Bullz-Eye: Hello?

Megyn Price: (Sounding startled) Hello. Uh, hi, is this Will?

BE: Yes, it is.

MP: Oh, hi, it’s Megyn Price calling. (Laughs) I’m sorry, you sound exactly like my husband. I’m just, like, “Oh, crap, I called the wrong number!

BE: I’m sorry to have totally freaked you out.

MP: You did, you totally freaked me out. But it’s okay…and I’m sorry I’m a little bit late. I was being killed by a small woman who’s training me.

BE: (Laughs) Well, that’s quite alright. At least you have a good excuse.

MP: I’m training for another triathlon, and this crazy woman is trying to make me croak or throw up in the middle of the day.

BE: Awesome. Well, hopefully this’ll be at least a little less stressful, then.

MP: And I pay her for that, too, by the way.

BE: Even better.

MP: It’s very messed up. Can you hear me okay on these headphones? ‘Cause that’s what I’m using.

BE: Yeah, you’re fine.

MP: Okay, good.

BE: You and I actually have chatted in the past, at least slightly, in the past. I was at the TCA tour, standing next to you and Drew Carey for a little bit.

MP: Oh, yes, of course. Oh, I totally know who you are. Yes!

BE: I’m looking forward to the new season. I’ve been a fan of the show since the beginning.

MP: Well, that’s very sweet of you.

BE: I talked to Patrick (Warburton) at the beginning of last season, so I wanted to spread the wealth. So what can we expect from this season? It looks like, from the press photo that I saw, that you’ve formally added a new cast member.

MP: Well, I don’t know what the press is sending out, but, yes, Adhir Kalyan has joined the cast, who played David Spade’s assistant, Timmy, and he’s just the greatest addition to our cast. They’re like an old married couple, those two…and, sadly, they’re like that in real life as well. So that’s one change which I think is a good change, because it sort of makes David part of a couple. (Laughs). You know, I feel like every year I’ve said, “It’s the best it’s ever been,” and then this year…I mean, they’ve tweaked our writing staff again, and every season it’s just sharper and sharper. And this is…it’s so odd to me, because I’ve done a lot of series…I mean, I’ve been on series for years at a time…and it always works so that the first day of our work week the script is rough, and by the end of the week the script is tight, and this year…I swear, the first day of the week, it’s almost the exact same script as it is by the end of the week. It is so good. The writers have…I mean, they have totally figured out our voices and where all of the relationships are at their best, you know? They’ve really figured out what works and what doesn’t work. And it is such a joy to go to work. It’s, like, there’s no stress; it’s just all funny, all the time. I’m just never stressed that the script isn’t going to work out or that it’s going to be difficult to do the show. It’s always easy because it’s so well written now. It’s unbelievably fun. I feel like we’re in our tenth season because it’s just so smooth, you know?

BE: Well, you and Patrick had an instant chemistry from day one, I thought.

MP: I am so married to him, it’s ridiculous. It’s retarded. I was on jury duty and I called him. Like, I was feeling sad and out of sorts, and I called Patrick from my house. What? Not that my own marriage isn’t wonderful, because it is, but it’s, like, Patrick’s a different kind of husband. He’s a big, tough, burly husband.

BE: When I talked to him, he said that we would know “Rules of Engagement” had officially jumped the shark if the two of you ever got pregnant on the show.

MP: Oh, God, every time we read even hints of that, we’re, like, “That can’t happen.” It’s not going to happen. Our writers have addressed it this season. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this, but…they hinted that I’m getting a surrogate. That’s how much they don’t want us to be pregnant. It might be the first sitcom ever with a surrogate. It’s crazy. Yeah, I’m, like, “Forget it, dude, I’m not wearing the fat suit.” I’m not doing it. We’re not going to have a baby. It wouldn’t work.

BE: Well, that answers my question of how the dynamic is going to change this season.

MP: Yeah, well, I’ll tell you what: those writers, any time they get access to a computer and they get to write a script, it’s nudity, nudity, nudity. It’s their favorite thing. I swear, there was a script where the writers actually, after we read the script out loud, they came to me with that look, like, “Are you going to hit me? Are you going to hit me?” There’s so much nudity. I’m, like, “You guys, I’m not 16. What are we doing with all of these nude things?” They’re, like, “What? We like it. We think you look good.” Okay, so I’m naked on camera all the time. It’s terrible.

BE: Hey, you were the one who just told me you were working out, so it seems like you’re going to be set.

MP: I know, right? As the wardrobe girls said, “You know, those guys would have written it whether you were working out or not, so you’re just lucky that you’re actually in good shape.”

BE: So who would you say is the person that you get to work with the least within the ensemble that you would like to work with more?

MP: Oliver (Hudson). We’re great friends in real life, and our kids are the same age and we hang out. And every time we come to work, we’re, like, “Hey, why don’t we ever get to be in scenes together?” Then Oliver says, “there would be too much chemistry. They just wouldn’t believe that we’re only neighbors.” (Laughs) It’s our joke. Yeah. He’s the one. I’m never in scenes with Oliver, and he’s one of my favorite people. I can’t say he’s my favorite because, you know, that would sound bad.

BE: Well, sure.

MP: But he’s my favorite person that I work with, and we never have scenes together.

BE: Will there be more Audrey / Jennifer episodes?

MP: You know it’s strange, because I feel like the dynamic with the women and the men separately is much better than the women together. Like, I feel like when Audrey and Jennifer are in the same room, we’re kind of, like, “Yeah, I know, me, too.” You know, there’s not a lot of conflict with those two. I mean, occasionally there is, but I feel like the conflict which is more funny to watch comes from the male characters with the female characters. There’s such a disconnect between the logic. II feel like when Jennifer and Audrey are in the same room, it’s just, “Yeah, I know.” You know what I mean? There’s not a lot of conflict, so I don’t really like those scenes as much as I thought I would. I mean, I love Bianca (Kajlich), I think that we are very good friends, but I feel like those characters are written to be buddies rather than to have, you know, sort of a snipey relationship. Like, the guys have a snipey relationship amongst themselves, but I like the girl/guy things better. Also, when we’re in a group, I think that’s always really fun. When we have diner scenes where it’s all of us, that’s always the most fun… (Laughs)…jamming us all into those booths and then all of us attacking each other.

BE: I love the episodes when Audrey and Russell team up, particularly the episode where we find out that he loves musicals.

MP: Absolutely. I think that was probably my favorite episode to shoot. There’s another one this season that, again, it’s so brilliantly written. It’s written like a play, in that everything happens kind of on two different sides of the stage. It’s, like, there’s rapid fire lying…it’s between Jeff and Audrey, of course. We’re lying to each other for no personal gain…just, you know, lying because that’s how they are. (Laughs) And it snowballs and it is just quick, quick cuts. And David is, I think the funniest he has ever been in his entire life. I mean, to the point where we had to do so many retakes from all of us cracking up. And it’s basically Jeff lies about going to a bachelor party that was canceled. And I know that he’s lied, and then I lie about something else that was canceled, and he knows that I’m lying. And we all kind of know the other one is lying, but we never give it up. Up to the end, with this insane…me smoking four cigarettes at the same time, trying to prove that someone who smokes had been in the room. It’s insanity. And it is so fun and silly and…I feel like it is old school Broadway, the kind that doesn’t even exist anymore, you know? But it’s been so much fun, I can’t even believe it’s my job, you know? That they pay me to show up.

BE: Now that Adhir is going to be in the cast also, is he going to be interacting more with other characters besides just David?

MP: Yeah, actually, Adhir and I got to do a really fun episode last year that was…he and I were in a car, and it was, like, this very tightly shot scene where it seems like it’s entirely sexual and…it’s not. I don’t mean at all what he thinks I mean. It’s another case of just brilliant writing. He is such a good actor. You know, he’s a crazy actor. I’m sure we’re going to see him in a Merchant Ivory film in between sitcoms. He’s so specific in what he does, and he has this whole method that he uses. He’s really a fascinating guy.

BE: So who can we expect for guest stars? I read somewhere that Jaime Pressly was popping up.

MP: She is. Once again we hearken back to the old surrogate idea. It’s frightening. Alan Ruck shows up as our marital counselor, which was so fun. He’s, again, just such a historically hilarious actor. I mean, he’s iconic. He walks in the room and everyone’s, like, “Oh, my God, it’s Cameron from ‘Ferris Bueller’! Oh, my God!” (Laughs) So, yeah, he shows up, and…I’m trying to remember all of our other guest stars. I feel like they did so much with our core cast that we really got to explore that group a lot. I go back to my office which, again, involves me getting in trouble and a lot of nudity. Beth Littleford came back, and so did Susan Yeagley, who played the funny girl in my office from last season. But I’m trying to think if we had any other guest stars…

BE: Did anyone’s parents or siblings return?

MP: No, and that makes me sad. I’m dying to see who my mother is. I keep hearing it thrown around that it’s going to be Oliver’s actual mom, that it’s going to be Goldie Hawn who’s going to play my mom.

BE: Oh, wow.

MP: Which to me would be a dream come true, because she has to be my favorite actress, really, of my whole life. I mean, really, it was a little weird when I met her. I’m, like, “Oh, my God!” (Laughs) I think my first movie in the theater was “Foul Play,” and, I mean, my mother raised me from the time I was four years old watching Goldie Hawn. So, yeah, I would love for her to play my mom. That would be great.

BE: I wanted to ask you about a couple of other sitcoms you have been on. First off, I’m a huge fan of “Grounded For Life.”

MP: Oh, thank you! Me, too, actually. I don’t think I realized how funny it was until I watched it in rerun.

BE: I’ve always described it to people as being almost like a “Memento” of sitcoms, because of the structure.

MP: Oh, yeah, completely.

BE: That must have been somewhat hellish to film as a result, though, because of the structure.

MP: The funniest thing about that crazy show is that I had…well, they didn’t cast me until 15 minutes before the first table read because they thought I was too young. So they kept saying, “She’s too you, she’s too young,” and then they kept saying, “But she’s funny!” “But she’s too young, she’s too young.” So whatever, I was only ten years older than my 16 year old daughter on the show, you know, whatever. It’s TV, it’s magic. (Laughs) So I was cast…literally, they called me up, I was in my pajamas, playing the piano, and they said, “Get in your car and come over here; you got the job.” What? What? Okay, so I show up and that day is when they say, “Well, tomorrow morning you have a six AM call, and we’re starting the shooting for the…” I said, “Wait, no, no, no. This is a sitcom. We don’t do film shooting. What are you talking about?” I had no idea. So, yeah, we shot film two or three days a week, and then we also shot a full audience show, where they would play back everything that we had shot on film earlier. So, yeah, it was crazy. It was so fun, but it was nuts.

BE: Has there ever been any talk of bringing any of the cast members of “Grounded” on for guest appearances on “Rules of Engagement”?

MP: We have talked about Kevin Corrigan, who I actually got to have lunch with last week, he’s shooting a movie in L.A. And I think Kevin has to be beaten over the head and dragged into Los Angeles, because he’s really a New York guy. And, you know, Donal Logue is always working. He’s in Vancouver right now shooting something. So it’s kind of rough to get my peeps back. Although I have pitched a couple of times Richard Riehle, who played the father-in-law from “Grounded.” He had worked with Tom Hertz, our creator, on another show. He’s such a fantastic actor. So I pitched him to play my dad, it just hasn’t come up yet, that I’ve had any parents. But that was such a joy, to do that, to do “Grounded” because, I mean, as actors, we’re such great actors. It was just so incredibly fun. And talk about being married, I mean, Donal and I were basically married for five years. (Laughs)

BE: I’m also the proud owner of “LateLine: The Complete series.”

MP: Are you really?

BE: I am, yeah.

MP: You know that show almost made me quit acting?

BE: Really? I liked it.

MP: No, I mean, when they canceled that show.

BE: Oh, okay. That I can believe.

MP: Oh, I just said forget it. It made no sense to me. I really have a hard time even talking about the show without getting weepy. I still think it’s great. One of my best friends is the creator of that show. It was so brilliantly done. I think it was so ahead of its time, too.

BE: I loved it. I mean, going in, I obviously loved Al Franken, but I’d been a big Miguel Ferrer ever since I had seen him on “Twin Peaks”.

MP: Who’s also one of my dear, dear friends. It was just such an amazing experience, too, to shoot that. And we shot it in New York. Yeah, it was incredible, and it was incredibly exciting, too, to work with…I mean, talk about great actors. I think Robert Foxworth is a legend; Miguel is a legend. You know, Al is hysterically Al. I mean, everyone from that show has just gone on to just work, work, work. Oh, that’s so sweet that you have that. I love that you have the complete series!

BE: Well, keep in mind that I am a TV critic. But, still, I actually paid money for that set (Laughs)

MP: Well, yeah, but you’re a TV critic. That means a lot.

BE: Well, thanks. But, y’know, then again, you were also in “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector.”

MP: (Laughs) Well, that’s how I got out of doing another sitcom that they wanted me to do. I didn’t want to do this other sitcom when they kept offering me more money, and it was getting ugly. So I was, like, “I’m going to do a movie.” And I’m telling you, Larry the Cable Guy, that guy, he is the greatest human being. I mean, I know his comedy is a little rough and whatever, but he is such a great guy! That was, again, such a joy. We shot in Florida, in August. It couldn’t have been more disgusting, and I couldn’t have had more fun. (Laughs) I really just couldn’t have had more fun. Those people were just great people.

BE: Oh, yeah, he’s one of those guys…I mean, I would not begin to claim that I’m a fan of his comedy, but from what I’ve read, he definitely seems like a heck of a nice guy.

MP: Do you know…there was this show that he did in, heck, I can’t remember, some city in Florida, that we all went to when we were shooting. And he stayed after…he did a two and a half hour show, and then he stayed for three hours after his show signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. Who does that? He sold out a stadium and then hung around for three hours afterwards, just so his fans could say “hi.” I mean, he’s such a nice guy. He’s over and above the call of duty, that guy. He’s so not a star, you know? Meanwhile, we’re all making jokes about, “Can I have the ten million dollars? That wouldn’t hurt ya, right? Can I have a check?” (Laughs) “Can I have a plane? Hey, Dan, can I have a plane?” (Writer’s note: Larry the Cable Guy’s real name is Dan Whitney.)

BE: Well, obviously, I mentioned talking to you at the TCA tour when you were talking to Drew. Had you been friends with him since you appeared on his show? It was a small role, I guess, but…

MP: He’s another guy who…I mean, I’m telling you, since day one, that guy…I had a tiny role on his show, and he treated me like I was his long lost sister, you know? He was just…all of those guys on that show, Ryan (Stiles) and Diedrich (Bader), they were just so kind. And it was, again, such a fun set to work on. And that was my first sitcom, really. I mean that was, like, I just got that role, it was just “Waitress.” There was nothing else to it. But, yeah, he’s such a great guy. Drew is also a guy who I think is so genuine. And, I mean, you know that from talking to him.

BE: Oh, yeah, definitely.

MP: He’s so what you see is what you get. I just love that. I think I’ve been really lucky, too, in my career, because I have worked pretty much nonstop since I started. And I really never worked with jerks, you know? I’ve really always worked with great people, and I don’t know if that’s because I choose well or if I’m just a regular girl and I’m not really attracted to divas, but I really have been so lucky. No one wants to hear those stories, though. They always want to hear the diva stories.

BE: Well, I will wrap up here by telling you that, by standing around that conversation between you and Drew, it resulted in me hearing the greatest anecdote of the entire press tour.

MP: (Excitedly) What? What was it?

BE: Your story about going to see “Footloose” The Musical” with David Cross. Oh, my God, I’ve told that story to more people than I can count.

MP: (Laughs) Oh, that’s hilarious. I’m going to tell him that. Oh, that was funny. I forgot I told that story.

“David Cross and I decided that we were going to go to ‘Footloose,’ because we were, like, ‘It’s gonna be so bad that it’s gonna be fun!’ So we’re sitting in the theater, and we decided at intermission that we were just gonna do shots. We were, like, ‘It’s gonna get better, because now we’re all drunk!’ So we go back in and we sit down, and these boys in front of us, who were, like, fifteen and were clearly there under duress from their mother, turn around and say to David, ‘Hey, you’re in ‘Mr. Show.’ We thought you were cool.’ And he was so bummed for the longest time! He was, like, ‘No, no, if you’ll just let me explain…! I’m here ironically!’”

BE: Oh, man, I laughed so hard. Actually, I do have one more I wanted to ask you. What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on that didn’t get the love that you thought it deserved?

MP: Well “LateLine”, obviously.

BE: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. I thought it might fall back to that, but it’s kind of stock question of mine.

MP: It has to be “LateLine,” because I really feel, in all honesty, “LateLine” is one of those shows that could have gone on for ten years, easily. You know? It felt to me like one of those shows that was topical without being too self-aware. You can watch the reruns now and you don’t go, “Oh, wow…” You know, like, people referencing IM’ing or something. It doesn’t feel dated to me when I watch it. It still feels current. And it’s kind of one of those hybrid shows that didn’t know where it belonged and it got caught up in politics. I think it got canceled kind of through no fault of its own. There was a big change in execs at the network and, you know, the new guy doesn’t want the old guys stuff. It seemed like such a waste to cancel that show, because it was so brilliant.

BE: I know that you mentioned that there was a sitcom that you didn’t want to do, which led to “Larry the Cable Guy.” But has there ever been a pilot that you did that didn’t get picked up that you still can’t believe didn’t get picked up?

MP: No. You know, that’s the weirdest piece of trivia about me: I have never done a pilot that did not get picked up.

BE: That’s pretty impressive.

MP: Including one that I did that I didn’t do the series for. But the pilot still got picked up to series. Isn’t that crazy?

BE: What was that, just out of curiosity?

MP: The Freddy Prinze, Jr. pilot. Bruce Helford created it, and he’s the one who gave me my first job on “Drew Carey.” I was actually in New York, doing theater, and Bruce Helford called up and said, “We can’t cast this role, will you do it? Will you just do the pilot? Because you’re the pilot Buddha. Every pilot you do gets picked up. Will you help me get my pilot picked up?” And I said, “Absolutely.” So I came back on and shot it, and the pilot got picked up, but I was not signed on to do the series. And that was right after “Grounded for Life,” too. That was when I kind of needed a little bit of a break after that. But, yeah, I’ve never done a pilot that didn’t get picked up. So when pilot season comes around, there are casting directors who say, “Please, please. She’s the pilot Buddha. Please, just play a receptionist and then the pilot will get picked up.”

BE: I’m so honored to have spoken with the pilot Buddha.

MP: (Laughs) The pilot Buddha, yeah. I don’t know, it seems like a wild suspect claim to fame, but it is true. Yeah, I know lots of people who say, “Oh, whatever, just do the pilot.” I never just do the pilot. If I do a show, it’s because I think it’s a good show, you know? And the reason I did “Rules of Engagement” was it was Patrick; it was Tom Hertz, who I knew was the creator and is a great director; it was Adam Sandler’s project. You know, there were reasons. I don’t just take work for no reason. Which is probably why I don’t work all of the time, because I don’t like to just do garbage. I like to do stuff that makes me proud.

BE: Makes sense. Well, it’s been awesome actually speaking to you directly, as opposed to sharing a conversation.

MP: And as opposed to you telling my stories when I’m not around! (Laughs)

BE: (Laughs) Exactly.

MP: I love telling that one because it’s so good at David’s expense.

BE: Oh, man, but it’s so funny.

MP: (Laughs) Yeah, it really is.

BE: All right, well, maybe I’ll see you at the next press tour.

MP: Oh, I hope so! So let’s go over all the important stuff again before we go. (Laughs) On March 1, we’re coming back. Now, do they give you all the screeners?

BE: They do, and I’ve seen the first two episodes.

MP: I’m looking forward to seeing them myself! (Laughs) I’m telling you…and, again, I’m sure everyone says this, but…it is our best season we’ve ever done. It gets better and better. And now I’ve hyped it too much, so now you’ll be disappointed. (Laughs)

BE: I’m now officially afraid to watch.

MP: Hey, can I ask you a question?

BE: Sure.

MP: What’s your favorite show on TV?

BE: Let’s see, my favorite show at the moment…? Well, the obvious answer for a sitcom is going to be “Modern Family” or “Community,” but having just seen the opening two episodes, “Damages” is currently my favorite drama.

MP: Oh, really?

BE: Yep. I’ve just seen the first two episodes of the new season, and it’s, like, out of the box, I’m ready to tune in for the rest of the season.

MP: All right. Good to know, because I’m not…see, I never have time to watch TV, so I’ll TiVo. But I don’t even know what to TiVo, so I always…I have a friend who has totally opposite taste than mine and is always telling me what to watch, and I don’t like “Ugly Betty,” and, ah, whatever.

BE: Well, have you watched “Damages” at all?

MP: No. I haven’t at all.

BE: Well this is the third season, but usually they do a really nice recap before hand.

MP: I have Netflix, so I can do that.

BE: Okay, excellent. Yeah, you definitely should check it out. I mean, the whole run of the show is great. I’m actually revisiting season two right now because it just came out on DVD. But the new season, they’ve got Martin Short and Lily Tomlin doing dramatic stuff, and…

MP: Oh, my God, I love Lily Tomlin so much. I can’t even describe it. Did you see her on Kathy Griffin’s show? On “The D-List”?

BE: I did not.

MP: Oh, it is one of the best episodes on television, I’m telling you. Kathy Griffin goes like backstage with Lily Tomlin, and Lily Tomlin is just genius. By the way, I saw her live three years ago, and you would think…Lily Tomlin’s what, pushing 70?

BE: Got to be, yeah.

MP: Yeah, it would be like watching Phyllis Diller or Bette Midler or whatever. Lily Tomlin is unbelievable live. She’s unbelievable. Her jokes are crazy sharp. I mean, I’m sure she’s writing some and she has good writers, but she’s brilliant on stage. Even at whatever age she is, she’s just fantastic.

BE: Oh, and she’s obviously really quick too because they had the panel for “Damages,” and she was there by satellite. It was something like 11:00 in the morning, and you could see her titling a glass every once in awhile, so one of the critics was, like, “Uh, Lily, are you drinking wine this early?” She’s, like, “Oh, no, this is water. But I stopped drinking wine just a little bit ago.”

MP: Uh-huh, yeah. That was her the whole Kathy Griffin show. She’s drinking wine through the whole thing, and she’s absolutely hysterical. Talk about quick, man, she’s quicker than Kathy Griffin. I mean, she’s unreal. Yeah, she’s fantastic. We used to take pilates from the same woman and, I swear, I would bribe the pilates teacher to book me right after Lilly just so I could hang out with her for a few minutes. She studied for about seven minutes of her hour session, by the way. She would just gab and talk. (Laughs) Alright, that’s all the glamour that I have, so it’s over!

BE: (Laughs) But to answer your question, yes, absolutely, “Damages” I 100% recommend.

MP: Alright, I’m putting that on my list, because I need something good. I’m bored of TV, and I know it’s just because I don’t know the right things to watch. Cool, man, thank you!

BE: No problem. Well, again, thanks for chatting with me, and like I said, hopefully I’ll see you come this summer at the TCA tour.

MP: Absolutely. I will see you…or you should seek me out, because I’m probably easier to find.

BE: Given that crowd, yeah, probably. Alright, thanks a lot Megyn. I appreciate it.

MP: Alright, take care!

Bubbling beneath all of this has been a series of remarkable changes in the world of media — television, movies, radio, and this thing we call the Internet — that have had a fairly profound impact on politics and, therefore, on real life. What follows are my choices for the ten most interesting and/or influential figures in the realm of political media. To try and slightly compensate for my obvious liberal bias (my side is far more facty, I tell ya!), I’ve got five spots each for conservative and liberal media figures respectively and I’ll be alternating and counting down from the bottom.

#5 Conservative

Trey Parker and Matt Stone — It’s possible that most regular viewers of “South Park” have little idea that Parker and Stone are self-described Republicans and I’m sure most of you don’t think of it as that much of a political show, even though rather subtle and often quite penetrating and/or infuriating thoughts about politics run through many, if not most, episodes. That’s because, like all great satirists, they are just as good at poking holes in the pretensions of their own side as that of the opposition, and their social liberalism puts them so at odds with the increasingly extremist faction that now controls much of the Republican party that some could easily mistake them for liberals. Actually, right now it’s easy to imagine them ditching the party indefinitely, along with any number of smart fellow conservatives who have already done so publicly.

Still, conservative and/or anti-liberal messages are often found on episodes of “South Park,” including attacks on such personal friends of the pair as George Clooney. Indeed, as early as 2001, famed blogger Andrew Sullivan described himself as a “South Park Republican.” (Sullivan is now one of those smart conservative ex-Republicans I mentioned above.) And, of course, there was no stronger, and certainly no funnier, attack on the antiwar efforts of the American left than “Team America: World Police” which had marionette versions of Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon, and Janeane Garofalo working in tandem with North Korean madman Kim Jong-il in his plans to destroy Western civilization.

Since the film’s release in 2004, more doctrinaire conservatives have tried to follow suit with such liberal-bashing comedies as “An American Carol” and “The 1/2 Hour News Hour,” a truly wretched attempt to craft a conservative alternative to “The Daily Show,” but only Parker and Stone have been able to bash liberals and their ideas and make targets like Alec Baldwin love it.

#5 Liberal

Arianna Huffington/Markos Moulitsas — At the turn of the 21st century, the political blogosphere was a right dominated place where no site was more powerful than the conservative news and gossip aggregator, Drudge Report. Today, that situation has been turned on its head largely due to the efforts of two former Republicans with almost nothing else in common other than vast self-confidence and some Greek ancestry.

Pugnacious and entrepreneurial Greek-El Salvadoran-American Berkeley resident and militantly non-hippy military veteran Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, aka “Kos,” founded Daily Kos in 2002 as a liberal blog site not too different from countless other blogs. Today it’s a largely highly innovative, largely self-policing megasite with hundreds of thousands of  registered users (I’m LABobsterofAnaheim) and a virtual activist community that allows users to write their own blogs (called “dairies”) which can sometimes get as much attention as anything on the ‘net.

In 2005, a writer and GOP political wife turned L.A.-centric millionaire progressive gadfly and ex-wife named Arianna Huffington leveraged her punditry fame, money, and social connections to create The Huffington Post, a slicker, more user friendly, and livelier progressive alternative to Drudge. Although most of its content is still written by unpaid non-staff bloggers, its growth has been exponential and its paid staff includes respected political reporters who actually break stories and get called on in White House press conferences, an honor once reserved for conservative male escorts. The mercurial Huffington remains a controversial and engaging figure both within and without the liberal blogosphere.

#4 Conservative

Lou Dobbs
Even in immigrant-heavy cities like Los Angeles or New York, if you ask most liberals or moderates to rank the most important issues of our time, immigration is going to be far down the list. For most grassroots conservatives, however, it ranks vastly higher and is about as defining an issue as abortion or the size of government. No voice in America has been more loudly heard on the matter than the former CNN fixture who styles himself as a “radical centrist,” but whose position on most topics strike liberals as profoundly rightwing.

For a time after the 2006 elections, Dobbs and his illegal immigration obsession seemed to dominate a conservative movement that was feeling less and less comfortable with the Bush Administration. Dobbs, however, has occasionally run afoul of the facts in fairly extreme fashion. (His outrageous and disproved charge that illegal immigration was responsible for a gigantic increase in cases of leprosy is one nasty and bizarre example.) Nevertheless, he is rare among American conservatives for being a more or less consistently populist voice who is not overly fond of large corporations. Liberals may remain suspicious — or let’s say certain — that most of what motivates the rightwing concern with immigration is poorly concealed racism and xenophobia. However, shortly after the end of his long association with CNN, Dobbs greeted the mariachi band that Jon Stewart arranged for him on “The Daily Show” set with a big smile. Immigration is a central American fact of life and is a political issue that extends all the way back to the days of Ben Franklin and the revolution. As long as he’s alive and fighting illegals, “Mr. Independent” will have a following.

#4 Liberal

Michael Moore

A notable of both the American left and American independent film since 1989’s muckraking “Roger & Me,” Michael Moore spent the nineties working in cable TV and an unsuccessful non-documentary comedy (“Canadian Bacon” with John Candy). In the aughts, however, Moore returned in powerful fashion with 2002’s “Bowling for Columbine,” a genuinely thoughtful film about gun violence marred by some rather flagrant ethical/cinematic shortcuts, which also became the most commercially successful documentary up to that point. That was nothing next to the firestorm of controversy and success that followed his filmic essay on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which won arguably the two highest awards in film — an Oscar and a Cannes Palm D’Or — and probably remains the most widely seen discussed documentary of all time.

Subsequent Moore films, “Sicko” and “Capitalism: A Love Story,” benefited from topicality, but haven’t had the same impact, perhaps because Moore always seems to go a bridge too far. Just think of his wide-eyed attitude toward the Cuban health system’s enthusiasm in helping him make his point in “Sicko.” Regardless, Moore is one of the select groups of humans to have largely created their own cinematic subgenre, the filmic op-ed.  For all his posturing and his tendency to cut corners as a filmmaker, a polemicist, and a humorist, he has very few equals and no one has been better at getting difficult national conversations started.

#3 — Conservative

Glenn Beck

As an avowed liberal since age 10 (I’m an ex-Republican, too!) and a political junkie for a very long time, there was a time when I couldn’t imagine disliking a media figure much more than I disliked Rush Limbaugh. Then came Bill O’Reilly who, to my way of thinking, made a career of lying to other conservatives about what liberals actually think; I could not imagine ever being as appalled by any other human on television as I was by him. And, then came Sean Hannity and I thought he was, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert, “The Craziest F#@king Thing I’d Ever Seen” and definitely the least intelligent and most McCarthyite guy since the actual Joe McCarthy. But then, Glenn Beck arrived to make them all look like the relatively sane and down to earth fellows that they really are.

Still, give the deeply paranoid ex-Morning Zoo radio host and ultimate cable drama queen his due. From the moment — long before he joined the staff of Fox News — when he asked Islamic Congressmen Keith Ellison: “What I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies,” the cards were on the table. Making an assumption about a person’s loyalty to the nation based on their religion was now acceptable behavior for a cable anchor.

As he transitioned from CNN’s Headline news and was allowed to create his own fear chamber at Fox News, a new media world was being created that could make the Fox of the early 2000s look like PBS. Today, he now sets the stage for far right political discourse in a political environment where it’s now normal to accuse the President of United States of being not only a communist, as the apparently soon to be rehabilitated John Birch Society once said of Dwight Eisenhower, but also a terrorist sympathizer who wants to have “death panels” put your grandmother on an ice flow. You can call Beck a demagogue, and a rather transparent one at that, but the continuing popularity of his show proves one thing: he’s quite good at giving his audience exactly what they want, including lots of high drama and low (very low) comedy, and he’s not going away.

#3 — Liberal

Keith Olbermann

Speaking of political entertainers with a flair for the dramatic, during the dark (for liberals) days of 2004 and 2005, at times it seemed to many of us as if only the ex-sportscaster host of “Countdown” was the only person in the mass media who was able to approach the multifaceted disaster that was the Bush Administration. Still, it was with the development of his “special comments” that both the most popular and the most embarrassing aspect of the Olbermann persona emerged.

At first, it seemed a bracing bit of ice-water in our nation’s political face but it’s gotten a little old. It was one thing to echo Edward R. Murrow and then to become emotional about a gigantic failure of leadership and governance like the response to Hurricane Katrina or the virulently deadly years-long disaster in Iraq. After a time, however, Olbermann’s addresses to former President Bush began to take on a scheduled and formulaic quality and felt more and more like deleted scenes from “A Clear and Present Danger,” with Olbermann as Jack Ryan: “No, how dare you, sir.”

At the exact same time, Olbermann’s highly entertaining and often quite funny show speaks to the hopes and anger of American liberals who are often caught between the unreality of the Republican party and the ineffectuality of the Democratic party. You can love or hate him, but in his crankiness and refusal to be told what to think, Olbermann speaks for (justifiably) angry American liberals perhaps more than anyone else in the media.

# 2 — Conservative

Rush Limbaugh

Olbermann may call him “comedian Rush Limbaugh” but the leader of the dittohead nation isn’t all that funny and is no mere conservative radio host. He all but created modern conservative radio and made it the dominant form in talk radio.

Believe it or not, there was a time when both liberals and conservatives had talk radio shows and often featured guests who disagreed with them. Aided by the end of the Fairness Doctrine during the waning days of the Reagan Administration, Limbaugh’s format of uninterrupted, but deliberately provocative and, for lack of a better word, entertaining pontification became the dominant form of political radio. Indeed, when Air America began to offer a liberal alternative, hosts like Randi Rhodes essentially adopted the Limbaugh format for progressive ends.

Still, even as the man who dubbed Limbaugh “a big fat idiot” back in the nineties, Al Franken, made it to the U.S. Senate, Limbaugh remains very much a force to be reckoned with and clearly remains one of the de facto heads of the conservative movement. Despite scandals, highly ironic drug problems, and painfully obvious yo-yo dieting, his “talent on loan from God,” which liberals think might emanate from a much lower authority, doesn’t seem to have dissipated one iota.

#2 Liberal

Rachel Maddow

True, her ratings may still be a fraction of Fox hosts like Bill O’Reilly, but in terms of cultural influence, the charmingly snarky comic-book and cocktail aficionado who doesn’t own a TV is a real comer. Why? For starters, the first completely out lesbian to enter the cable news world has at least as many straight male fans as Ellen DeGeneres and almost as good a sense of humor. Still, it’s her tough and detailed analysis and interviews that makes her a heroine to viewers across the liberal political spectrum, uniting the currently divided left in ways that almost no other figure this side of the late Teddy Kennedy can manage.

Maddow might be a bit of wonk, but she’s no humor-free doctrinaire leftist — if you confuse her with Democracy Now’s super serious radical Amy Goodman, you’re not paying attention — and her bright spirits make even a tough day of political news easy to take. I’m obviously one of those straight-male fans I’m talking about, but if there is any kind of future for civil society in America, making it fun is a crucial, and no one does it better than my Rachel. If there is a Goldilocks pundit for the reality-based community, it’s her.

#1 — Conservative

Sarah Palin

When Sarah Palin first appeared on the national stage as a seemingly out-of-nowhere Vice Presidential candidate and gave her famed rabble-rousing acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in 2008, NBC’s Chuck Todd declared, “The right has found it’s Obama.” It probably would have been more correct if he had declared “The right has found it’s Oprah.” True, Palin is an incredibly divisive character whose appeal is hard to fathom for well over half of the country. It’s also true that her approach to questions she doesn’t have answers for is to string numerous randomly selected multisyllabic words together in random fashion connected by “also.” But, in a conservative world that’s desperate for leadership not associated with such discredited figures as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, she represents a new beginning that returns the conservative movement to its strongest and most atavistic roots. In the wake of her resignation from the governorship of Alaska, it’s possible that her days in electoral politics are forever over and that her natural home is in the mass media. However, liberals should not relax. As dangerous as Sarah Palin might be in in the White House, she has the potential to be almost as frightening in day-time syndication.

#1 — Liberal

Barack Obama

Okay, sure, he’s the POTUS, but he also plays him on TV. And, especially in the wake of the current highly compromised health care refore package, some on the left might disagree with my characterization of him as a liberal. Of course, at the exact same time, a frightening number of rightwingers — including one former SNL cast member — insist he’s a communist, or perhaps a fascist, or somehow both. (Oh, let’s just call him an Anarcho-Syndicalist and have done with it!) Leaving all that aside, Obama’s highly polished mastery  of television both in interviews and when speaking before large audiences has been a crucial reality of American political life since he walked on to the national stage with his career-making address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

Of course, now and during the 2008 presidential campaign, the knock on Obama was that his entire appeal was based on “just words.” Still, in the beginning was the word and no politician in my lifetime has had such mastery of both the words and music of politics. Even if, right at this moment, approximately half of the activist left fear he has lost the beat of that music to some degree, no one in today’s political world can match his virtuosic gift for self-presentation. If he can only figure out a way to recapture the energy that made him so unstoppable as a campaigner, he could easily prove to be the ultimate media president. That should be a frightening thought for his opponents.

Honorable Mentions — Conservative

Roger Ailes — Fox News Founder. ‘Nuff said.

Bill O’Reilly — Papa Bear!

Chuck Norris and Jon Voight — One played an ass-kicker in innumerable C-grade movies and TV shows; one played an ass seller in a film classic. “Walker Texas Ranger and the Midnight Cowboy” is a movie I’d pay to see.

Honorable Mentions — Liberal

Al Franken — Okay, so the aughts weren’t quite the Al Franken decade, there’s always hope for the 2010s. Nevertheless, from “Saturday Night Live” to a wonkish-but-entertaining radio show, to the United States Senate all within ten years ain’t bad. Yes, he’s good enough, smart enough, and conservatives really, really hate his damn guts.

Josh Marshall — The creator of the fast growing “Talking Points Memo” brings a hard, factual realism to center-left political reportage. You might actually learn something like the truth there.

Bill Maher — He’s hilarious and kind of a jerk, but he’s our jerk. (I think.)

Out of Competition — Conservative

Stephen Colbert

Okay, I actually have a sneaking suspicion that, in real life, Stephen Colbert is not only vastly more liberal than his TV version, but he’s probably more than a hair or two to the left of his fake news colleague, Jon Stewart. Then why, does Colbert get a pass from conservatives they’d never extend to Stewart?

Is it that conservatives know that, liberal or not, Stephen really is a religious Catholic, though closer in his attitudes to Dorothy Day than your typical member of Opus Dei? Or is my perception of him as a liberal not so much because of the fact that he admits to being one but my own confirmation bias? Regardless, no one has shone a brighter light on the thinking of today’s conservative movement, and both liberals and conservatives love him for it. Nice trick.

Out of Competition — Liberal

Jon Stewart

Before MSNBC decided to begin cornering the market in TV liberals, there were times this decade when it seemed like looking critically at what was going on in Washington and elsewhere was all but illegal. Fox News’s status as an arm of the rightwing of the Republican Party was known only to political junkies, and pundits like Bill O’Reilly actively sought to limit the frames of acceptable debate while mainstream talkers seemed to tacitly accept those limits.

In fact, during 2000-2003, there was exactly one place in the mass media that dared to not only to openly examine the absurdities of the Bush Administration, but to also shine a light on a massive dereliction of duty of the chickenhearted Beltway press. That was, of course, “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

Here’s the irony: though Stewart is a hero to American liberals, the real Jon Stewart might not be quite so liberal as both lefty fans and conservative haters imagine him to be. He was ready to vote for John McCain in 2000 if he had gotten the Republican nomination that year, something no true liberal would have done even then, and he has often said things that would ally him more with the political center — though that center keeps shifting.

His most famous confrontations, against CNBC’s Jim Cramer and as a guest on the now defunct talking heads shriek-a-thon, “Crossfire,” might have been interpreted by some as partisan attacks, but in reality they were an argument against the forces that want to distract us with half-truths. It’s just possible that Stewart’s real gift is something better than ideology: a really great bullshit detector. If there’s one thing we’ll need to safeguard our democracy, that would be it.

As Hollywood prepares for an early weekend 4th-of-July weekend (which we’ll be discussing in a commensurately early box-office preview, mañana), things are popping. To wit:

* Variety blogger Mike Fleming and Nikki Finke (who is supposedly trying to slow down for just a moment as she retools her site for its new owners and recovers from a virus) are both reporting a major shake-up at Paramount with the loss of a number of gigs for various folks. Just a little more good news for the California economy. As La Finke comments, the timing of this with the “Transformers” sequel windfall might strike some as obnoxious, but that’s show business for you.

* Meanwhile, Finke has also picked up on and “confirmed” a huge sounding Financial Times story about Paramount, Sony, and Fox being in talks to merge their home entertainment divisions. No doubt, this will be spun as a being a case of less-than-meets-the-eye. We’re told it’s mainly about economies-of-scale dealing with the production of DVDs, and that the studios plan to keep their brands entirely separate, which only makes sense. Still, it’s what’s happening below the surface that worries me here.

Personally, I’ll be rooting for the Obama administration’s FTC to be giving this a very thorough once-over, even if the long-awaited ascendancy of Al Franken to the U.S. Senate today underlines the arguably overly close relations between Hollywood and Washington (in both parties, I should add), which I say as a huge and unapologetic Franken fan myself.

Especially with Paramount in the lead, this can’t help but remind those of us of a historical bent of a certain landmark supreme court decision of 1945, which had both very bad and very good long-term effects on the film world. However, in the years since, media consolidation has nevertheless become, in my opinion at least, downright scary, with people like Rupert Murdoch and Sumner Redstone controlling entirely too much of the landscape. I understand the studios need and/or want to save money in this economic climate, but enough is enough.

* The Academy is growing.

* And George Clooney is making a move from Warner Brothers to Sony and all the usual folks have been buzzing about it. The Finke, whose heart always seems to be more with commerce than art, hasn’t been a Clooney lover for a long time because his movies don’t make gazillions. But late-blooming Clooney fan (George had me at his “From Dusk ‘Till Dawn” hello) Adam Rosenberg has a good rundown of the particular projects that will be impacted.

* And finally the biggest and most bittersweet news of all for those in cinephile blogosphere is that David Hudson’s essential “The Daily” is no more. David has been tirelessly rounding up everything cinematic from a serious film lover’s perspective, first for Greencine (think Euro/cinephile Netflix) and then for IFC, since well before I started my own life as a movie blogger and he’s been no small help to me and countless others. However, David promises big, but vague, things to come. I hope he somehow manages something Finkish, but perhaps even better. He’s one of the good people. So long, David, and thanks for all the linkage. (H/t Anne Thompson.)