Reel Rundown: Offbeat ‘Free Bert’ places Bert Kreischer in well-intentioned, but wrongheaded, role of dad

Every standup comic has a shtick. Steven Wright and Stewart Francis specialize in one-liners. The late Don Rickles heckled everyone, while the late Gallagher smashed things with his trademark Sledge-O-Matic.

Bert Kreischer has a gimmick as well: He bares his chest. In doing so, he entertains the crowds that attend his shows by telling jokes while giving them a view of his glorious, ex-NFL-player-gone-to-seed-type dad bod.

As he explained during an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, it was during a show in Dayton, Ohio, that – because the crowd was sparse and he didn’t really want to be there – he first ripped his shirt off. And the audience went wild.

“Immediately,” Kreischer said, “I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it should be. It should be fun and loose and crazy and wild.’ ”

Which is pretty much a good way to define “Free Bert,” the six-episode Netflix comedy series that is built around a fictional version of Kreischer’s real life. Whether you can add funny to the mix depends on your sense of humor.

Because let’s face it, what makes us laugh depends a lot on our individual personalities. Some people love the dad’s-a-lovable-dork kind of comedy found in such network series as Ray Romano’s “Everybody Love Raymond.” Others laugh at Larry David’s self-absorbed cringe-comedy antics in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

“Free Bert” is a blend of both. As created by Kreischer, Andrew Mogel and Jerrad Paul, we are introduced to Kreischer and his family just as his daughters are entering a new school. It’s clear that this is a common occurrence due to the dumb things that dad keeps doing.

Kreischer’s signature shirtless move is dealt with almost immediately as we see him hired to do his act at a birthday party for the actor Rob Lowe. Instead of listening to him tell jokes, Lowe insists that Kreischer keep taking off his shirt. In fact, Lowe advises him to focus on that and “cut all the other stuff” – meaning his jokes – “way down.” As a consequence, Kreischer begins to rethink his routine.

Regarding the family situation, being the new girl is particularly troublesome to Kreischer’s older daughter, Georgia (Ava Ryan), who is worried that she isn’t, and won’t ever be, popular. Meanwhile, his younger daughter, Ila (Lilou Lang), is mature beyond her years – so much so that she appreciates the chaos Kreischer causes and even eggs him on.

The family’s problems escalate when Kreischer and his wife LeeAnn (Arden Myrin) discover that another student has been cyberbullying Georgia. At a school meeting with the other student’s parents, Chanel and Landon Vanderthal (Mandell Maughan and Chris Witaske), we discover that the Vanderthals are big contributors to the school.

So the stage is set: the more common Kreischers versus the upscale, arrogant Vanderthals. And, as so often happens in these kinds of comedy situations, everything that Kreischer does may be well-intended but ends up being wrongheaded. His behavior complicates matters so much that the only way forward, he believes, is to lie his way out of trouble.

Subplots include Kreischer’s attempts to ingratiate himself with Landon and his buddies, his mission to ward off what he suspects is Georgia’s sexual activity by first scaring and then befriending the popular boy she likes, and LeeAnn’s repeated attempts to bond with Landon’s wife Chanel. All of this is witnessed, and commented on, by young Ila.

For those sensitive to language, know that Ila casually drops F-bombs in pretty much every line of dialogue. In fact, if viewers were to play a drinking game that required shots to be downed every time a character uttered the F-word, no one would make it to the end of the six 20-plus-minute episodes before passing out.

So, yes, “Free Bert” is funny, even if much of it is more Larry David than anything remotely Ray Romano. Viewers open to offbeat humor are the ones most likely to laugh at how the show attempts to blend both ends of the comic spectrum.

And if nothing else, there’s always the sight of a shirtless Kreischer to make things, as he says, fun and loose, not to mention crazy and wild.