It’s official! As we, and everyone else on the Internet, predicted, Paul Rudd is joining his Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You Man co-star Jason Segel in The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made (but we maintain we called it first). As soon as word leaked the Segel was writing the movie with his Sarah Marshall director Nicholas Stoller, we began speculating which members of the Apatow-verse would be joining in, and Rudd was at the top of the wish list. When we learned that Apatow-charter Rashida Jones and comedian of the moment Zach Galifiniakis were also slated to appear, Rudd seemed like an inevitability. And, now, according to Production Weekly, it’s a reality, with Rudd on board to voice the new “anything Muppet” Walter, who, as we previously noted, will portray Segel’s roommate in the movie. And this, even without any direct Judd Apatow involvement, cements The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made‘s status on the Judd Apatow Chart.
But that’s not all! Production Weekly also reports that fellow Apatow-charters Jack Black and Jane Lynch are in, as is Rashida Jones’ former TV flame John Krasinksi (who we suggested over a year ago might make for a great Muppet), Krasinki’s Office co-star (as well as Galifiniakis’ Hangover castmate) Ed Helms, Krasinski and Helm’s NBC Thursday night comedy brother Donald Glover, and Danny Trejo, who cameo’d in the Apatow-produced Anchorman (and Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet, whom we’re having trouble connecting to the rest of the cast). So in a word: WOW.
Oh, and Lady Gaga, apparently. Whatevs.
Here’s a preview of what the Muppet-Rudd collaboration might look like:
It was an up and down decade for Saturday Night Live, but then again it’s been an up and down 34 years for Saturday Night Live. The show started gangbusters in 2000, taking advantage of the 2000 election and perhaps becoming more relevant than it had at any point during the previous decade (media and communication majors and political scientists will be analyzing SNL‘s Gore-Bush debates for years to come, studying how the show interpreted the real events and how the sketches then in turn affected the election). Then the show kind of treaded water until the 2004 election when it once again made the best of the political fodder, although with the relatively benign John Kerry as a central character the political satire was not as entertaining or as incisive as 2000. But With a mostly new cast then the beginning of the decade the show returned to prominence in 2008, most notably mining the comedy goldmine that was the renegade Sarah Palin. However, although SNL’s strongest seasons were during the election years, the best sketches were scattered throughout the aughts, with a fair share of political material, but also crazy characters, inventive monologues, traditional bits and the now ubiquitous Digital Shorts. Here, in a particular but not necessarily meaningful order is a very subjective list of the top ten (and then some) Saturday Night Live sketches of the decade that was.*
Jumped The Snark 