Tag Archives: Paul Rudd

2012/05/17 · 4:38 pm

Must Flee TV: ‘Parks and Recreation’ – We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes

This week we’re checking in on NBC’s Thursday night comedies as they finish their respective seasons.  Today: ‘Parks and Recreation.’ 

Perhaps the greatest compliment you can offer Parks and Recreation is that it’s no longer referred to as the quasi-Office spin-off (ignore the fact that we just did that in the first sentence).  We’re now multiple seasons into an excellent run where Parks and Recreation has cast off the chains of its origins, found its own voice, become its own show, and surpassed its progenitor by all metrics save for Neislen ratings.  We still maintain that Community is the best show of the night, but Parks and Rec has not been behind by much, outpacing The Office during its second season.

At the end of Parks and Rec‘s brief, unimpressive first season, we laid out a plan for how the show could not only improve but excel, and we revisited this primer just prior to the start of the show’s brilliant third season.  We also presented three more key points as the show moved forward and they were as follows:

More: What do you with a problem like Rashida?

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2012/05/10 · 2:06 pm

They’re Finally Together

After more than a decade it looks like David Wain & Michael Showalter’s Wet Hot American Summer follow-up They Came Together is finally going to be made, if Variety is to be trusted (and, really, can they???).   Much like Wet Hot took on 80s summer camp flicks, this one has rom-coms in its crosshairs.  And, much like Wet Hot, They Came Together will star Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler, and also likely the rest of The State and Zak Orth and A.D. Miles and Elizabeth Banks and Mather Zickel and Nina Hellman (not that we’re complaining.  In fact, we’re crossing our fingers).

You can see a very brief, very blurry clip from the They Came Together read through at this year’s SF Sketchfest here, or, instead, watch this iconic Rudd clip from Wet Hot.  The choice is yours.

We’re starting the campaign for a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan cameo now.

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2012/05/02 · 1:16 pm

Remember That Time Vulture Ripped Us Off?

We joke a lot on this blog about people ripping us off – Stephen Colbert, Entertainment Weekly, Paul F. Tompkins (which resulted in a bitter Twitter feud) – but when were never as wounded as we were when we saw a new Vulture post presenting their “Map of the Comedy Zeitgeist.”  Why did we find this so alarming, so soul crushing?  Well, because it’s essentially an updated (and much, much prettier) version of our Judd Apatow Chart, which we used to launch this blog those three years ago.  Sure, the idea that there are these overlapping connections in the comedy world, most of which are tethered to the likes of Apatow, Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, and Paul Rudd, has been oft-explored for several years now.  But never before has there been a graphic representation that feels so close to ours, so similar (and yet so much more visually appealing).  Thus, we will not rest until we receive the credit we are due.  In protest we will continue to read, appreciate and occasionally steal from Vulture.

Are we being paranoid?  Hyperbolizing?  Take a look and you decide.

Them:

Us:

 

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2011/02/09 · 11:54 pm

Gratuitious Search Term Bait of the Day: D3

No, we’re not talking about the Mighty Ducks 3 (although we kind of wish we were), but rather the upcoming third season of Adult Swim’s Delocated, as today’s search term is “will there be a delocated season 3.”  Well, kids, as we reported last month, the answer is YES!  Shooting starts this spring and hopefully we’ll see new episodes before the end of the year.  But we’re happy to offer you a special exclusive behind the scenes look inside the Delocated Season 3 writers’ room:

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And more good news: Delocated creator and star Jon Glaser’s new book My Dead Dad was in ZZ Top was released yesterday.  The book, a collection of “100% Real,* Never Before Seen Documents from the World of Rock and Roll,” is inspired by one of Glaser’s live bits, the act that gives the book its title.  Glaser celebrated the release of the book at Brooklyn’s The Bell House last night with readings from the likes of John Hodgman, Scott Adsit, Paul Rudd and Jon Hamm.  Here’s Rudd delivering one of the book’s entries, complete with his best Jay Leno impression:

Do yourself a favor and pick up the book.  Makes the perfect Valentine’s Day gift for that special someone.

*Not real.

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Filed under Best Show You're Not Watching, Good Humor, Good News!, Gratuitous Search Term Bait, Literarally, Local Flavor, Mancrush

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2011/01/17 · 11:59 pm

Gratuitous Search Term Bait of the Day: JGL on the GG

Going to go a little outside the box with this today’s search term, “jgl snl,” which, of course, refers to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hosting turn on SNL from the 2009-2010 season.  But what we’re interested in right now is not JGL’s sketch comedy work, but, rather, his appearance on last night’s Golden Globes.  Or should we say his appearance during his appearance on last night’s Golden Globes.  We watched him introduce the clip reel for Inception and remarked to ourselves that his head looked extremely large.  Or his body looked extremely small.  Or a little of both.  Either way, the proportions seemed off.  And we found later that we were not alone, our thoughts articulated perfectly by Videogum:

We can’t knock his hustle, but clearly it wasn’t just us.  But, hey, YOU DECIDE.

