NEW YORK (AP) — Rob Corddry is a really funny guy. With his gift for looking shrewd yet silly, with his balding head and that phantom forelock, he was the perfect pundit on Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” fake newscast.(There’s a “but” coming, isn’t there?)

But he’s painful to watch on “The Winner”, his painful-to-watch new Fox sitcom premiering on Sunday at 9.30 p.m. Bermuda time, with an additional episode at 10.30 p.m.

Corddry plays Glen Abbott, a 32-year-old slug who lives in Buffalo with his parents, has no job or girlfriend, and whose ambitions rise no higher than trying to better his speed completing TV Guide crosswords.

Then Alison, his unrequited childhood crush — now a doctor and a divorced single mother — moves back to the neighbourhood.

Jolted into action, Glen is finally “ready to begin my adolescence”, he declares. He’s psyched to make up for lost time and win Alison’s heart.

(Is that the show’s shaky premise?)

But that’s not all. “The Winner” is a dual-track coming-of-age comedy: Glen instantly bonds with Alison’s son, Josh, who is just beginning his age-appropriate adolescence with a lack of experience and confidence that’s on a par with Glen’s own. A generation apart, they are brothers-in-arms, with Josh pining for a pretty schoolmate while Glen has fantasies of sex with Josh’s mom.

(Sounds kind of icky.)

There’s a certain ick factor on “The Winner”.

“I’ve never fornicated a woman,” Glen confesses to Josh in the second episode when he misinterprets Alison’s dinner invite as a signal she not only wants to get romantic, but wants to go all the way.

“Not even once? By accident?” replies Josh, both shocked and reassured.

“If I don’t know what I’m doing with your mom,” Glen frets, “I’ll just end up humiliating myself and driving her away.”

What choice does he have? He heads to a massage parlour for a trial run while Josh waits outside for moral support. Too naive to know better, Glen has brought a box of chocolates. Then, panicking, he bolts before the practice session can commence.

But despite his twitchy fits and starts, Glen will make strides in his personal growth. Right away he lands a job at a video store. In a future episode he ventures beyond his hometown for a road trip to Albany, where Josh is competing in a spelling bee.

And, yes, Glen scores with the ladies. Spoiler alert: In episode five, he will lose his virginity to his former high school English teacher, now a bitter divorcee who wants a boy toy she “can mould from scratch,” she explains. “This is exactly why I became a teacher.”

(Do such victories account for the show’s title?)

It’s unclear exactly how Glen qualifies as “The Winner”, at least from the first five episodes — which not only were made available to critics but are now on the Fox network website for overeager viewers who want an early crash course.

As each episode starts, Glen announces that, in the present day, not only does he have a wife and three kids, he’s also the richest man in Buffalo. Which puts him in his mid-40s: The series is set in 1994, allowing for lame pop-culture wisecracks about OJ Simpson’s arrest, Herve Villechaize’s suicide and “Wings”, Glen’s favourite show.

But viewers may not learn how Glen came to be such a winner without subjecting themselves to lots more of “The Winner”, which is a cruel price to pay.

(Oh, come on. There must be something about it you admire.)

“The Winner” isn’t a complete loss.

As Alison, Erinn Hayes meets her role’s requirement to smile prettily while indulging Glen’s idiocy.

And Keir Gilchrist is quite good as Josh. He shares a chemistry with Corddry that sells the budding friendship between their characters. When hypochondriac Glen asks, “You ever check your urine?” and Josh answers, “Only all the time!” the viewer can believe these two are kindred spirits.

But is it likely they can bail out a standard-issue, multi-camera sitcom that’s too desperately jokey to be funny?

Meanwhile, will Corddry’s “Daily Show” fans be likely to sign on as viewers of “The Winner”? Or will they make a hasty reappraisal of its star?

(Why soft-pedal with rhetorical questions to size up “The Winner” when the truth is, you hate it?)

An exchange from episode two helps put “The Winner” in perspective. At the video rental store, Glen’s sarcastic co-worker is asked by a customer to recommend a comedy.

“What about ‘Sister Act’?” he helpfully replies, then quickly backtracks. “Oh, sorry! You said ‘comedy’!”

So what about sampling “The Winner”? Oops, sorry! Maybe you were looking for a comedy.