James Earl Jones Beyond "C" "N" and "N"

Thanks, Andrew.

"Eastbound & Down" to Stick Around

One of the best things about "Pineapple Express" was Danny McBride as Red, the dude who just wouldn't die and made birthday cakes for his dead cat.



Now, as the NYT's ArtsBeat blog reports, we can definitely expect to see more of McBride on the small screen. His "did they really just do that?" HBO comedy "Eastbound & Down" has been picked up for a second season.

When I heard McBride would be starring in "Eastbound & Down" I was thrilled. Weekly doses of McBride uncensored? Yes, please. McBride plays Kenny Powers, a redneck, ex-major league baseball pitcher--curly mullet included. Powers is unapologetically inappropriate at all times and enjoys the finer things in life like jet skis and ecstasy. I was really disappointed when my overall reaction to the first couple of episodes was, "meh".

I didn't hate it, but it was nowhere near as funny as I thought it would be. It felt like a skit gone too long or just too ugly. Or maybe it's that I'm not a fan of shows or movies about really stupid/ignorant people (see, "My Name Is Earl"). After a while, the joke gets old. It's not surprising that E&D is produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's Gary Sanchez Productions, they're the guys behind Funny or Die, because Powers feels like a baseball version of Ferrell's "Talladega Nights" character, Ricky Bobby. The difference is McBride's Powers is more surly and has a harder edge. McBride doesn't bring any of that wide-eyed, innocent quality that makes Will Ferrell's know-nothing jerks somewhat likable.

Still, McBride is one of those comedic actors that can be funny without saying a word and he brings an authenticity to his characters that I love. That being said, I took the time to catch up on E&D on demand. The season is only six episodes long. I'm glad I did. The last three episodes make the series. Finally, I was laughing out loud. This was mostly due to the relationship that emerges with Powers' adoring nerd sidekick, Stevie (Steve Little). Here's a clip of Kenny and Stevie in action:



Look for Season Two in 2010.

It's Suri!...Plus One?

Photo credit: socialite life

Will my favorite famous tot whose feet never seem to touch the ground--and why should they?--be forced to give up her expensive real estate in her mom's arms to make room for a second TomKitten that Katie is itching to get started on?

That's what Socialite Life says. Then again, their source is "In Touch" so I'm holding out for the baby bump.
However, I'm not going to let it stop me from enjoying a new round of Suri pics. Nor should you, mysweet (How do you like my Countess Luann impression?).

It is Friday after all. You've earned this.

South Park Feeds Kanye West's Ego Fishsticks

And at last it appears Kanye's mighty id is sated. TV tattle links to Yahoo News which quotes Kanye's blog:

"SOUTH PARK MURDERED ME LAST NIGHT AND IT'S PRETTY FUNNY. IT HURTS MY FEELINGS BUT WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM SOUTH PARK! I ACTUALLY HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MY EGO THOUGH. HAVING THE CRAZY EGO IS PLAYED OUT IN MY LIFE AND CAREER."

Next up on the Kanye West Improvement Plan -- releasing his Caps Lock.

Here's a NSFW clip from the episode that gave the self-proclaimed voice of this generation pause.

TellyPhile ThemeSong Throwback!

Picture Pages for TellyPhiles

My own personal blogfather, Joe Bua, over at I Am a TV Junkie has a really cool post about those SNL host bumpers that we normally only get a glimpse of. Joe not only hooks us up with a great at-work timekiller, but makes us better TV nerds TellyPhiles. Before I read Joe's post I didn't know the name of either of the photographers responsible for such fierce pop culture portraiture. It's currently Mary Ellen Matthews and before her it was...read the post.

I also didn't know that Joe spent his college years doing stoned Rosanne Roseannadanna impressions in front of his Roseanne Roseannadanna poster. A good education is never free.

Chuck Bass Going Big and Tall?

Commenter Dana was on to this one way before Perez when she detected some decidedly un-Basslike paunch on TellyPhile's favorite Gossip boy, Ed Westwick.

"In Touch Weekly" says producers are pissed and the GG wardrobe department isn't pleased either. They've even had to go so far as to (gasp!) buy new clothes! Isn't that what you all are supposed to do?

