John Hughes died yesterday in New York. He was 59. He wrote and directed the most iconic coming of age films for a generation of geeks like me - Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club and Trains, Planes and Automobiles to name but a few.
Gawker posted a link to a blogger who had a special friendship with Hughes. Her story probably sums up his character better than all the obits and bios out there.
Bryan Callen is a comedian/actor. He is featured in the video below. I always get a kick when I see him on screen, and sometimes in commercials (He was Hammer in the "Hammer and Coop" ad campaign for Mini Cooper donning wig and fake moustache). He was in the movie Old School. He was in Showtime's Fat Actress and probably could have spun off his own show with Rachael Harris since they were so good together. He was in the original cast of Mad TV, famous for his character Pool Boy. He was also in The Hangover with Helms.
Callen is a New Yorker who grew up around the world because his Dad worked in finance. He is NOT the half brother of Joe Rogen as the internet will have you believe. (They both love to keep that rumor alive.) He was not born in Manila. His Father did not leave his mother. He is not half Native American, and he did not perform plays as a kid to earn money for the family. If he did - it wasn't because they were poor.
Bryan is dad to two year old Stella. Amanda's his wife. He always has the moves, and keeps his butt hard by dragging bags of sand uphill.
Now he's in this video. It's a musical trailer for the upcoming film The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard starring Jeremy Piven, Rob Riggle, Ed Helms, Ken Jeong, David Koeckner and a whole lot of funny people. (In Theaters August 14th.)
Whether he's Dick Whitman in flashbacks, or Don Draper being a cheating cad on Mad Men, Jon Hamm is compelling. He portrays that dark, mysterious genius of advertising, that philanderer. He owns the character. It would be too easy to associate him as deep and as brooding as his fictional alter ego, especially since he was virtually unknown before nabbing the role. But not so fast.
Something interesting happened during Hamm's time off from the AMC drama. He hosted SNL with a surprising handle on comedy that included a few impressions up his sleeve: JFK and James Mason. Who knew? Then, he guested on a few episodes of 30 Rock as Liz Lemon's neighbor love interest, Dr. Drew Baird, where he was sexy, goofy and funny.
Jon Hamm is actually part of the world of funny people. Before he portrayed Don Draper he appeared in The Sarah Silverman Program as a cable guy (Season 1: Muffin Man). He's buddies with an array of comedians such as Jimmy Kimmel and Paul Rudd. He's been featured on Zach Galifianakis' Between Two Ferns on FunnyorDie. He portrayed Lex Luthor in a film short on the same site. He hangs out at comedy podcasts like Never Not Funny and I Love Movies with Doug Benson, as well as the Comedy Death Ray Radio at UCB.
I love to watch Don Draper, but I'm glad he doesn't really exist. There's comfort in knowing the man who portrays him embraces humor, stays real with his posse of comedian friends and keeps that twinkle in his eye.
Mad Men premieres on AMC on Sunday, August 16th at 10pm Et.
*Word on Jon Hamm photo above. It was taken by Seth Olenick, photographer and comedy fan. He's been working on a book of photography featuring today's favorite comedians, and kindly allowed me permission to use some photos for some upcoming commentary here. No sharing shots without asking him first. Please? Thank you!
Mad Men season three premiered last night in West Hollywood's Director's Guild Theater, and there was a lot of handsome and pretty in the house. It's enough to make me pick up smoking and drinking. Well...I already drink. So.
Rich Sommers and Bob Odenkirk. Just for the hell of it. Also seen in the world of comedy at the premiere was Sarah Silverman and Jack McBrayer.
When Flight of the Conchords season one DVD's came out a while back, fans of the New Zealand duo were convinced that HBO initially under estimated their potential success, explaining why the disk set held no extras, no outtakes, no deleted scenes, no commentary, no nothing. By season two, HBO executives knew better, and pulled together some fun extras, outtakes, commercials with Dave, deleted scenes and songs. Now we can hold out for...a season three? Find it at amazon.com, or any of your fine stores that are probably going out of business.
Tim and Eric Awesome Show season three also came out on DVD yesterday. These guys are genius, and disturbingly weird. They are probably an acquired taste, but their twisted comedy is infectious - in a good way. Not the fungus or bacteria way. Buy it along with seasons one and two.
I really like the song they created to celebrate being voted as the #10 out of 20 favorite comedians on aspecialthing.com.
