Has anyone else seen the ads for the CBS show How to be a Gentleman? Also, can’t you just see Ari Gold reluctantly taking a meeting to get this show off the ground? 

Even though I bailed on Entourage after the eighteenth consecutive episode that had the plot of Vince-bangs-model-Eric-worries-about-girlfriend, I always enjoyed Johnny Drama’s constant struggle for work. Vince was always going to be successful, Eric was always going to get Sloan, and Turtle was always going to be a Jar Jar Binks in an Ed Hardy T-shirt. 

But Johnny Drama was always desperately hoping for work, any work, corny work. And now Kevin Dillon is in this seemingly bad comedy. Maybe it’ll be great. Maybe it’ll be a How I Met Your Mother-type sleeper show, a show that nobody seems to watch but everybody loves. But probably not. From the show’s description, linked above:

Infectiously optimistic, Bert Lansing (Kevin Dillon) is a reformed “bad boy” from Andrew’s past who inherited a fitness center, but can still be rude, loud and sloppy.

Sounds corny. The paradox here is that Kevin Dillon’s character is a “reformed” bad boy who owns a gym “but can still be rude, loud and sloppy.” So… he is currently a bad boy. I’ve worked out at a lot of gyms, and let me assure you, no “good boys” own them. Also, there are no bad boys named Bert. 

The interesting thing from Johnny Drama’s career (in Entourage, not in real life) was that his big break was a fictional show called Five Towns. And from what we’ve seen in the show, and from what the characters said, Five Towns was good! It was a small-time, CW-esque drama, but it was good! And sadly, that’s the difference in careers between Johnny Drama and Kevin Dillon right now. If you disagree, have you seen Poseidon? 

But here’s what Dillon should do: he should go all Tony Cliftone on his career. He should start taking jobs as Johnny Drama. If the show bombs, which Gentleman might, his PR people can laugh it off, saying that Dillon is doing this public, insane, awesome stunt (and imagine the twitter account!). If the show goes over really well, then when it gets picked up for the second season, his PR people can say okay okay the fun’s over, Kevin was exploring his craft but now he’ll be making money under his own name. Who would lose if Kevin Dillon became Johnny Drama for, say, a year? We’d all love it, and Dillon/Drama could take any ridiculous job he wanted with no damage to his actual career!  

Even better, during the stunt, he can hire some crazy agent to yell ethnic slurs at parking attendants, late night talk show hosts, anyone who will listen. As crazy as this sounds, you wouldn’t want to see that?