Comedy Week VI: Now What? OR That @#%*'s Not Funny

First of all, it's St Patrick's Day, and a Saturday. So any of you planning to go out there and get faced on green beer can kiss my Royal Irish Ass. Remember -- it's amateur night. Be sensible. Don't go nuts and leave the car the hell at home.

That being said...

Part of the exercise of this week has been me trying to work through what it is that I currently find funny. Because like a lot of people as they get older, I'm starting to find myself growing out of step with the culture. And when the culture is your business, that aint good.

Do I find Will Ferrell's antics funny? Sometimes. Talladega-not-so-much, Anchorman-yea.
Sandler? Not really, though his attempts to stretch usually do better with me.
Aqua Teen and most of the Adult Swim stuff (since Space Ghost) just leaves me flat. It's weird, but it's not funny. Kind of like that subset of Canadian films that are supposed to be quirky funny but are just....quirky.

(I would never describe anything as quirky without meaning it pejoratively, so has the term been abused in the service of Canadian film.)

I hate to bash Dane Cook (again) but there's something about the rabidness of his fanbase, the triumph of his marketing, and the hollowness of his material that I think really does portent storm clouds.

Will his stuff endure? Who knows? The college kids who love him will probably always look back on him fondly. And the utter lack of topicality in his material certainly means it might not date.

When I was a teenager, I loved Beyond the Fringe -- but that material's dated horribly. Lenny Bruce is interesting, but not funny when viewed today -- certainly not particularly shocking.

There's stuff that was lame that I loved when I was eight, like Happy Days, that doesn't hold up when you're an adult. There's stuff that was made long before I was born, like Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd and Sullivan's Travels, that surely does. (Of course, your mileage may vary.)

But it keeps coming back to that frame: what do we find funny, why do we find it funny, and how do we craft more to go that way? George Carlin's routines, which I would listen to turned down low off the record player in my room when I was a kid, so that my mom wouldn't hear the bad words and take the record away from me -- well, they still make me laugh. But George Carlin today is not funny.

To be funny, truly funny, I think you need a connection to the age that transcends your connection with your audience. I don't pretend to understand the darkness in the comedy heart, the thing that maybe drove Richard Jeni and Spalding Gray to do what they did -- but it always seems possible to me that one day I might. That that's the thing lurking out there just beyond the breakers. You come unstuck in your culture and maybe, just maybe, the laughter stops and you can't go on.

This, by the way, is why I'm mostly an hourlong writer.

There's a line in a Sarah Silverman roast where she looks to Alan King and quips that the last person who finds you funny just died. I saw that and it felt like a punch in the stomach. Silverman's transgressive: that's her stock in trade. I kind of find her funny, but I sort of see the point of those who don't, too. But to have that said, like that, baldly, is almost too much.

Funny has a shelf life. It's the thing you can't escape and get away from. It haunts me.

Then there's the part, the theories, that have nothing to do with me.

There's the Jerry Seinfeld line my friend Rob quotes all the time: "I'm not sure comedy wants to be a movie." I have a secret sick desire to write a romantic comedy someday, so I hope he's wrong. I want "Knocked Up" to be as good as everyone says it is.

There's research, real research, like this NYTimes article helpfully posted by a commenter on one of our earlier posts:

Laughter, a topic that stymied philosophers for 2,000 years, is finally yielding to science. Researchers have scanned brains and tickled babies, chimpanzees and rats. They’ve traced the evolution of laughter back to what looks like the primal joke — or, to be precise, the first stand-up routine to kill with an audience of primates.

Occasionally we’re surprised into laughing at something funny, but most laughter has little to do with humor. It’s an instinctual survival tool for social animals, not an intellectual response to wit. It’s not about getting the joke. It’s about getting along.

The social consequences and root causes of laughter is something that's fascinated me for some time. But I think it also explains a little bit why we're at this deathly crossroads in television comedy. It's not just that the audience has fragmented, so has the need to get along. We live in a culture that's devoted to slaking your tiny little media thirst, no matter how thinly sliced. So YouTube can do it for you, or that obscure manga you get off the net, or old Bob & Ray routines or rescued kinescopes of At Last The 1948 Show.

