On the show tonight, Fictional Characters!

By Amelie Gillette | August 7, 2006 | 6:37pm

Aux Features Hater

In case you haven't heard, or didn't go see the movie this weekend (due to a debilitating accident that rendered you temporarily blind, perhaps), Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's latest occupation-based comedy featuring a shirtless Ferrell, Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby, drove its way into America's hearts and wallets this weekend, becoming not just the #1 NASCAR-related comedy in America, but the #1 movie in America.

The movie's success is undoubtedly due to many factors (people, for some reason, like NASCAR, Will Ferrell is funny, every single one of Jack McBrayer's loyal fans showed up, etc.) but the huge promotional push behind the movie also had something to do with it. The most annoying example of this promotional push is below–Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly being interviewed in character (for an hour!) by Larry King:

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(Here's the transcript of the entire interview, which, due to a debilitating need to immerse myself in things that irritate me, I saw in its entirety over the weekend.)

Now, I like Ferrell and Reilly, but unless you're Big Bird, or a pre-scandal Pee-Wee Herman, there is no excuse for doing an interview in character. Especially an hour long interview. With Larry King (who's hard enough to watch for an hour without the strain of having to pretend movies are real). It's just, no other word for it, cheesy. Which isn't to say that this interview didn't have its moments, it did, but those moments wouldn't have been so few and far between if Reilly and Ferrell weren't hiding behind their character's accents.

But maybe I'm wrong. What does everyone else think about these completely cheesy in-character interviews?