Poor Ed. Being on set with manorexics like Penn and Chace can't be easy. If, as reported, the cause of your expanding waist line is too much booze, I have a suggestion. Bethenny's skinny girl margarita. B, take it away!:

As Seen on TV: Cursive's Letterman Appearance

Good morning, TellyPhiles. It's almost Friday (if you have any ThemeSong Throwback noms email them now) so I wanted to post something that would spur you on and help the end of the day get here a little faster. Letterman's in reruns this week. This turned out to be a good thing as I got to see Cursive do "From the Hips" again from their album "Mama, I'm Swollen".  Don't you just want to say that again and again out loud for no reason at all?

Clever album title aside, I love a band that's got their bearded to clean shaven ratio sorted out, isn't overly annoying when they go for the "our look is no look" thing, that the lead singer has a limp pink handkerchief in the breast pocket of his ill-fitting sport jacket, and everything about the guy playing guitar on the right. Oh, and trumpets! If all of their songs are like this, Cursive is a band that can reside in my heart (and iPod) in the same section Wilco does. At the end of the performance, Dave who appears mightily impressed, asks where they're from. The answer, Omaha, Nebraska, is just right.

And the lyrics are great too. A couple I wish I could have written:

I'm at my worst when I'm at my best./I'm at my best when I'm trying to look and think and talk and sing and read and write like all the rest./We're all just trying to play our roles in a play that runs ad nauseum./We were better off as animals.

And

We're at our worst when it's from our lips./From our lips, we caused a rift./ And the world is falling in./From Babel to borrowed brawls./Our words have formed a death sentence./And I wish that we had never talked/ Our hips said it all.

Word Hip.

"Top Chef Masters" Baits Big Names

This is why Bravo is the baddest in the land when it comes to reality fare. On June 10th "Top Chef Masters" premieres at 10pm. This time around all the chefs are already top. Basically, it's "Iron Chef" Bravofied complete with celebrity judges like that blindingly blue-eyed ingenue Zooey Deschanel and Neil Patrick Harris. Are these two not the Bravoest celebrity judges ever assembled?

They've lakshmied Padma as the host of this one, though she will make an appearance along with Tom and Gail. The new girl they've got hosting is another leggy skinny bitch. Her name is Kelly Choi and she's described as a food journalist. Apparently she's too busy writing about food to eat any of it.

So how do you feel about Bravo borrowing from Food Network? I've decided it's okay since "Iron Chef" is an import anyway and I totally spotted Arian from the last season of "Top Chef" working as a sous chef on "Iron Chef" in one episode. When it comes to the celebrities, Doogie and Bright Eyes are neat and all but the famous judge I'll be anticipating most of all? Jeff Lewis from "Flipping Out"! I wonder if they'll let him bring Zoila? Now I'm just being greedy. (Hat tip, LA Times Showtracker)

Obamavision

Here's a TellyPhile worthy piece from Politico about President Poitier's viewing preferences. "Entourage" and "SportsCenter" are musts. Cable news? Not so much. (Hat tip:TVtattle)

There is one surprising show that Obama's radar for cool has picked up on. Watch:

Just When You Thought Fox Reality Couldn't Get More Vile

There's this from Huffington Post about Fox's new reality show "Someone's Gotta Go".

The Fox network is letting employees of some troubled small businesses decide which one of their colleagues will be laid off and turning the results into a reality show.

And the gross just keeps on coming. Meet Mike Darnell, Douchebag In Charge of Alternative Programming for Fox, who has this to say when asked his thoughts on the emotional fallout there will undeniably be in a workplace where all of the employees have voted to oust one of their own:

"Sounds like good reality television," he said. "You just described a good concept for a reality TV show."

In the immortal words of Kara Saun from Season One of "Project Runway" when she confronted wiley wackadoo Wendy Pepper: You're going to need your soul one day, Mike Darnell, and won't have it!

Bill O'Reilly Comes to Terms with Adam Lambert's Sexuality

Turns out that nice boy on American Idol, Adam Lambert, you know, the one with the fabulous makeup and perfectly flat-ironed hair? He kisses boys and he likes it. Idol watchers will have known this for some time, but when you're Bill O'Reilly it takes a while for information about what the kids are up to to trickle down to the recesses of the Fox News underworld.

