Splitsider

This week is a little bit dry in the chuckles department, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some hidden gems to watch and/or DVR! This week on late night we have: Stephen Wright, Kathy Griffin, Jerry Seinfeld, Tracy Morgan, Jim Gaffigan, and Bill Hader. We also have brand new episodes of Comedy Central’s The Hour Hour with Brendon Walsh and Nick Vatterott. We also have the season finales of Modern Family, The Middle, Don’t Trust The B- In Apartment 23, and the premiere of the new TBS sitcom Men At Work. Please check out the rest of the listings below and have a great week!

Charlie Sheen is finally coming back to TV everyone!!!! Splitsider readers will no doubt be dancing in the streets when the Two and a Half Men man himself returns to our television sets with a new show this June, but that's not the only TV comedy event of note this summer. While the broadcast networks are taking a much-needed three-month break (probably to reflect on the rapidly-declining popularity of broadcast networks), America's heroic cable channels are swooping in to save the day, offering up a plethora of new comedic programming for comedy snobs and people who like comedy but aren't snobs, alike.

Let's take a look at this summer's [...]

NBC's comedies get shit ratings pretty much across the board. Sure, The Office does OK, but it's been slipping lately and even at its peak wasn't nearly as high as CBS's behemoths. But when literally not a single NBC comedy is a big hit it's hard to justify canceling the ones with mediocre ratings yet rabid fanbases. So that's good news for us! The prognosticators over at TV by the Numbers, who have a pretty solid track record when it comes to these things, predicts that Community, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec and Whitney will all get picked up for new seasons. We don't have long to wait [...]

Hope you’ve been saving up some water, because this week is a wee bit dry! But fear not because there are just enough lil’ droplets of comedy to quench that thirst. Metaphors! This week sees the premiere of the new HBO comedy Veep and returning series The Ricky Gervais Show. This week we also have two brand new stand-up specials from Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tompkins! Those should be super funny so definitely don’t miss them. Also Parks and Rec returns this week! And an episode of Community set entirely in the Dreamatorium! Please check out the rest of the listings below and have a great week!

Everyone knows by now about "the Louis C.K. deal" – a holy grail for comedians in which they're given total freedom by a network to make a show however they want. If the concept is at all interesting to you, you'll want to check out this piece about exactly how FX and C.K. worked together on Louie. Here's C.K. himself talking about their arrangement:

Everybody wants the ‘Louis C.K. deal.’ What they don’t realize is there is no Louis C.K. deal. There’s nothing on paper that says they don’t bother me. Everything on paper says they can make me do everything they want, says I serve at their [...]

This post is brought to you by Milk. Who needs imitations when you can have the real thing? Check out gotmilk.com. Workplace-centric sitcoms have been a TV fixture since the days of Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, when it was discovered that basing a show around a group of oddballs who are forced to work together can be a successful formula for scoring laughs. As with most shows and movies, entertainment is the top priority, not realism, and that’s very much the case with the workplace comedy, where accurately depicting a job environment takes a backseat to amusing audiences.

With that [...]

I hope everyone has their Kleenex ready because this week we say goodbye to a lot of great shows and hello to some new friends. This week we have all new late night (minus Daily Show and Colbert) and have some awesome guests including: Adam Scott, Rashida Jones, Wanda Sykes (x2), Hannibal Buress, Tony Hale, Joel McHale, Bill Maher, Marc Maron, Arsenio Hall, and Conan O’Brien. Tonight on PBS we also have a brand new two-hour documentary on the legendary host of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson. This week we say farewell to: How I Met Your Mother, Two and A Half Men, Mike and Molly, Suburgatory, 30 Rock, [...]