What can't be done is to find a way to bring us all together to laugh at the same thing. Maybe Dane Cook is on to something. Maybe he's speaking to his group and has learned the new lessons of laughter, and those of us out here still banging our heads against the wall are missing the point. Maybe it's all come down to group identification now. And maybe never again will we have the experience of having everyone able to go in and talk about Seinfeld the next day: young, old, hip, square -- all finding it funny in different ways and for complementary but different reasons. Maybe Colbert, whose act seems so au courant now, is doomed to a slushpile of irrelevancy once our current age recedes, as it surely will.

Maybe the weird genre that Mazin can't identify is the future. Brrrrr.

Or maybe there will be a unifying force. If the Chinese continue their dominance, it's entirely possible that in fifteen years we'll all be laughing at a comedy about us as the underdog, poised against the inevitable onslaught of Asian need and rule. Could happen. I don't know.

What I do know is that, increasingly, "that's not funny" is a battlefield that's not caught on the nail of political correctness, as it was in the 80s or early 90s...it's merely a recognition of the gulf of understanding between us. Maybe, finally, we've all outgrown comedy -- except within our tiny little subsets.

Which makes it difficult to think that a comedy will ever break through on TV, and speak to everyone ever again. I'm sad about that, but is that just me being sentimental? Maybe that space in our consciousness has been supplanted by the performance shows (which are unstoppable because they swim against the trend: it's the only thing that families watch together.) Maybe that bastard Howie Mandel's shaved dome reflects not just the studio lights, but the future.

I would love to develop and get a comedy to air. And in doing so, I would follow the only rule that has ever resulted in success on television: I would try to make something that I would find funny.

Is that enough? It's sure starting to look like...maybe not.

I don't know. What do you think?


***

Thus endeth Comedy Week here at Dead Things on Sticks. The astute among you may realize that the above seems, well, a little more rambly than usual. That's by design. All week, it's been my intent to sit down with this last post and just let it all come out. I had no plan when I started writing -- and there are no answers or even very many solutions above, because this is all something I'm currently working out for myself, too. I'm interested, as always, to hear your thoughts below.

I'm also probably going to take some time out now and recharge for a few days, so blogging will be light. Have at it.

Now I'm going to go get some brunch.

And if I see any green beer, somebody dies.

Comedy Week V: FIDO 411 with Dennis Heaton

[editor's note: I'm sorry for the messed up formatting on this post. I've futzed with it and futzed with it. I hate Blogger. I don't got no mo time. Sorry.]

Let it never be said that I don't toil and sweat for you, faithful Sticksers. For today's interview, I had to get up and make a trek of some fourteen feet to the Maple Ridge, B.C. writer's office of Dennis Heaton, Story Editor and Writer for Blood Ties. He's been called a "Future Screen Star" by Playback. He's also one of the writers of FIDO, a delightful Andrew Currie-helmed Horror-Comedy that was recently at Sundance, and opens on 65 screens across Canada today.

The great thing about FIDO is that it starts where all those other zombie movies end. After the feasting and overunning of the malls -- what happens when society reasserts itself? What do you do with all the zombies? Mmmm. Zombies.

Last night, sold out previews in Toronto and Vancouver were turning people away in droves -- some of them dressed as zombies. Which is awesome.

When you walk into Dennis Heaton's office, there's a few things you immediately notice. There's the most uncomfortable hide-a-bed couch in the world, lovingly rescued from second hand oblivion by the office's former occupant ( whose crisp breads still adorn the bookshelf. Sometimes, late at night, you can hear a ghostly munching coming from the office.) You also notice the ... well, I can't really talk about that thing, you kind of have to see it...then there's the other thing...hmm...the Body Worlds poster. Right, that I can talk about. You know that macabre touring show with the plasticized bodies? There's a big poster for that. It creeps me out.

