Splitsider

Vulture has an interview with current Louie editor/Woody Allen's former editor Susan E. Morse. She discusses the similarities between the two brilliant comedians:

They’re very similar in the sense that they can write quickly, and if they see something isn’t working the way they envisioned it, they are both right there with a million alternative ways of expressing the same idea. There’s enormous flexibility there, and creativity, and that’s very helpful. Also, both are very open to discussion about things. I think that that’s not the way people on the outside view them, but when you’re working directly with them, they both really do want to hear what [...]

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 [...]

Louis C.K. just announced via Twitter that Susan Morse, a longtime editor of Woody Allen's films, will be editing season 3 of Louie. Her movie experience will likely make her a good fit, since episodes of Louie tend to feel more like short films than sitcom episodes. It's a first for C.K. to surrender some control over the show, which he notoriously wrote/directed/edited all by himself in its first two seasons. Maybe he's getting ready to devote more time to his CBS pilot if it goes to series?

In this non-interview without Louis C.K., The Rumpus fails to learn C.K.'s feelings on plants, carnival rides, and America. Simply don't not click the link above and you won't fail to be enlightened by C.K.'s incredibly well-thought-out, insightful, and non-existent comments on the transition from standup to TV and the groundbreaking nature of Louie's first two seasons. Not.

“I’LL WAIT FOR YOU!”

Season one of Louie ended on September 7, 2010, with two episodes, beginning with “Gym.” In it, Louie attempts to pick up Pamela (again), but she’s not having any of it (again). She bluntly asks, “What makes you think I’d want to sleep with you?” Louie responds, “I don't think you would…I just…want to, and I was hoping you would let me." That episode was coupled with “Going Out,” where a babysitter sobs because of Louie’s single parent lifestyle, and she forces him to have a night on the town, even though he’s perfectly resigned to eating ice cream all evening. Which is to say, [...]

Louis C.K. is releasing a new album, WORD: Live at Carnegie Hall, on his own, directly through his website, to be purchased by you RIGHT NOW. The album was recorded before the Live at the Beacon Theater show (which makes its TV debut on FX tomorrow night). He explains:

This is about an hour long and it's a recording of a live standup show that I did at Carnegie Hall in November of 2010 as part of a national tour I was on entitled "WORD" I've had a lot of requests from people to release that show as a special [sic] or as a CD.  I hadn't done so [...]

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 [...]

In chronological order as they appear in Jonah Weiner's complete transcript from his Rolling Stone interview with Louis.

JW: Were your parents funny? LCK: No.

"There was also a scene where a girl is egging you on to masturbate, she’s on this chair going, 'Come on, come on,' and right at the point where you’re supposed to cum, somebody threw a bucket of cum on her, as if she was the size of herself on the screen, and she just was drenched in whatever they pretended was cum. She laughed a little, she turned her face away and you could see her shaking, you could tell she was [...]

Marc Maron's indie pilot was screened Tuesday at the New York Television Festival, and yours truly happened to be in attendance. The show, tentatively titled Maron, follows a version of Marc Maron going about his daily life, with Ken Jeong guest-starring as Ken Jeong, a guest on Maron's podcast, and Ed Asner playing Maron's dad. The handheld camera and realistic style drew inevitable comparisons among the audience to a certain other free-wheeling TV masterpiece starring a standup, which Maron acknowledged:

'When I was going to a meeting at Fox' to pitch the pilot, Maron revealed in a Q&A with the audience following the screening, 'we were walking through [...]

“I gotta know you’re not a dead kid in my house right now.”

“Niece” could have very easily been an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Louie unfairly depicts himself as an asshole unable to communicate with those different from him, a.k.a. anyone who’s not a comedian, not unlike what Larry David has been doing for so many years. Picture Larry trying to have a conversation with a 13-year-old girl, who’s just been dropped off into his company because his sister has to flee, to make a spectacle of herself in a public fountain. Even the ending of the episode, where Louie’s told by a hospital employee that he’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 [...]

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 [...]

Dane Cook continues to shift into the next phase of his career by reflecting on the past. Here's his take on why so many comics aren't a fan:

I think a lot of the animosity is because I’m actually, at my core, one of those hipster comics. I am one of those alt-guys. I speak their language. I was just as outcast-worthy as any of them. But I broke through on a mainstream level. I started to use that kind of alt-y mentality of like, “I’m just going to hang out up here. It’s not going to be rehearsed.” I don’t rehearse. I don’t write my jokes down. [...]

Stop everything you are doing including breathing and read the first installment of Louis C.K.'s walk-through of the second season of Louie. I mean, unless there's some reason you don't want to learn the going rate for prop heads (and if there is, what's the matter with you?).

If the first installment of this interview is any indication, the behind-the-scenes process of making Louie is just as fascinatingly grotesque as the show itself. Here's Louie's description of the bum in "Bummer/Blueberries":

To me, it was really important that his head come clean off. For really a logistical reason, which is just that if the guy’s lying there, I’m [...]