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Posts tagged as whitney

Ratings

Are You There, Chelsea? It's Me, Impending Cancellation.

by | February 28th, 2012

NBC's Are You There, Chelsea? is now more likely to be canceled than renewed, according to the ratio of its new episodes' ratings among adults 18-49 to those of NBC's other scripted shows. Cancellation is by no means certain, but it would be surprising to see Chelsea stick around for another season over Whitney, for example. While we saw today that Whitney has its supporters (or at least those engaged enough to argue about it), is there anyone out there making those arguments for Chelsea? Is anyone out there watching Chelsea?

Ratings

Bad News for Whitney and Chelsea Could Be Good News for Community

by | January 26th, 2012

NBC's Wednesday Whitney/Are You There, Chelsea? comedy block did not fare well last night, getting soundly beat by ABC reruns. Could be good news on the horizon for Community fans if NBC decides to pull one or both of those shows. Land ho!

Ratings

Community Goes Very, Very, Very Slightly Up In Ratings

by | November 18th, 2011

After all that hullabaloo and publicity about its disappearance from NBC's midseason lineup, Community went up in the ratings last night! By one tenth of a point. Meanwhile, Whitney's slipping, which doesn't bode well for its chances when it moves to Wednesday nights.

Programming Notes

NBC Orders Full-Season Pickups of Up All Night and Whitney

by | October 4th, 2011

NBC has just issued full season pickup orders for both Up All Night and Whitney. No news yet on Free Agents, whose ratings haven't been to hot so far.

Women in Comedy

Whitney and the Triumph Against the Discrimination of Sexy Women

by | September 26th, 2011

This article argues that Whitney Cummings represents a new breed of sexy lady standups, boldly wearing makeup where no female standup has worn makeup before (onstage, I guess). Apparently, in the past, women standups couldn't be pretty because audiences would hate them too much. As comedy manager Dave Rath puts it:

Comedy is all about watching somebody on stage be really honest and talk about their perception of the world in a funny way. But it is about vulnerability, people have to identify with those things and that’s what everybody is laughing at. So when a hot girl goes on stage all the guys want to be with [...]

Unpopular Opinions

Why Whitney is the Best New Network Sitcom of 2011-2012

by | February 28th, 2012

Unpopular Opinions is a new weekly column in which a writer takes a stand against popular opinion, whether it's asserting the true merit of a supposedly guilty pleasure or dissenting against the universally lauded.

In September, when Whitney was being promoted on every public, large, flat surface from Augusta to Tucson, it was a punchline. Its ad campaign was so viscerally terrible that before the show even debuted it evoked over thirty negative comments on a post we did on it. Then the pilot aired and it didn’t do much to disprove everyone’s hunch. Whitney was wildly and mostly accurately considered to be unfunny, offensive to women, [...]

Sitcoms

The Laugh Track: A Film Noir

by | November 28th, 2011

They call him Bickelhaupt. First name John. He's a "re-recording mixer," you know the old Hollywood type. Only thing dirtier'n his pockets is his recording studio. He moseyed on into my office first thing Monday morning, slapped my secretary across the face and poured the both of us a scotch – neat.

He took his cigar out of his mouth. "What's the word on the New York Magazine article, Cantor? How much do they know?" Then he took another cigar out of his mouth. He was storing a bunch of them in there, I guess.

I shook my head real slow and lit a cigarette. "Jig's up, Bickelhaupt. [...]

trade roundup

Trade Roundup: Up All Night, Last Man Standing, Don't Trust the B— in Apartment 23

by | November 14th, 2011

Rumor has it that NBC may switch Up All Night to Thursdays after The Office and put Whitney on Wednesdays at 8. Here is a short play about this news: NBC: Well, it just makes more sense, 'cause Up All Night is single-camera and has a workplace element, like the other shows on Thursday. Everyone else: Duh.

