'Childrens' Hospital' Brings Home Emmy

Congratulations to Rob Corddry, the cast and team over at Childrens' Hospital, which just nabbed an Emmy at the Creative Emmy Awards this evening!

Childrens' Hospital on TVBlogster. http://tvblogster.blogspot.com/search/label/Children%27s%20Hospital

NBC's 1985-86 Season Promo

I was an intern at NBC Creative Services back in the Fall of 1985, and our office sent these out to NBC affiliates. I must have seen this one hundred times. It looks really dated and dumb, but back then the network was on top.

'Smashed'

A film. Not to be confused with NBC's Smash. I love this cast.

When Comedy Returned Post 9-11

Eleven years ago today, I was stuck on the now defunct #9 train heading downtown to West 18th Street to get to my job in Chelsea. We were stopped between 28th and 23rd streets due to, what the MTA engineers are trained to say, "an incident downtown, possible sick passenger".

All I could think of on that post Labor Day morning was how I hated the white capri pants I wore and the ugly lavender tank top that did nothing for my large torso. We were stuck for only ten minutes, but we slowly made our way south. Finally, I got off at 18th & 7th and headed for La Petite Abielle, for my morning coffee routine.

Up on sixth avenue, I saw a crowd on the corner looking downtown. That spot. The corner of 18th and 6th, held a picture postcard view. Every morning I stood there, waiting for the light, marveling at the perfection of this small plot of real estate - 6th at 18th - west side of the street. Look left and you can see the Empire State Building loom large overhead. Look right, and you'd see the majestic giant towers of the WTC, peering over buildings and trees. Best spot in the world, I thought. Thank God I'm a New Yorker.

That day, when I joined the crowd of people standing on the corner, I looked to my right, and saw that horrible site. The north tower ripped open with black horrible smoke pouring. Flames.

 "A 737 plane hit the tower." said a man with a transitor radio eaplug in his ear. "And another small plane hit the other one", a vision a bit harder to see since the damage of the south tower was partially obstructed by the north one.

I started shaking.

Then a song entered in my head. A Tori Amos song that always comes to mind when I'd hear of a plane crashing:

"Not the red baron. Not Charlie Brown. Think I've got the message figured. Another pilot down."

It was a perfect day. Clear as a bell. What's wrong with air traffic control?

I was shaking as I crossed the street, zombie-like - looking into the eyes of people heading to where I had just been, looking to see if they knew, if they had already seen the damage - looking at them as if to say, your eyes about to see something horrible.

When I got to the office and watched the news, it became clear. Terrorists did this.

That Amos earworm was still wiggling. The song would not leave my head:

"And are there devils with halos and beautiful capes, taking them to the flames, taking them to the flames."

Then as more planes crashed - one in the Pentagon and another in a field in PA, the tune in my brain changed to Dylan's "Masters of War".

My whole psyche is on a mixed playlist.

Life wasn't funny for a while. Some of my neighbors perished. The smoke wafted over the upper west side where I lived. The trains were a mess. And that smell. That acrid electrical burning rubber smell. For months, that smell. For a few weeks, Baseball stopped. Television stopped, save for constant news coverage.

Comedy stopped for weeks, especially the New York based talk shows. Dave, Conan, Jon - all shut down. Dark. But they returned a week later, these jesters, always ready with a satirical shot provided a mixture of confusion, anger and pain. As a comedy fan, I turned to these comic heroes for solace, and found comforted in their humble state, in how as New Yorkers themselves (adopted through years of living there) shared the experience, up close, with a skyline viewed every day, part of our landscape, now destroyed. In this historic time, they took to the camera with pain, confusion, caution, all too aware of the question, "Is it too soon to make joke?"

It turned out, a joke was exactly what we needed.

I've found a few videos on YouTube featuring Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien and David Letterman dealing with the aftermath of the WTC attack. Sadly, SNL's return with Guiliani and Lorne Michael asking if it was okay to be funny again is lost to copyright issues.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Damon Lindelof Approves of this 'Breaking Bad' Fan Video...

...and so do I.

Another montage of the transformation of Walter White, with more current story elements.

