In today’s post you will learn about my embarrassingly encyclopedic knowledge of comedy, comedians and TV. You see I got into a TV thing last night, and ironically, the TV Gods decided to hand me gem after gem of segues. It was like I was playing a solo version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon (Remember that? Man, where has the time gone…). But yeah I watched, like, 3 HOURS of TV last night. I don’t what got into me. There was some stuff I wanted to watch, but then I got hooked. Now in the clear light of day I don’t even remember what the hell I was looking at. Let me see…

OK the night started with Comedy Central. About a week or 2 back they started showing new South Park episodes. And those guys are GOOD. I think everybody knows that they got their start by making a short film that was like a Christmas card, and George Clooney got one from a FOX guy. The video was very popular blah, blah, blah, TV show. But the surprising thing is that it’s still funny. I thing their live action films have been a little spotty, but the TV show is always innovative and entertaining. So last night’s episode was WAY weird. The premise was Britney Spears gets photographed a lot.

But the format of South Park humor isn’t actually just the toilet humor; it’s really the juxtapositioning of popular culture references with conventional plot lines. This is a technique I talked about in detail in my piece on how to be funny. So last night’s episode started off with the paparazzi chasing Britney and ended with a horror movie harvest plot switch. You’ve seen all those movies, especially from the 70’a where the whole stupid ass village talks about doing some weird thing as part of their tradition. Come on, you remember the Stepford Wives don’t you? Well like that, except there were a ton of movies talking about “harvest,” so South Park took that angle with an Omen reference thrown in for good reference.

And you know how South Park loves to do satirical social commentary? Well they went into some very weird territory by having Brit’s whole damn head get blown off (Cobain style). It was great, and the ending was right on the money. So it’s one of those episodes that will live WAY beyond the shows eventual end.

Some commercials came on, and SURPRISE. It looked like Futurama was coming back on. Now, you probably know this, but networks almost NEVER bring a show back once they kill it. They did it with Family Guy and they did it with Jericho (and that show is about to get canceled a SECOND time). But there’s been a lot of talk about Futurama coming back and this commercial looked like good news.

But I did a little research and turns out that it doesn’t look like the series is coming back yet. What they’re showing is Futurama: Bender’s Big Score, which is pretty good movie version of the series. I saw this past Fall. So that’s on Sunday the 23^rd of March. Actually that is going to be a hell of day on Comedy Central. That day they’re showing The Royal Tenenbaums, Shaun of the Dead, Wayne’s World, Spaceballs and Bender’s Big Score.

Next up, I watched Lewis Black’s new show The Root of All Evil. It’s really a SMART show, and by the I mean it plays to a few different strengths. Black is best served in small doses, so even though the show is his we don’t get a lot of him. The format is similar to Whose Line is it Anyway. It’s sort of a contest of two comics with Lewis keeping score-all while maintaining this courtroom format. That’s another smart thing; people love court shows. It will probably have a good 2 or 3 seasons run.

But the best thing about the show is it’s giving unknown comics a chance to get out there, and really letting them get some screen time. Journeymen. See about 20 years ago something happening in comedy. TV networks started discovering comics and then building shows around them and it was like the Gold Rush with all the comics, good or bad, flocking to LA. And all the talent scouts were throwing money and shows around-people went crazy. That’s why guys like Chappelle began to hate Hollywood back in the 90’s. That guy must have been a part of half a dozen pilots (that’s a first trial episode of a show where they shop it around to see if anybody wants it). Back in those days I was an actor working for a talent agency. They represented almost all the cast members of Saturday Night Live. So I got to see this all first hand. But Black’s new show gives guys like Greg Giraldo a chance to get out there. You might have seen him on some of those Roast, or a few years ago on Colin Quinn’s show.

They also had Paul F. Tomkins and Andy Kindler on. You probably don’t know those guys, but if you go to any comedy clubs in LA you sure as hell know them. I always think of Andy as a coffee shop comic, cause that’s mostly where I’ve seen him. He’s OK funny, but he knows more about comedy than he is actually funny. I think he had a couple guest spots on the King of Queens. Paul is similar, he also calls in to the Best Show on WFMU every once in a while (radio station in Jersey), but mostly people might know him from Mr. Show (by the way those Mr. Show guys just got a new HBO deal). And Brian Posehn was on Conan last night, and he’s another Mr. Show alumni. But people know him from the Sarah Silverman show, and SHE’S another one of those comics who up until recently people just knew from playing the LA circuit. It’s that whole Fairfax Avenue crowd (that’s a street in LA in the Jewish neighborhood).

Some more stuff happened last night like the cast of Battlestar Galactica read the Top Ten on Letterman mostly to try to get somebody to notice this will be their last season. And Tracey Morgan was on Conan and we REALLY need to talk about him on SNL last weekend. Brooke Shields was on Letterman too but I missed by her flipping channels back and forth.

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Tags: MoviesTV //