Category — Comedy

All that talk about my Arrested Development love and excitement yesterday led me to an inadvertent game of “One Degree of Jeffrey Tambor,” and the subject of today’s post: The Larry Sanders Show.

Larry remains one of HBO’s best original series of all time to this day, even though it ended ten years ago. It sticks in the communal craw of us Larry fans that the complete series isn’t available on DVD yet, but the two DVD sets they relased last year, The Complete First Season and the irritatingly incomplete Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show, are better than nothing.

I’ve worked a couple of jobs in late night television, so this series has an especially special place in my heart, and friends might find me laughing a little too hard at some of the jokes. Plus, there are loads of funny celebrity cameos, with one of the best pictured above.

Anyway, somehow I never got around to buying those DVDs when they were first released, so at least now I know what I’m asking for this xmas!

But, not when there is BIG NEWS. The fabled Arrested Development movie is officially happening! Officially. Jeffrey Tambor said. So there.

In case you didn’t know, AD is only the best show ever that is not The Wire, so this is huge. Sadly, both shows are now off the air. Much less sadly, I have both series on DVD.

Typically, my initial reaction upon hearing that [insert TV show] is being turned into a movie is to nurture unreasonable confidence that the movie version will definitely suck. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut proved that this is not always the case, and handily. In fact, it proved that sometimes the movie version of a beloved show can become a real classic. (Note: This does not apply to The Simpsons Movie.)

Besides, Mitch Hurwitz’s brilliance is enough for me to already be excited about the prospect of the movie that is finally really, really happening. So, considering the amazing cast (Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, David Cross, Tony Hale, Jeffrey Tambor and also okayfineyougetthepoint), it’s statistically impossible for the AD movie to suck. Impossible, I say!

I don’t know how this happened. One day I’m forced to watch Gossip Girl for work (yes, I do indeed have to watch TV for my job; it’s a tough life I lead, I know), and then the next thing I know I’m watching it– dare I say it?– at home, weeks later. Off the clock!

It started innocently enough. I didn’t even program a season pass, or anything. “No, no, that would be ridiculous,” I said aloud to myself, even though I AM NOT CRAZY. “I only need to tape next week’s episode to see if Chuck finally gets Blaire to say she loves him, and then I’ll be totally over it. Yes, that’s the ticket.”

Cut to: This week, wherein I was setting up my DVR to record all Gossip Girl episodes. Yes, first run and repeats!I Hey, I’m a recent convert and have to catch up on some backstory, via reruns.

I’m so ashamed.

The writing is absurd, and none of these “high school” kids appear to be under the age of 25– and they certainly don’t behave that way, what with all the sexin’, drinkin’ and schemin’. Plus, this Chuck Bass character is constantly whispering. Seriously. I don’t think he ever speaks in full voice. And his attire is consistently ridiculous. Having said that, I’d totally hit it.

Anyway, a new episode of GG will be on the CW tomorrow night at 8, and I just have to find out it Jenny beats the crap outta Agnes for burning all of her dresses. I can’t believe she did that!

Um. I’ll stop now.

If you’ve been paying attention (and why would you be?), you know by now that I lurve stand-up comedy. While stand-up on teevee can never compare to seeing a brilliant comic at a live show, there are some classic stand-up specials from the likes of Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, George Carlin, Chris Rock and others, that many of us peasants would never have seen if it weren’t for TV. Tonight, Ricky Gervais is trying his hand at joining that esteemed echelon of televised hilarity.

Gervais has already proven his mettle in the sitcom format, with the original The Office and later, Extras. Apparently, he’s new to doing actual stand-up comedy, so I guess he’s taken the “go big or go home” approach, by beginning his foray with an HBO special that was taped at Madison Square Garden. That’s one way to go.

The teasers for the special that I have seen look pretty effing funny, but that is what they’re meant to do. Still, I’m pretty excited for the special tonight, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to not suck. Check out Ricky’s special, Out of England: The Stand Up Special tonight at 9p eastern and 10p pacific on HBO. You already know I will be, and therefore that makes it cool.

I’m a big fan of the animated series, “Home Movies”, so it delights me to no end that they released a special 10th anniversary dvd box set.

This dvd set is all kinds of awesome! It comes with a “Home Movies” clapboard like Brendan, Jason, and Melissa use on the show,  a canvas bag AND a 52 track cd that contains all the original songs from the show. And of course, it includes all four seasons’ original dvd sets with the all the original bonus features and commentary. The “Home Movies” box set costs between $90-129.99, so this may have to wait for christmas time or whenever I get an awesome dvd discount coupon in my inbox.

I hate Entourage. I also watch it every week. I used to think that maybe I was addicted to the hate, but I’ve realized that watching this horrible show about a self indulgent, talentless, rich douche bag and his varyingly loathsome cronies seems to be a cultural imperative for anyone working in or on the periphery of showbusiness. Unfortunately for me, a degree from film “school” and my current job place me quite definitely in this group.

At this point, I’ve accepted Entourage as my way to kill 22 minutes while 60 Minutes begins recording on my DVR (hooray for HBO’s east coast feed), so that I can fast forward through the 60 Minutes commercials. Jeremy Piven’s portrayal of Ari is still marginally amusing, and that helps to quell my tantrums whenever the rest of the idiots spontaneously jet-set off to Hawaii in a private plane full of models. Yes, that actually happened this season.