Anyway, I was pretty amused by this clip of Bill O'Reilly trying his darnedest to prod someone into seeing Lambert's sexuality as sufficient cause for outrage. O'Reilly's going soft on us. When no one would bite, Bill O half-heartedly acquiesces and admits that a person's sexuality shouldn't matter anyway. Man is he gonna get it when Hannity hears about this.

(If you haven't seen the pictures, you can do so here. Thanks, HuffPo!)

Bethenny Owns Kelly on Real Housewives NY Smackdown Episode

I know this is a bit old, but I had to get in on this. Last week's "Real Housewives NYC" will live in reality television infamy. It was an ugly/beautiful work of art that left me giddy and slightly breathless.

Last week's episode was full of more beef than a drag queen's thong. It was such an achievement, I've decided that this single episode warrants the first annual TellyPhile Inside the Episode Awards! Let's see who the winners of our first InEpi's are shall we? Envelope please...

Best Comic Irony...The moment when Bethenny does an impression of Kelly's spazzy, coked-out behavior for bug-eyed Show Spaz Ramona. Classic.

Most Surprising Asshole...Mario. I've always wondered why normal, mild-mannered Mario was with Ramona. The answer? He's not. Mario spent the entire episode dissing Jill for stalling on the tennis match we have to keep hearing about that will apparently be Mario's own private Wimbledon. All the tennis tension comes to a head when a way too aggressive Mario comes face to face with Jill at the Page Six party. I don't know if he got into Kelly's coke or what, but he went after Jill with the tenacity of a middle-aged loser who thinks he's a much better tennis player than he is. At least his tirade gave us the inspiration for our next award... 

Favorite New Catchphrase..."Kick his aaaaass, Waaayne!" This was uttered in Jill's tres Lawng Island accent to her big, black bodyguard after Mario refuses to let up about Wimbledon. It was so perfect. Going forward, this phrase should be used anytime someone gets out of line and is asking for a beatdown. Abbreviation: KHAW. 

 

Most Inappropriate Wardrobe Choice...The green sweaterdress and pink wellies Kellamity wears to confront Bethenny at the Brass Monkey. What kind of coke-addled never-was wears whimsical pink rain boots when it's not raining to a catfight that they know they're planning on instigating? Furthermore, her choice of ensemble gets even weirder when we find out she's scheduled drinks with her ESL "boyfriend" Maximillano aka Antonio Banderas Jr. afterwards. (Is that why her face looks like that? She's going for Melanie Griffith?) 

When Kellamity Lame asks AJ what he thinks of her boots, I nearly cried with appreciation to the TV gods at his response, "They remind me to the Pink Panther." Best...ever.

Most Appropriate Wardrobe Choice...The suit Gay Brad dons for the Page Six party. It was a white pinstripe zoot suit affair that I'm pretty sure he borrowed from The Squirrel Nut Zippers. On anyone else it would have been ridiculous. On Brad, it was still ridiculous, but exactly as things should be.

Episode Hero...I agonized over this one for a while before realizing that two heroes were better than one so why not make it a tie! Our first hero? Of course it's Bethenny. While Kelly felt it necessary to schedule a meeting with Bethenny for the sole purpose of having a temper tantrum in which she informs Bethenny that "we will never be friends" and that Kelly was here (hand up in the air) and Bethenny was here (hand somewhere down below), our hero Bethenny was calm, cool and quick on her feet. Having a tall glass of crazy like that hurling insults at me in public might have made me cut a bitch, but not Bethenny. Once Kelly was done ranting, Bethenny cooly delivered some disses of her own. My favorite-- "You're making things up to feel better about yourself. It's really hard to watch." She even coined "Kellamity", the perfect new dissname for K.   

Our other hero is Silex. Alex and Simon refused to wear the scarlet letter that Ramona has been trying to pin on them ever since those nude pictures of Alex came out. Not only did Alex hold her own when Ramona tried to shut her up by saying all she does is "deny,deny, deny" by quickly responding in turn, "and you're rude so...", but Silex finally put Ramona and Mario on blast for their holier than thou hypocrisy. Turns out that the bikini-clad chick Ramona was flirting with and kissing on the lips in that Season 1 episode is a former Playboy model. That sound you just heard is Ramona and Mario's glass house breaking into teeny tiny pieces.