Some good news from the Twitterverse by way of "Ken Tremendous". Thanks to my past visits to the now defunct www.firejoemorgan.com, "Ken" is actually Michael Schur, Executive Producer of Parks and Recreation. "Ken" has just announced that Louis C.K. will be guest starring this coming season as a Pawnee police officer.
Can't he be a regular? Either way, Pawnee and its pit just became even funnier.
Back in the 1990's, I lived on and off in London. I was addicted to British television and the comedy scene of Leicester Square's Comedy Store. This fascination may have been fueled by the original British Who's Line Is It Anyway, mixed with my love for Black Adder both birthed by my original romance with Monty Python. I'd come back to the United States with an arm full of VHS Pal tapes such as The Best of the Big Breakfast, Jeeves and Wooster, The Harry Enfield Programme, French and Saunders and Hysteria!, ready to bring a bit of my "second home" back to my first one.
The Terrence Higgins Trust is a charitable outreach organization in Britain established to provide information and assistance on AIDS. It's still very much in existence today. The aformentioned Hysteria! was a benefit performance hosted by comedians such as Fry and Laurie who, along with their comedy friends, put on funny skits about sex to encourage donations for the Trust and AIDS awareness. It introduced me to Craig Ferguson. Along with his success on The Late Late Show, and his recent U.S. citizenship it's cool to see how America has embraced his talent. The same can be said for Hugh Laurie as well.
Here's a performance from 1991 with Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Freud, Rowan Atkinson and Ferguson. "Condom Language". It's not outrageously hilarious, but on a day where I can think of nothing, it's kind of fun to look back.
The adorable and very funny Charlyne Yi will be starring in the film Paper Heart, opening on August 7th. She appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan last night, told stories, sang a song about being dumped by her boyfriend (Michael Cera - for reals) and was super fun.
I know it has nothing to do with comedy or drama or TV, but it's putrid humid outside, there is a horrendous thunderstorm brewing, and I'm stuck in the office.
I love this song and I love this video. I'm a big fan of songs set to videos with cute emo couples kissing sweetly. I'm girlie that way. Or pervy. Whatever.
Created and produced by Alan Ball, Six Feet Under aired for five seasons on HBO. It held many profound themes, chief amongst them being the view that death need not only be an end, but can be a indication of a new a beginning. This was immediately established in the premiere episode when the patriarch of the Fisher family met his demise suddenly, violently, shaking mother, brothers and sister to the core. His death opened wounds, stimulated old pains and made each member face their true self - or at least strive to ask questions and experiment with risk and love.
Six Feet Under ended in 2005 with, in my opinion, one of the most stunning, emotional television endings I've ever seen. For viewers who connected with the lives of these characters throughout the years, and even for the casual viewer, it hit a powerful chord.
Amy Poehler will be returning to the "Weekend Update" desk for the first two installments of SNL. Poehler garnered an Emmy nomination for her work on this past season's Saturday Night Live, most notably for her parody of Hilary Clinton and the fact she's plain fantastic on the newsdesk alongside Seth Meyers. Poelher will continue to work on Parks and Recreation. The prime time sitcom was renewed for the 2009-10 season. Saturday Night Live returns for its 35th season on September 26th (11:30pm ET).
I once mistook Leo Allen for Ken Marino in a wig. It was in the online video for 92nd St Y Tribeca's goofy New York Times commercial parody, passed along throughout the internet and loved by all haters of the real TV advertisement promoting subscriptions to The Weekender. The ad was created by Michael Showalter and featured an array of popular alternative comedians, some from the world of stand up, others from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, plus friend Paul Rudd enjoying the Socks and Politics Section. In the spot, Allen claimed "I got a bad cold from one of my co-workers". His fringe of bangs flopped over his Clark Kent glasses, and all I could think of was how funny Ken Marino looked in that wig, and then I remembered how we have the same birthday. (December 19th, y'all).
Here it is:
About three months later, it occurred to me. That's not Marino. That's Leo Allen. The stand up comedian who is half the team of Slovin and Allen. That Leo Allen. The one who co-created the "Time Machine" sketch I love so much from the comedy special he and Eric Slovin starred in on Comedy Central at the beginning of this decade. The guy who read 100 books in one year starting back in 2005 and discussed it on NPR. The Leo Allen who wrote for Saturday Night Live and hosts Whiplash at UCB. I don't know how it got past me, but I did spend last Monday night watching eight innings of Mets/Rockies baseball thinking the game was at Coors Field when they were actually playing in Citifield ("Wow, they sure do have a lot of Mets fans in Colorado!" Says I). So, I'm not always the brightest bulb on the marquis.
