‘Pizza Place’ Cooks Up Laughs; ‘House Rules’ Stifles Them

Maybe pizza makes the difference.

In any case, next week marks the arrival of two sitcoms that share a nearly identical premise. And no matter how you slice it, one is funny.

One isn’t.

“Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place,” the funny one, launches next Wednesday on ABC at 9:30 p.m. “House Rules,” more aptly named “Two Guys, a Girl and No Pizza Place,” bows in Monday on NBC at 8:30 p.m.

Catch both these premieres and you’ll be reminded that sitcoms, aiming to cultivate rapport with the viewer generally avoid new, unfamiliar ideas. Also, the success of a sitcom depends almost all on execution. That certainly makes the difference here.

In each series, three pals face the world together as young adults. One chap is a lanky slacker-dreamer. The other is a wired-up realist. Both strenuously reject adulthood. (Did we mention Peter Pan? One of the “Two Guys” is even named Pete!) They live in close proximity, but platonically, with the gal.

NBC describes “House Rules” as “a trio of tight childhood friends who, now in their mid-20s, share a house and a life together in Denver.” It stars David Newsom as a bumbling medical student, Bradley White as a reporter and Maria Pitillo as an assistant district attorney whose housemates engage in this sort of dialogue: “I hate rats! Do you know that there are some super rats that can weigh over 9 pounds?”

“Do you know that there are some supermodels that weigh under 9 pounds?”

By contrast, “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place” puts the pieces of the same puzzle together much more artfully and with more humor: “Believe me, there’s ‘a one.’ And when you find her, you’ll know.”

“How will I know?”

“I’ll tell you!”

The guys are graduate students who share an apartment in Boston. Berg (played by Ryan Reynolds) is a philosophy major with an easy-does-it outlook who makes extra money by signing up for medical experiments. Richard Ruccolo is Pete, a perpetually fretful would-be architect.

“Pete’s my home base,” says Berg, explaining their relationship. “I wouldn’t get to be me if he wasn’t him.”

The girl is Sharon, their former college bud and now their upstairs neighbor who mothers them with a wide-screen TV and a well-stocked refrigerator. Played by Traylor Howard, she is a comically irascible minx who sells toxic chemicals. She hates herself for that almost as much as she loves her BMW.

All in all, “Two Guys” is about as funny as you could hope for, considering the absence of a single new idea.