Last Thursday, The Sarah Silverman Program began its third season on Comedy Central, with Sacramento-born actor/comedian Brian Posehn back as Sarah's gay neighbor and friend Brian Spukowski. Like his character on the show, Posehn is a passionate metalhead who enjoys couch-surfing and smoking pot. Unlike his character, Posehn is straight and does not have much time for the couch these days since he is touring the country for his Cold as Fuck Comedy Tour. (Posehn's next album, Fart and Weiner Jokes is due out in March). Movieline caught up with the comedian in Chicago to discuss the first Silverman episode he wrote, his stand-up and weed.
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"Group day" during Idol's Hollywood Week seems as necessary as Randy Jackson's understanding of percentages. Fact is, once the Top 12 contestants are chosen and start hitting the big stage week after week, they're only forced to perform with one another during hokey opening medleys and (perhaps) the occasional duet. Otherwise, they perform solo and opt not to assault our senses with nervous blitzes of harmony and choreography. Last night's proceedings ended up eliminating handfuls of hopefuls, but it mostly proved that the Gwen Stefani backlog contains some difficult, Faulknerian material. Color me one billion percent shocked, dawg. We count the night's three biggest highlights after the jump.
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After silently burying the Jay Leno Show, NBC pulled another Tonight Show legend on deck Wednesday to temporarily fill the gaping holes in its after hours line-up. Dick Cavett, who wrote for the show during both Jack Paar and Johnny Carson's terms, joined Jimmy Fallon last night over shag carpet to recall that famous Jayne Mansfield line he wrote and the time he literally bored a guest to death. That segment, as well as the other moments you missed while rehearsing that GMA one-act, after the jump.
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· Squashing speculation that Ellen DeGeneres would inherit The Oprah Winfrey Show's time slot on ABC, Warner Bros. Domestic TV Distribution has renewed The Ellen DeGeneres Show for three more seasons on NBC's 10 owned-and-operated stations. DeGeneres responded to the news by doing a funky chicken dance and releasing this statement: "I'm so excited to sign on for three more years at NBC. They were the ones that believed in my show from Day 1. So, I'm thrilled to know I'll be here 'til at least 2014. Things will be a lot different by then. I won't be dancing over my coffee table anymore. Through the magic of 3D, I'll be dancing over yours!" One can only hope not. [THR]
Hawaii Five-0 books its lead, Friday Night Lights finds its ending, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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The Jay Leno Show may have slipped off the air last night without an official farewell from its host or NBC, but it won't be buried without a few words by Movieline. After all, we've watched this $375 million disaster from the moment that Jay Leno pulled his orange Prius into the 10 PM time slot as he deflated his ratings, totaled his network's name and then jumped from the burning wreckage, saving himself, but not his trustworthy passenger, Coco. Sometimes brave decision makers end up looking dumb, and that is certainly the case for Jeff Zucker and associates. But let's focus on the positive with these nine moments that will forever live on in our memories, even after The Jay Leno Show has been disassembled and sold for parts.
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I'm not comfortable with Ellen Degeneres's sound defeat of Paula Abdul -- and Randy, Kara, and Simon, frankly -- during her Idol debut. I expected her peppy encouragement ("I do know what it's like to stand and please an entire room full of people," she said to the contestants at the top of the hour) and even her saltiness ("You should put some shoes on here. Hollywood is a disgusting town," she said to one eliminated player). But the rest of the Idol panel's "tough love" felt like smooth, bubbly aspartame compared to Ellen's slick decision-making. Did you hear Ellen mutter, "She's going to get annoying" during one deliberation? What about when she claimed they needed to eliminate more contestants, seemingly for the hell of it? For being a non-Cowell member of the panel, Ellen made some subversive, bold gestures. Turns out she's the most refreshing member of the group, a real swig of Vitamin Water! (You noticed the Coca-Cola cups were replaced by 50 Cent's lemony elixir of choice, right?) We number the first night of Hollywood Week's three best highlights after the jump.
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If you think the following joke is funny -- "Five months! Do you realize that there are guys on Viagra with erections that've lasted longer than that?" -- then you would've loved last night's Jay Leno Show finale. After a few more monologue knee slappers, Leno welcomed Ashton Kutcher, Gabourey Sidibe, Donald Trump and Bob Costas (the latter two via satellite) onto the program to pretend like ConanGate had not happened. The only allusions to NBC rumblings came when Leno joked that he had been fired. To close out his reign of primetime torture, Leno even subjected Kutcher to a final "Earn Your Plug" segment. The best moments from Leno's awkward goodbye-until-March (in which he made no mention of the Tonight Show or Conan O'Brien), as well as the other highlights you missed while completing the adoption paperwork for your latest lemur, after the jump.
