Jon Stewart
Cheers to Jon Stewart for not going soft on Anthony Weiner — or himself.
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Community
Cheers to Community for giving viewers a reason to celebrate Valentine's Day.
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With all due respect to a certain weekly entertainment magazine (where — in the interest of full disclosure — I must admit I worked for many years), "TV's smartest comedy" airs 90 minutes earlier than the glib, heartless Parks & Recreation.
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Community
How powerful is TV's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, 46 years after its first airing? A week ago Tuesday, CBS' annual telecast clobbered the equally classic animated treasure How the Grinch Stole Christmas on ABC when they went head to head. Since then, The Daily Show's Jon Stewart put his voice over the Burl Ives snowman/narrator as part of a hilarious holiday-animation takedown of Fox News Channel's yearly "War on Christmas" hysteria. ("The season wouldn't feel the same without people going out of their way to be offended by nothing.") Glee kicked off its frenetically sentimental Christmas episode this week with a rendition of "The Island of Misfit Toys" (how appropriate). And now the entire cast of NBC's Community looks like they stepped off of Hermie's assembly line in Santa's workshop.
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As you may have heard, this week's episode of Community, "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas," is done completely in stop-motion animation, the style immortalized in those enduring Rankin/Bass Christmas-TV chestnuts...
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Tina Fey
Comedy Central is planning another Night of Too Many Stars: An Overbooked Concert For Autism Education.
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Community
Community, NBC's college comedy, has just got the greenlight for a second season. TVGuide.com checked in with executive producer Dan Harmon to see what's ahead for the students of Greendale, how they'll explain Troy and Abed's special friendship and why the impending graduation of the cast is a tiny narrative problem.
NBC renews 30 Rock, The Office and Community
TVGuide.com: Congratulations on the Season 2 renewal. How does it feel?
Harmon: Thank you very much. It's very exciting. The feeling in the production offices is surprisingly normal. I guess we're so close to the finish line for the end of the season, that somehow the human brain is capable of tucking that news away while we focus on the task at hand.
TVGuide.com: Would you have planned for some sort of closure had you not heard this soon?
Harmon: Because...
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Stand-up comedian John Oliver
Having wowed The Daily Show faithful with his poker-faced topical barbs, John Oliver steps away from Jon Stewart's green screens and onto the stage of New York City's Symphony Space for his first American stand-up special, John Oliver: Terrifying Times (tonight at 10 pm/ET, Comedy Central). We asked this one-man British invasion to give us his impressions of the Land of the Free.
TVGuide.com: Any special message for the Colonies in your first stand-up special? John Oliver: It's so good to hear that word, "colonies." I want to reassure Americans that empires die, and you won't be blamed forever. We were destroying the world long before you were. People just see [Britain] as a benign, ex-aggressive uncle now. It’s all going to be fine.
TVGuide.com: What topics do you address?
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Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat courtesy 20th Century Fox
Sacha Baron Cohen has decided on his next two film gigs: Bruno, based on his fashion-reporter alter ego, and Dinner for Shmucks, a remake of the French film Le Diner de Cons.... Also per Variety, Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog) will direct Angelina Jolie in Lionsgate's adaptation of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.... Ashley Judd is Helen, a music professor and mom who suffers from deep depression.... Per the Reporter, Ben Kingsley has been cast as an ashram leader who mentors Mike Myers' Love Guru. Also joining the comedy's cast are Meagan Good and The Daily Show's John Oliver.
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Alec Baldwin courtesy NBC Photo
No awards system is perfect, and the TCA Awards is no exception. But arriving two days after the often-inexplicable results of the Emmy nominations, Saturday night's low-key, good-time TCA Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton was a welcome course correction to several especially egregious Emmy oversights. (And, lo and behold, nary a mention of Boston Legal anywhere.)First up: Michael C. Hall, ignored by the Emmys but cited by the TCA for “Individual Achievement in Drama,” for his mesmerizing performance in Showtime's Dexter as a serial killer targeting Miami's lowest forms of criminal life. (Other contenders in this category included Friday Night Lights' Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, also shamefully snubbed at the Emmys.)Friday Night Lights, a near shutout at the Emmys despite its status as a first-year critics’ darling (and recipient of Peabody and AFI awards), was later named Outstanding New Program. (The field also included 30 Rock, Dexter, Heroes and Ugly Bet...
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