Funny Women and Nail Polish

Sandra Bernhard's Comedians Walking & Getting Mani-Pedis is a funny female take on Seinfeld's webseries Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee.  Personally, I prefer Berhard's version. Here, our New York gal meets up with Daily Show legend Lizz Winstead for a chin wag, ankles deep in water, at Bloomie Nails. (I can just smell the hand lotion from here.)

Judy Greer Back on 'Arrested Development'

According to Vulture.com, Judy Greer returns as Kitty on the new Arrested Development, currently and thankfully in production.

Strap Yourselves In...

The ride's about to start.

Brian McCann Takes His Leave

There was a bittersweet moment last night on Conan. After seventeen years of "Preparation H Raymond" and "Minty The Candy Cane that Fell on the Ground" plus a long list of funny characters, writer/performer Brian McCann's final day on Conan was yesterday.  He's moving back to New York, most likely to create more funny things that will make people happy. Here's his send off:



As Conan mentions, you can view video clips of Brian's work over on http://teamcoco.com/mccann

So Long, Mike

There has been a wind of change in storytelling these days. No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are recent films that have explored the ethos of the anti-hero, the villain we hate to love. We can't help it. In their world, there are monsters far worse, whether it's society baring down, or false profits who try to swindle them. 

Mike Ehrmantraut- one of the most intimidating elements on Breaking Bad left this moral coil last Sunday. Walter White killed him. In a few shots, the man we feared, maybe at one point hated, died in peace by a river bed. And it was devastating.

Those who watch the show can atest, Mike was one cold bastard. At least at first glance.  I'm not sure if Mike's backstory has been touched upon, but I don't care. I live by my own theories. In my mind, Mike was a veteran of the Vietnam war. He saw dreadful things that hardened his already hardened ass, cut like a diamond during his childhood on the hard streets of  'bad-side-of-the-tracks USA'. He has the survival instincts of a man who was a prisoner of war. He can take a bullet. Live on the lamb. Disappear if he had to.  After Vietnam he became a cop - a bad cop turned rouge. The kind of cop who would would mingle with evil minds, just to get the truth out of them. The kind of cop who fell in with the worst of the drug cartell, hoping to nab them, but ended up defending them because they gave him money,  money the police force couldn't, money he could save for his grandaughter.  This temptation made him spiral downward into the very thick of the muck.

He was a soldier for drug lord Gustavo Fring. Mike would kill anyone who proved a threat to the king. He had the opportunity to off Walter a few times, but was always talked out of it. Probably because among the immorality within this show, Mike had a modicum of heart. Perhaps that's what makes an antagonist into a villian we can get behind. Heart.  Daniel Plainview in Blood was motivated by greed, but what made us cling to his story? He was a devoted father, until the boy grew up and the truth of his relationship was revealed.  Mike's fatherly respect toward Jesse gave him that human side. Walt thought of himself as a father figure to Jesse, but he screwed with the young man's mind, all to keep him in the clutches of White Inc. Mike had Jesse welfare at heart. He knew he could do better than cook meth. He knew that they all had to get out of this game.

Farewell Mike Ehrmantraut. The DEA is no longer on your tail, and Walter White will no longer nag you into cooking meth.

Special kudos to the amazing Jonathan Banks, an actor supreme, who gave us this intriguing character.

A Little Something For 'Community' Fans

Really nice video. Community moves to it's new day and time - Friday's at 8:30pm premiering October 19th on NBC.

Exclusive Interview: Kate Mulgrew Finds Her Funny Side

The day Kate Mulgrew returned to her hometown of Dubuque, Iowa to receive the Pioneer Spirit Award at the Julien Dubuque International Film Festival in April, it was almost her last day on Earth. After a calm takeoff out of Chicago O'Hare, the weather took a turn for the worst as the plane approached her destination. "We were flying in a soup!" the co-star of Adult Swim's NTSF:SD:SUV  recalls, the memory of this harrowing experience still fresh in her mind. "Dubuque is in a valley. But when we got close to the landing strip, there was zero visibility. The pilot tried to land and he couldn't get the nose down. We hit the tarmac, but we then went straight up like a rocket with the plane shaking side to side."