And, guess what, this does tie into “snl” after all, because we had the exact same thoughts about Paul Rudd when he recently briefly appeared in-between Paul McCartney performances on hosted SNL.  And, trust us, we’re not trying to be mean here.  There are very few dudes we like more than Paul Rudd (see the previous post).  But, like JGL, he just looked a little…off.

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Somebody get those guys a grilled chicken and fresh mozzarella sandwich!  (because we’re eating one of those right now and it’s really good)

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2010/12/16 · 4:39 pm

Kieran’s Korner: Let’s Get Real About Paul McCartney

It’s been five days and yet we still have a bad taste in our mouth after last week’s ‘SNL’ hosted by Paul McCartney with a special appearance by Paul Rudd.  We understand that Paul McCartney is special, even the British monarchy has acknowledged that.  There are stars, and there are mega-stars, and then there are supernovas.  McCartney is the latter.  However, we still believe that ‘SNL’ shouldn’t have been so much about him, and his presence struck us a somewhat selfish booking, designed to provide more pleasure for the cast and crew than the audience at home.  This sentiment was only driven home when Paul Rudd remarked on ‘Live! With Regis and Kelly’ that (no surprise) after the show McCartney stuck around to play an impromptu private concert.  Rudd was obviously still in awe of the moment, noting that he’s “a massive Beatles fan, like everyone.”  But we’re not massive Beatles fans, and even if we were, we wonder if we’d be interested in McCartney’s other works, like the songs he played for his first two ‘SNL’ sets.  So that got us thinking, do people really care about hearing Paul McCartney play anything but Beatles songs?  Do they just tolerate McCartney in hopes that he’ll break out the Beatles catalog?  Or do they genuinely enjoy the cuts from Wings and his solo stuff?  So to get more clarity on this question, we turned to our guest blogger-in-residence and Beatles aficionado Kieran Walsh, in our latest Kieran’s Korner:

Wow.  Lead me into a minefield, why don’t you?

It’s not an easy question.  It’s not an easy answer.  Gosh…  Well, let’s do this.

After the jump: Kieran does this.

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2010/12/16 · 12:17 pm

Best News: Regis Resolves to Learn “Twittering” in 2011

Or so he claims during this interview with Paul Rudd from yesterday’s Live!.  This excites us immensely, especially if Larry King’s Tweet output is going to diminish  once he wraps out of Larry King Live (which is tonight, incidentally).  Of course, knowing Regis, his attempts to Tweet will likely involve him punching random buttons on a microwave, trying to complain about how the 2011 Yankees don’t hold a candle to the 1911 squad.

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2010/12/13 · 4:10 pm

Is it Wrong to Want More Paul Rudd Than Paul McCartney? Also, a Look Back at the Last Three SNLs

Okay, let’s get this thing going right away. Here are the highlights from this weekend’s SNL hosted by Paul Rudd:

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And that’s it for the highlights.

Read on: More Rudd, less McCartney, the worst sketch of all time? and what’s wrong with this show?

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2010/12/01 · 7:49 pm

(Belated) This Thanksgiving We’re Thankful For Jason Segel

It dawned on us a couple of weeks back when we caught Forgetting Sarah Marshall on TV (and cemented this past weekend when we suffered through The Muppet Christmas Carol on The Hub), that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jason Segel, as he’s almost single-handedly saved the Muppets.

Read on: The dark days of the Muppets and Segel as their Moses

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2010/11/19 · 2:39 pm

More Muppet Casting News, But Still One Glaring Omission

The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made casting news just doesn’t seem to stop.  Last week were ecstatic to report that Paul Rudd is on board (along with Jon Krasinksi, Ed Helms and Jack Black among others), now comes word that Billy Crystal, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Alan Arkin have agreed to cameo (although, if we had our choice of Alans we’d prefer Alan Alda.  Actually, our first pick would be Bill Hader as Alan Alda.  But with Hader’s Apatow/Segel ties – roles in Knocked Up, Superbad, Pineapple Express and Forgetting Sarah Marshall – it’s probably only a matter of time before he’s on board).

But with the deluge of casting news – it seems like nearly all of young Hollywood is going to pop up in the film – there remains one name we’ve yet to see, one actor who would truly make The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made the greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made.  We’re talking, of course, of…

Charles Grodin, DUH!

Before all is said and done, Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Michael Cera, Jack McBrayer, Tony Danza, Chi McBride, Michael J. Fox, Johnny Knoxville, Scott Wolf, Tom Hanks, Tina Yothers, Alan Thicke Jason Bateman, Bobby DeNiro and a host of others might pop up in the film.  But, Grodin, that would be the big get, and he’d really bring this thing full circle.

Charlie, thoughts?

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Via NY Magazine’s Vulture

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