A.V. Club Blog

I was lucky enough to attend the pilot taping of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ new HBO sitcom on Friday evening, and I’m pleased to report to you, legions of Mr. Show enthusiasts, that it was damn funny and entertaining.

I’ll try not to spoil every plot point and surprise here, but I’ll surely spoil some, so if you want to remain completely spoiler-free, you should probably, umm, turn off every piece of electronic equipment you own, just to be safe. On the other hand, there’s a chance you might never see the pilot of David’s Situation, unless HBO—based on this pilot—decides to order some episodes. So I’ll say this now, and then maybe again later: Hey HBO, order a season of David’s Situation. And this is coming from a guy who still sorta likes Entourage, HBO, so you can trust me a little. Also, I’m a subscriber! I’m your boss!

Anyway, the experience: The studio audience, numbering maybe 300 and including lots of Mr.... read more

Even though it’s my generational duty to do so, I don’t hate baby boomers. I’ve even stood up for the love generation on occasion. “Sure, baby boomers are smug, condescending, and overly enamored with their supposed generational achievements,” I say, “but what about classic rock, soul, and country? And ’70s Hollywood cinema? And all the great books, TV shows, and illegal but readily available drugs they’ve handed down to us?” Resent them if you must, but you have to hand it to the bastards—they’ve given us a lot of cool stuff. And because of that I’ve never been to able muster up true dislike for them.

Then I saw the new commercial for Just For Men’s Touch Of Gray hair treatment, which finally convinced me to taste the warm nectar of hatred for the generation that didn’t really stop the war but did elect Ronald Reagan twice. Yep, boomers sure are pricks, and now they have “the first and only hair treatment that lets you keep some gray,” according to... read more

OK, I'm totally lying. This is not a clip from I Want To Believe. But a guy can dream, can't he? (It's actually the opening credits of this show, which I had never heard of before yesterday; somehow I doubt I'll be writing a laudatory Better Late Than Never column about it anytime soon.)

Found at the reliably funny blog Why, That's Delightful!, the home of writer Graham Linehan, who among other things created the wonderfully insane Irish sitcom Father Ted.

(Thanks for the correction, rpgibbs.)

The other night I had yet another in a long series of recurring nightmares about a painting coming to life and threatening to kill me. In terms of frequency, as nightmare subjects go, this motif ranks second only to “remembering that I’m still enrolled in college and haven’t been to any classes this semester”—and that one actually makes sense, considering my admittedly lax attendance records during my own matriculation. But while that particular dream is a relatively new addition to my personal sleepytime cinema, the “innocent painting and/or photograph suddenly glaring at me menacingly before hectoring me relentlessly” theme, well, that’s been a constant ever since I was a child, no matter how old and cynical I may get, or how much my belief in the supernatural wanes. And like so many of my neuroses, it can all be traced back to one stupid brush with a piece of traumatic pop culture: The “A Portrait Of Henry” episode of Too Close Of... read more

Wire and Simpsons fans, this is worth keeping an eye on—Oregon artist Steve Lieber has started a project drawing characters from The Wire in the style of The Simpsons. There are only a few of them done so far, but they're pretty endearing. What's not to love about cartoon McNutty and Bunk getting sloppy drunk on a very small train?

Also: Battlestar Galactisimpsons.

Last summer Nathan Rabin introduced “Portraits Of Awesomeness,” a recurring blog feature that so far has yielded just his one entry. Perhaps nobody wanted to follow Nathan’s choice for awesomeness immortality, the only and only Sterling Hayden, a towering character actor best known for starting a nuclear war in order to protect his precious bodily fluids in Dr. Strangelove. It’s a daunting task following that guy, but I think I’ve found another great, underappreciated character actor to add to the exclusive “Portraits Of Awesomeness” canon: Ray Wise.

Like all great, underappreciated character actors, Wise’s face is probably more recognizable than his name. His resume is all over the map. He has appeared as a guest star on everything from 24 and The West Wing to Star Trek: The Next Generation and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He’s done a lot of genre work—notably, he was a bad guy... read more

This has been floating around the blogs lately, and because I think it's funny I pass it along to you: Homer Simpson in the style of Rembrandt van Rijn. (I first saw it here.) Specifically, I think, it plays off of this self-portrait.

I don't know much else about the artist, whose website doesn't have any biographical information I can easily find, and y'know, if it's not easy to find then the hell with it, as they taught me in journalism school, or would have taught me if I'd been listening, or had actually gone to journalism school. Also on that site, Marge Simpson as a Vermeer and read more

Because I'm a sucker for sitcoms, and because there's not much new on TV these days, I've watched all three episodes of CBS' low-rated, pretty-much-ignored-by-everyone Welcome To The Captain. I wish I could tell you that it's some kind of buried gem, and that you all should tune in immediately and Save This Show, but the truth is that tonight's episode will be my last. The "40% funny" of the pilot slipped to 20% in the second week, and 10% this week, and even given the paucity of original scripted series right now, one weak chuckle every half-hour isn't really a good time investment.

The thing about sitcoms is that sometimes they take a few weeks to really get rolling, so a promising pilot followed by a few bum episodes doesn't necessarily mean the show is dead. In recent years, both 30 Rock and How I Met Your Mother took a while to build up momentum--though the former had too much going for it from the start to just abandon, and the... read more

Hey you guys,

In a rare break with tradition Guilty Pleasure Monday, that most half-assed of recurring A.V Club blog features is hummin, comin’ at ya on Monday. Boo and ya.

As a rule I avoid reality shows that aren’t Top Chef because I like to fight my inherent misanthropy, not diligently cultivate it like a dark psychological bonsai tree. Yet, in a strange twist I have recently become semi-addicted to perhaps the most misanthropic reality show in the history of television. It’s the kind of archetypal guilty pleasure that makes you think “God, this is unspeakably awful. Yet I can’t stop watching it!” It’s a televised atrocity that proves that despite what hacky stand-up comics have long proposed, women and men really aren’t too different when you get right down to it. After all, men are horrible. Women are horrible. And neither deserve love so much as they merit a swift kick in caboose and a stern talking-to.

It’s a Bravo show called Millionaire...

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A wonderfully exhaustive list of all the reasons why David Banner became angry on the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show.

My favorite:

108. Having several clay pots broken over his head in the middle of the now-burning room (why is the room always burning?), and then knocking an entire case of same clay pots onto same head, and then, while lying very still and struggling not to get angry, having his pants catch fire