Fred Willard will have a hand in Christopher Guest's new HBO show

By Sean O'Neal | September 26, 2012 | 10:25pm

Aux Features TV

Appearing at the slightest uttering of the words "Christopher Guest mockumentary," Michael McKean, Ed Begley Jr., and Fred Willard have all been confirmed to join Guest's upcoming HBO series Family Tree, arising from the mist uncertain as to how they got there, but spirit-bound to begin rattling off improvised monologues into the nearest camera. As previously reported, the show stars Bridesmaids' Chris O'Dowd as a man who inherits a box filled with mysterious heirlooms that lead him to connect with the various eccentric, given-to-anecdotal-confession people in his family, including McKean as his father and Begley as his uncle. Willard, meanwhile, co-stars as Begley's neighbor and is not technically part of the family, having no interest in reproducing but obviously still liking to get as close to it as he can.

And with that, the Fred Willard Masturbation Joke Clown placed the wilted daisy from his lapel in an empty wine bottle. As it always did, the heat from the bare light bulb above his cot caused the greasepaint around his eyes to begin to smear. He had desperately danced and tumbled and japed, juggling all the Fred Willard masturbation puns he could think of to the calliope's incessant beck and call, and now another day was done. And still, no one loved him. How could they, when he didn't even love himself?