I've Been Working!

It's been a long time since I posted and that's for good reason:  I've been at work!  I love doing development work for TV, and my current gig is full on.  I'll get back to blogging when I get a second to breathe - in the meantime, check out the archive!  There's lots of good stuff in there.

Happy Free Speech 2010!

Happy 2010, fellow comedy lovers and patriots! We're ringing in the new year with another Kathy Griffin attention-getting non-scandal - if you haven't heard, while co-hosting New Years' rockin' eve in Times Square with the adorable Anderson Cooper, she referred to the dumb balloon boy, whose name is Falcon, as "Fuckin'". How NOT a big deal is this?

I'm a fan of Kathy Griffin, and I admire her willingness to tweak convention whenever possible. I hate nothing more than when media outlets like the New York Times gets all priggish and says stuff like "We're not able to print what she said here, but..." I'm not in elementary school! Tell me what the person said! Isn't that what free speech is about? When are we going to get over our fear of curse words? Words are words are words, as far as I'm concerned. Who are we protecting? The children? What are the children doing reading the New York Times or staying up until midnight watching CNN? Go to bed!

To me, what's worse is the puritanical AP headline: "Kathy Griffin Makes Another Vulgar Quip on CNN". "Vulgar" is such a condemning word when applied to a woman. First, it sounds like "vulva," a word nobody likes. Second, it's like saying she's not feminine, not a lady. Oooh, how vulgar. How base and classless. Fuck 'em, Kathy. I find your devil-may-care approach to censorship and convention refreshing and I want more of it. Bring on the fuckin' decade!

Smack The Pony!

And they say women don't care for sketch comedy. Tell that to Fiona Allen, Doon Mackichan and Sally Phillips, stars and creators of Smack The Pony, the Emmy-winning sketch comedy show that ran for four seasons from 1999-2003 on Channel 4 in the UK. A friend in acquisitions for IFC and the Sundance Channel recently hipped me to the show, which I promptly Googled the hell out of.

What I discovered was a sketch show that feels like the next generation of chick-centric comedy - a scripted sister to Oxygen's old prank show Girls Behaving Badly, or a series version of the amazing female-oriented SNL ad parodies like the classic Annuale. The show mines dating, friendship, work, beauty, fashion, sex and competition for comic effect. And it's not muggy or broad, for the most part, just dead on funny and relatable.

This isn't the dude-centric Apatow-esque comedy all the networks covet, but a little something for the ladies. I can see a similar format succeeding on Oxygen (if they ever get over Campus Ladies and try scripted comedy again), or even on the new Lifetime where execs are experimenting with sitcoms like Sherri and Rita Rocks. This feels fresher than those shows, even though it's 10 years old at this point. Can someone say "format sale"?

Check out the clips and let me know what you think!

In The Next Room or The Vibrator Play

Yesterday I saw In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play by Sarah Ruhl on Broadway. For the most part (ignoring the overlong second act and wonky ending), it was great fun - an exploration of Victorian morality and sexuality played out in the home of a doctor whose specialty was treating "hysterical" women by administering vibrations - under a sheet, over the underthings - to their most sensitive of lady parts.

The acting was mainly great (stars Michael Cerveris, Laura Benati, Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Maria Dizzia), but it's the subject matter that fascinates. How is it possible that the Victorians, with their love of all things electrical and their fear of the flesh, didn't associate the pleasurable paroxysms of the "hysterics" with sex? The play puzzles this question out against scenes of giggling, conspiratorial sexual exploration among women whose knowledge of their own bodies - and indeed of the world itself - are more girlish than grown-up.

Ruhl's play sings in the moments that most deeply delve into the primal, physical mysteries and miracles of women's lives - orgasm, nursing, childbirth - that are too seldom explored in film or on the stage, perhaps because they are messy, confusing, animal things. Many thanks to Sarah Ruhl for her smart, compassionate work and for bringing these elemental themes onto the stage and into the light.

New Fox Sketch Show - With Ladies!

Per Cynopsis, FOX has a new sketch pilot in the works. They're calling it Inside Jokes and it will be produced by Merv Griffin Entertainment and EP'd by Entourage's Kevin Connolly, with Cameron Bender hosting the pilot. Other EPS (and there are as many as there are cast members): Ted Brunetti, Ron Ward and John Moffitt). The stars: Mary Scheer (top photo), Jay Phillips, Carrie Wiita (middle), Paul Schackman and Lauren Rose Lewis (bottom).

Interesting that people never give up on the sketch format - it looks like this show will feature quick pops of comedy - they're saying 30-45 short segments in the 1/2 hr. Seems like a lot, but also seems calculated to appeal the YouTube attention span.

