More Parks and Rec stuff

Watch this Parks and Recreation gag/blooper reel. It's funny and you'll enjoy it. What more could you ask for? Money. You could ask for money as well. It's not a realistic request, but it is a request.

I'd like to be buried in the Sisterhood of Womyn

So, Dave Foley of Kids in the Hall fame was on WTF With Marc Maron the other week, and that got me thinking about my favorite Kids in the Hall skits. Here's a quote from the first skit I've posted below "I hear menopause is great. It's like taking ecstasy and a rocket-ship ride all rolled into one." I dare you to watch that skit and not laugh. I dare you!

Schaal Right!

Kristen Schaal seems to be everywhere these days, and I am 100% cool with that. Every time she's on The Daily Show, I know that there will be an excellent bit and that I will end up posting it to either Facebook or this blog. Kristen is on The Daily Show, was in Toy Story 3 (my vote for best movie of the year), and is a voice in the great new show Bob's Burgers. Oh, she also has a book call Sexy Book of Sexy Sex (it's funny. Get it for your mom for Mother's Day). Check out these clips of her work, and I think you'll be impressed.

Hey, watch these clips and read this article

I don't know how, or why, but I now receive Spin Magazine. I'm not complaining, it is just weird to randomly receive a subscription to a magazine that you have never purchased. I was flipping through it the other day, and they actually have some good articles; one of which is about Mr. Show with Bob and David. The article (only available in it's full form in the magazine) is an oral history of the show as told by the people involved. This includes, of course, Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, but also Brian Posehn, Patton Oswalt, Jack Black, and a slew of other really funny people. If you like the article, you should check out Splitsider's look back at Mr Show. If you don't know what Mr. Show is, you can watch reruns of it on IFC, or you can check out some clips below (you can also watch if you do know what it is).

Bill Murray, this is for you. Everyone else, stop reading now.

I've been really bad at hiding my love for all things Parks and Recreation (in that I haven't hid my love at all, or even attempted to hide it). That's why whenever I come across anything related to the show, my first thought is "man, I love that show", my second thought is "I could really go for a jelly donut right now" (because I can always go for a jelly donut), and my third thought is "I should post this to my blog." The third thought doesn't always translate into action (sometimes I get caught-up in the second thought and google donuts for the next 10 minutes), but this time it did.

I came across a clip of Amy Poehler on Jimmy Fallon's show last night begging Bill Murray to appear on Parks and Rec. This needs to happen. Since no one watches Jimmy Fallon's show, I figured that I needed to help Amy out and post this on my blog (which 10s of people read every month). So, Bill, if you're reading this (which I assume you are), please do an episode of Parks and Recreation. Thanks.

Conan's final Tonight Show speech is really cool when typed out

No seriously, Conan's speech from his final Tonight Show appearance is really cool when written out with fantastic kinetic typography. You should watch it. On a side note, typography is really cool. That's all.

Now is the Golden Age. Rejoice!

I really like TV a lot. I say TV not television because it’s my friend (see the clip below and you’ll get that reference). I truly feel like we’re living in the Golden Age of TV (man, I really wanted to write television there, but that would be rude to my friend). There are so many good shows on right now, it’s staggering.

Pop Culture Wars

Earlier this week, Salon’s Matt Zoller Seitz had an article about how kids today don’t “get” the jokes in older episodes of The Simpson’s. The author’s point was that today’s comedies have too many pop culture references, and what may be funny today, will just be confusing in 5-10 year.

That’s a fair statement, but one that I feel doesn’t matter. The fact that a show like Mike & Molly, which doesn’t have tons of pop-culture references, may be more understandable to future generations, doesn’t make Mike & Molly a better show. I’d rather watch a show that he calls out as one of the reference-o-rama’s biggest culprits, Community. I’m so glad to have that show on TV right now. I hope that Community continues to air (and hopefully becomes more successful) and make pop-culture references that are stale after a few years. Because if Community’s a success, then networks will continue to invest in shows that are 1) good (i.e., not Mike & Molly), and 2) offer immediate satisfaction, which is all anyone really wants.

Breaking Bad on ABC

Breaking Bad is a great show. It's a thoroughly enjoyable program about meth. I'd heard it was great, after all Bryan Cranston has won three Best Actor in a Drama Emmys in a row for the show, but I never got around to watching it because the issue seemed so dark. I'm guessing that I would've gotten into it sooner if it weren't on a channel that I associated with re-runs of Marx Brothers movies. Thankfully, someone has put together clips of what Breaking Bad would've looked like if it was more relatable to me, and was on a network channel. Enjoy Breaking Bad, ABC style.

It's so hard to say goodbye...

Today is Steve Carell's last day shooting The Office. Sad, right? Right. According to Rainn Wilson's twitter, the angels of comedy are weeping (well, he said "wept" but I like to think they're still a little upset about it). Steve had some great moments on The Office (for some reason him stepping on the George Foreman grill pops into my head, which is below), but nothing that he's done has been quite as funny as Ricky Gervais' impromptu dance on the British version of the office.