Then there's the bookshelf. Crammed full with tomes dealing with all manner of monster, folklore, creatures and beasties. Dennis Heaton is a man with a love, and flair for, the horror. He also has a window with a view of the honey wagons, and the diesel pouring out into the parking lot. It's a pretty sweet setup.

But how about we get on with the interview?

DENIS WITH ONE 'N': So what exactly is FIDO, where'd the idea come from, and how did the story develop?

DENNIS WITH TWO 'N's:

I can't remember how the actual idea came about, but it was probably a
combination of alcohol and late night television. I love old
television, monster movies and those mental hygiene films from the
fifties; the ones with titles like "WHY ARE TIMMY'S HANDS STICKY?" and
all of those inspirations were present in the original draft of Fido,
and are still there today to a certain extent.

In terms of the story of Fido, it started as a short film called "Bad
Dog." In that, an Avon Lady walked up to a front door only to be barked
at by a toy poodle. She ignored the dog and rang the doorbell, which
had a "no solicitors" sign or something. Then she was attacked by a
zombie. The zombie ate her. The owner answered the door to discover the
carnage on his front step and yelled at the zombie for eating the avon
lady instead of his meal -- the dog. I think I may have tried to get
some Government money for the short, but for some reason, I was
refused. Sometime after that, I started to expand the idea of the
zombie as a pet into a feature.

FIDO was, essentially, the first feature film screenplay I tried to
write. I'm not even sure if I could find a copy of it now, I wrote it
on one of those early Smith Corona word processors. I'd sent it around
to a couple of local companies and I even think I sent it to Roger
Corman. The response was astoundingly quiet -- probably a testament to
the kind of writing one can expect from a first timer (obsessive
detailing about set decoration. Incessant over description: Timmy walks
to the door, he grasps the doorknob, turns it clockwise, and pushes the
door away from himself into the hallway before stepping through. Then
he takes the door and shuts it...)

There's things I can remember about that first script that changed
substantially after Andrew [Currie] and Robert [Chomiak] came on board as co-developers.

FIDO is the heartwarming story of a boy and his pet zombie.

I can't remember how the actual idea came about, but it was probably a
combination of alcohol and late night television. I love old
television, monster movies and those mental hygiene films from the
fifties; the ones with titles like "WHY ARE TIMMY'S HANDS STICKY?" and
all of those inspirations were present in the original draft of Fido,
and are still there today to a certain extent.

In terms of the story of Fido, it started as a short film called "Bad
Dog." In that, an Avon Lady walked up to a front door only to be barked
at by a toy poodle. She ignored the dog and rang the doorbell, which
had a "no solicitors" sign or something. Then she was attacked by a
zombie. The zombie ate her. The owner answered the door to discover the
carnage on his front step and yelled at the zombie for eating the avon
lady instead of his meal -- the dog. I think I may have tried to get
some Government money for the short, but for some reason, I was
refused. Sometime after that, I started to expand the idea of the
zombie as a pet into a feature.

FIDO was, essentially, the first feature film screenplay I tried to
write. I'm not even sure if I could find a copy of it now, I wrote it
on one of those early Smith Corona word processors. I'd sent it around
to a couple of local companies and I even think I sent it to Roger
Corman. The response was astoundingly quiet -- probably a testament to
the kind of writing one can expect from a first timer (obsessive
detailing about set decoration. Incessant over description: Timmy walks
to the door, he grasps the doorknob, turns it clockwise, and pushes the
door away from himself into the hallway before stepping through. Then
he takes the door and shuts it...)

There's things I can remember about that first script that changed
substantially after Andrew [Currie] and Robert [Chomiak] came on board as co-developers.
For one thing, it was a lot gorier. Also, Fido was completely innocent
in the original script. And there were no collars. The zombies were
kept docile with constant feedings of meat.

DW1N: Clever. That's what keeps me docile, too. So, DW2N, You're a big fan of zombies, obviously. After Romero and 28 Days Later and Shaun of the The Dead, trying to come up with a new spin on the Zombie thing takes huge brass balls, don't it?

