cody Kasch), who's worried that being gay might be hereditary.
"There's one thing they do know for sure," Butch yells as he grabs the kid's head. "It's contagious!"
What's hard to believe is that "Normal, Ohio" is actually the revamped and (so we're told) much improved version of a show that started out as "Don't Ask." In that one, Goodman's gay character and his son shared a house with a straight single father (Anthony LaPaglia) and his children.
If it was really worse than what Fox is putting on beginning Wednesday, it must have been lethal.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com