Also, I find it interesting the way shows like this are cast - what was the calculus behind picking the people they picked (three white chicks, a white guy and a black guy)? New hit shows like Sunny came with pre-built ensembles who already know they have chemistry together. Even SNL has that with the Lonely Island guys. That seems like the wave of the future, since so many people are out there online making shorts and proof of concept tapes on their own. Plus, great utility players like Darrell Hammond on SNL or most of the cast of MADtv haven't really popped outside the frame of a readymade show. Curious to see if this show will make it to air and feel like a fresh new approach to sketch.

Drew's Directorial Debut

The Times today had a really lovely piece about Drew Barrymore on the eve of her directorial debut with the Ellen Page roller-derby starrer Whip It! Clearly the world can use more movies like the ones her Flower Films creates, "movies celebrating female friendship, sass and self-empowerment," since, as I was pleasantly astounded to read, “feature films produced by Flower have a combined box-office total of over 1 billion dollars.”

Drew's producing touch has brought box office magic to flicks like Charlie's Angels and Never Been Kissed, but she seems to only be getting started telling funny, female stories. Somehow, she seems to have managed to retain some sort of honest, alternative-leaning sprit, despite life lived under Hollywood klieg lights.

From her bad-girl youth to her riot-grrrl-esque performances on David Letterman's desk to now, she has evolved into a bona fide, all-grows-up artist. Even though I wasn't in E.T. at age 6 or rehab at 12, I've always related to her journey, feeling that it paralleled, in some small way, my own personal and professional evolution from rebel teen to self-possessed woman on a showbiz mission. My favorite quote from the article:

“People say, ‘Did you always want to direct?’ or ‘Do you think you’ll ever direct again?’ I’m always very polite about it,” she said, adding, with good-natured defiance, “Do you really think I haven’t been preparing for this my whole life? And I’m just going to try it once and then never do it again? It baffles me. And then I just think, ‘Oh God, they just don’t know me.’ ”

Julie Klausner's Memoir: I Don't Care About Your Band

I recently finished Julie Klausner's painfully honest and very very funny memoir, I Don't Care About Your Band, which details her romantic and sexual misaventures with a series of hip/unavailable/brooding/sexy/dysfunctional/creative NYC men, and her journey towards mustering the self-esteem to finally go after guys who are actually available and interested. Who among us can't relate to that? Julie, a multi-talented performer and former writer for LOGO's Big Gay Sketch Show has a sharp, sassy pen and the willingness to go there with details both dirty and emotional. Really nice work.

Lennon Parham in CBS' Accidentally on Purpose

Just wanted to give a shout-out to brilliant comic actress (and UCB NY alum) Lennon Parham, who's making her well-deserved network TV debut this fall as Jenna Elfman's sister in the new show Accidentally on Purpose. It's awesome to see someone so deserving (and genuinely lovely) have this kind of success. Plus, it's a great lesson for all the performers out there toiling away on one-woman shows in basement theaters and Fringe Festivals across the nation that good things come to those who hone their craft, earn their chops and develop a specific comedic point of view. Congrats Lennon!

"The Broadroom" should be "The Bored-Room"

Candace "Sex & The City" Bushnell's latest foray into scripted programming is called The Broadroom, a branded entertainment web series sponsored by Maybelline. I have no problem with branded entertainment - the money's got to come from somewhere and sponsors are the reason television exists in the first place, so that's not my issue with this show. I was a fan of Suave and Sprint's crowd-sourced storytelling show In The Motherhood before it up-rezzed to ABC, so there's proof that if the writing and performances are good, this kind of thing can be done well.

The problem with The Broadroom is that it's boring and not funny. While Carrie et. al. spoke to something deep in the cultural subconscious of single women on SATC, these ladies - each representative of a different all-white marketing-defined demographic - are neither zeitgeisty nor aspirational-fabulous.

With a cast including Jennie Garth, Mary McCann, Talia Balsam and Jennifer Esposito, they clearly spent a pretty penny on this show and the performances are fine (the makeup looks great), but after one episode, I don't know what the show is about, really. I applaud Maybelline's marketing department for taking a risk on this project and for attempting to tell stories that appeal to women outside the coveted 18-34 demo, but from a story perspective, I'm afraid this show has nothing to say.

For whatever dumb reason, the video is not embeddable, so if you're curious, the show can be found here.

Enlightened on HBO

HBO's doing a pilot of a comedy starring Laura Dern tentatively titled Enlightened. The show is about a self-destructive woman who has a spiritual awakening prompting her to change her life for the better, which causes more upheaval in her life. Director Mike White (School of Rock) created this project with/for Dern. The realm of spirituality and self-help is ripe for the parodying. I hope this goes!