I hate this kind of response, because it sounds like such a desperate
attempt not to be considered a copycat, but FIDO preceded 28 Days Later
and Shaun Of The Dead (both great films) by at least a decade. I
remember watching the end of Shaun Of The Dead and seeing that whole
Z-Day gag with the zombies being used as servants and thinking, aw
shit...

But I'm not sure I think of Fido as a new spin on zombies so much as a
logical extension of Romero's Night Of The Living Dead. I was
definitely inspired by that film -- as well as other zombie flicks, but
NOTLD, that one kicks ass.

I first saw it on a late night USA network program called NIGHT FLIGHT.
It was this crazy hodgepodge of shorts, features and fucked up rock
videos that couldn't get play on MTV. Want to see a Residents' video?
Night Flight? Ed Wood? Night Flight. This was back in the mid eighties,
and USA Network was insanely fun. It's the network where I saw my first
Santo picture. Santo is the Mexican wrestler who fights crime and evil
and most of its forms. I watched one where a mad scientist built an
evil machine that could xerox exact duplicates of paintings -- BUT IT RAN ON VIRGIN BLOOD! Awesome.

DW1N: That's so weird...so do I...wait a minute, who am I now, Terry fucking David fucking Mulligan? Jesus. Sorry, DW2N, continue...

Anyway, I saw part of NOTLD on this channel, and this was after years
of reading about it, but never getting a chance to see it. I lived in a
small town with only two channels. When we started getting USA, it was
a pirated signal. Around this time, public domain movies began to
appear. Dirt cheap, recorded at super slow speed, and shitty quality.
NOTLD was put out on one of these and I snagged it. I watched it on my
birthday at ten oclock in the morning. Then again at noon. Then again
at two. That night, I was fucking terrified.

I think what appeals to me about zombies is the fact that they're the degeneration of humanity to a feral mob mentality. They represent how easy it is for this whole world to go to shit in a matter of seconds. You can't reason with them, you can't control them. They may be slow, but in large numbers you're fucked. Oh, yeah -- AND THEY EAT YOUR FLESH. That's messed up.

And they're kind of a natural for comedy, too. They're slow moving. They walk funny. Parts of their body can rot away at inopportune times. And since comedy and horror are pretty much two sides of the same coin, they make an easy transition between the two genres. You can laugh at one slow moving zombie lumbering across a field: "oh no, I'd better walk away from this threat..." then you round a corner and find yourself in the middle of a hundred of the damn things, and you're fucked.

They represent us in a feral state. Zombies are anarchy, mob rule. I think more than any other monster in the movies, zombies are the closest representation to what
we would be like if we were to become monstrous. Hell, whenever I get
on a plane, I scope out the people I will most likely eat if the plane
crashes in the mountains.

DW1N: FYI, I'm stringy as hell, and contain tons of transfats. Let's circle back to the original script. You said you were working on it for a long time. How did it go from that script to the film that's opening today?

DW2N's:
I was working at a local animation studio at the time, so writing was
essentially a hobby. The script would sit fallow for several months,
then I'd take another pass, etc.

Then around 1994, Andrew Currie, Robert Chomiak and myself decided we
wanted to do a film together. Andrew was just a year or so out of the
film school we'd all attended together (Robert and I had both <>
resigned after second year), and we retreated to his parent's Hornby
island cabin for a week of pitching ideas. We didn't like anything each
other was pitching, and we kept coming back around to my Fido script. I
agreed to put the idea forward for the group to work on and away we
went. That week we completely tore apart and restructured the script
and started working on the new version of Fido.

DW1N: Wow. 1994? That's something for the spec monkeys to chew on. Thirteen years, folks. This biz really is all about the long haul. What do you miss from those original drafts?

There was a scene in my first script that I still wish was in the film.
It was a moment where the parents begin to suspect Fido is being "bad"
and confront Timmy about Fido. Timmy refuses to acknowledge that Fido
is acting up. At that moment, Fido vomits the head of the neighbour's
cat onto the table.

