Category: TV Comedies (Page 46 of 154)

Bullz-Eye’s TCA 2009 Summer Press Tour Wrap-Up: Cougars, Muppets, Vampires, and Gordon Ramsay, Too!

August 19, 2009 / Will Harris

God bless the TCA Press Tour, where the television industry gives critics from throughout North America the opportunity to play with the folks who live and work in Hollywood. The tour allows us a remarkable amount of access to the stars, producers, directors, and writers of the various shows currently taking up residence on the various cable and broadcast networks. Yes, while I may spend 48 weeks out of the year feeling like a nobody, for those four weeks – two in the summer, two in the winter – which are taken up by the tour, I’m at least made to feel like I’m a somebody. (Really, though, I’m not anybody.)

This was the first time the summer tour had been held after Comic-Con rather than before, so there was a certain amount of grumbling about the fact that the fans were getting a certain amount of information that would’ve ordinarily gone to the critics first, but it must be said that the networks did a pretty good job of pacifying us. And, besides, aren’t the fans supposed to come first, anyway?

Although the content that I managed to accrue during the course of the tour will continue to come your way for quite some time to come, what you see before you is a summary of the highs and lows of the event, mixing stories you may have already read on Premium Hollywood with many that I simply haven’t had a chance to discuss yet. As ever, it was a heck of a good time, full of the kind of moments that leave me grateful that I managed to get that journalism degree from Averett College back in 1992, pleased as punch that Bullz-Eye and Premium Hollywood have given me the opportunity to cover the tour, and, most of all, that there are lot of great readers out there who seem to enjoy the tales I bring back from these strange TCA adventures that I’ve embarked upon.

Let’s get started, shall we?

Actors, Actresses, Celebrities, Comic-Con, Deadwood, External Entertainment, External TV, Fall TV Preview, Hell's Kitchen, Heroes, Interviews, Kitchen Nightmares, News, Reality TV, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, The Office, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV Reality, TV Sci-Fi

2009 TCA Summer Recap Ben Silverman Bill Lawrence Bones Bored to Death CBS Chevy Chase Dark Blue David Tennant Ed O'Neill Food Network Gordon Ramsay Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live Hayden Panettiere Hell's Kitchen Hugh Laurie Hung Jim Parsons Ken Burns Kitchen Nightmares Life UneXpected Megyn Price P.O.V.Patti Smith Patti Smith: Dream of Life Pauley Perrette Robin Williams Sesame Street TCA Blog 2009 TCA Press Tour The Dr. Oz Show The Office The Vampire Diaries Thomas Jane

New “Family Guy” videos attempt to persuade Emmy voters

August 19, 2009 / Christopher Glotfelty

Hey Emmys, you better vote for “Family Guy” in the Best Comedy category if you know what’s good for ya. “Family Guy” has created a viral video campaign called “Where’s My Emmy?” that is a playful attack on their competition in the Best Comedy category at the Emmys. They all essentially feature the same plot. Brian gets out of the shower and dries off. Stewie enters and asks Brian what show will be getting his Emmy vote. After Brian answers with a show that “Family Guy” is competing against, Stewie beats him senseless. So far, the videos have taken on “The Office,” “Flight of the Conchords,” and “Entourage,” so hopefully “How I Met Your Mother,” “Weeds,” and “30 Rock” are on their way.

You can watch the other videos after the jump.

News, TV, TV Comedies, Video

2009 Emmys 2009 Family Guy 2009 Family Guy Emmys Emmys Family Guy Family Guy attack on the Emmys Family Guy Best Comedy Family Guy Best Comedy category Family Guy Emmys Family Guy violent videos Family Guy viral videos

Hell’s Kitchen: Ramsay likes throwing the curveball

August 19, 2009 / Mike Farley

With drama flying around like crazy last night on “Hell’s Kitchen” on FOX, it would be fitting that Gordon Ramsay threw a curve at the end of the episode and eliminated someone we may not have expected.

The show began with a recap of last week when Ramsay eliminated Tek, but not before giving Amanda an earful about why she looks like she’s done. So then he pulled her aside and told her that she needs to get her head back in the game, saying “I’m counting on you.” Well, I’m not so sure any of us are counting on her to go much further, but he wouldn’t pull Amanda aside if he didn’t see something in her.

Actors, Battlestar Galactica, External TV, Hell's Kitchen, Movies, Reality TV, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies

"Ariel"700 calories Amanda Andy Dave Fox Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen 2009 Hell's Kitchen blog Hell's Kitchen recap Hell's Kitchen Season 6 Hell's Kitchen Season 6 blog Hell's Kitchen Season 6 recap Kevin Robert Sabrina sous chef Scott Suzanne Tek Tennille Van

Entourage 6.6 – Murphy’s Lie

August 16, 2009 / Jason Zingale

We’re already at the halfway mark for the new season, and though I know a lot of people haven’t been digging these first six episodes, I have to say that they’re a lot better (and more consistent) than last year. So far, we’ve seen Vince’s return to superstardom, Turtle’s new life as a pseudo-celebrity, and even Eric’s maturation as a manager, and with tonight’s episode, it looks like even Johnny Drama might be getting his very own story arc. Could his days as the court jester finally be over?

Not bloody likely, but he certainly showed his true colors this week as a loyal friend. Sure, he might have been having a little too much fun teasing Turtle about his kissing scene with Jamie-Lynn, but when Drama’s sleazy boss invited his new screen girlfriend out to lunch to talk business, Drama did some reconnaissance to make sure Jamie-Lynn wasn’t following him into bed. As it turns out, Jamie-Lynn is just as loyal as Turtle’s closest friends, but that didn’t stop Drama from putting his career on the line after the network exec made a lewd comment about how he would eventually bang the former “Sopranos” star. Drama clearly wasn’t thinking about the consequences of putting his boss in a chokehold, but will he really be written off the show? I find that hard to believe, especially when Drama could easily explain the situation to any number of people more important and with more power than this overconfident douchebag.

While Drama was in the midst of a nervous breakdown, Eric was busy picking up the pieces after accidentally calling Ashley by Sloan’s name the night before. He apologizes to her and she deals with it remarkably well, but before you can say “Welcome Back Sloan,” Ashley discovers a message from her on Eric’s voicemail that sends her into a jealous rage. There was really no need for it, since Eric has been avoiding Sloan like the plague, but when push came to shove, he admitted to still having feelings for her. And while it certainly seems like the whole Eric/Ashley debacle has come to a close, I wouldn’t be surprised to see her pop up in the near future. Eric and Sloan probably won’t be reunited until the end of the season, if at all, and there are still plenty of episodes left. Of course, now that Eric’s accepted the position at Murray’s company, it’s looking more and more likely that Emmanuelle Chriqui will be a series regular come next season.

The rest of the episode was pretty uneventful. Turtle started his first day at college, Ari tried to mend Andrew and Marlo’s marriage, and Vince didn’t do much of anything except hang out with a freaky co-ed with a camera. Surprisingly, it’s the latter subplot that is the most interesting of the bunch. I may be looking too far into this, but now that Vince’s career is booming, what better way to create a little chaos in his life than for him to have to deal with a tabloid story? Could a sex tape be in his future, and if so, would it damage his image? They always say any publicity is good publicity, but if you don’t exactly need it, then it’s probably not worth the risk.

Entourage, TV, TV Comedies

Ari Gold Drama Entourage blog Entourage season 6 Jamie-Lynn Sigler Murphy's Lie Steve Nash Turtle Vincent Chase

The strange weekend of five

August 14, 2009 / Bob Westal

This is one interesting movie August we’re in. In fact, if you go to a mutliplex this weekend and can’t find anything that interests you, then you probably don’t belong anywhere near a contemporary movie theater. At this point in film history, things just don’t get that much more diverse, and more interesting, than the new films on offer this weekend.

* Anyone with a geek bone in their body has heard and/or seen a fair amount about the movie box office prognosticators expect to end the reign of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.” By most accounts a thoughtful yet violent/bloody R-rated science fiction actioner from first-time feature director Neill Blomkamp, “District 9” benefits from a lot of really good buzz, truly outstanding reviews, and a very high-profile variant of a viral campaign; the “humans only” signs have been up at bus-stops in Los Angeles for what seems like years and the film’s association with executive producer Peter Jackson won’t hurt. (Just like the filmgoers who probably still believe that Quentin Tarantino directed “Hostel” and have no clue who Eli Roth is, many casual movie fans will give Jackson the credit/blame on this.)

On the possible downside: there are no stars or recognizable faces and the film’s setting of South Africa might put off some people. We Americans, I fear, can be an obnoxiously xenophobic bunch at times. However, this is a new age we’re in (I think) and certainly this film, about space aliens being oppressed by us literally xenophobic humans, has a much easier to grasp premise than “Serenity,” the last star-free but excitement-heavy, well-reviewed science fiction film to rely on viral marketing, and the virus is far more virulent this time. So, the projections of a take of somewhere in the $20 millions or more for Sony offered both by Variety‘s Pamela McClintock and The Hollywood Reporter‘s ever-jolly Carl DiOrio, who guesses it at at least $25 million, make some sense.

* Unless they’re seeing someone very special and very insistent, the young males who will be flocking to “District 9” likely won’t be seeing this week’s promising box office hopeful, even though it’s also science fiction, though obviously of a very different sort. Warner’s “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is unusual for the movies I write about here in that I’ve actually seen this one before its release date, and you can read all about my opinion of the film over at the link. Suffice it to say that fantastical romantic melodrama is not generating a whole bunch of critical excitement, though that underwhelming 37% RT rating is not so much a collective groan as a chorus of “meh.”