When last we checked in on Connor Ratliff and Griffin Newman’s The George Lucas Talk Show, the comedians were gearing up to consume more than 30 hours of Star Wars content across a single livestream (if you’ve got a spare day, you can watch it here). Having survived that endeavor, the pair—as their alter egos of “Retired Filmmaker George Lucas” and “Watto,” respectively—are sacrificing sleep for yet another epic watchathon, this time of the divisive and enduring one-season wonder that is Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, a show with haters more obsessive than its fans.
Beginning this Sunday, September 20 at 9 a.m. ET, Ratliff and Newman will deliver their specific brand of offbeat observation and improvisation across the roughly 17 hours it takes to watch all 22 episodes of Studio 60. Joining them at various points of the stream will be, according to Ratliff, more than 40 members of the show’s cast and crew, as well as additional, non-Studio 60 guests. They’re keeping specific names to themselves at the moment, but previous streams have hosted the likes of Kevin Smith, Tony Hale, Nicole Byer, Andy Daly, and Lea Thompson, so odds are some of your favorites (or, in the case of Studio 60, least favorites) will be on hand.
“We all watched Studio 60 when it originally aired and were fascinated by it,” Ratliff tells The A.V. Club, making it clear that this isn’t a hate-watch. “One thing that I think is a key part of our approach to these watchathons (and to The George Lucas Talk Show generally) is that there isn’t a lot of snark involved. There are plenty of places online for people to go for that kind of thing, and it’s not really what we do. Our approach to being funny in 2020 is to try to be bring some balance to how terrible everything feels every single day. This is going to be a positive celebration of the show surrounded by people who made it, in the weirdest way possible.”
Since May, Ratliff and Newman’s streams have raised nearly $100,000 for organizations like the NY Food Bank, MOMI, Black Film and TV Collective, GLITS, RAINN, PDX Protest Bail Fund, and Water.org, among others. This Sunday’s stream will benefit Broadway Cares.
Check out a poster for the event below, and, come Sunday, catch it over at planetscum.live.
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