Leo Allen came to mind for today's post, because he showed up on Michael and Michael Have Issues last night as Nick Flynn, the new Editor for Sho and Black's pretend yet very real show. There was some thick romantic chemistry between himself and the very uptight Marla, M&M's Associate Producer, played by Jessi Klein, another funny person. Allen was a charmer, especially when he put his foot down about not wanting to date a chick who wanted to pee on him. Wow. Who knew that behind her glasses Marla harbors a fetish. Still, nice to see Leo as part of the Issues guest stars.
Before all that weird stuff came down, Sho and Black played matchmaker:
Earlier this year, Zune (Microsoft's music service) partnered with Mean Magazine to produce original episodic video shorts of comedic re-enactments of popular movies of the past. Last week, I posted a video short parody of the 1991 feature Point Break, that originally starred Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey, and was re-made by the very funny members of Human Giant and Reno 911.
Through the magic of comedy....
...Pappas, originally played by Gary Busey...
...is now played by Human Giant's Rob Huebel
...and Patrick Swayze who originally played Brohdi...
...is now played by Reno 911's Robert Ben Garant
Film parodies also include funny remakes of Tron with Cheech and Chong, Carriewith Will Arnett, and Dirty Dancing with Charlene Yi (soon to appear in the highly anticipated indie Paper Heart) and Channing Tatum. They are all available at MSN's Cinemash site.
One film reinvented as parody that I favor is Sid and Nancy. Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (pictured above) do a bent version of the first couple of punk. See it here.
Michael and Michael have some massively dysfunctional issues that I'm days late for. When they fight, they turn into entirely different guys...(Boo to the embedded commercial).
The Mighty Boosh took on America this week, and kicked some state-side butt. They were a big hit at their gig last week in NYC's Bowery Ballroom with a massive throng of screaming fans, and their promotion at Comic Con sounds like it was a smash. Jimmy Fallon introduced them to the Late Night audience on Wednesday night where they turned on The Boosh charm.
I love looking at pictures of people doing fun things at events I never get to attend. To join the fun virtually, I live vicariously through Flickr. Here's The Boosh's Photostream documenting their promotion.
Julian and Noel also received some press coverage at NYTimes.com.
I'm glad that today is the last day of Comic Con so I can stop feeling incredibly envious of all the cool geeks and nerds who've enjoyed a weekend of screenings, panels and celebrity runs ins I've been missing 3000 miles away.
However, I am filling the void. The Complete series of The State came out on on DVD on July 14th, and I'm wallowing in its super fun-ness. The DVD drought for The State languished, much in the same way as It's Garry Shandling's Show. Like Shandling, episodes of The State, which aired from 1993 thru 1995 on MTV, were locked away from the public, hard to find for home consumption for years, give or take the old VHS and poorly transferred uploads on YouTube. In the case of The State, this was due in part to a tangle of music rights issues. But the gods of TV worked their way around that hurdle and finally got on board by spreading The State love on disk. It's a blast to see David Wain, Ken Marino, Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Kevin Allison, Joe Lo Truglia, Ben Garant, Michael Patrick Jann, Todd Holoubek, Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black back in the day. This is the nucleus group that spawned or appeared in Reno 911, Stella, Party Down, Wet Hot American Summer and many more collaborations. They were so young back then. Hell, we all were.
After all these years, it's unbelievable that the brilliant hilari-osity of It's Garry Shandling's Show has not yet been available on DVD - or VHS for that matter. Co-created by Shandling and Alan Zweibel, it ran on Showtime from 1986 to 1990. If ever there was a "ground breaking" show, it's this one. It was a meta look into the world of Garry, with friends, famous and not, bounding into his life while he spoke to the audience about stuff. I know the pitchforks and torches handled by comedy geeks will arrive at my door for saying this, but I found this show much funnier than Shandling's second highly influential series onHBO The Larry Sanders Show. The DVD box set will include 16 disks fit with 72 episodes plus all the extras and goodies you could hope for. It will be released on October 20th. Favorite moment: Gilda Radner visits Garry.
I will be singing the theme song all day now.
The box set is available at Amazon for pre-order and is being offered for $119.99. I know we're in the middle of the second Great Depression, but I say it's worth it.
SubPop has announced that Flight of the Conchords will be releasing a second official US release on October 20th. (Their previous albums were UK/New Zealand releases.)I Told You I Was Freaky will include the songs created for the second season of their HBO comedy, which includes "Carol Brown" and "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor".
