Get ready. They are.
Now go over to Entertainment Weekly to witness Russell and Boston Rob’s very first meeting in Nicaragua.
Rob looks scared, doesn’t he? He should be.
Category Archives: Internet Killed the Print Media Star
Gratuitous Search Term Bait of the Day: Keeping up with the Joneses
It’s getting late and we had a long day (and, more importantly, we have to watch Top Chef and there’s pizza waiting), so we’re going with a search term staple today, “rashida jones.” Here’s the lovely Ms. Jones appearing on the brilliant Jeannie Tate Show, created by and starring Liz Cackowski, the former SNL and current Community scribe you might best recognize from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
And if good comedy’s not your thing, here’s Jones on the cover of Vanity Fair‘s 2011 Hollywood Issue.
Person of the (Last) Week: Tia Mowery
Who would have thought that January 2011, eleven years after Sister, Sister signed off the air, would hold the biggest week in Tia Mowery’s career? But if you thumbed through last week’s Entertainment Weekly that’s just what it looks like, as Mowery is mentioned twice (twice!) within four pages. And a photo too!
It’s a little too soon to tell, but is 2011 the year of Tia Mowery?
Ball’s in your court, Tamera Mowery.
Or, perhaps, your move, Jackée.
Filed under Internet Killed the Print Media Star, TGIF
Whooo Isss It??? It’s ‘Bosom Buddies’, Finally Getting the Recognition It Deserves!
We were pleased to encounter some well-earned commendations for Bosom Buddies this week, from two relatively varied sources. First, in the AV Club‘s truly excellent Primer on 1980s sitcoms, they list Buddies as one of the cult hits from the decade that played with traditional sitcom conventions. Article scribe Todd VanDerWerff continues:
Bosom Buddies, which debuted on ABC in the fall of 1980, has a reputation as one of the worst shows of all time in some circles, but it’s actually a surreal work of near-genius and the only good show to ever emerge from the Miller-Boyett factory. Miller-Boyett assigned a young writer named Chris Thompson to work on a TV spin on Some Like It Hot, and he cast Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari in the lead roles…Thompson, who would go on to work on The Larry Sanders Show, filled the series with strange sight gags and mostly abandoned his central premise as soon as he possibly could. The show allowed Hanks and Scolari to improvise freely, often leaving the script for far funnier, stranger tangents.
Some might question the rank of “near-genius,” but we’re here to defend it. We recently used Blizzpocalypse as an excuse to revisit the series, and it’s impressive how well it holds up. And, as a bonus, there are jokes that I didn’t get upon first viewing that, with the benefit of age and wisdom, I now understand (although, there are still others I didn’t get then and don’t get now). However, we’re not exactly sure that we’d qualify the program as “surreal;” certainly, the premise that Hanks and Scolari, in the roles Kip and Henry, were required to dress in drag in order to maintain residence at a “hotel for women” was somewhat off-beat for the time, but, as the writer mentions, since the show was loosely based on Some Like It Hot it’s not exactly a novel premise. But VanDerWerff is right on when he notes that they wisely jettisoned the drag plotlines, in favor of letting the talented cast (including Holland Taylor, Wendie Jo Sperber, Donna Dixon and Telma Hopkins) utilize their immense chemistry and crack timing in more successful, less gimmicky storylines.
(we urge you to go over to the AV Club and read the comprehensive essay as soon as you finish this post. You’ll need to set aside a good 20 minutes, more if you want to watch the accompanying videos (primary source materials), but it’ll be worth it. And be certain to also study their 1970s sitcom Primer, either before or after (however, we do take umbrage with the 80s Primer’s criticism of the shows that comprised TGIF. Certainly, those sitcoms don’t represent the best the decade had to offer, but they have their redeeming qualities. However, that’s a defense for a later post.))
Continue to see what a certain The Office star also has to say about the show…
And Speaking of Ripping Us Off, Did Rolling Stone Rip Us Off? (What Was That We Were Saying About Jimmy Fallon?)