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A Discovery Channel star has passed on. Phil Harris, the crusty fishing boat captain whose Alaska coast adventures were captured on Deadliest Catch, died Tuesday night. He was 53. Harris, who started working on fishing boats at the age of 7, suffered a massive stroke Jan. 29 and underwent emergency surgery in Anchorage earlier this week; as recently as last weekend Harris was said to be talking to friends and family and showing gradual signs of recovery. He is survived by his sons Jake and Josh, who worked on their father's boat as deck hands. [AP]
· More bad news for Better Off Ted fans. Andrea Anders, the actress who plays Ted's quirky co-worker, seems to be preparing for Ted's cancellation by finding other work. She was recently cast opposite Matthew Perry in ABC's comedy pilot Mr. Sunshine. Interestingly enough, this will be Anders' second project playing the love interest to a Friends alum. In 2004, Anders starred as Matt LeBlanc's romantic counterpart on Joey. In Mr. Sunshine, Anders will play the cute and tomboyish Alice, who is in a friends-with-benefits relationship with Ben (Perry), the manager of an aging San Diego stadium. Allison Janney has been cast as Ben's boss. [THR]
Stan Lee writes himself into hist latest project, Paul Reiser takes notes from Larry David, and more TV Bites after the jump.
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Movieline's Dept. of Interspecies Intimacy was busier than ever Tuesday, first with its close read of a torrid horse/cow love affair and then... this, from Jennifer Garner's visit last night to The Late Show with David Letterman. It's often just a lazy-ish figure of speech to accompany the kind of raconteurial excess that follows with an observation like, "There are no words." But you know what? When it comes down to a perk overdose that began with Garner preaching swimsuit modesty and ended with the actress sharing details of that time an aroused dolphin came on her foot, well, yeah. There are no words. Click through for the video.
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Primetime experiment The Jay Leno Show ends tonight, and TMZ has a spy on set ready to report every last, hacky detail. Like this one: Donald Trump just appeared via satellite to tell Jay, "You're fired!" Timely, synergistic, and accurate to the end, though we suppose it would have taken a little punch out of the joke to have Trump say, "You're not fired, actually Conan is fired and you've been promoted, but I know that doesn't work with your victim narrative so I'll save that one if Kimmel can come through with an appearance fee." [TMZ]
Weird Variations of Jim Parsons Day continues here at Movieline with the amusing story of an unauthorized knockoff of The Big Bang Theory from Belarus called The Theorists. Like Parsons' Big Bang character, his Belarusian counterpart is a wiry, science-nerd know-it-all named Sheldon. And the similarities don't end there, according to one of Bang creator Chuck Lorre's signature, text-heavy vanity cards that ran after last night's show:
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If you've spent four seconds glimpsing Kirstie Alley's Twitter feed, you're aware that the 59-year-old Cheers vet could front a half-hour reality show, or a sixty-minute reality show, or The Truman Show. Her sly use of rhetoric, Caps Lock, and threats to Conan O'Brien's life have made her a retweetable institution, and her upcoming venture to television embraces that unscripted flair and the spirit of her mourned Showtime series Fat Actress. Her new reality series Kirstie Alley's Big Life also features unexplained pet lemurs, and you can draw your own assumptions about souvenirs from Lisa Marie Presley's latest baptismal voyage to Madagascar. The awesome A&E trailer is after the jump.
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Attention late night viewers! Tonight, NBC will air the last episode of the Jay Leno Show. You may not have known since NBC has spent no money saying "Goodbye Primetime Jay!" (or finding goodbye-quality guests -- tomorrow, Jay will chat with Ashton Kutcher) since he'll be returning to the network in a month. But we here at Movieline recognize that our 10 PM nightmare is nearly over and the celebrations will be aplenty. Beginning with another one of Jay's patented "Earn Your Plug" segments -- remarkable and unremarkable at the same time for its gratuitous use of Carrot Top. That gem, as well as the other after hours highlights you missed while dreaming about your future American Idol reign, after the jump.
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The producers of MTV's breakout hit Jersey Shore have been dealing with a season two conundrum over the last month -- and it wasn't just the cost of reuniting the show's cast members, who currently command five-figure appearance fees to judge the Sammy's Hot Wings Contest at the Twin Cities Promenade food court. The bigger issue was where the series should shoot its next installment, since it would be too hard to pull off another summer at the titular shore, yet some of the other suggested locales might mess with the show's patented bikinis-and-bronzer aesthetic. Now, Movieline can confirm that Jersey Shore has committed to its season two setting: South Beach.
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