Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Feeling depressed??

Well here's a reason to continue living: Bob and David are back together!

(Wrong David. Other guy not named Bob.)

Odenkirk and Cross are collaborating on a new sitcom for HBO. They co-wrote the pilot. David stars. Bob directs.

From The Onion AV Club:

I was lucky enough to attend the pilot taping of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’ new HBO sitcom on Friday evening, and I’m pleased to report to you, legions of Mr. Show enthusiasts, that it was damn funny and entertaining...

...here’s the premise, a genius mixture of actual sitcom signifiers and the desire to wag fingers at actual sitcom signifiers: David Cross, after falling too hard for the trappings of Hollywood but finding no real meaning, has quit show business. He now shares a house with two wacky roommates—an idiot uber-liberal (Upright Citizens Brigade’s Matt Besser) and a gruff uber-conservative (played by Eric Hoffman with an assist from a wardrobe department with a keen eye). Also in the mix: a hottie neighbor and her precocious, Hollywood-haircut-sporting son, Little David. (Yes, that would make Cross “Big David.”) Except for Cross, who’s always best at playing himself, the characters occupy a weird sitcom world: They’re no less believable or ridiculously broad than on most sitcoms, but with Cross as the voice of reality (as it were), they work. Pick up Besser’s hippie (he loves “morning hugs”) and plop him into Two And A Half Men and you’d want to murder him, but here he makes sense.

So after establishing the main troupe, it’s on to the plot, which took pointed, funny shots at fairly easy targets—To Catch A Predator and fleeting Internet fame—but brought exactly the sort of slight sophistication to them to steer far, far clear of MadTV territory while never seeming schoolmarmish. (Those who like Cross’ stand-up, but only to a point, should be just fine.) A pair of terrific guest stars show up to liven up the house and the plot, too: Mr. Show’s John Ennis and indomitably weird spirit Zach Galifianakis, one of those rare performers who doesn’t act funny, he just is funny. When Zach is mistaken for a child predator, hilarity ensues. I don’t want to spoil any more, but I’ll add that one of the funniest moments is also the most meta: After Hoffman delivered a catch phrase (“I do. Your boner!”), Odenkirk passed some “I do. Your boner!” shirts out to audience members, then told them to give him reactions as if they’d been waiting for the line. Pretty awesome.


This is good news for them and for the world at large. Though I must take umbrage with one point of the AV Club blogger. I thought Let's Go to Prison was pretty funny.

For the entire summary of the pilot taping, click here.

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