In the drafts that I worked on with Andrew and Robert, there was a
sequence called the "stupid montage." This occurred after Fido had been
sent away by Timmy's parents. Dad, worried that Timmy is depressed,
tried to get him a "gentler" zombie. This zombie was a dead kid Timmy's
age. Timmy named it "stupid." During the course of trying to get Timmy
and Stupid to bond, Dad did all these things that resulted in Stupid
being torn apart at the seams. In the end, Stupid is sent back to the
zombie store without his arms.

DW1N: Fido seems to be the kind of Canadian film I like. Were you tempted to write in any non consensual sex with car crash victims, bus crashes, wheat fields or middle class Quebecois business people?

DW2Ns:
Uh, no. As much as I love all those things -- especially the car crash
sex -- they never cropped into Fido. I could see the bus crash making
an appearance, but that would have had a different outcome in a zombie
film.

DW1N: How about Don McKellar?

DW2Ns:
How about George Takei? Oh, do you mean was I tempted to write Don
Mckellar into Fido? Not that I can remember.

DW1N: You've got the story credit on Fido.When you look at the picture, what do you think you brought to it. How do you explain to some people reading who maybe haven't written for TV and Film how things change, and how you deal with that?

DW2Ns:

I still see my comedic sensibility throughout the film, which I always
fought for in any draft. Andrew, Robert and I all matured as writers
over the years we worked on the project, and I think that experience
really reflects in the final product. And I'll always feel a certain
level of ownership because of the fact that I came up with the original
idea.

But film and television is a collaborative medium. It's the nature of
the beast. You can't produce something without getting a myriad of
opinions, unless you work in a vacuum. Everyone from producers to
assistants to the actors to distributors are all going to give their
two cents. And all of that extra brain power is a real benefit for a
production, particularly in TV production where the time from concept
to shooting script can be a matter of weeks, or even days if you're
really under the gun.

Bottom line, if you can't deal with collaboration, or even seeing your script taken to the next level by someone else, you're going to have a hard time in this industry. Scripts aren't babies that you coddle. If you treat them that way, you're in for a long haul.

DW1N: plug your film like an American would. With a breathless shamelessness that's giddy to behold.

Fido is the CITIZEN KANE of boy and his pet zombie movies.

DW1N: Niiiiice. Admit it. Did you want a zombie as a kid?

DW2Ns:

I think I wanted to be a zombie. Or a fighter pilot. Or a zombie
fighter pilot. Wait a minute...

FIDO opens across Canada today. Check your listings for theatres and showtimes.

Comedy Week: Okay, In Case You Were Wondering...

This is what a really, really, really, really good Comedy review looks like:

"Knocked Up" is uproarious. Line for line, minute to minute, writer-director Judd Apatow's latest effort is more explosively funny, more frequently, than nearly any other major studio release in recent memory. Indeed, even more than the filmmaker's smash-hit sleeper "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," his new pic is bound to generate repeat business among ticketbuyers who'll want to savor certain scenes and situations again and again, if only to memorize punchlines worth sharing with buddies. Currently set for a June 1 release, this hugely commercial comedy likely will remain in megaplexes throughout the summer and, possibly, into the fall.

Read the rest of the Variety review by clicking the link above.

That's some big review. And then there's this international trailer, which is Not Safe For Work. Hopefully, this movie will be a monster.

And speaking of monster movies, tomorrow's "Comedy Week" feature features a conversation with one of the writers of the Canadian Horror/Comedy feature, FIDO.

So come on back for that.

Comedy Week IV: Andy Barker's Going To Break My Heart

Do you miss Andy Richter Controls The Universe?

It's one of those comedy litmus tests I like to use to suss out whether people have a similar comic sensibility to mine.

Long before they started talking seriously about the sitcom slump, ARCTU was a sacrificial FOX comedy that I thought pointed the way out. It wasn't as brilliant as Arrested Development, to be sure. But it was very enjoyable. The characters were good-natured and well delineated. You had the object of desire as receptionist, Paget Brewster as the boss, a ghost and an even more neurotic coworker of Andy's. There was the good looking guy who everything came easy to, because he was good looking. TV never deals with that. It was satisfying to see that as a running joke. It made the unfairness of the world seem, you know, bearable.

