Big news, comedy fans: Our comedy festival returns May 30-June 3 at various venues in Chicago under a new name, The Onion Comedy & Arts Festival. Why change the name from the amusing-but-difficult-to-remember-and-Google 26th Annual Comedy Festival? Well one, see above. And two, it’s The Onion’s 30th anniversary in…
The dramedy genre remains very much in vogue on TV, to the consternation of awards show voters everywhere. Netflix’s Grace And Frankie is one offering in that increasingly popular hybrid format, but unlike its contemporaries Transparent or One Mississippi—or insert some other, non-Amazon title here—the series has…
For the past couple of years, The A.V. Club has used its 11 Questions feature to ask celebrities about their first concerts and most embarrassing phases. Part of that feature—the 12th question—also asked the interviewee to come up with a question for the next interview subject without generally knowing who they were.…
Anyone who’s ever watched Family Feud knows that as the strikes mount and the number of options drops, the responses just get more ridiculous. But for the upcoming episode of Celebrity Family Feud, things go off the rails quicker than usual. Steve Harvey will host a battle of the comedians that pits Paul Scheer, John…
Plenty of comedians write books, some of which even promise to offer advice to their readers. But what June Diane Raphael is promising aims to be more practical and galvanizing than most. The Grace And Frankie star is teaming with Kate Black of Emily’s List to author the The Badass Woman’s Guide To Running For Office…
Some friendships are so intricate and intense and indescribable that they feel almost cosmic. I experienced friendships like these most potently in my childhood. But through its main characters, Grace And Frankie suggests that people in the later years of life experience these same intoxicating, complex friendships…
Friendship breakups are real. They can be as devastating, drawn-out, and meaningful as breakups between couples, which are more often seen on television. But shows that hinge on love interests and love triangles make the mistaken assumption that sexual relationships are more compelling to viewers than friendship.…
In “The Incubator,” Grace drags Frankie, to an incubator which, to Frankie’s dismay, is not a chicken incubator but rather a tech startup. Parodying the tech startup world is certainly well-trodden territory on television, but Grace And Frankie largely succeeds in making it feel fresh. Frankie and Grace waltz into the…
Grace And Frankie’s third season jumps into the messy dynamics brought out in the final altercation between its titular characters and their families at the end of season two. Last season, Grace and Frankie were at their most fraught, pulled apart by Grace’s drinking problem. But the death of their dear mutual friend…
In 11 Questions, The A.V. Club asks interesting people 11 interesting questions—and then asks them to suggest one for our next interviewee.
We realize that seeing “Casey Wilson” “Hulu” and “comedy” all strung together in a sentence might raise hopes about Happy Endings finally being properly revived by the streaming company, which is sadly not the case here. But that disappointment will surely dissipate upon reading the rest of this post, for Vulture reports
The big revelation of “Enter The Super Grisham”—that Maria’s three advisors, all with the same name, the same unassailable confidence, and the same malignant drive, are representations of her mania—isn’t a revelation at all. It’s been there in the background all along. Just seconds into the pilot, Maria tumbles down a…
After the relatively subdued and serious “The Boar,” Grace And Frankie kicks the comedy up a notch again in “The Anchor.” Outside minor characters bring in some weird humor, and even some of the more serious aspects of the episode—like Sol trying to work his way back into Robert’s life—finds some very funny moments.…
As its title suggests, episode four of Grace And Frankie’s second season sends the ladies on a road trip. Following the trajectory of her journey of self-discovery, Frankie decides that the best way to move forward is to embrace the past. She recovers her old yearbook and introduces Grace to Frances Mangela, the woman…
Grace and Frankie don’t spend a lot of time together in “The Negotiation,” but the duo isn’t as sorely missed as I would have thought. The episode instead gives birth to a new partnership: Frankie and Brianna. Lily Tomlin and June Diane Raphael give the most consistently hilarious comedic performances…
Season one of Grace And Frankie was really focused on developing the complex relationship dynamics between Grace and Frankie. At first, the two polar opposites were at constantly at odds, and the season milked their tension for all its comedic worth. After a while, it became slightly tedious, especially because their…
On a surface level, the title “A Tail Of Two Piggies” refers to the duo of pigs at its center: Miss Piggy (of course) and a porcine teenager named Alynda who looks up to her. That admiration grows ten-fold when, while at a red-carpet event, Piggy’s tail pops out of her too-tight gown, much to the horror of Uncle…
At first, the brief opening theme to ABC’s The Muppets appears to be exactly the same as when we last checked in on Jim Henson’s creations: Kermit walks to craft services for some coffee, only to see his coworkers swarm the table and pick over the refreshments in hyper-speed until there’s nothing left. Right as he’s…
According to The Hollywood Reporter, ABC is developing a new comedy from a handful of people that you might know from the world of podcasting, disproving the common theory that everyone on a podcast is either a Paul F. Tompkins or an Andy Daly character. The project is titled Crystal, and it revolves around a woman…
Immediately this week, the eponymous Deflategate from yester-week is casually tossed aside by Andre, who informs Pete that Giabotti’s girlfriend got pregnant, so he dumped her, so case dropped! It’d be frustrating, if not such a relief to not have to worry about it as a plot line. Instead of legal drama, The League …
