Splitsider

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 [...]

That clip was great and weird and funny and greatly weirdly funny. In response, join this clip in laughter:

Whew, that Bunk preview was only the beginning. The IFC upfronts yesterday yielded all manner of programming information, from release dates to new shows to previews big and small. Above is a preview of Comedy Bang! Bang!, which premieres with Bunk on June 8. The upfronts also verified that there will be a third season of Portlandia in January 2013, with two half-hour specials to tide us over until then – the first of which, Portlandia: The Brunch Special, will air this summer. We already knew about Maron, and January 2013 will also see the premiere of Out There, an animated show about three boys [...]

David Cross fans should be used to his pulling no punches by now. We already know he was not a fan of malt loaf on the set of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, and now thanks to this interview, we know how he really feels about the East Village and the controversy over his comments about Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. (He feels negatively about them.) It's not all bad, though – Cross also talks about making peace with the fact that quality work is often only appreciated years after it's produced, and how that may still happen for Todd Margaret. Perhaps in the [...]

"Most people from Portland are just from Brooklyn."

As a Portlandia recapper, I like to keep tabs on the general internet opinion of the show, and "No Olympics" is the first time I feel alone on my little island of love. Oregon Live said that "the premise didn't click" and that it "was a stumble just as the finish line is in sight," and The AV Club ended with the line "So get excited, those of you who can't get enough of Candace, Toni, Kath, Dave, and all the rest of the recurring characters. The finale is absolutely lousy with them." Portlandia might be guilty of falling [...]

It’s hard to tell if this clip is from an episode of Comedy Bang! Bang! or a clip from the filming of an episode but it is the best. Right? What can be better than Jon Hamm, backed by Reggie Watts, singing/talking a pretty thorough synopsis of Taxi and a thoroughly pretty Christopher Lloyd impression? (A few things, sure, but not a lot.) Will CB!B! be an awesome fun time? We'll have to see when it premiers on June 8th but for now, we can say for sure the filming of it must have been.

Here's a new campaign ad from Portland mayor wannabe Eileen Brady entitled "Put a Job on It." Subtle!

I'm going to tell you as much as I can about this preview for Bunk before my intern is done picking up a box of uncooked spaghetti. Patrick, pick up that spaghetti! "It looks very fun! There's Kumail Nanjiani, and Bobby Moynihan, and Thomas Lennon, doing whatever ridiculous tasks Kurt Braunohler demands, with no stakes at all. It premieres June 8 and-" BBEEEEEP, Patrick, you finished picking up the spaghetti already? Looks like you missed a strand, though, ya useless unpaid twerp. Jesus. Go get me some breakfast.

Huzzah! Carrie Brownstein confirmed today that Portlandia will be back on IFC next year for a third season. Will they go back to the 1790's this time around?

"If you are pregnant, celebrate with a soda."

Now that only two more episodes are left in Portlandia's second season, it seems fitting that the Women & Women First ladies got a chance to lead the main storyline. Fred and Carrie have called Toni and Candace (who they’ve been playing since 2007 in ThunderAnt) some of their favorites, and "Feminist Bookstore 10th Anniversary" was a nice way to pay respect to the familiarity the ladies provide on a show that can be alienating if you don't know everything about krautrock, Kickstarter, or Battlestar Galactica. It was also the perfect avenue to bring in Penny Marshall as the black [...]

Portlandia has won a Peabody Award and been picked up for a third season on IFC, but since we'll have to wait until January 2013 for that, why not take a look back at the internet sketch duo who started it all? Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's mastery of combining subtle and conceptual humor with the most exaggerated urban Pacific Northwest stereotypes possible — including the likes of lethargic activists, crunchy environmentalists, feminist vegans, punk rockers, and the always-elusive liberal elite — began after the two met in the early 2000s and started posting videos under the name ThunderAnt in 2005. Since the premiere of Portlandia [...]

A day full of such IFC joy cannot avoid bringing with it a little IFC sadness. The Onion News Network has made its last broadcast and will not return for a third season. Fingers crossed that we can still get our video fix on the Onion website.

The podcast-inspired pilot Marc Maron shot a while back has finally found a home. IFC is expected to announce this week that they've picked up ten episodes. No air date has been announced, but the show will join Comedy Bang! Bang! and Bunk in making IFC the new hot spot for comedy. I mean hot spot like a hip new nightclub, not like a "volcanic region thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the mantle elsewhere." That would be weird if I meant that second one, and would not make any sense in context.

"We are a peaceful organization, but at this time this makes me very warlike. So help me God I will jump from head to head using your skulls as stepping stones into the river that is the street."

For its season two finale, Portlandia broke from its usual minutia-obsessed perspective and instead gave us an all-cast grand finale in the form of a long line for a chance to try marionberry pancakes at Portland's hottest new brunch spot Fisherman's Porch. Fred and Carrie's wait in line parallels the forever-desperate-for-spontaneity Peter and Nance, and they're all backed up by a Where's Waldo of season two supporting characters like Ronald D. [...]