I liked ATRCTU despite the fact that Andy's character wanted to be a writer (a solipsistic device I usually hate in shows, 30 Rock and Studio 60 notwithstanding...um...or maybe not. Ask me again if the latter comes back.)

However, high is the pile of bones from the ripped and dessicated carcasses of the sacrificial FOX sitcom; ARCTU shuffled off this mortal coil after only nineteen episodes. Man I wish they were on DVD.

Anyway.

It may surprise you to know that Richter's new sitcom, which premieres tonight on NBC, Andy Barker, P.I. doesn't really have all that much in common with ARCTU. That's a good thing. I don't know if it ultimately means that it's any more sustainable than the first show. (I never saw Richter's second attempt at a comedy series; I don't even remember what it was called, I just know it had kids. I got two minutes in and bailed.) Considering the fact that NBC only ordered six episodes of Andy Barker, P.I. I can't say I'm overly optimistic.

And that's a shame. Because once upon a time, this sitcom (created with pal and former couch-mate Conan O'Brien) might have been a fixture on the NBC Thursday Night Lineup. I'm talking back in the days when Cheers sucked hard water in the ratings for a whole year, and still got renewed -- time enough for people to come around and decide they loved what they saw.

There's something deliberately old-fashioned about the cant of this show, though the references are all up to date. (One of Andy's friends runs a falafel store that, post 9/11, is whored up so far in the red white and blue that Karl Rove himself couldn't find a way to further exploit Yankee iconography.)

Andy is a CPA who opens up shop in a strip mall above a video store that never seems to be busy (again, funny in the age of Netflix and VOD.) For comedy refugees and Arrested Development freaks, it's pleasing to see AD's Buster, Tony Hale, show up doing a slightly more functional riff on the Buster character.


And then there's the element that to me, makes the show sing: Harve Presnell as Lew Staziak. Staziak is an old-school, hard drinking, screwing, dangerous P.I. like you remember from all those noir films. Except now he's passing into the sunset. He lives in a home and dreams of past glories. (He's also, in a hilarious run, deathly afraid of chickens.) His story is essentially over, until Andy comes into his life.


In fact, that's where Andy Barker begins. Andy has rented Staziak's old office, and a femme fatale walks through the door and hires him, not realizing that he's a C.P.A. not a P.I. He winds up going to Staziak for help.

So comes the loving tribute to movies and film culture long gone by. Andy is kind of out of time himself. He says things like "Oh, Fudge!" and is married to a straight-arrow sweetheart (Clea Lewis) living a boring suburban life.

Of course, once he stumbles into the P.I. world, he likes the excitement. Yet he never changes his essential nature, like all great comic characters -- Andy remains a C.P.A. He's still concerned about filing on time. He's still impeccably organized and deliciously upright. It's left to Staziak, (who sees in Andy a chance to mentor a young buck) and Buste--I mean Simon, sorry -- to provide most of the wry asides and modernity.) For a senior citizen, Staziak is also remarkably spry in his execution of a beat-down.

What's great about Andy Barker is that the fusion of these character elements is more than affectation. The mysteries that Andy is asked to solve are never very mysterious (so there's lots of room for the comedy) but the solution usually involves him blundering into something because of his innocence and getting out of it because of his knowledge as a C.P.A. (In one episode, the ticking clock is the quarterly tax filing deadline. Yes, it works as a ticking clock. And yes, it's pretty funny.)

Barker is blessed with a great, amiable cast (and some great guest stars, including Ed Asner and Amy Sedaris,) a very cool retro-minimalist opening credit sequence, and some great behind the scenes writing talent too. Including she-who-blogs-and-can-do-no-wrong Jane Espenson, Alex Herschlag (Will & Grace, Ellen, and Fred Goss' late, lamented Sons & Daughters) and O'Brien himself.

I've seen all six episodes (courtesy of Itunes..thank you U.S. credit card) and I have to say that the series really does maintain a consistent, amiable comic quality. The characters are good natured. There's a bit of action and jeopardy, it's mostly pretty clean (by today's standards, anyway) and shows a sense of both comic and film history that goes back more than three years.

