Conan O'Brien Brainchild Fumbles Onto NBC's Radar

Is America ready for a cute and cuddly private investigator?

After years of watching crime shows dedicated to the tough guy saving the day, the television tides are turning as the everyday man finally gets his chance to be the hero. The new guy on the block is none other then the titular main character in NBC's new comedy Andy Barker, P.I.

The show, created by Conan O'Brien, focuses on Andy Barker (Andy Richter), an average Joe accountant who is happily married to his wife Jenny (Clea Lewis) and is looking forward to working in his new office at Fair Oaks Plaza. Life soon changes for Andy after he is accidentally mistaken for the private investigator Lew Staziak (Harvey Presnell).

This misidentification by Nadia, a Russian woman looking for her husband, instantly transforms Andy from a simple CPA looking to put peoples' finances in order to an investigator on the hunt for a missing anti-crime politician. Although inexperienced and a bit naive, Andy successfully completes his first mission with a little help from two of his Fair Oaks Plaza neighbors, Simon (Tony Hale) who runs the video store and Wally (Marshall Manesh) the immigrant owner of a local kebab restaurant, as well as some guidance from the real Lew Staziak.

Andy Barker and his crime-fighting/number-crunching abilities show promise for NBC, a network that has been slowly finding its way back in comedy since the conclusion of Friends.

What allows Andy and the show to stand out from other attempts by the network is that the show is emotionally genuine. In fact, it is 100 percent wholesome, as there is no foul language or extreme violence. The entire show is dedicated to being upbeat, providing lovable characters and offering its audience simple comedy. The best evidence for the lighthearted tone of the show comes from the writing, which is a continual progression of corny, yet extremely funny lines.

The first of these comes from Jenny who sends Andy off on his first day of work with the adorable line: "You are an accountant Andy Barker, you go where the numbers take you." Andy later tops this line when he equates his new profession to the "feeling that I get when I hit the equal sign on the calculator and the number on the calculator is the same number that's on the worksheet." The worst offender, but sure to crack a smile on many viewers' faces comes from Simon who says to a customer "Hey sunshine, looking to buy or rent?"

Although these lines are corny, they demonstrate a break from the usual television programming. This break is a movement away from the offensive humor and overly dramatic shows that dominate today's television and a return to the simpler humor and less complicated plot lines that dominated television in the '90s.

NBC is aware that audiences are craving the equivalent of comfort food in television. Andy Barker, P.I. successfully embodies this spirit as it offers easily detected humor, a plotline that is extremely easy to follow and most importantly, it is fun to watch. In fact, Andy Barker has a shot at being America's next lovable, quotable character. His chances for reaching this status are also helped by the fact that the pilot, as well as several episodes that have not yet aired, is available on both nbc.com and on iTunes.

The only obstacle for Andy Barker, P.I. will be the need to overcome poor ratings that may result from its time-slot of Thursdays at 9:30, which pits it against the second half of Grey's Anatomy. If NBC was smart, it would move Andy Barker, P.I. to another night to give this show a fair chance at having a television future.