Now, I don't want to be wishing the summer away, and I shutter at the thought of Fall closing in on my pedicured, flip flop wearing feet, but October sounds like it's going to be one cool month to look forward to and October 20th will be one awesome day. I almost can't wait.
Zach Galifianakis. I wasn't one of the lucky to know him from his shows at Largo or clubs here in New York, but I once caught an early performance of his on Conan's show years ago. He was playing a piano and making the most hilarious jokes and observations. Something deep in the pit of my soul sensed that this guy was really special. His stock is on the rise, and it's so well deserved.
Part 1
Part 2
Jack McBrayer. What a sweet, funny brilliant comedian. It's thrilling to see how his character on 30 Rock has earned him some props. Can't wait to see him at UCB's FIT show next month (with Paul Scheer) in New York.
John Hughes died yesterday in New York. He was 59. He wrote and directed the most iconic coming of age films for a generation of geeks like me - Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club and Trains, Planes and Automobiles to name but a few.
Photo by Seth Olenick by permission only*
When Flight of the Conchords season one DVD's came out a while back, fans of the New Zealand duo were convinced that HBO initially under estimated their potential success, explaining why the disk set held no extras, no outtakes, no deleted scenes, no commentary, no nothing. By season two, HBO executives knew better, and pulled together some fun extras, outtakes, commercials with Dave, deleted scenes and songs. Now we can hold out for...a season three? Find it at amazon.com, or any of your fine stores that are probably going out of business.
Some good news from the Twitterverse by way of "Ken Tremendous". Thanks to my past visits to the now defunct www.firejoemorgan.com, "Ken" is actually Michael Schur, Executive Producer of Parks and Recreation. "Ken" has just announced that Louis C.K. will be guest starring this coming season as a Pawnee police officer.
Amy Poehler will be returning to the "Weekend Update" desk for the first two installments of SNL. Poehler garnered an Emmy nomination for her work on this past season's Saturday Night Live, most notably for her parody of Hilary Clinton and the fact she's plain fantastic on the newsdesk alongside Seth Meyers. Poelher will continue to work on Parks and Recreation. The prime time sitcom was renewed for the 2009-10 season. Saturday Night Live returns for its 35th season on September 26th (11:30pm ET).
I once mistook Leo Allen for Ken Marino in a wig. It was in the online video for 92nd St Y Tribeca's goofy New York Times commercial parody, passed along throughout the internet and loved by all haters of the real TV advertisement promoting subscriptions to The Weekender. The ad was created by Michael Showalter and featured an array of popular alternative comedians, some from the world of stand up, others from the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, plus friend Paul Rudd enjoying the Socks and Politics Section. In the spot, Allen claimed "I got a bad cold from one of my co-workers". His fringe of bangs flopped over his Clark Kent glasses, and all I could think of was how funny Ken Marino looked in that wig, and then I remembered how we have the same birthday. (December 19th, y'all).
Earlier this year, Zune (Microsoft's music service) partnered with Mean Magazine to produce original episodic video shorts of comedic re-enactments of popular movies of the past. Last week, I posted a video short parody of the 1991 feature Point Break, that originally starred Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey, and was re-made by the very funny members of Human Giant and Reno 911.
Photo Courtesy of BBC
I'm glad that today is the last day of Comic Con so I can stop feeling incredibly envious of all the cool geeks and nerds who've enjoyed a weekend of screenings, panels and celebrity runs ins I've been missing 3000 miles away.
After all these years, it's unbelievable that the brilliant hilari-osity of It's Garry Shandling's Show has not yet been available on DVD - or VHS for that matter. Co-created by Shandling and Alan Zweibel, it ran on Showtime from 1986 to 1990. If ever there was a "ground breaking" show, it's this one. It was a meta look into the world of Garry, with friends, famous and not, bounding into his life while he spoke to the audience about stuff. I know the pitchforks and torches handled by comedy geeks will arrive at my door for saying this, but I found this show much funnier than Shandling's second highly influential series on HBO The Larry Sanders Show. The DVD box set will include 16 disks fit with 72 episodes plus all the extras and goodies you could hope for. It will be released on October 20th. Favorite moment: Gilda Radner visits Garry.
SubPop has announced that Flight of the Conchords will be releasing a second official US release on October 20th. (Their previous albums were UK/New Zealand releases.) I Told You I Was Freaky will include the songs created for the second season of their HBO comedy, which includes "Carol Brown" and "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor".