Splitsider

The first teaser trailer for Charlie Sheen's new FX show, Anger Management, is here. In it, Charlie causes a literal trainwreck. Get it??

Justified recently finished its third season, which has been as wild and crime-ridden as any other. This year has seen murderers, kidney thieves, drug wars, and just about every sort of trouble you might find in Eastern Kentucky. Granted, the show is about the exploits of U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, so the criminal element is to be expected. Less expected, however, is how damn funny the show is.

Part of the show’s humor comes from its source material. Justified is based on “Fire in the Hole,” a short story by Elmore Leonard. For the uninformed, the 86 year-old Leonard has written countless crime stories and novels, with adaptations of his work including [...]

Louis C.K.'s last standup special Live at the Beacon theater was wildly successful and paved the way for other comics to release their own albums online, but there's a hiccup in the practice of self-publishing: specials only qualify for Emmys if they air on television. And who doesn't want an Emmy? It's a beautiful gold flying lady that gives you career validation and affirmation every time you look at it! So C.K.'s special will air on FX, which he noted will also function "as a commercial" for buying it online. Not that he really needs a commercial, but sure, it can't hurt!

Much has been said about how Louis C.K. singlehandedly writes, directs, edits, and stars in each episode of his acclaimed FX series Louie, but it’s made even more impressive when you consider that he started making films as a teenager.

In the 80s and 90s, Louis C.K. made a series of short films that he credits with preparing him for the heavy workload he’s taken on for Louie. Using his friends from the New York comedy scene, like Amy Poehler, JB Smoove, Robert Smigel, and Todd Barry, as actors, C.K. created a series of short films, some of them reminiscent of the work of his role model Woody Allen [...]

Robin Williams will guest star in the season premiere of Wilfred on June 28. Which brings your reasons to watch FX on June 28 up to three million and one.

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 [...]

In the first new Louie promo, New York's funniest person, Louis C.K., offers a not so subtle nod to it's fourth funniest, Woody Allen (both rankings are according to Time Out). On this season, set to premiere June 28th, Louis is working with Woody's long time editor and you can tell by how much this promo is edited like Manhattan — regardless of the similar music and iconic black and white shots of the city, it's the editing that makes it a dead give away. In a way, Louis is the new mid-career Woody; both have red hair, both first became known as standups, both make funny [...]

Chris Rock's newest project is a half-hour weekly series for FX premiering this August, starring comedian W. Kamau Bell. Based on Bell's one-man show The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour, the show will feature Bell riffing on current events and pop culture in a late-night format that should involve other comedians as well. According to Bell, Rock slipped backstage after watching Bell Curve and started giving him career advice while "dressed in all black like he was in the Matrix," which is a story almost as wonderful as this news.

Kristen Wiig is set to star in a new action-comedy script from Oscar winners Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Action? Comedy? Kristen Wiig? Dean Pelton? So many good things! (Faxon will also be starring with Abby Elliott in Ben Fox Is My Manny.)

What do Andy Samberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, Cameron Diaz and Beyoncé all have in common? They'll all be appearing in One Hit Wonders, the upcoming film from Glee's Ryan Murphy. Also, they all love the color pink.

Brett Butler has joined the cast of Charlie Sheen's Anger Management as the bartender at the bar where Charlie's therapist character hangs out. Butler [...]

Louie, Wilfred, Charlie Sheen's Anger Management, and Russell Brand's Strangely Uplifting will all premiere on FX on the same day, June 28. Here are some things that could go wrong with this programming strategy:

- a nationwide power outage on June 28

- Charlie Sheen and Russell Brand strike up a huge beef in May when Charlie and Katy Perry are seen canoodling at a club, forcing the viewing public to choose sides and not watch the enemy's show

- someone really, really famous (Oprah?) dies on June 28 and everyone's too busy looking at Twitter to watch TV

- cable installers schedule a union strike [...]

Did you ever want to know anything and everything about Archer? Well, AVClub has an episode-by-episode interview with Archer creator Adam Reed and it’s pretty exhaustive and hilarious and great. If this interview were an archer it would be bullseyes all day.

"Season three of Archer recorded its highest viewership ever, posting significant double-digit increases across all demos versus season two… This was Archer’s most-watched regular season ever across every key demo, with growth ranging from +24% to +56% over its prior season… Last month, FX ordered 13 episodes for Archer’s fourth season." — FX's Archer Records Its Most-Watched Season Ever

"On Monday, [Two and a Half Men] hit a series low in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic and finished with 10.4 million total viewers, its lowest total audience since May of 2007 and its second-lowest audience ever. The drop is part of a larger decline that began in January, when [...]

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 [...]

Matt Maiellaro, one of the co-creators of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, is developing a new animated comedy for FX, and Eastbound & Down's Danny McBride has signed on to voice a character. The show's about "a man recently released from prison," which, yeah, is incredibly open-ended (was he released from prison a changed man who's devoted his life to cooking free burritos for the homeless? Is he vengeful and determined to set his former cellmates free? Was he in prison for decades and now is terrified of the outside world like Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption?). But the track record of the people involved, plus FX's animation hot [...]