Is there no way to enliven the family sitcom? It is a shame that the participants on American Inventor won't apply themselves to such a project. To create a 22-minute show about parents and children that omits a beleaguered wife, a precocious child and a teenager who more or less can communicate only in acronyms is apparently as hard to do as it is to make a tanning booth that converts into a sofa.
The Bill Engvall Show, beginning tonight on TBS and starring Engvall, a popular force in the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, is perhaps best approached as a drinking game. Every time you feel a tired joke coming - about middle-aged lumpiness, marital sex, bad '80s hair - pour yourself a sip of something. When that joke arrives, drink up. You will deplete a bar.
On TV The Bill Engvall Show airs at 9 p.m. tonight on TBS.