It's hard to recall a recent studio comedy that David Koechner didn't pop up in. From Extract to The 40 Year Old Virgin to Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgandy, the character actor has made a career out of scene-stealing cameos aided by his drooped lip delivery and his ability to usurp laughs from his co-stars, including former Saturday Night Live co-star Will Ferrell.
Although Koechner has over 50 guest-star credits on popular television shows, the Second City veteran will mark his first role as a sitcom regular with tonight's premiere of Hank on ABC. Movieline shared some appetizers with Koechner this summer at the Television Critics Association festival, where he talked frankly to us about Kelsey Grammer, life as a working actor, and the possibility of an Anchorman sequel.
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The leaked hierarchy of salaries on MTV's The Hills reads like a charity prom date auction where the loudest cheerleaders win expensive bids from the hot, part-time DJ sons of CEOs, while relative wallflowers like Lo Bosworth are left to accept cheap offers from the nervous, normal guys who live in the wrong part of Bel Air. Fortunately, it's not too late to renegotiate the salaries on The Hills and make them fair for everyone -- even the dastardly Fleshbeard.
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For all of those Hills aficionados who didn't think Whitney Port was strong enough to support an east coast spin-off in which unknown characters lament their dead-end relationships, the hardships of their glamorous jobs, and the limits of their trust funds, Port has at least managed to survive into her second season tonight. Free of that dead-weight Aussie boyfriend Jay, Whitney can now taxi from posh LES eatery to posh LES bar and flirt with other paid bit players (but can we please see more of Olivia's couch-surfing cousin James this season?).
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TLC announced today that it will relaunch Jon & Kate Plus Eight in November without paunchy hostage Jon Gosselin. The newly rebranded Kate Plus Eight will focus on Kate's travails as a single mother, though Jon, who is attempting to stall the divorce, will still make occasional cameo appearances. TLC also announced that it will be developing another Kate Gosselin project for next year (she's got so much spare time!), though details on that one are scarce. Is it too much to hope for a Bachelorette hybrid with Kate surrounded by burly bodyguards pitching woo? [THR, PopEater]
Showtime reached series high ratings on Sunday night with Dexter, opening its fourth season to the tune of 1.5 million viewers while Californication kicked off its third season with 821,000 viewers. Dexter was up 25% from its third season premiere and Californication gained 57% from its second season opener. No word on whether Californication's horrifying images of Kathleen Turner seducing Evan Handler should affect next week's ratings.
[Hollywood Reporter]
Head injuries are no laughing matter, even when the victim themselves joke about their own mishaps -- which was exactly the case with Natasha Richardson before she succumbed to the tragic, fatal fall she suffered on a Quebec ski hill earlier this year. So news that Conan O'Brien took a spill Friday during the taping of a Tonight Show segment that was serious enough to land him in Cedars-Sinai and bring production to a halt sent us into our weekends with a lingering unease. (And sure enough, Jay Leno voiced our darkest fears when he made an insensitive joke about the incident on his show last night, telling Kevin Eubanks how they very nearly earned their own timeslot back.)
Thankfully, the old Conan we know and love returned to his perch last night, perhaps a bit shaken and a shade more pallid than usual, if that's possible, as he described his scary experiences.
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NBC is no stranger to medical dramas; remember Emergency!, St. Elsewhere, and a little 15-season series called ER? Tonight, though, NBC experiments with a new branch of medical programming that relies heavily on action sequences. Trauma is about a medical-rescue team in San Francisco that rushes to save lives while navigating helicopters through death-defying loop-de-loops, flips and the occasional explosion-starting collision. Thrilling, maybe, but can it beat the neck injury-rattled, dance floor pyrotechnics of ABC's Dancing With the Stars?
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Usually, Jeopardy! will devote just one week's worth of programming to Celebrity Jeopardy!, wherein bumbling celebrities answer questions (or question answers?) about very basic science and pop culture, but this year, the program is spreading its celebrity programming over the course of the year as part of a million-dollar charity tournament. In honor of the new format, let Movieline introduce you to our six favorite Celebrity Jeopardy! losers, starting with last Friday's winner of the $1,000 Final Jeopardy pity gift, Wolf Blitzer.
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If you've ever spent a night with Californication's Hank Moody (played with steadfast conviction by David Duchovny), you know to expect perverse sex, heavy vice dependency, photoshopped cigarettes and compromised morals. After already exploring the rife terrains of sex with an underage girl that lead to manuscript heist, porn sex with Evan Handler and dalliances with anonymous, thieving Venice Beach rollerbladers, Californication's writers upped the ante in last night's season three premiere by gifting viewers with five of the most retina-scarring scenes in premium cable history. The NSFW honorees after the jump:
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All three of Seth MacFarlane's Sunday night programs showed significant ratings increases for Fox yesterday, as The Cleveland Show debuted to over 9 million viewers, boasting a 44% increase from last season's time slot holder King of the Hill. Meanwhile, Family Guy jumped 16% from last season and American Dad grew its viewership by 13%. To see by how much MacFarlane's crudely drawn animated characters pummeled the Desperate Housewives premiere, join us after the jump.
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Mad Men took its soapiest turn in a while during last night's episode, eschewing lawnmower hijinx and child psychology in favor of the more conventional sexual and political crises that have long pervaded Don Draper's immediate orbit. For once, it was our difficult hero himself who wasn't getting lucky. Anything but, in fact. Needless to say, spoilers follow the jump.
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Beginner's luck: According to NBC, Saturday Night Live newcomer Jenny Slate won't be fired or even have to wear a scarlet "F" on her mangy, featured player forehead for her now-notorious accidental swear word during Saturday's premiere episode. Slate, who uttered "f*ckin" when meaning to say "freakin" during a sketch called "Biker Chick Chat," committed the puritanical offense well after primetime, meaning SNL is not likely to garner fines from the Federal Communications Commission. In fact, host Megan Fox is the one who should be in trouble, more for what she didn't say than what Slate did. See her faux pas (and video of Slate's slip of the tongue) after the jump.
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In the early '90s, Johnny Galecki began his sitcom career on the Chuck Lorre-produced Roseanne as the intelligent, super-sensitive boyfriend of Darlene Conner, played by Sara Gilbert. Over a decade later, Galecki stars on the Chuck Lorre-created Big Bang Theory as an intelligent, socially unaware Caltech physicist, where once more he occasionally finds himself onscreen with Sara Gilbert. It could be luck, divine intervention or Chuck Lorre's loyalty that brought Galecki back into the fold of America's favorite sitcoms, but the Belgian-born actor credits his fans entirely.
Movieline shared a drink with Galecki a while back at the Television Critics Association event for CBS, where he discussed Big Bang's incredible viewer support, the learning curve of a TV physicist and why he still hasn't visited Caltech.
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Such is the price of comedy: Conan O'Brien hit his head while shooting a stunt for The Tonight Show yesterday. While he appears to be OK, whatever he did was severe enough that production on the show was halted. NBC wouldn't comment on whether or not he was hospitalized for it, but an anonymous source told the LA Times that he was indeed.
O'Brien then released this statement via NBC:
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Like Eastbound & Down, Brothers revolves around a pro athlete that is forced to move home after burning through his cash, then has to navigate difficult relationships with his family -- only Brothers' protagonist, played by New York Giants veteran Michael Strahan, probably won't crash his car in alcohol-fueled rages and ditch his girlfriend at a gas station. Partly, that's because Brothers is on network television and partly, it's because no one can really get away with that kind of behavior onscreen aside from Danny McBride.
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