JZL

Jenny Slate has a new stand-up special on Netflix. I wonder what others think. I like her a lot, but had to quit watching about 7-8 minutes in. Is it safe to go back in the water?

At the very least stick with it through ep4, "CQB." (Close Quarters Combat)

VULTURE has s44 writers comment on their best sketches

Fack, it's cancelled. 🙄 Too much of a niche, I guess. It was one of may faves. https://deadline.com/2019/07/patriot-canceled-season-3-amazon-series-tca-1202655489/

Stephen Root was just on Marc Maron's WTF podcast. He's nominated for an Emmy for Barry. I would looooove to see him host SNL. What with Barry and his ties to SNL via Bill Hader, and far more remotely through Phil Hartman, not too crazy an idea?

Now on Hulu: Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show This was surprisingly interesting. The show was on ABC in 1996 behind Tim Allen's Home Improvement and was almost immediately cancelled. Only eight shows were produced and ABC didn't even air the eighth. Notably, the show propelled the early careers of head-writer Louis CK, Steve Colbert and Steve Carrell, among others.

"I'm not going to the fucking Rockefeller Plaza!" ⚽ 🤯 ⚽

Those are great. The "va-jingle" she does for their tampons is a riot. It used to be on Youtube; not sure if it still is.

Ana Gasteyer in Wine Country reminded me of this forgotten gem, People of Earth, the 2016-2017 sitcom in which she plays the head of a support group for alien abductees that is investigated and then joined by a character played by Wyatt Cenac. I loved this show. It was slated for a third season and then cancelled, I suspect because Cenac got his HBO show Problem Areas (bleh, but nice try) about that time. It aired on TBS and may be available via streaming or whatever. Nasim Pedrad joined the show in its second season.

Just watched the first ep of Documentary Now. Are they all that bad?

Prolly just "The Expanse 2019 release date"

I don't care whether it's Baldwin. It's just been run into the ground at this point and it's time for a change. If they can do Bannon as the Grim Reaper, how about Trump as an orange-haired Frankenstein monster? As Putin's dog? Regardless, it shouldn't be one thing over and over almost every week for years.

Robert De Niro writes open letter to Mueller via the NY Times.

No, not really. I just googled onto a couple articles from last month that say same-o-- sometime in 2019, probably in the summer. The filming has wrapped and since they'll likely all drop at once, post is taking longer.

1. Kyle Mooney is on a recent episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast. I don't care for him much on SNL, he's spotty. He seems like an interesting and well-rounded guy. IMHO he might be better off in movies. He could do straight roles, too. 2. Tonight (Mon May 27th) is the A&E premier of Anything for a Laugh, a Chris Farley biopic. 9pm (I assume EDT). This is not to be confused with I am Farley, the doc from 2015, but it may use some of the same interview footage.

OMG, Welcome to the Dollhouse! I knew the little sister Reggie in Dead Like Me (now available on Prime) was reminding me of someone, but couldn't put my finger on it.

I guess this is the place for season-wide comments. S44 = Average. I've always loved Kate, but has she been the same after the 2016 election? I'm left with the firm impression some of the spark is gone. I'm sure she, like many of us, figured she'd be doing her HRC for the next four years.

Does it say anything about its blandness that we're talking more about sticky theater floors than the episode itself?

That's not the first time I've heard that. I live in a small town but we're blessed with a really nice 6-screen theater that's clean. They're not stingy with strategically located trash bins. I don't know if there will be a season 44 thread, but in case not, this was an average season. It didn't suck like in the Wiig/Meyers era, but it wasn't great, either. This ep was right on par with aforementioned mediocrity, perhaps a little below average given the show's continued devolution musically. Cecily was on fire-- even if the WU martini flings were a little simple, it was still very funny. The CO wasn't, except for Beck's Chic-Filet line. They need to move on from the Baldwin-Trump bit; it's just worn. Nice try at something different? The alien-qua-time-traveler interview sketch might be a microcosm for the whole season. The very first time they did it, it was one of the funniest sketches of that season. I get that it's partly a vehicle for Kate to machine-gun metaphors for her veej and tush, but it's not working any more.

Beck's wife is Sally's agent on Barry?

He was a public figure who largely chose the means of his own demise. Farley's friends and family need to deal if they haven't (they probably have).

To me the best SNL era wasn't the one of my high school years, but the couple of years that was the cusp between the Carvey-Hartman-Nealon-Myers era and the Sandler-Spade-Farley-Rock "bad boys" era. I liked both groups but the latter didn't have the staying power of the former so it wasn't super-surprising when the bad boys were canned. I looked at Sandler's lackluster IMDb page and was surprised to see that Happy Gilmore was after Billy Madison. The episode was surprisingly good. Leslie as Groot was a hoot!

If Lorne Michaels had any balls they'd have Rammstein on next.

This may be of interest to some; unsure if I posted this here before but doubt it . . . https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/ Television Academy Foundation has accumulated 900+ interviews as part of its oral history of television.