Funniest "Hung" ads so far

So in caso you didn't know, HBO is hosting the "Can You Pimp Ray and win 10K?" contest. Just go to PimpRay.com for more info, voting or participating!

Here are some of the funniest or cooler from the submitted so far.

Ratings for "HUNG" series premiere

Good news for the series!

The series premiere of HBO’s Hung delivered 2.8 million viewers in its 10 p.m. timeslot Sunday. When its midnight replay is added, the series drew 3.7 million viewers its first night. That makes Hung, a drama about a down-on-his-luck high school coach who becomes a gigolo, the highest rated HBO series premiere since John From Cincinnati, which premiered in June 2007 after The Sopranos series finale.

Sunday's installment of True Blood was the series' best, bringing in 3.7 million viewers in its 9 p.m. timeslot, and 5.1 million once the 11 p.m. replay is factored in.

HUNG premieres tonight!

Don't miss the series premiere of HUNG tonight at 10pm on HBO!

New clips from the show!

New video posted on the facebook page of the show!

Clip #1

Wanna hire Ray's services? Just call 1-888-588-HUNG

And the other clips is a preview of Tanya's blog, which will be posted weekly on HBO's Hung site.

Clip #2

Another [Review] Daemon's TV

(Original Post)

Don't you love it when you know absolutely nothing about a show before you watch it and then it totally catches you off guard? This happened to me today with HBO's new series, HUNG, which premiers June 28th on HBO. I got the opportunity to check out a couple episodes early and I knew within the first 30 seconds that I was going to be a fan. For starters, it takes place in Detroit. Being a Motown native, this instantly scored major points with me.

I guarantee you that you won't find people more proud to be from a state than Michiganders, and we love it when we are referenced on TV. I haven't seen any data to back this up, but I'm pretty sure we are what kept Home Improvement on all those years. So HBO, spend all your Hung marketing dollars targeting the Detroit DMA and this show will do just fine. Ok, so let's talk plot. Hung is about this guy named Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane), a high school basketball coach from Detroit who is a little down on his luck. He once was a high school baseball and basketball star with a college scholarship, but that all changed when he got an injury. After his wife (Ann Heche) leaves him, he realizes his job as a high school coach gives barely enough money to get by. The final straw is when his house catches fire and he doesn't have insurance to make the repairs. He is forced to live in a tent in his backyard, and his kids decide to go and live with their mom.

During a self-help seminar about getting rich quick, Ray realizes he possesses one "tool" that could possibly make him some money. If you didn't get my innuendo, I'm talking about the oldest profession in the world. With his new friend Tanya's (Jane Adams) help, Ray strives to become a successful gentleman of the night.

Hung is an excellent dark comedy about a man at the end of his rope. Even though he's not taking on the most moral profession out there, you find yourself rooting for this underdog as he tries to earn enough money to put is life back together. Also, check out his son. He looks exactly like a younger version of Jermaine from Flight Of The Conchords! This is a show that is definitely going on my Tivo "Season Pass" list. Check it out and let me know what you think of Hung!

[Review] Denver Post

This one looks quite good! Review by the Denver Post

HBO series "Hung" a smart, sexy hook to show Americans in desperate times

Never mind the porn-y title.

It's true, "Hung," debuting Sunday at 8 p.m. on HBO, is the adjectival reference to exactly what you expect. But beyond the male anatomical tease, the hour imparts an amazingly topical exploration of the national mood.

The series is a knowing snapshot of these recessionary times: Detroit, shuttered; General Motors, max'd out like an AmEx card. Desperate Americans, who had banked on a more secure future, are left to dream up creative solutions — Happiness Consultant, anyone?

Dmitry Lipkin ("The Riches") and his wife, Colette Burson, are co- creators and co-executive producers of "Hung." They're onto something meaningful here, something rather profound, in the way the FX dramedy "The Riches" was profound when it wasn't silly. It, too, was a lamentation on a fallen empire.

So where's the beef?

The anatomical reference of the series title is just the catchy entree into a story of middle-age angst — divorce, dead-end job, an aging former jock in a time of closing opportunities for the have-nots.

Ray Drecker, played by Thomas Jane ("The Punisher"), was big man on campus — no pun — in high school, and the future looked bright. He married his high-school sweetheart (Anne Heche), played ball briefly for the Atlanta Braves and then, after an injury, returned to the Detroit suburbs to take a teaching job at his old high school and coach the basketball team.

Now he's divorced, his ex-wife is married to a wealthy dermatologist, and he's living in his parents' rundown rambler on a lake. He's battling for his kids, a pair of outside-the-norm Goth and geek teens, Sianoa Smit-McPhee ("As the Bell Rings") as daughter Darby, and Charlie Saxton ("The Lovely Bones") as son Damon.

When the house burns down, Ray is desperate.

