Jumped The Snark

2012/09/20 · 5:23 pm

Who is Chelsea Handler?

Normally, on Jeopardy “Who is Chelsea Handler?” would be the answer to a clue. But on this particular edition of the long-running nerdfest, this interrogative statement was very much a question, something that all the contestants were asking themselves.

Take that, Handler!

And let’s discuss why those responses are so terribly wrong.

1. Margaret Cho: Really? Nowhere in that clue do they ask who plays Kim Jong-il on 30 Rock.

2. Joan Rivers: Yes, she’s on E! and she’s a comedian and best-selling author, so ~~Donna~~ Veronica was close. So close in fact that the judges later considered Rivers to be an acceptable answer and awarded her the money. However, Joan Rivers is not an acceptable response (and we will not budge on this) because a) Fashion Police does not air late-night, b) it is not a talk show, and, most importantly, c) the right response is Chelsea Handler.

3. Ellen DeGeneres. No. Just wrong. You’ve embarrassed yourself, Dan. For so many reasons.

But who knew that Trebek was such a Handler fan? We guess we know what he was doing during ~~his heart attack recovery~~ Jeopardy’s summer hiatus.

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Filed under Lists, Match Games, The Worst

Tagged as 30 Rock, Alex Trebek, Are you there God, Chelsea Handler, Donna, Ellen DeGeneres, Fashion Police, Jeopardy, Joan Rivers, Kim Jong-il, Margaret Cho, Parks and Recreation, Rhetta

2012/09/19 · 4:57 pm

BREAKING NEWS(ROOM): A Fraggle Rock A Day

Inspired by Ben Folds Five and their Fraggle-inflected (infested?) video for “Do It Anyway,” we went down to the caves for today’s A Newsroom A Day. Dance your cares away!

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Filed under A Newsroom A Day, Muppets, Tyranasaurus Sex

Tagged as Ben Folds Five, Dance your cares away, Do It Anyway, Fraggle Rock, Fraggles, The Newsroom

2012/09/19 · 3:19 pm

Tonight: Michael Skupin Rises From the Ashes

Just a reminder, tonight is the premiere of Survivor: Philippines, AKA Survivor: The Skupin Rises. After eleven years, Mike Skupin returns to avenge his premature exit from The Outback, along with a couple other guys from other seasons that we don’t care about and we assume have no chance to win and should probably just go ahead and give it up already. We’re not normally ones for predictions (at least for the first episode), but we think it’s safe to say that the first player eliminated tonight will be fire itself, as Skupin will immediately declare war on his arch enemy. How will they cook the heaps of fish and piles of wild boar that Skupin will no doubt catch and kill with his bare hands, you ask? With Skupin’s piercing, steely gaze, of course. How will Jeff Probst snuff out voted out players’ buffs? Simple, he won’t have to. All vanquished players will offer their buffs up to Skupin as tribute, and he will wear them like pelts, trophies from the kill, a hero reborn.

Redemption starts tonight. Until then:

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Filed under Freak Out Control, Mancrush, Tribal Council

Tagged as Dark Knight Rises, Heroes Reborn, Jeff Probst, Michael Skupin, Outback, Survivor, Survivor: Philippines

2012/09/18 · 7:51 pm

Down at Fraggle Rock & Roll

Yesterday Ben Folds Five, in conjunction with Nerdist and the Fraggles, released the video for “Do It Anyway,” the first single from their new and apparently much-anticipated album The Sound of the Life of the Mind, and it’s awesome. It’s just awesome.

Let’s just run down a quick list of why this is awesome:

1. Fraggles. Duh. Obvious #1.

2. Specifically Uncle Traveling Matt. Or, as you may know him, Tarzan from Survivor: ONE WORLD!

3. Rob Corddry, doing general Rob Corddry things (the smarmier the better).

4. A pretty rocking Ben Folds Five song. In fact, it’s so good that we’ve been forced to reassess our whole perception of Ben Folds Five. Thanks to his service as a judge on the Sing-Off, Ben Folds had already endeared himself to us as perhaps the one and only genuinely polite, affable and respectful judge among all reality competitions. But that was specific to his personality and gratitude, his completely unironic earnestness and enthusiasm. It did nothing to make us think of “Brick” as anything other than an okay song that we periodically remember is about abortion which VH1 used to play every morning just before or just after the video for Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough,” a song we much preferred. Nor did his positivity and humor suggest to us that we should go back and give Forever and Amen a listen, that perhaps when we surmised that Ben Folds Five was for the other guys, we were mistaken. No, we just grew to really like the guy. However, this video completely calls into question everything we thought we knew about Ben Folds Five. Perhaps we had them wrong all along.

And 7 more reasons why this is awesome…

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Filed under Brilliance, Lists, Muppets, Tyranasaurus Sex, Virulent

Tagged as Angry Young Man, Anna Kendrick, Ben Folds, Ben Folds Five, Billy Joel, Brett McKenzie, Brick, Chris Hardwick, Do It Anyway, Forever and Amen, Fraggle Rock, Fraggle Rock Movie, Fraggles, Man or Muppet, Michael Anthony, Nerdist, Robert Sledge, Rock & Roll, Sheryl Crow, Sing-Off, Strong Enough, Survivor: One World, Tarzan, The Sound of the Life of the Mind, Uncle Traveling Matt, Van Halen, VH1

2012/09/18 · 4:45 pm

Happy Jew Year!

