Blue-collar ‘Eastbound & Down’ riotously funny

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Getting a series on the air is hard enough. Trying to make one that defines an era? That’s like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. (Which, coincidentally, is how my cousin Stevie died.)

It’s almost always just a case of good timing. “Miami Vice” borrowed much of its style from MTV just as the music channel’s popularity was exploding. Premiering less than two months after Sept. 11, 2001, made Jack Bauer’s fight against the terrorists on “24” feel that much sweeter. And “thirtysomething” would have been canceled before its first commercial break were it not for a large, untapped pool of similarly self-obsessed yuppies.

Which brings us to “Eastbound & Down” (10:30 p.m. today, HBO).

I’m sure its creators — actor Danny McBride and his collaborators from the cult favorite “The Foot Fist Way” — never set out to make anything deeper than a gut-bustingly funny comedy.

But the blue-collar series — which focuses on Kenny Powers (McBride), an obnoxious, washed-up relief pitcher forced to move in with his brother’s family and take a job teaching P.E. at the North Carolina middle school he attended, just so he can have wages that can be garnisheed — feels a lot more relevant than it would have a year ago.

Although unlike most Americans who’ve recently experienced hard times, Powers contributed to his downfall. After gracing magazine covers from High Times to Highlights, the fireballer — think John Rocker meets John Daly — started treating his career the way he treated his mullet: neglecting the business in the front and focusing on the party in the back. Before long, a series of unfortunate comments about Jews, gays and blacks, combined with his rapidly diminishing fastball, led to his release.

Powers is a star-making turn for McBride, who’s coming off high-profile supporting roles in “Tropic Thunder” and “Pineapple Express” and can be seen in June’s “Land of the Lost” alongside “Eastbound” executive producer Will Ferrell. In fact, take away most of the F-bombs that Powers rains down on anyone and everyone in his life and this could have been yet another sports movie starring Ferrell, who guest stars in next Sunday’s episode.

It’s those F-bombs, though, as vital to Powers as the prized Jet Ski he tows behind his pickup wherever he goes, that make “Eastbound” particularly tough to write about. Replacing them with “(expletive)” just gets boring after a while, and it looks bad to children. (And believe me, in this day and age, any young person reading a newspaper is worth protecting.)

In that spirit, from here on out, that particular vulgarity will be replaced with something more kid-friendly. As in, Powers’ catchphrase from his playing days was “You’re (puppy)in’ out!” Or that he regularly listens to drawled snippets from his autobiographical audiobook along the lines of “I’m the man who has the ball, I’m the man who can throw it faster than (a unicorn), so that is why I’m better than everyone in the world.” Or that the book’s title is “You’re (Ice cream)in’ Out, I’m (Rainbows)in’ In.”

This isn’t to say that Powers is a bad guy — the fact that he drinks while driving and throws his empties out the window, snorts coke, and tries to order a hooker over the phone from his brother’s living room do that — it’s just to say he’s a little, well, rough around the edges.

Which is probably why he regales his nephews with the story of how their now straight-laced dad used to beat up a pair of retarded brothers. Or why, when he finds out his niece was named Rose after Kate Winslet’s character in “Titanic,” he explodes. “Y’all named your daughter after (a Jonas Brother)in’ ‘Titanic’? Oh, wow. … What’s his name?” Powers asks, referring to his nephew. “(Another Jonas Brother)in’ Shrek?”

I’m sure I’m not doing the series justice. In less capable hands, Powers would be an offensive, unwatchable mess. But McBride is funny, riotously so, in a primal, visceral way that’s usually relegated to “Jackass” stunts or “America’s Funniest Home Videos” clips of babies falling over.

And, sure, maybe I’m reading too much into this. Maybe decades from now Powers won’t be remembered as some sort of foul-mouthed Tom Joad for this pending depression.

All I know is, “Eastbound & Down,” with its above-ground pool and its Southern- and blues-rock soundtrack, is way easier to relate to now than, say, “Gossip Girl,” considering that what’s left of my 401(k) not only wouldn’t pay those kids’ bar tab on a given night, it would barely cover the tip.

And for the time being anyway, Kenny Powers, as his book-on-tape suggests, is (the cast of “High School Musical”)in’ in.

Christopher Lawrence’s Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.