And I suspect that's exactly why it will fail. Let's do a test. Do you find these episode titles funny?

1. The Lady Varnishes
2. Three Days of the Chicken
3. Fairway, My Lovely
4. The Big No Sleep
5. Dial "M" for Laptop

If you do -- if you've seen the movies being referenced, if you have a feel for that world and that history, you're going to like Andy Barker. If not, you're liable to sit there stone faced.

There's something just so immensely likable about Richter that I really, really hope this show scores.


But I'm not holding my breath. Or my gun. Or my chicken.

Comedy Week Jargon Watch: Stamp it Out! Kill it! Strangle it in the Crib! Kick It To the Curb Like the Abomination It Is!

The "Newpeat."

Uh uh. NO SALE.

Comedy Week Special: Our Readers Write!

The other side of my well-documented character flaw love of pokin' the crazy is a certain fondness I have for cranky trolls. Cranky trolls with something to prove, even better. Cranky trolls with something to prove secretly looking for the bad kind of attention because they never learned as children that it doesn't taste as good as the good kind of attention: bestest.

In that spirit, we got an awesome post in the Stella thread below that just needs to be promoted. Astute readers will point out that by doing this, I may be encouraging further bad behavior, to which I can only respond: you bet your sweet bippy.

So let's go to the post. I must confess, however, in the interests of disclosure, all emphasis and manipulations of the words are entirely mine. (They do make it better, though, if I do say so myself.)

(Can anyone tell that I'm vamping here til I finish my own post today? Well, I am.)

Now, I present to you the critical stylings of Ross:

Hey Kids:

Um, read anything good lately? This show's (Stella)excerpts (shorts, whatever) are nothing but infantile and easy. Why is third year university the pinnacle of comedy standards? Do any of you have further life experiences that bespeak of an opportunity to fuck with satire and parody? Hey, here's a primer, morons who think they can hang with Colbert,-- "Freidrich Durrenmatt: Selected Writings" among a myriad of others. And don't come back at me with your predictable (inadvertent) psychoanalytic crap about me waxing highbrow on your hirsute asses; yet another defence to keep your level of comedic acumen safe. Offer me a thoughtful response that legitimizes the need for this 'easy' collegiate (get it? it's on collegehumor[sic].com-- no that's not your whiteass appropriation of black culture's appellation "sick", Mr. and Mrs. Suburbanite)-- your easy collegiate characteristic, to allow you in here, that it's funny cause I've had six beers and I still get the subtext. It's just infantile and I mean that with Aristotle getting my back here, folks. You are what you write and you will improve if you honour the real funny...(this would be your cue to mark that my opinion is just that, an opinion; what I don't like is fine, just turn the dial ("press the key", "click the remote"-- just in case you comedic adjectival technophiles posing as the cultural elite would like to mark my critique as antiquated because I belie any attempt at sounding hip or 'now') but, folks, it's about decline...in the end and your the (supposed) cultural markers with your own works and tastes. Go get an education and get back to us with something that loves the risk of comedy's (uh-oh, here comes smarty-pants) existential threat.

Now if I'm not mistaken you blog visitors will now, necessarily (and defensively), become curious about what this "comment-bitch" deems humourous. Not needed for you all to get reflective. Don't kill the messengers, children.

Respeck.

Gosh. Is my ass really that hirsute?

Comedy Week III: Stelllaaaa!

If you're looking for more meta-comedy that was too good to last, you can't go wrong with Stella.

The sitcom, which featured Michael Ian Black, David Wain, and Michael Showalter perfecting the characters they'd tried out on New York comedy stages, is hard to explain. Or maybe it's not.

It's the Marx Brothers for the post Internet, 21st century age.

Stella is absurd in just about every way. Each episode bends time and convention, plays with notions familiar from a thousand sitcoms before it, and also the comedy shorts that once ruled the cinemas, whether they were the Marx Brothers, or Abbot and Costello, or The Goodies.

