The Definitive Guide to Comedy
Netflix has announced a new 13-episode single-cam sitcom, Grace and Frankie, that reunites Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as “long-time rivals brought together by a rather unusual change in their marital circumstances.” Tomlin and Fonda famously teamed up with Dolly Parton in the 1980 movie musical, 9 To 5. “Jane …
Adam Scott unveiled the billboard today for the fourth and final edition of his 1980s TV tribute series, “The Greatest Event in Television History,” which will air this Thursday night, Jan. 23, 2014, on Adult Swim. If the photo of Scott with Paul Rudd doesn’t jog your memory, that’s a …
Tonight is the 100th episode of NBC’s Parks and Recreation, which seems entirely plausible and yet also miraculous, considering the state of network television programming at NBC in the 2010s. Of course, throwing the word miracle around is a dubious prospect. As even Parks and Rec‘s co-creator, Michael Schur, noted …
Would you believe that Alan Alda’s Hawkeye Pierce wasn’t the moral center of M*A*S*H, the hit CBS series for 11 seasons from 1972-1983? That’s what Alda would have us believe. Here. “I never saw myself as the moral center of M*A*S*H,” Alda told Jeff Greenfield during a conversation Tuesday night …
TV networks spend billions of dollars each year for ideas you’ll never see on television. That’s a bold statement. But it’s nevertheless true. Literally. And also by the bass-ackward “new” “definition” of “literally” adopted through repeated utterances on Parks and Recreation. So, too, there’s research and development, and then there’s what’s …
Jay Chandrasekhar is best known as the ringleader of sketch comedy troupe Broken Lizard, but he’s also a stand-up comedian and an in-demand director, helming TV episodes over the past year of Community, Happy Endings, Franklin & Bash, Ben & Kate, and Royal Pains — plus acting in movies such …
“Are you good?” Marc Maron asks the question sincerely after I enter his hotel room in Midtown Manhattan, catching the comedian amid a day full of back-to-back phone interviews with the media. Not “Are we good?” nor the colloquial “We good?” that has become a commonplace catch-all catchphrase of sorts …
George Lopez is back in primetime, scoring a new deal made official today by FX to bring at least 10 episodes and perhaps 100 of his upcoming sitcom, Saint George. FX Network’s Executive Vice President Chuck Saftler just announced the “10/90” deal with Lionsgate Television and Debmar-Mercury for the half-hour, …
“Come and knock on my door” wasn’t the original opening for Three’s Company, the 1970s hit sitcom adaptation for ABC. Nope. Try “doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dooo” instead. The first taped pilot for Three’s Company didn’t have the lyrics you came to know and love yet from Don Nicholl and Joe Raposo. John Ritter …
End cards or “vanity cards” as they are known derisively/accurately, are those logos and nonsense that flash at the end of TV shows for two seconds. To be accurate, this year it was cut from 2 seconds to 1 ½ seconds. I don’t know why the studio needed that extra …