Following the misogynist-pleasing news of Last Man Standing's full season order, creator Jack Burditt is leaving the show and Kevin Abbott is stepping in as showrunner. For much of the fall while Burditt was on a leave of absence, his "deputies" Marsh McCall and Andy Gordon were handling [...]

Casting Notices

Lisa Lampanelli To Guest Star On Whitney

by | September 29th, 2011

Oh man, those dogs are going to get their asses handed to them on a plate. Lisa Lampanelli guest stars on Whitney in late October or November, stopping by as the manager of a dog pound who determines if Whitney and her manlover Alex are fit to adopt a pooch. This would be even better if they somehow turned it into a reoccurring role, right? Just a really insulting, aggressive dog pound manager popping up unexpectedly in other story lines? Don't you roll your eyes at me.

Bad News

It's Probably Best If You Don't Look at Last Night's Ratings for NBC's Comedies

by | September 23rd, 2011

It's official: we are weirdos, outside the mainstream, who like things that most people find unpalatable. Admit it, you've always known it deep down, but now we have the TV ratings to prove it: over 10 million more people watched The Big Bang Theory than Community last night.

No, last night's ratings weren't great for the shows we like to champion around these parts. Community was watched by 3.98 million people; Parks and Rec, 4.11; The Office, 7.63. Whitney actually did OK, with 6.71 million people watching that. But compared to Two and a Half Men (28 million), 2 Broke Girls (19 million), and The Big Bang Theory [...]

Ratings

Ways for 30 Rock to Enjoy Definitely Getting Renewed Despite Awful Ratings

by | February 7th, 2012

Syndication! Those glorious four syllables are the reason that 30 Rock will almost definitely be renewed for next season even though it's doing even worse in the ratings than Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea?, which might well get canceled. Here are some ways 30 Rock could take advantage of the fact that they're fairly certain to get another season no matter how low their ratings go:

- repeat the script of an old episode but have every actor trade places (Tina Fey as Tracy Jordan, Alec Baldwin as Jenna Maroney, etc.)

- throw a dance party for its characters and writers and film them interacting with no [...]

Reviews

The New Yorker Reviews Whitney

by | November 21st, 2011

Emily Nussbaum's New Yorker review of Whitney and 2 Broke Girls is pretty spot-on. She goes beyond the usual Sarah Silverman-Chelsea Handler comparisons and notes that the Whitney of Whitney has a lot in common with Lucille Ball:

Cummings has none of Ball’s shining charisma or her buzz of anarchy. Yet she does share Lucy’s rictus grin, her toddler-like foot-stamping tantrums, and especially her Hobbesian view of heterosexual relationships as a combat zone of pranks, bets, and manipulation from below. “This is war,” Whitney announces, before declaring yet another crazy scheme to undercut her boyfriend, and it might as well be the series’ catchphrase.

The article also considers [...]

Awesome Things

There's Finally A Funny Whitney Billboard In This Town

by | October 31st, 2011

Genius readers Asterios and Justine followed our Halloween costume advice and went as a supernatural Whitney billboard. Nothing is a lovelier holiday ritual for a couple than dressing as a kinda-bored man and the evil vampiric shrew who wants to eat that man's eyeballs. Anyone else dare to try out a comedy costume this year? It's not too late! Halloween is just boo-ginning. (I will not apologize for that joke, and frankly, I should not be expected to.)

Synergy!

NBC Stream Whitney, Up All Night On Yahoo

by | September 27th, 2011

No doubt inspired by Fox's successful airing of the New Girl pilot on iTunes before the show's premiere, NBC will be streaming Up all Night and Whitney on Yahoo before their air times on Wednesday and Thursday night, respectively. The shows are currently up and available for your enjoyment, though it seems like a huge misstep that they aren't mentioned on Yahoo's homepage. It took me a few minutes to find them at all, during which I felt like I was taking idiot pills. AND I DO NOT CARE FOR THAT FEELING!

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