One can imagine how Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Starfleet Starship USS Voyager on Star Trek: Voyager, a role Mulgrew inhabited to much acclaim, would have handled such hideous turbulence: With steely eyed determination? Perhaps. But this was real life in the face of a massive storm, and the real Kate, who wasn't the Captain on this flight, was ready to meet her maker until the pilot gained control of the aircraft and landed safely. "Ten  minutes after landing, I was on stage getting this award! But, then to add insult to injury, I told the whole audience the story and said, 'Can you believe it? I almost crashed on American Airlines!'".

Why "insult to injury?"  The whole evening was  sponsored by  American Airlines. "Comedy of errors!" laughs Kate, obviously still shaken, but never stirred. (More on the Bond reference later.)

With forty years of hard earned stage and television work under her belt, (some viewers may remember her as Mary Ryan in the soap Ryan's Hope), it's a curious turn to see her join the ranks of alternative comedy on NTSF:SD:SUV, where she plays Kove, the eyeball challenged head honcho of the National Terrorist Strike Force in San Diego, a fun send up of the plethora of cop procedural shows that infest the network airways. 

I spoke to Kate about working on NTSF and this new genre of niche comedy Adult Swim is championing. She was charming, hilarious, charismatic and open to the world of the absurd.

Paul Scheer and Kate Mulgrew in NTSF:SD:SUV

  
You've done everything from Shakespeare to Star Trek Voyager to portraying Katherine Hepburn on stage. What made you join the NTSF team at Adult Swim?

Paul Scheer. He's beyond wonderful. I keep saying it, and I can't say it often enough or emphatically enough. He's a singular human being in Hollywood. Kind, generous, funny. He called me, and I had no idea who he was. He watched me on Star Trek and had this idea that I would be "M" 007, and he said "What do you think?", and I said "Is it lunacy?", and he said "Complete lunacy", and I said "I'm in."


Alternative comedians have such a sense of the absurd, which opens an outlet of creativity that doesn't fit within the boundaries of mainstream entertainment.

Well, I think Paul is held in great regard because every time I turned around in the second season, there was another terrific comedian. Everyone wants to work with him and for him.

Is there a little Captain Janeway in Kove?

No. Paul was thinking of Judy Dench in the James Bond movies. He was thinking of a serious female figure, so of course, he put an eyepatch on me.(Laughs)

Is there a back story on how Kove got the eyepatch? I don't remember anything eluding to the reason why she has one.

We haven't examined the back story, but Paul and I are always laughing about it. I think that I should switch the eye patch to the other eye! Maybe we'll have an episode about the history of the eyepatch!

Does Scheer keep the door open for you to contribute to a scene?

Oh yes, he's collaborative. He knows the best work must be collective. He listens to you with every part of his being. He uses what he can use. Never once does anyone feel less than necessary. He has that fantastic gift.

Does the cast come to you for acting advice, or how they should approach their character?

No, but they often look at me and say "does anybody know you're funny?" (laughs) because they know I've had a 40 year career as a legitimate actress, and it's so much fun to play with them and be, in their eyes, a comedian.  It's very freeing.

The show is so kooky, was there ever a time or a scene that was so over the top that you had to say, "Oh no, Paul I can't do this?"

I've never said I can't do it. I don't know how to say those words, but the chopping off of thumbs and appendages with a machete last season - that was very challenging. I did look at Paul and thought "Arrrgggh!" But you have to let it go. There is nothing precious. Nothing.

Trent and Kove have been married and divorced twice...

Right!  And we have two children Jericho and Cherokee. Neither of them speak, but they are karate champions.

Of course!  What else would they be? Do you think Trent and Kove will get married and divorced twice again?

Well, hope springs eternal! I think it would be brilliant, don't you? To be married and divorced twice in the same season - it would be brilliant. Someone actually does get married this season. But it doesn't last.

I hear that Kove now has a podcast? What kind of guests will she invite in for an up-close-and-personal interview?

We'll, she's less interested in sane people than she is in bizarre people. But Kove wants to be highly regarded by the team. She would give anything, her right hand and her left eye - her only remaining eye - to be part of the group. But she's so un-hip, and Kove is so desperate to be hip.

