Lavell Crawford and I had a great time catching up this summer when he was visiting New York City, telling me about losing weight so he could stay healthy for his kids. You probably best know Crawford from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul as Saul’s bodyguard. Maybe you remember he finished runner-up on a […]
Continue ReadingIf you remember Judah Friedlander from 30 Rock, you likely remember his customized joke hats. For his onstage character in stand-up comedy, Friedlander’s always dressed in the same uniform: Yellow T-shirt, black windbreaker jacket over it, with a red-white-and-blue hat, all of which emblazoned with the words WORLD CHAMPION. Recently, he’s switched out the cap […]
Continue ReadingYou haven’t been seeing double on your Netflix menus this autumn. Jack Whitehall does have two different, yet related projects on the streaming platform. One is a semi-scripted travelogue spoof, Travels With My Father, and if you watch that first, it might help you laugh at Whitehall’s stand-up jokes about his dad even more, or decide […]
Continue ReadingPatton Oswalt personal and professional lives have seen their highest highs and lowest lows over the past year and a half. Oswalt lost his wife suddenly and unexpectedly, and received a Grammy nomination the next day (which he’d later win, as well as an Emmy for the same special). He and his young daughter had […]
Continue ReadingIn this era of “peak TV” it’s easy for genuinely great comedies to fly under the radar. But as more and more streaming shows create tons of edgy buzz or controversy, network sitcoms can feel far more ignored than they used to be. So maybe that’s why it took a friend’s suggestion for me to […]
Continue ReadingWhen Johnny Carson took over as host of The Tonight Show in 1962, there was no sense that he would last 30 years in the job. Television talk shows were in their infancy, and The Tonight Show’s previous two hosts (Steve Allen and Jack Paar) had done such different jobs there was no real standard format […]
Continue ReadingIn 2012, Hari Kondabolu — then a writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell — went on a rant that had been long overdue. In a clip that quickly became viral, he expressed his anger at Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, The Simpsons’ Indian convenience store clerk voiced by Hank Azaria. Kondabolu spoke of the bullying he […]
Continue ReadingChance the Rapper’s SNL episode could never have happened without the show’s recent, much needed diversity push. Chance could have hosted before, but he wouldn’t have starred in four sketches where the majority of players were black. These sketches varied greatly in style and content and wigs: there was a straight sketch, a mockumentary, a […]
Continue ReadingNote: Spoilers for the first season follow. Search Party’s first season began over brunch, in Brooklyn. Its core cast, four friends in their twenties dealing with privileged ennui, learned that an old college acquaintance Chantal had gone missing. Dory, played by Alia Shawkat, was particularly shaken, though she couldn’t articulate why. Working a soul-crushing job […]
Continue ReadingThe best episodes of live television have a nervous excitement to them. People are stoked to be there, on camera, knowing they have the power to cuss but that they’re not going to. Tiffany Haddish, who blew up this past summer from her role in Girls Trip, brought that enthusiasm. Haddish was the first black […]
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