BuzzSugar

MadTV Ends While SNL Gets Two New Ladies

BuzzSugar — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 14:30:22 PST

Good news and sorta sad news. I'll start with the sorta sad: Fox has canceled it's long-running sketch comedy program MadTV, which didn't exactly shock too many people. The folks at Best Week Ever even joked they thought it got canceled four years ago. Snark aside, I still think this holdover from the '90s deserves a (brief) moment of silence.

The good news is that sketch comedy is still thriving over at NBC after a particularly fruitful political season that had many viewers heading back to Saturday Night Live for some comic relief. Now SNL is looking to keep the show on everyone's radar with the addition of two new female cast members: Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins (pictured).

Elliott is the daughter of comedian Chris Elliott who is a former SNL cast member himself (apparently this is the first multigenerational casting in the show's history). And from the video clips I've seen of her, Elliott is very funny - particularly when doing impersonations. Michaela Watkins has appeared on TV shows including The New Adventures of Old Christine and both ladies have paid their dues on the live sketch comedy circuit. They'll both debut this week!

Are you sad about MadTV? Check out videos of the new SNL ladies and let me know if you think there is potential there to maybe fill the void left by Tina and Amy. To watch for yourself,

Semi-Pro: Funny Little Shorts, Same Old Jokes

BuzzSugar — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 07:30:00 PST

By now the Will Ferrell formula is apparent: Find some job or sport or fashion era that has loads of inherent humor, give the main character some insurmountable challenge to face, and . . . action! This time it's basketball in the 1970s. Not that I’m complaining, really; the movie's predictable laughs are still laughs.

In Semi-Pro we find Will Ferrell shoving his gigantic, blindingly white self into a super tight unflattering outfit - not unlike the gimmicky tight costumes in Blades of Glory, only this time it's a basketball uniform. The movie follows one-hit wonder Jackie Moon's (Ferrell) team, the Flint Michigan Tropics, as they fight for a place in the NBA. Though the Ferrell train sometimes seems to be running out of steam, I still think it's worth jumping on board one more time with this movie. I'll tell you why if you

read more. Jackie Moon scored a major hit with his slow jam "Love Me Sexy" and used the profits from the song's success to give Flint a team in the ABA, a struggling national basketball league known more for publicity stunts rather than athleticism. When the ABA is threatening to fold, the commissioner warns that only the best teams will get to merge into the NBA. Jackie Moon is better at promoting his team with stunts like bear wrestling than coaching, so he brings on board a former champion Ed Monix (a seriously spray-tanned Woody Harrelson) to help whip them into shape. Moon also relies heavily on his team's star, Clarence "Coffee" Black (played by the excellent André Benjamin from Outkast). I have to say, this is an interesting addition to Ferrell's canon. I can't believe I'm going to type this, but Semi-Pro stands apart from his other movies because most of the supporting characters are deeply appealing and have a shocking amount of depth. I actually found myself caring about this story. Oddly, I found that Ferrell himself sometimes got in my way of enjoying the movie, his goofball act being more miss than hit this time around. Ultimately, it's the ensemble cast that makes this movie worthwhile. In particular, Will Arnett and MADtv's Andrew Daly made me laugh much more than any prolonged shot of Ferrell's crotch did. Semi-Pro as a whole is a good ride, but it also signaled to me that it's time for Ferrell to head back to the drawing board and give us something new. Here's hoping this summer's Step Brothers will be just the thing to shake things up. Photos courtesy of New Line Cinema

Interview: Alex Borstein, a.k.a. Lois on "The Family Guy"

BuzzSugar — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:27:05 PST

Fox's "The Family Guy" is fast becoming my go-to comedy on Sunday nights. It's always laugh-out-loud mix of bizarre, clever, and highly inappropriate. So I was very excited recently to interview Alex Borstein, the show's supervising producer and the voice of Lois.

The MadTV veteran just released a DVD of standup comedy, Alex Borstein: Drop Dead Gorgeous in a Down-to-Earth Bombshell Sort of Way", which tackles the issues facing women in Hollywood. In one particularly funny bit, Borstein adds commentary to several real-life "character breakdowns" for TV shows and movies, including one that asks for the "down-to-earth bombshell." I spoke to her about writing for "The Family Guy," her "MadTV" past, and her love for "Charlie's Angels." (And no, her real voice does not sound like Lois's.) To see what she had to say,

read more Q: How do the "Family Guy" writers come up with ideas? There are 15 writers, and everyone brings their stories together in one room. Someone is assigned each script, and you have two weeks to write it. Then you come back, and the writers have at it like a pack of wolves. Q: Is anything left out for being too inappropriate? You kind of wouldn’t believe it. If someone came into our writer's room, we would all probably be behind bars. It’s wildly inappropriate and filthy and politically incorrect and horrendous, but it's the smartest, funniest group of people I’ve worked with in my whole life. Q: What makes the writing team so good? Everyone has a really varied background, which I think helps make the show great. Our age range is amazing too; we’ve got people up in their 50s and writers right out of Harvard and Yale, which helps with so many different references. We can make fun of Paris Hilton every week and do Sinatra bits. I think that’s what makes the show unique. Q: How did your experience on MadTV prepare you for this? MadTV was the most incredible training ground for developing characters and learning how to write for yourself. You’re constantly pitching and trying to sell yourself, and you often have skits that don't make it on the air, so it was great training for rejection. That really helps prepare you for when your joke doesn’t make it into the script on "Family Guy." Q: Tell me a bit about the new DVD. If you like the word vagina and you’re partial to the C-word, you’re going to love it. It's me spending an hour fleshing out the horrors of Hollywood. What the hell happened? Growing up, I had the chicks from "The Facts of Life," "Charlie's Angels," and "Mary Tyler Moore," and now the girls have Paris Hilton. They have nothing to look at that’s cool and smart women. Now we’ve got "Ugly Betty," but even that has to be about someone fighting back. We sort of lost that. Yeah, Charlie's Angels did work for a man they never saw, that was a little weird. But they were pretty independent, they had a cool car, and Kate Jackson wore pants.