It's the whole aspect of her character, that off-center pattern of characteristics that make her so funny.

Right! And it's her self-importance. She just knows that she's never going to be invited to the party. Just like that whole episode in last season when they wouldn't invite her to a birthday party. She's obssessed.

Since NTSF and Childrens' Hospital pool of talent and producers are intertwined, has Rob Corddry ever asked you to make a guest appearance as Kove at Childrens? Perhaps in a NTSF/Childrens' Hospital crossover?

I don't know anything about that, but it sounds intriguing. It's the new wave, but I think Adult Swim has a pretty good idea what's amusing to every demographic. You should suggest that! (TVBlogster: If anyone in power is reading this...hint, hint.)

Any plans on returning to Broadway or the off-Broadway stage in the near future?

Yes, I'm doing a play in the Spring called Somewhere Fun, written by the very gifted playwright Jenny Schwartz, directed by Ann Kaufman. We go into rehearsals in April in New York. I've been working on this play, workshopped for them and with them, the last two years, and now we're going into the theater. I'm very excited. It's a dark comedy, but it's brilliant. The playwright is truly magnificent - a great, great mind. So come and see it if you can.

I would love to get back to New York to see it!

Well, Get your buddy pass and get on Jet Blue now!

For more on Kate Mulgrew and for updates on her upcoming projects, please check out her Twitter feed @TotallyKate and her official website www.KateMulgrew.wordpress.com

Matt Jones Cast in 'Office' Spin Off

If you've ever seen Matt Jones perform at UCBLA's Harold night on the (now defunct?) Improv team 'Flap Jackson', then you know that he's a talented and hilarious human being. If you're an avid viewer of Breaking Bad, you're familiar with Walter White's pimply meth head dealer known as Badger, the slacker who gets into scraps that are more humorous than scary.  Then you'll be as happy as I am to hear that Jones has just been cast in the Dwight Schrute Office spin off as one of Dwight's cousins. Because Schrute Farm will be lousy with weird cousins.

Although the need for a Dwight spin off seem a bit 'meh' to me, it will be nice to see Matt's talents continue to flourish on a larger scale.

Source: Deadline

SCTV Friday!

It's Friday, and I'm bushed. The heatwave, a pending move, lots of things on my to-do list has rendered me spent, exhausted, done.

So here's one of my favorite SCTV sketches. Ever. (Audio's out of synch, but still visually funny.)

'Robot Chicken' Returns and 'Bob's Burgers' News

Robot Chicken's sixth season will premiere on Adult Swim on September 9th at midnight. The Emmy Award winning stop action series will offer the same absurdist hilarity and will include some familiar voices behind some legendary comic book super heroes. Creator Seth Green returns as Batman, Robin and Aquaman. Neil Patrick Harris will be Two-Face, Alfred Molina as Lex Luthor, Nathan Fillion as The Green Lantern, Megan Fox as Lois Lane and Breckin Meyer as Superman.  The forthcoming season will also welcome the voices of  Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Chalke, Kat Dennings, Sam Elliot, Patrick Stewart, Gillian Jacobs, Olivia Wilde and Jon Stewart.  And that's just naming a few because this press release I'm reading boasts a ton of celebrity appearances.

More animation news for those loving the underrated Bob's Burgers on Fox. As per Deadline, six more scripts have been added to the upcoming season, originally confirmed for thirteen episodes. This now bumps season three to nineteen funny installments of Jon Benjamin as Bob, Kristin Schaal and Eugene Mirman as the weirder of his three kids. This show also has a line up of famous guest voices in the can such as Megan Mullally, Kevin Kline, Nick Offerman, Zach Galifianakis, plus Sarah and Laura Silverman. 

Paul Scheer and Rob Corddry's Worlds Collide...

The creators of Childrens' Hospital and NTSF:SD:SUV bring their imbred world of comedy to you.