Community + LOST = Head Exploding

So, Josh Holloway (aka Sawyer) is going to guest on Community for a two-part season finale. This is a take off on last year's Modern Warfare episode which, is one of the best episodes of all time (no not just of Community's history, but all TV's history). I'm guessing that they'll tie in a few LOST easter eggs, because they're clever like that (actually they're so clever that they may go in another cleverer direction and out clever themselves), which will be fun to watch. I the meantime, enjoy the promo from the Modern Warfare episode, and Sawyer's nicknames from seasons 1-3 of LOST.

The Daily Show was good last night. You should watch some clips of it today!

Last night's episode of The Daily Show was really solid. A great first 10 minutes of material on the House's move to de-fund Planned Parenthood, then a bit from John Oliver in Wisconsin, and finally Anderson Cooper. The best part was the first 10 minutes of the show (see below), where Jon succinctly sums up the Republicans' pro-life beliefs:

"You can't prevent an unwanted child, you can't get care if you do get pregnant, and we won't give you any help feeding the kid after it's born, BUT for those two minutes, when that skull is crowning, your baby is the most precious thing on earth"

Also, Senior Women's Issues Correspondent Kristen Schaal does a great bit on making sure that we de-fund everything that ties to abortion, which includes The Coast Guard, the FAA, and of course fire departments.

President Clinton's teats, written by Louis CK

I've been listening to the WTF podcast with Marc Maron a lot this week. I think that I've mentioned the podcast on here previously, (just checked and, yes I have) and it's really worth listening to if you enjoy comedy and comedians. Marc had a two part interview with Louis CK, who is the funniest comedian on earth right now, and they brought up his writing for various shows, including The Dana Carvey Show and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Two skits that were mentioned were the open skit from The Dana Carvey Show (which, as you're watching it, remember that this aired in prime-time immediatly after Home Improvement), and Bad Fruit Theater: Apocalypse Now. Both are really pretty weird and worth checking out.

Stefon takes on Valentine's Day

I had a great Valentine's Day this year, but my one regret is that I didn't get my wife a human suitcase. I'll let Stefon explain what that one is (about 3:20 into the clip below). Just watch the Stefon clip below. It'll be the best thing you do all day at work. Honestly, it will.

And this is how Judgement Day starts...

IBM's super-computer Watson appeared on Jeopardy last night for the first part of a three-day contest versus two human competeators (Ken Jennings who has 74 straight wins, and all-time Jeopardy champ Brad Rutter). After last-night's show, Watson is tied with Brad Rutter with $5,000 each and Jennings is in third place with $2,000.

I can't help but feel this is exactly what Sarah Connor (of the Terminator franchise) was fearful of; a computer that starts to think like a human (also, if you haven't watched the Sarah Connor Chronicles, you should). I have a feeling that this article from McSweeney's, "Watson, The "Jeopardy!" Supercomputer, Sizes Up One His Opponents Before the Show.", is a pretty accurate account of what went down right before the show started. If you don't believe me that Watson is going to rule us all one day, check out the video of the practice round below.

Norm MacDonald is getting his own show, yay!

Norm MacDonald is getting his own show on Comedy Central, and if you're like me, then you're a below average speller. But that's neither here nor there. What's really important is that Norm's going to be back where he belongs, hosting a "fake news" show. Comedy Central is my favorite source for "fake news", with shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (the addition of the Onion's SportsDome is nice as well), so I can't wait for Norm to join up too.

His new show is going to be called Sports Show with Norm MacDonald (I like the creativity on the title). It may sound like it might be too close to SportsDome, but I think that it'll separate itself from SportsDome given that Sports Show will be talking about actual games, where SportsDome is from the Onion and therefore completely made up. To get you primed for Norm's new show, please check out how hilarious this man is when talking about sports (this is the ESPY Awards monologue).

Yeah, the Packers won, but did you catch last night's Glee?

There was a big football game last night on TV. I watched it with a few friends and we all agreed that it was the least realistic game of football ever to be broadcast. I am of course talking about last night's Glee episode. Glee started with people doing back flips on bikes and cheerleaders with fireworks shooting out of their breasts, so far so good for keeping the Super Bowl crowd. Then they introduced that the football team was experiencing more conflicts about part of the team being in the lame Glee club, again, so far so good. 

Ron Swanson gets cornrows in this week's Parks and Recreation.

Please watch Parks and Recreation. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it, it is one of the best shows on TV right now. Seriously, stop watching CSI, stop watching Grey's Anatomy (I'm really serious about Grey's; that show is really horrible), and start watching Parks and Rec. Ron Swanson is hilarious and this week's episode is all about Ron (and his ex-wife). Check out the trailer for this week's show.

McBain: The MOVIE!

McBain is America's favorite action hero (from an animated television show) and thanks to the geniuses at CollegeHumor.com, it appears the clips depicting McBain in earlier seasons of the Simpsons form a coherent single film. Check out the movie below. It's pretty excellent. My only wish is that I could see McBain: Let's Get Silly, which features McBain against a brick wall for 90 minutes (the movie cost $80 million dollars to film).

Egyptian People, the punching of Anderson Cooper will not be tolerated.

Apparently the people of Egypt are big SNL fans, because they've taken the "Andy and Pee-Wee's Night Out" digital short a little too seriously. Apparently Egyptians decided to throw some fists at American's sweetheart, Anderson Cooper. Check out the video of pro-Mubarak protesters (aka the police) attacking Cooper and his camera crew.