While binging on Netflix and OnDemand over the holidays, Season Three of Louie and Season One of Girls deserve back-to-back viewing.
It’s not only the best way to get a picture of what counted as avant-garde television (I’m cringing as I write that phrase) in 2012, but also helps us see how these very different shows deal with similar themes of loneliness, generational anxiety, failed aspirations, and familial love — often simply from opposite approaches. By watching each series in the context of the other’s perspective, we learn more about both.
To argue this, it’s best to look at two of their respective season’s highlights: two episodes that seem [...]
The Paley Center for Media, which has locations in both New York and LA, dedicates itself to the preservation of television and radio history. Inside their vast archives of more than 120,000 television shows, commercials, and radio programs, there are thousands of important and funny programs waiting to be rediscovered by comedy nerds like you and me. Each week, this column will highlight a new gem waiting for you at the Paley Library to quietly laugh at. (Seriously, it’s a library, so keep it down.)
There are shows that come around every once in a while, like Deadwood or 30 Rock where you know you're getting the creator's voice, [...]
"First of all, [Louis C.K.] made it be ‘Retro Comedy of the '80s' and I was like, 'I was not doing comedy in the '80s. I don't need you to age me more! It was the early '90s!' Oh my God, when I finally watched it, they put the videos in there. It was so crazy to watch. [Louis] especially. That was the kid I met!"
- Sarah Silverman to The Hollywood Reporter about her appearance on Louie last season and Louis C.K. editing their old TV appearances into a fake retro stand-up show.
FX has picked up Wilfred for a third season, and Deadline reports the show will have two new bosses in the writers' room when it comes back. David Zuckerman, who adapted Wilfred from the Australian original and served as showrunner for Seasons 1 and 2, is choosing to step down, and he's being replaced by two staff Wilfred writers/producers, Reed Agnew and Eli Jorné. This is FX's first sitcom pick-up since renewing Louie in August, and hopefully Wilfred will make it back for its new season before Louie does in 2014, which still sounds like a really long way away.
Louis C.K. recently sat down for this interview with living skateboarding legend Tony Hawk, whom C.K. refers to as “an American hero" and is apparently a big Louis C.K. fan, like the rest of us. Hawk did the interview for the skateboarding YouTube channel RIDE and recorded it backstage during a recent C.K. tour stop in Detroit before the comedian went onstage at the city’s Masonic Temple. It’s a surprisingly in-depth interview that touches on the process of booking guests for Louie, the Dane Cook debacle, and Reddit AMAs. Unfortunately, though, it doesn't end with Tony Hawk and Louis C.K. strapping on skateboards and dropping in on a half-pipe.