Encouraged to catch the entrepreneurial spirit, he turns to his biggest asset. The fact is, Ray is well endowed.

The running joke makes HBO's "Hung" the equivalent of Showtime's "Secret Life of a Call Girl," but with the grim economic overlay.

The director routinely plays with the title's offscreen presence to create enhanced expectations. What the viewer imagines when Ray Drecker unzips is obviously more dramatic than anything even HBO could put on-screen.

A dour feminist named Tanya (Jane Adams of "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") teams up with Ray, bringing her bookish sensibility and marketing smarts to bear as his pimp. Ray's attitude, meanwhile, is rather blank and clueless as he fumbles into his new profession.

Together Ray and Tanya embark on a business in which they will explore women's needs and desires, the intersection of sex and money, the loneliness of life in general, the tension between socio-economic classes and the particular confusion of these financially insecure times.

And sex. Clearly, "Hung" contains scenes that are more explicit than what's on the commercial broadcast networks. Then again, it's less explicit than the suggestive commercial for the product KY Intense that runs during Letterman on CBS.

While there is the requisite skin and language to distinguish the project as made-for-premium-cable, even the hooker scenes in "Hung" are not all R-rated romps. Margo Martindale (Nina on "The Riches") steals an episode as a plump, depressed, middle-aged woman who isn't at all what Ray expected. She is sad, with mature emotional needs. And she slowly begins to express herself as Ray listens.

When it delves into such quiet corners, "Hung" has much more going for it than shock value.

While HBO struggles to find its next signature series to succeed "The Sopranos," this hour will do nicely. "Hung" may not have the staying power of that mob drama, but it is similarly intent on ferreting out uncomfortable truths about a changing society while entertaining viewers with the adventures of an illicit breadwinner.

Joanne Ostrow

[Review] The Watcher

Another review of HBO's new series HUNG by The Watcher.

If you tune into “Hung” (10 p.m. Eastern Sunday, HBO; two stars) expecting sex and lots of it, adjust your expectations. This tale of a high school teacher who takes a side job as an escort isn’t terribly racy by pay-cable standards, despite that attention-getting title.

And about that title. Strangely enough, the object that provides the inspiration for that adjective does not make an appearance in the first four episodes of the show. Apparently viewers just have to take the other characters’ word for it when it comes to the physical attributes of former jock, current teacher and would-be gigolo Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane).

Though “Hung” is billed as a comedy, this wry half-hour show isn’t a male version of “Sex and the City” (that would probably be the dude-fantasy “Entourage,” which returns July 12). “Hung” is set in Detroit and, like the city, Drecker has seen better days.

His wife left him for a prosperous doctor, his teen twins view him with suspicion, if not scorn, and other misfortunes are heaped on him as well. With financial ruin looming, Ray eventually decides, with the help of Tanya (Jane Adams), his diffident new lover, to put his only real asset to work.

“Hung” has a good deal in common with AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” not to mention a host of other shows that dwell on the plight of middle-age men at sea in a changing society. And maybe you have to be a guy in order to fully appreciate either show. I often find “Breaking Bad” tedious and predictable, despite its terrific lead actor, Bryan Cranston, and I also found myself growing impatient with Ray for any number of reasons.

Here’s a guy who is so tethered to his past that he refuses a reasonable offer on his decrepit house, despite his desperate need for money. Perhaps we’re supposed to feel sorry for the big galoot, but it takes four episodes before Ray begins to actively embrace his new life as an escort, and before that happens, he treats one customer with shocking arrogance.

Back when he lettered in three sports and was a prospect for the major leagues, Ray “tasted and came close to greatness,” as he puts it in a voice-over. So?

Despite Thomas Jane’s innate appeal as a performer—and his deft, deadpan skills are the show’s main draw—I came to realize that Ray’s tendency to wallow in the past is rather grating. Not to be all Kate Gosselin about it, but move on, buddy.

Anne Heche has a mostly thankless role as Jessica, Ray’s high-maintenance ex-wife, whose second marriage and newfound prosperity has left her unhappy and “unrealized.” (Jessica, like Ray’s uptight next-door neighbor, exists mainly to reinforce Ray’s moral if not financial superiority.) “Hung” isn’t exactly subtle in its symbolism; at one point, Jessica retrieves a decorative nutcracker from Ray’s shabby home.

“Hung” was one of the first projects commissioned by the HBO regime that was eventually installed after longtime CEO Chris Albrecht exited the network in 2007. As such, it tells us something about the tastes and creative ambitions of this new set of executives.

And thus “Hung,” despite some droll humor and the occasional dry insight, is even more of a disappointment. Perhaps we still expect too much from HBO; not every show is going to be the next “Sopranos” or “Deadwood.”

But “Hung,” it must be said, is less than advertised.

For me this review was way too shallow, but we'll wait till tonight.