“Krod Mandoon” star ready to fire up television satire

Comedy Central mixes medieval action with satirical slapstick in “Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire,” which debuts at 9 p.m. Thursday.

Sean Maguire (“Meet the Spartans”) plays the titular hero, described in the show’s promo as “the son of a blacksmith and a stay-at-home mom.” It parodies medieval quest fiction like “Lord of the Rings” and “Robin Hood,” as Krod leads a band of resistance fighters against an evil overlord.

Maguire initially passed on “Krod,” feeling it would hew too closely to areas he’d already covered as Leonidas in “Meet the Spartans.” But his manager convinced him to give it another look.

“It’s very clever, it’s very funny,” Maguire said in a recent phone interview. “It’s not a spoof; it’s far more satirical and far cleverer humor than a silly fun romp like ‘Spartans’ was.”

In fact, Maguire said you could compare “Krod Mandoon” to a workplace comedy – the workplace just happens to be in a medieval realm.

“Krod is pretty much like the team leader, and he’s got the sales department, the accounts department, the whatever department, and he’s just trying to keep them all together and get the shipment out,” Maguire said. “But they’re just such a bumbling bunch of fools it makes his job twice as difficult.”

So how about that “Flaming Sword of Fire”? It’s a practical effect, Maguire said, meaning the sword was literally alight in his hand.

“It did require some guys with a Bunsen burner to come and light it, and I had a tube running down my arm, and a gas canister somewhere out of shot,” he said. “Consequently I had a quite a hot arm many a filming day.”