On Monday, for our Gratuitous Search Term Bait of the Day, we posted a couple Late Night with Jimmy Fallon clips and the photo of his recent New York Magazine cover, all below a headline referring to Fallon as “Mr. Sunshine.” So imagine our surprise when the new Rolling Stone arrived in our mailbox yesterday with this cover:
We’re not sure what kind of black magic you employed to pull it off, Rolling Stone, but clearly you saw the post that we published extremely late on Monday evening and somehow rushed this cover to print in time to be delivered by Tuesday afternoon. Fess up! First Stephen Colbert infringes on our turf, and now Rolling Stone. What happened to the rules of decorum for tweeting and journalism (in that order)? It’s one thing to cop from New York Magazine (which we do from their Vulture blog all the time), but it’s a whole other thing to steal from us.
We guess chivalry IS dead.
(but go ahead and pick up the new issue, or at least read the article, because Fallon most certainly deserves all the attention)
Meanwhile, Over On ‘Late Night’…
…Jimmy Fallon just keeps rolling along, delivering the best, most innovative comedy on the long side of midnight. Adding to their already great pantheon of short videos, like “Late,” “6-bee” and “7th Floor West,” Late Night recently debuted the series “Suckers,” which simultaneously parodies/pays homage to Twilight, True Blood, Broadway and probably two or three other works that we missed (Vampire Diaries, maybe? Help us out).
Vodpod videos no longer available.According to Bill Carter’s new book, The War for Late Night, when NBCU Chairman Jeff Gaspin phoned the Late Night brain trust – Lorne Michaels, Fallon, producer Michael Shoemaker – to inform them of the possibility of moving their show back 30 minutes to 1am, they acceded, with Shoemaker telling Gaspin “We love what we’re doing. Don’t worry about us.” And that idea, that they love what they’re doing, is so obvious, and is also contagious. Already somewhat left to their own devices at 12:30am, a move to 1am probably wouldn’t impact them that much, as long as they got to keep producing the same slick videos and playing the same silly audience games. Whereas we argued in an earlier post that while Conan is changing the late night game by moving to basic cable, it’s Fallon who’s genuinely doing something different with his hour. And for all the talk of the Team Coco and I’m with Coco web campaigns, it’s Fallon who has truly embraced new media (launching an online version of Late Night before debuting the broadcast show, hosting one of the best blogs on the net, as a couple of examples). As he’s gone on record saying, Fallon doesn’t really care when his show airs, because his audience will find him on their DVRs or online. Of course, if the product isn’t good, no one will watch, even if the show is readily available through several media outlets. Luckily for Jimmy Fallon and Late Night, their product is real good.
And for more on the subject, you’d be a fool not to read this much more illuminating profile of Jimmy Fallon in this week’s New York Magazine. He also graces the cover, adorably:
Muppet Monday: The Muppets Break Their Personal Record For Two-Page Photo Speads in Entertainment Weekly in One Calendar Year
We assume. Because for the second time in three issues Entertainment Weekly features a Muppet a full color Muppet photo across two pages. The first appeared in the recent “Reunions” issue, a Muppet Show cast photo, and the new issue of the magazine offers the first glimpse of the gang (along with Jason Segel) in their upcoming return to the big screen, The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made.
(click to enlarge)
The image also presents our first look at Walter, a new tech-savvy, young Muppet who reportedly plays Segel’s roommate in the film. He could also possibly be Guy Smiley’s illegitimate son.
One concerning omission in the photo: Pepe the Prawn is nowhere to be found. He doesn’t appear in the first photo, but that was appropriate because he joined the Muppets many years after the Muppet Show (for the Muppet Show redux Muppets Tonight), but he’s arguably been the most popular Muppet of the past 10 years or so, and the only new Muppet since the Muppet Show to truly become a core member of the Muppet troupe. It’s probably just an innocent mistake, but until we see another two-page spread in the Christmas issue, we’ll be holding our breath.
Muppet Monday: Don’t Call it a Reunion, They’ve Been Here For Years
In last week’s Entertainment Weekly (on stands now) the Muppets, as the cast of the Muppet Show, reunited to talk about their old show, as well as, most importantly, their upcoming return to the big screen with Jason Segel. To be fair, it’s not like the Muppets needed to be reunited, as they’ve been pretty much working non-stop for 40 years (we’re also not sure there was any compelling reason to bring the casts of The West Wing, Will & Grace and Alias back together after like 4 months apart, but that’s a different complaint for a different blog), but any national magazine publicity is good national magazine publicity.
(click to enlarge, so you can see how they managed to sneak Mickey Mouse in the background)
And read the brief interview with Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzie, and Gonzo here.
Jumped The Snark 