‘Champs’ Helps Us Accept The ‘Guy Thing’

Scientists recently discovered an entirely new classification of human being, a variation of the traditional Homo sapiens: humanus guyus.

The guy.

Eminent chroniclers of the new species have included Dave Barry and Tim Allen. The phrase, “It’s a guy thing,” has elbowed its way into the lexicon.

Characteristics include a propensity for T-shirts, sweat pants, high-fat snacks and the sports section of any newspaper.

For an exegesis on guyhood, however, viewers need not look any further than ABC’s Champs, a surprisingly fresh, funny sitcom that premiered Tuesday on ABC.

The series, created by Gary David Goldberg, lovingly makes fun of the guy phenomenon even while recklessly celebrating it.

Timothy Busfield is canny and charming as Tom McManus, a real guy’s guy: He has a nice family and good job, but what gets his engine revved are the buddies from his high-school basketball team.

They are quintessential guys - sweet, earnest, slightly ineffectual, virtually uncommunicative except when trading sports cliches or punches at one another’s shoulders - who shared a moment: They won the western Massachusetts basketball championship in 1973.

Played by Kevin Nealon, Ron McLarty, Ed Marinaro and Paul McCrane, the buddies are superbly cast and beautifully developed.

Each is an individual, with distinctive qualities and frailties, but each also is part of a lumpy mass, a graying ensemble that gathers for poker games in Tom’s living room.

In lesser hands, Champs probably would have been awful.

Only a vision as gentle and steady as Goldberg’s could negotiate the delicate balance of supporting and debunking the guy concept, a concept that teeters on sexism but rights itself at the last moment.

In the premiere, Marty Heslov (Nealon) faces an emotional crisis.

His friends realize that they don’t share personal details of their lives, despite how close they feel. They realize, shortly thereafter, that they like things that way.

Champs revolves around the McManus driveway, over which reigns a basketball hoop nailed to the garage. The guys go there when problems need solving: They feel comfortable there; they feel more alive, somehow, with a basketball in their hands and an imaginary crowd roaring its approval.

As the Champs guys know all too well, life was wonderfully simple back in ‘73, when winners and losers were clearly delineated by a final score. We all need a court and good buddies, Champs suggests, to keep us from mourning too intensely the days gone forever.