Bridesmaids director and Freaks and Geeks creator Paul Feig just signed a new first-look deal with 20th Century Fox to develop comedies for the studio, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Apparently, Fox was so impressed with his upcoming movie The Heat, which comes out in April and stars Sandra Bullock and Bridesmaids' Melissa McCarthy as an FBI agent and a cop teaming up to take down a drug lord, that they wanted to lock the in-demand director down. Feig released a statement about the dealsaying, "I had an amazing time working with the gang at Fox on The Heat and am very excited to team up with them to make [...]
"I was looking for kids who seemed authentic," says Judd Apatow about the casting process for his and Paul Feig's cult hit late 90s high school series Freaks and Geeks. Apatow and Feig certainly found an eclectic bunch of real teen actresses and actors, all of whom seemed like actual high school students and not just performers trying to fit into the usual stock teen movie clichés. Feig recalls in a recent A.V. Club interview, “We can’t just cast this with a bunch of beautiful kids and put glasses on them and mess up their hair and say, 'Oh, they’re nerds.’ We’ve got to have real casting.' [...]
There’s been a lot of hubbub over Judd Apatow’s latest series Girls, which just became the first ever TV show released through Apatow’s production company to last beyond its first season, but let’s look back to a time when the reigning King of Hollywood Comedy didn't have such an easy time earning second season renewals.
Freaks and Geeks is the poster child for the critically-acclaimed show that was mistreated by its network and ignored by audiences during its initial run, only to become wildly popular with fans in the years that followed its tragic, too-soon cancellation. The show accomplished this years before the likes of Arrested Development and [...]
Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, take note. This week's Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show podcast features J. Elvis Weinstein, the original voice of Tom Servo, who also worked on America's Funniest Videos and Freaks & Geeks. Chances are there's something in the span of that career you'll want to hear about.
Over the holidays, IFC aired a 36-hour marathon of Freaks and Geeks, which meant that each of the show's 18 episodes were aired twice. As I watched the final episode, “Discos and Dragons,” twice, it got me, like every other person who watches it, thinking about what would have happened in season two. Only vague hints have been dropped, most of which came from SketchFest in 2008. It's a fascinating thing to think about, that mythical season two! I f you'll allow me the indulgence, and with apologies to Apatow and Feig, here’s what I think might have happened:
