To those unfamiliar with Australian comedian Chris Lilley’s past work, his new mockumentary series “Angry Boys” is downright disarming.
    
Lilley plays six different characters in the show, including Australian twins Daniel and Nathan Sims, Japanese mother Jen Okazaki, African-American rapper S.mouse, prison officer Gran and over-the-hill surfer Blake Oakfield. The characters cross race and gender lines, and yet they all come off as believable.
    
For those who have seen Lilley’s previous shows, “Summer Heights High” and “We Can Be Heroes: Finding the Australian of the Year,” none of this is surprising. It is more like a really good band finally putting out another album.
   
 No, this show is not Tyler Perry fare or “White Chicks.” If nothing else, Lilley proves here and elsewhere his extreme versatility. His body is ageless. He can play any age, from 16 to 60, and convincingly so.
    
This all goes back to the writing phase of the show. The pure strength of character carries the endeavor. It produces great rewards for the acting phase too, better allowing Lilley to pick and choose just the right tone of voice for each character. With the hilarious — but never over-the-top — back stories of his characters, viewers never feel like they are just watching Lilley try on many hats. It is easy to think of each character he creates as independent.
    
Viewers can see the underlying brilliance behind Lilley’s work in the series’ most outstanding character: S.mouse. On its face, a parody of a self-absorbed rapper seems both obvious and done already. One could even argue that, in the right context, a portrayal of an African-American rapper by Lilley could easily prove offensive and stereotypical.
   
 Lilley avoids both of these barbs by tweaking the character and playing with viewers’ expectations. Yes, this S.mouse loves controversy, and sure, he says that he came from a rough background. But then in his introduction, viewers are blind-sided when S.mouse’s father reveals the truth: S.mouse actually grew up rich.
    
The comedy then comes from S.mouse’s constant aim to become the rapper stereotype, while everyone from his father to his girlfriend to even his buddies subverts that.
    
Lilley also makes a statement with the actual songs that S.mouse produces. Instead of Eminem parodies, his songs are more like some perverted version of Kidz Bop, infantile rebellion for the middle-school set. Songs include one about using the bathroom on a cop car and another about having sex with grandmothers, both for seemingly no reason.
   
 Like with S.mouse and the bombastic rapper archetype, Lilley takes on the parent with a hunger for fame through Jen Okazaki and her son, Tim. Viewers are, no doubt, familiar with the news stories of parents making up things to make their children famous, in order to become famous as the parents. Lilley targets this idea but plays it up in such a bombastic way that it becomes hysterical.
    
Jen forces Tim to learn skateboarding as a child and instills a deep-seeded love for the sport from constantly guilting her son into performing well. She even threatened to kill herself if Tim did not win skateboarding tournaments.
    
Even though Tim uses his documentary confessional time to say the truth to the filmmaker, he maintains that he loves skateboarding, and he loves winning. This shows Lilley’s keen eye for psychology and depth in his characters. This type of emotion from Tim recalls documentaries like “Spellbound” where parents push their children to be the very best, even when the children seem exhausted. Yet the children grow to love the sport through this extreme ambition.
    
Jen and Tim’s story takes a turn for the bizarre in how Jen seeks to actively market Tim, telling him to say that he is gay in order to brand him the first-ever gay skateboarding champion. This launches ludicrous catch phrases — “Skateboarding gay style!” and simply “I’m gay!” — as well as a whole line of clothing and phallic-shaped accessories. Tim yelling “I’m gay!” each time he starts skateboarding is the kind of ridiculous punch line that consistently gets laughs.
    
It is unfortunate that “Angry Boys” is getting forgotten about in the grand scheme of things, with its odd, early premiere date of Jan. 1 and its rush of airing two episodes at a time each Sunday. It feels like HBO is simply burning off the series, while satiating its cult audience. The strange decision to take Lilley’s past series “We Can Be Heroes” off HBO On Demand right after “Angry Boys” premiered only speaks to this.
    
However, Lilley’s brand of humor is one of the most inventive and interesting corners of comedy in recent years, and “Angry Boys” is definitely worth checking out.


— Robby O’Daniel is a graduate student in communications. He can be reached at rodaniel@utk.edu.