If there is one thing that this weekend's episode of SNL reminded us of, it is that January Jones has one of the best faces in the game right now. Great face! Excellent, excellent face. Unfortunately, she might have to keep it closed. I mean, did you see that? She could barely get through her lines (what few lines she even had) without stumbling or giggling, and even then she stumbled and giggled with low energy and zero affect. I'm not sure that I've ever seen a Saturday Night Live host who was so blatantly propped up in a corner so that he/she wouldn't be in the way of the cast putting on an actual show. It was so rough that I started to wonder what Henry Francis even sees in her!
But the thing about great, beautiful faces is that if the face is good enough, then you can still probably get something decent out of having them around, and that is what happened.
As you may have heard earlier this week, Kelsey Grammer's most recent sitcom, Hank, has been canceled. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!*** But yes. Hank was a flower that flew too close to the sun, or whatever****. So thank you to SlapClap for making this moving and important tribute*****.
What is this world coming to?****** First 9/11 and now this*******. Based on this description of a recent episode from the official website, I don't even understand how this is possible********!
Hank has had it with Tilly's annoying habit of saying "got it, got it, got it," but is afraid to discuss the issue directly with her, so he recruits his ever-so-subtle brother-in-law, Grady, to approach her about the problem.
Canceled?! ABC was just like let's throw all this gold********* away, we don't want it! Goodbye, Hank, you will be missed**********!
30 Rock is back! What a great show. I enjoy watching it with my eyes! Last night's episode was...very good. Plenty of strong laffs. "Have you ever noticed how people in St. Bart's eat their lobster like this?" Although sometimes I worry that the show is going to crumble beneath the weight of our collective expectations. It is just one show, we can not put all of our comedy hopes and haha dreams on its thin, anthropomorphized shoulders. Whatever. It can handle it. This show is a machine. Also: poor Josh.
But there were lots of other shows on last night, too! The Office continues to just CRUUUUUSH this season. I think the writers room has switched out the morning meeting bagel basket in favor of having clowns for breakfast. Meanwhile, Community stays very strong. I am enjoying the developing relationship between Donald Glover and Danny Pudi. Then there was the Fred Armisen guest spot on Parks and Recreation. Everyone loves Fred Armisen! And cetra.
Let us discuss this around the metaphorical water cooler after the jump.
I know this is old, because it has the 2005-2008 cast, and I know it didn't air exactly like this because it's too dirty for Comedy Central, but someone sent this Reno 911! clip the other day and I've watched it five times and sent it to nine people, so that probably means I should put it here. I won't ruin it with a description, but let's call it "Lotto." NSFW language:
As my co-editor might say, that clip just took us all to sketch-writing school. Total situation comedy perfection. (Thanks to Matt for the tip!)
Are you watching Party Down yet? This Friday, the funniest show currently on TV has its Season 1 finale. Here's a clip of Jennifer Coolidge (Bobbie) explaining why she accidentally made "that Nazi thing" out of a tray of appetizers:
Party Down, guys. Every single person who has watched it because I told them to has loved it and thanked me. Watch it, then tell other people to watch it, and then bask in the thanks! (Just do not watch with your parents.)
Kids, sometimes life brings disappointments, like last night's season finale of the still totally great show How I Met Your Mother, which was predictable and lovey dovey and, ironically for its title and theme ("The Leap"), not very risk-takey. (We judge harshest what we lovest most, or whatever.) You can watch it here. But sometimes in life the shows you love disappoint you, and you just have to look back at the rest of the season and think of the good times, like the episode where Barney hired actors to play his fake family for years to please his mother. That was gold. Or, you can do what I did and go on YouTube with nothing but a hunch and find that a foot fetishist has already uploaded a scene from last night's episode featuring Ted's (Josh Radnor's) feet, just in time for impromptu Videogum foot fetish day, which started an hour ago and ends now:
Tipster Kevan wrote in about the classic TV origins of one of Alan Alda's lines on 30 Rock last night:
When Alda comes to the TGS stage looking for Jack and finds Tracy
crying to Kenneth about not being chicken when his teacher told him to
cut open the baby (which was really a frog). Alda says, "What's all
this crying about babies and chickens? I thought this was supposed to
be a comedy show."
In the last episode of MASH (most-watched TV episode ever!) Alda's
character is sent to a psychiatrist after a breakdown. He tells the
doctor that he had been on a bus with other people from the army, and
they had stopped to pick up some Koreans. They found out there were
enemies in the area, so the bus pulled off the road and Alda told
everyone to be quiet so the enemy wouldn't hear them. One of the
Korean women had a chicken that wouldn't stop making noise, so Alda
yelled at her, "Shut up that damn chicken!" So the woman killed the
chicken. The doctor can't understand why this was so traumatic to
Alda, but then finally Alda admits it wasn't really a chicken -- it
was a baby. The baby wouldn't stop crying and Alda told the mother to
keep it quiet. Rather than risk having the enemy hear them and kill
them all, the mother smothered her own baby.
Hence, "What's with all the crying about babies and chickens?"!!
They couldn't have Alan Alda on the show without a M.A.S.H. reference, though it would be even better if they'd saved this for the last episode ever (but thank god it wasn't.) (Thanks, Kevan!)
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