 

Best Revelation...It's a Silex twofer! The first: Alex and Simon's brownstone renovation plans include a rather large framed picture of Alice Cooper with a snake in what I think will be their living room. Their designer tried to make the best of it, swallowed hard and called it "edgy". I call it Nerds Gone Wild.

And last, but certainly not least, Simon admits, "As a kid, I'd read encyclopedias instead of novels." We know, Simon. We know.

Dumb and Dumberer - Tyra Meets Levi

 

Photo credit: star magazine

Overall, Levi Johnston's much-hyped Tyra appearance was almost as big a disappointment as Oprah's snoozer with Star last week. I had anticipated a redneck scorned, eager to give up some worthwhile Palin dirt. Instead the emboldened Levi of my TellyPhile fantasies was replaced by a wooden, sweater-vested "Sling Blade" impersonator. MMM HMMM.

To see for yourself, Gawker has clips here.

Everyone's acting like Tyra got the scoop of the year by browbeating Levi into admitting he and Brisol didn't always practice safe sex. I don't know how big a revelation that is considering Tripp exists. More interesting to me was Levi's sister Mercede and the usual carnival of awkward that is a Tyra interview.

Where to begin:

• Why didn't Tyra ask her about the "s" that should be at the end of her name? It's MercedeS! I know they probably don't see many of those in Wasilla, but come on. I hate when uneducated people force the rest of us to sound as unintelligent as they do by putting it on official documents like birth certificates.

• Make sure you watch the second Gawker clip. In it, Mercede shows off her "Levi" tat. It's huge and written across her wrist. Admittedly, I'm no expert on the tattooing practices of rednecks, but I have watched enough "Maury" to know that tattoos like that are usually reserved for lovers and progeny. Deceased friends/relatives may also apply. Levi is stiff, but he's still breathing. Mercede kept saying that Bristol was jealous of Mercede's friends that used to date Levi and that's why she didn't want Mercede around baby Tripp, but maybe it was Mercede and Levi's incestuous intimate bond that made Bristol nervous.

• Levi's mom, Sherry Johnston, looks a lot like Bristol, only methier. 

•  Girls who persist in rocking highlights like Mercede's always fascinate me (Kate from "Jon and Kate Plus 8, take notice). There's something in this breed of woman that latches onto a regretful trend and--decade be damned!--refuses to unleash it from her (usually) acrylic-french-manicure grasp. Also, I wasn't watching on the best TV, but I swear M was wearing lipstick and eyeshadow that matched the hot pink of her dress exactly. I'm betting the Tyra show makeup people are more to blame for that than she is. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
  

Lauren Conrad Is So Over "The Hills"

That's cool. She's finally catching up with the rest of us. I was only aware of "The Hills" enough to determine that Heidi and Spencer should be sterilized and LC should go with the waterproof mascara on shooting days. For those of you that were into it, the LA Times' Denise Martin manages to catch up with LC, the busy reality princess turned fashion designer/novelist. My favorite part is that she is self-effacing when it comes to her acting abilities, but thinks somehow that she's going to be LA's version of JK Rowling. She's a mind boggler that one!

At any rate, I prefer her low key shrewdness to Speidi's ostentatious fame seeking. Heidi's next implants will undoubtedly be Spencer's puppet strings. Wackness.

Whatchu Talkin' Bout Willis?

You do that show! With the homosexuals, and the clothes, and they're always crying and stuff!

                                      -- Man on the Street, trying to remember the name of "Project Runway". 

Heidi Klum posed as a civilian chick working an LA pizzeria counter for the April Fools Day celebrity hidden-camera show "I Get That A Lot" to hilarious results. Other celeb poseurs included: Ice T as a wheeling and dealing shoe store salesmen, Leann Rhimes as an over-the-top diner waitress, and Jessica Simpson as--surprise!--a clueless computer repair shop employee.

Where Have I Been?

Due to events that required my presence outside of the living room, I had to hightail it to the badlands of upstate NY for a while. Happily, I'm returning to our regularly scheduled blogging. There are a couple of things from last week--ReWi's of NY, TellyPhile salutes you!--I'm going to be catching up on, so stay tuned.