Well, Rosh Hashana is upon us again. Has it really been a whole year already (we’re really asking; even we get a little confused with the Hebrew Calendar)?

The nice thing about the Domino’s is that they don’t Jew you on the pepperoni.

– Michael Ian Black, Mike and Tom Eat Snacks, Episode 32

Let’s celebrate the New Year with breaking down Jewish stereotypes. Yes, we like challah bread and matzoh ball soup and potato kugel and bagels. And, yes, we run Hollywood. And, yes, we make dynamite plastic surgeons. And, yes, we like to get to the movie theater extra-early to make sure that we get a good seat. We are all these things. HOWEVER, not all of us are cheap, parsimonious bastards who will Jew you out of every possible penny. In fact, sometimes – as Jon Benjamin and David Cross illustrate – we’ll even Jew you up.

So dip the apples in the honey! (we will not, because we are allergic to apple, and thus will never have a sweet new year. It will be one unbroken string of bitter misery)

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Filed under Good Humor, Lady Holiday, The State, Woody Allen, Bar Mitzvahs & Bagels

Tagged as apples and honey, bagels, cold pizza, David Cross, Domino's, Hebrew Calendar, Jew Italian Redhead Gay, Jew Them Up, Jewish New Year, Jon Benjamin, Jon Benjamin Has a Van, matzoh ball soup, Michael Ian Black, Mike and Tom Eat Snacks, Pepperoni Pizza, Rosh Hashana

2012/09/15 · 12:33 am

Parting Shot: Don’t Call it a Comeback

Coffee is my religion.

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Filed under God Laughs, Local Flavor, Parting Shot

Tagged as coffee, Jesus, messiah, religion, Starbucks

2012/09/14 · 2:11 pm

Groaning Pains: Matthew Perry Goes On to a Better Place; Or How We Learned About Drunk Driving

With the proper premiere of Go On this week and its promising ratings, it seemed like the appropriate time to revisit our Groaning Pains series, specifically Go On star Matthew Perry’s short stint as Carol’s ill-fated boyfriend, Sandy. In other words, it’s time to discuss how we learned about drunk driving (and that a guy could be named “Sandy”).

When Friends premiered back in 1994 we may have been the only eleven-year-old in the country who thought to himself “there’s the guy who was in the Married with Children backdoor pilot and there’s the guy who was Carol’s boyfriend on Growing Pains that died from drinking and driving.” The former is Matt LeBlanc, whose Married With Children character Vinnie Verducci – Joey Tribbiani’s spiritual predecessor – was spun off with his father Charlie (the immortal Joseph Bolonga) into the very short-lived series Top of the Heap, and the latter is, of course, Matthew Perry. For years, Matthew Perry stuck in our mind because of his role on Growing Pains – 1) because his arc ended so tragically, and 2) because we never could quite wrap our heads around the fact he was named Sandy – and it would take a little while for us before we thought of Perry as Chandler Bing and not as Carol Seaver’s love lost, a cautionary tale.

Go on

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Filed under Growing Pains, Makes You Think, Nostalgia Corner, Sha la la la

Tagged as After School Special, Boys will be Boys, Carol Seaver, Chanandler Bong, Chandler Bing, Drinking and Driving, drunk driving, Family Ties, Friends, Go On, Groaning Pains, Growing Pains, Joey Tribbiani, Joseph Bologna, Kirk Cameron, Married with Children, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, Mike Seaver, NBC, Rags to Riches, Sandy, Sandy Duncan, Second Chance, Skippy, Swingers, The Seavers, Top of the Head, Tracey Gold, Vinnie Verducci, Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf? Romeo and Juliet

2012/09/13 · 11:58 am

Whenever You Play the Game of Cable News, You Either Win or Die.

There is no middle ground.

We’ve been diligently posting remixed Newsroom opening credits over on our sister site A Newsroom A Day, and we thought we would be remiss if we didn’t share today’s entry here. We think this is our favorite one so far, although it makes us miss Game of Thrones oh so much.

And while we’re on the subject of Game of Thrones mash-ups, we’d also be remiss if we didn’t use this opportunity to point you towards this brilliant GoT meets Parks and Recreation illustration done by our very close personal friend Steve Ponzo.

And, sadly, winter is coming.

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Filed under A Newsroom A Day, Intersection of the venn diagram of things that I love, It's Not Television, Other people's stuff, We'll Get It In Post, Winterfallen

Tagged as Aaron Sorkin, Game of Thrones, HBO, mash-up, Parks and Recreation, The Newsroom

2012/09/12 · 10:42 am

11 Years Since (September)11: On Grief, Despair and American Flag Speedos

“Ain’t no shame in holding onto grief . . . as long as you make room for other things too.”

Reginald “Bubbles” Cousins, The Wire

We wanted to keep this bright and sunny and cheerful and light on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, and heed the words of Bubbles (Season 5, Episode 9) by making room for Will Ferrell sporting an American Flag Speedo. Unfortunately, we just can’t find that SNL sketch in its entirety online, either because Ferrell reveals too much of his undercarriage to get past the Hulu censors or because this sketch is included on the Best of Will Ferrell and NBC wants to protect its DVD assets. Either way, our attempt to demonstrate some levity on such a somber day was thwarted. So, instead, we will revert back to holding onto the grief and commemorate this day – and the still lingering sadness and pain – with our original choice, Jon Stewart’s personal, emotional, gut-wrenching but still hopeful words to open the first The Daily Show following the tragedy.