Rob Schneider, the American comedian who enjoyed most of his success in the mid 1990's with Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo and his work on Saturday Night Live, has made a successful return to American television. In a strange state of affairs, his new CBS sitcom 'Rob' was savaged by critics, but scored huge ratings on Thursday evening (12 January, 2012).
While other shows such as the Bones spin-off The Finder failing to find its feet, Schneider's new show 'Rob' was watched by a massive 13.5 million and delivered a 4.1 rating among adults 18-49. It followed the hugely successful and established sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory', which managed 15.9 million. 'Rob' gave Cbs its biggest numbers in the 8.30pm timeslot since May 2010, according to Entertainment Weekly. The numbers seem almost unbelievable, given the reaction the show got from critics. The New York Times wrote, "The lack of anything to laugh at (beyond Eugenio Derbez's performance as Rob's freeloading uncle-in-law) only emphasizes the extent to which the entire show is predicated on cheap ethnic humor. HixFix.com were even less complimentary, offering, "Essentially, it's every sitcom you've ever seen about an annoying, schlubby guy inexplicably married to an understanding hot chick, mixed with a bunch of clumsy, borderline-offensive jokes about Rob's misunderstanding of his in-laws' culture".
Schneider was famously the victim of one of the most damning South Park episodes in history, when the boys kept being plagued by trailers for awful-looking Schneider films in which he turned into a stapler, and a carrot, amongst other things.