Gene Simmons and His Brood

I saw Gene Simmons sitting in the commisary at work yesterday. There he was, the Prince of Darkness all by himself in a business suit, enjoying what appeared to be an amusing text message on his phone. He stood out among the employees, grips, gaffers and best boys eating their grub, his hair like Brillo and as black as the soul of the demon he is in the legendary band Kiss. Although the people around him were studio employees whose run ins with celebrities going from ADR suite to sound stage are a daily occurrence, there were still double takes, whispers of "Gene Simmons" and looks of  "wow". He sat at the head tables near the entrance where everyone could see him. It was as if his selection of seating was deliberate, as if he wanted the attention, basking in the glory as he ate his lunch.

A&E canceled his reality series Gene Simmons' Family Jewels recently. When the show first premiered, I couldn't understand why we needed to see another rock star living the dream. However, I watched with curiosity. The episodes seemed loosely scripted. Situations felt forced and fake, obviously manufactured by story producers and perhaps by Simmons himself. But something emerged through the silly set ups and the usual behind the scenes drama: Gene Simmons and his now wife Shannon Tweed raised the most awesome kids - Nick and Sophie. The whole family unit, despite pre-marital issues, parental conflicts and the rock and roll world in which they revolve, is pretty down to earth considering Simmons' proclivities. (He loved the ladies and visa versa despite pledging is troth to Tweed.)

As I walked by Simmons, I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed watching his emotional visit to Israel, where he met his other family, the one his father made after he left his mother decades before. How touching it was to see him genuinely moved by meeting his half brothers and sisters who all had kids that looked like Sophie and Nick. I wanted to tell him how the tears he shed at his father's grave provided the most heart wrenching, real moment I've ever witness on reality tv. It wasn't an act. It wasn't just for ratings. This was heavy stuff.

But I went to the salad bar instead. The Demon is just too cool.

'The Office' Season 9 Will Be Its Last

Executive Producer Greg Daniels has announced via conference call that his show The Office will be be wrapping up this coming season. As per Vulture.com, Daniels decided that since everyone will not be back for a season 10, the 9th season "... feels like the last chance to really go out together." Daniels said.

There was talk that The Office was going to reboot; however, as anyone who's loved the show can tell you, that's like restarting a very dead horse. This once wonderful show has been less than stellar in recent years, and to see it go out, with everyone still on staff, and hopefully a guest appearance from Steve Carell (with wife Holly and a baby in tow), would be satisfying.

Also mentioned is that we will FINALLY get to see the so-called documentary makers behind the scenes. My personal wish is that they deconstruct Jim and Pam's history. Every Office blog I've read has wanted to read what Halpert wrote to Pam for the Suprise Santa in season two's "Christmas Party" episode. Perhaps they've give us a peak into Jim's last day in Scranton before he moved to Stamford? There have been so many holes in that relationship viewers like myself are still pondering.

For more info on The Office and all follow ups regarding the final season, go to OfficeTally.com for all your Dunder Mifflin needs.  To read Daniel's announcement - go to Vulture.com.

UPDATE: Jenny Tan from Office Tally comes through will detailed info. For those interested - follow this link.  http://www.officetally.com/the-office-to-end-after-season-9

Chris Gethard Gets Adopted

It was bound to happen. IFC has been green lighting off the wall projects from some of the most alternative comedians around, and they won't stop until they drop.  Chris Gethard is the latest to get a series for the cable channel, which is already home to some of the absurdist comedy around (Comedy Bang Bang, Portlandia, Bunk). As per Deadline, IFC's new initiative "Adopt a Comedian" is in full swing.  Created to seek out comedians with the channel's off center style, Chris has been nabbed as their first comedic talent to be brought under their wing.

IFC has ordered a pilot script of Gethard's book, A Bad Idea I'm About To Do: True Tales of Seriously Poor Juedgement and Stunningly Awkward Adventure. In addition, he'll host on-air programming intros and will create original content for IFC.com.

Now if they can only make our Chris fulfull his dream - picking up his public access show The Chris Gethard Show to series. This show is on Manhattan public access cable, and is crazy as Howard Stern and playfully odd like the old Uncle Floyd Show. Chris has mentioned in his blog that if he ever had a five year plan, that fith year would reward him doing that show as his career, even taking it to network. 

Looks like that dream could come true, one step at a time.