Anyway. The whole point of this was that I’m pretty sure they teased tonight’s episode with a cameo from Seth Green during last week’s preview. Seth will be playing the jerkoff version of himself that he’s played in past episodes of Entourage. For what it’s worth, I met Seth once years ago and he was really awesome, so I guess he’s even more awesome for being a good sport on this show. I’ve forgiven him for Robot Chicken.

So, tune in to HBO for tonight’s episode of Entourage at 10p eastern time. Or, you can do ANYTHING ELSE, which would probably be better way to spend your time.

Last night SNL had a political parody comedy special called the “SNL Presidential Bash”. It was essentially a clip show of all their impressions of the political candidates: Obama, Palin, Biden, McCain, and Hilary Clinton. They also showed highlights from when a few of the actual candidates appeared on “SNL”.

Find all the SNL video clips from Monday’s presidential bash aggregated on TVSquad.

If you need more sarcastic political comedy, be sure to tune into Comedy Central’s election coverage with Stephen Colbert and “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart. The live “Daily Show/Colbert Report Election Night special” begins tonight at 10pm EST/7PM PST.

Indecision 2008 - Last Day

I am always ready to rant about how much “The Simpsons” sucks now, relative to how great it was during, say, seasons 3 through 8. This stems not from an inherently fickle nature, but from my deep love of this show during the golden (sometimes pronounced “Conan“) years, and genuine grief over the decline in quality as the seasons have dragged on.

To the credit of the current writers and producers, it’s still better than “Two and a Half Men” a lot of other crap that’s passing for comedy, these days.

Tonight they’re airing the 734th “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween special. For some reason, Fox has seemed incapable of airing “The Simpsons” Halloween special within a logical time frame for the last seven years or so, airing it either way too soon or way too late.

But, this is the closest they’ve come in ages, so if you have any pumpkin beer  and tiny candies left, you may as well polish them off tonight at 8pm eastern and pacific. It’ll get you nice and buzzed for “True Blood,” “Dexter” and “Mad Men,” later on.

Yeah guys, let’s get sick!

So, duh, I like cartoons. One of the ones I like is called “American Dad!”

The show is in its fourth season, and I’m delighted to see the show has survived the onslaught of dismissals of it as a “Family Guy” clone, which plagued its maiden season. And second season. And the third…

The similarities are superficial, at best, and are more indicative of of a particular formula upon which Seth MacFarlane likes to base his projects, going all the way back to “The Life of Larry” (look it up), and in the upcoming “Cleveland” (look that up, too). I’m not going to dissect magic recipe at length here, but if you’re not an idiot, you’ve probably already realized that the basic formula is:

Patriarch + Wacky Family + Anthropomorphous Pet(s)/Sidekick(s) = hilarity/$100 million Fox development deal for Seth

At this point, since “Family Guy” has dissolved into a series of disconnected non sequiturs and obscure references. Each episode’s “plot” is a transparent and hackneyed mess meant to justify making said non sequiturs and obscure references, although I will say last week’s “Road to Germany” was refreshingly coherent.

I admit readily that I believe “American Dad!” has proven to be the better of the two shows, as long as we’re comparing the two. I’ve gotten into plenty of bar arguments over this opinion, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty more Friday nights where I debate this issue, punch a cat, and make out with a mailbox.

So, if you wrote off “American Dad!” back when it first began, I recommend you give it another chance. If you’ve never watched it, then give it a first chance. The writers and producers had really caught on to something midway through season 1, and it’s only maintained or improved on the show’s unique sense of humor, since then.

Leave it to me to give the show a great send-up on a night when it’s airing a repeat. “Dad!” will be back next Sunday night on Fox at 9:30, though, with a new episode. And, you can bet I’ll be watching.

“South Park” is back on Comedy Central with a new season, and is as shocking as ever. It’s hard to believe this show has been on for 12 seasons, and I don’t really like to think about that because it makes me feel crotchety.

It seems like only yesterday I was laughing over Cartman’s first rendition of “Kyle’s Mom Is a Big Fat B$%ch” with friends during my 10th grade health class. Those were the days.

Well, Cartman is as much of an A-hole in the new episodes as he was then. Worse, even. And, if last season’s Emmy-winning “Imaginationland” episodes are any indication, Trey (Parker) and Matt (Stone) have definitely still got it.

I’ve had my jaw hanging in disbelief a few times during this season already, and as an equal opportunity offender myself, that’s fairly hard to accomplish. I can’t wait to see what else the guys have planned.

Tune in Wednesdays at 10pm eastern and pacific to catch the new episodes, or on Thursdays at 10pm to catch an encore reairing before new episodes of “The Sarah Silverman Program” at 10:30pm. If those times are no good for you, get a DVR, for crying out loud. It’s 2000-freaking-eight.

Fret not, you DVR-less quasi neo-ludites, for Comedy Central reruns “South Park” almost as much as “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” so there are plenty of other times to catch the episodes you may have missed. But, I’m not looking that up for you.

[Picture source: www.SouthParkStudios.com]