Kollege krazy

I commend to you "Campus Ladies," the bawdy sitcom on the Oxygen cable network that has been renewed for a second season. The show stars Carrie Aizley and Christen Sussin as fortysomething college freshmen, and it is the funniest new sitcom I have seen in some time.

Although the episodes' setups are plotted -- the ladies pull an all-nighter and take Ecstasy; the ladies decide to become lesbians -- the dialogue is largely improvised. As you might expect, then, not every line is a winner. But the gags are hilarious when the performers successfully tap the weird force of nature that is improv comedy, which when it works relies on inspiration and little else.

Throwing the sitcom format into the mix helpfully modifies the formula, though: inspiration plus editing. Come to think of it, isn't that the formula for art?

Even the show's name, "Campus Ladies," is simultaneously ridiculous and ingenious. It sounds like a phrase shouted out in an improv sketch -- and then run with, and given a handsome logo. Sometimes the best ideas are the ones that come in a flash.