THE residents of “MTV’s Downtown” are so unhip they’re hip.
At least that’s what MTV wants us to think.
Those who think for themselves will find that “Downtown” is not without its selling points – including a go-with-the-flow animated style, a gentle cynicism, and ethnically diverse cast of characters – but “hip” isn’t one of them.
You have to have more than jingling money and/or talent to be hip.
Alex is a 24-year-old who can’t even get to first base with himself without being interrupted because he’s stayed to long in his (unseen) parents’ nest.
He’s selling some of his beloved action figures to make the rent on a lower East Side apartment he took sight unseen.
It comes equipped with enough vermin to overrun a developing country and with a bricked-in window.
“Hey, look, it’s a window and a metaphor for your life,” says his best friend Jen, who comes at everything from the negative side.
Jen runs a used-clothing shop. That makes her Donald Trump compared to Alex, who’s a minimum-wager at a copy shop that may be to “Downtown” what Central Perk is to “Friends.”
Hangin’ out there are Alex’s flakey sister Chaka, who’s 17 and out of parental control.
She’s hard-party girl who doesn’t let a little thing like being underage keep her out of the happenin’ places.
What she already knows, shy Alex will never comprehend.
Alex doesn’t even know that Saturday night is so-o-o-o over.
“Tuesday just so happens to be the new Saturday night for anyone who’s even remotely cool,” says Chaka, who has the bad grades and ink-stamped arms to prove her expertise.
“Saturday night’s only like Saturday night for like day-cared Gucci girls now.”
Chaka’s best friend, Mecca, is a 17-year-old in search of true love, one new crush at a time.
Alex is nursing a silent crush on Serena, 20, the zither-playing Goth goddess and cashier at his favorite comics store, where Matt, an 18-year-old graffiti-ist, works part-time.
Matt’s best pal is Fruity, also 18, and a hormonally charged strike-out artist and showboat.
Rounding out the group is 26-year-old Goat, who looks like a refugee from the Vietnam-era drug culture. He’s never met a drink or a woman he didn’t belly up to.
He’s supposed to be entertaining, but we like our moochers with a lighter aura than Goat’s.
We also prefer stories in which 17-year-old girls don’t go on all-night adventures with a stranger who’s just hijacked the van their brother’s borrowed for the day.
Silly us.
But buried under all the too-much-too-soon packaging (the second episode has sections that qualify as soft porn) are teens and twentysomethings who’d probably jump at the chance to be in the most inane network sitcom and some mildly amusing observations about life as even the unhip know it in this city of many accents.
“And it is several giant steps up the food chain from “Beavis & Butt-head.”
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