'Hoops' Preview: Jake Johnson is a foul-mouthed jerk protagonist in Netflix's animated comedy
When 'New Girl' arrived on Fox, it gave audiences the eccentric character of Nick Miller. Played by Jake Johnson, Nick was dysfunctional, hot-headed, clueless about the matters of the world and awkward. Not only was Nick the best character on the series, he was also easily a fan favorite with his random and unreasonable antics.
Johnson is set to return with (kind of) a similar presence on screen. Although this time around, Johnson has the freedom to go all guns blazing, playing the jerk protagonist. In Netflix's latest animated sitcom titled 'Hoops', Johnson plays the role of Coach Ben Hopkins, a foul-mouthed high school basketball coach, who dreams of making it big. He aims to turn his life around by getting out of high school he has worked for years.
But obviously this dream comes with a fair share of difficulties, the main hurdle being his God-awful team of high-schoolers who cannot play to save their lives. If only he can manage to teach them how to play better, maybe he can manage to turn his life around. Set in Kentucky, the 'Basketball country', in Lenwood High School, 'Hoops' follows Coach Ben as he works hard and toils — in between swearing his head off — to improve his team and to make it big in life.
Created by Ben Hoffman, who is best known by his stage name Wheeler Walker Jr, the Netflix series also stars some of the very popular comedians and actors. Rob Riggle plays the role of Barry Hopkins, and there's no prize for guessing that the character is likely to play Johnson's older brother. Natasha Leggero plays the role of a certain Shannon. The actress and comedian is probably in the role of a fellow school teacher alongside Coach Ben and his love interest or simply his girlfriend. In another role is Ron Funches as Ron. Who going by the little sneak peek provided by Netflix is another teacher in the high school and the coach's friend.
As far as animated sitcoms along these lines go, coach Ben will also be confronted with a nemesis — a successful coach who seemingly has it together, whose team only shines, hardly ever losing a game and who is better than him in all aspects possible. So now the question is will Coach Ben be able to go to the big leagues? Or will he end up losing his cool before we can even find out? Through 10 episodes of 30 minutes length each, we will soon find out. Tune into the streaming site later this month to know.
'Hoops' is set to be released on August 21, 2020, on Netflix.