So simultaneously there's something fresh and new, and old and kind of sweet about the anarchy of the show. (How can you not love a group of men-child who yell, "Yayyy!" in unison everytime something good happens?

Michael Ian Black (who might be familiar from Ed...anyone? Anyone? Okay, your loss) is the snarky ringleader. David Wain is the hopless third also ran (who still, hilariously, manages to always score with women.) And Michael Showalter is Zeppo.




Well, he is.

It's hard to pick which of these eps are my favorite. Maybe the one where they open the coffee shop, which has the single greatest throwaway comedy ending I think I've ever seen. The one where the boys grow crops in their apartments and go through a rags to riches cycle of peasant farmers to agro-lords and back in a week is pretty biting, too. (In fact, one of the great charms of the series is how they go through huge changes in impossibly short timeframes.)

Oh, sure, I never quite recovered from the disappointment of Rashida Jones (Karen on The Office) not being one of the neighbors, (she left after the pilot) but the high-octane absurdity of Stella is hard to dislike. I once said (back when it was funny) that I couldn't see myself ever dating a woman who didn't laugh at The Simpsons. I would amend that to say if there's not something that makes you laugh in Stella, you're just not somebody who encourages joy in your life.

I mean, they're working so damn hard to please you.

Stella grew out of the late, lamented MTV show The State, which spawned a series of 28 popular short films filmed between 1998 and 2002, most of which you can still find on College Humor. They also have an official website.



For the celebrity whores among you, guest stars on Stella's 10 episodes included Paul Rudd, Sam Rockwell, Topher Grace, Tim Blake Nelson, Alan Ruck, Janeane Garofalo, and Edward Norton.

The DVD has a fairly extensive interview that gives you the group's history -- and if you have any interest in how you hone a stage comedy act, it's pretty revealing. Especially when you can compare it to the Comedy Central Presents stage peformance, also on the disc.

Comedy Central allowed the show to wither and die after only one season, first broadcast in 2005. It's really too bad. But luckily, it's now on DVD so you may enjoy it again and again. I did.

It's depressing to note, as Michael Ian Black does on one of the commentary tracks: “It’s worth making the point that when we were making this, we thought we were making totally mainstream comedy.”



The fact that it's not mainstream - that in fact, most people don't have any room for Stella while Dane Cook... no. no. I've used that one so much it's practically a clam. Anyway...when I scratch my head and go, "uh oh" about Comedy's Future, Stella is one of the things I'm thinking about.

I've never seen Wet Hot American Summer (a movie they're responsible for...but I might have to mourn my way down to the video store to get it sometime soon.)

EDIT: 15 March: I should say, to clarify, the posts that exist here are not clips from the Stella sitcom -- they're from the Stella shorts that were shown at their stage shows. In that vein, they're generally a lot dirtier and a bit more frenetic than the series, which actually followed their plots and brought out their themes cleanly.

"Whooooo iiiiis iiiit?"

Comedy Week: Hail to The King, Baby!

YES!

A follow up to something we talked about here in November.

Kirstine Leyfield has taken some criticism for stuff since she took over top programming duties at CBC, but she just did something truly wonderful for Canada's TV history, as well as CBC's. King of Kensington will be able to go back on the air. From Martin Knelman's article in the Toronto Star:

As I reported four months ago, [Fiona] Reid was rallying support for what some might have regarded as a hopeless cause: resurrecting those lost episodes. After all, here was a popular show loved by newcomers to Canada because it was the first series to focus on immigrants.

Reid took her case to Kirstine Layfield, CBC's director of network programming.

"King of Kensington represents a moment of greatness in our TV history that would be nice to share with the next generation," Layfield told me.

Now it has become clear that Layfield actually did something about it. She managed to sort out agreements that will put 56 of those 65 lost episodes on the air for the next 10 years. There are just nine episodes that still cannot be shown, because re-clearing the music rights would be too complicated and difficult.

You should read the full Star article here, but this is s a great move that shows sensitivity and panache. It's the move of someone who gets it.

Good for her. And Good for CBC.

Comedy Week: Friends Become Enemies, Enemies Become Friends?

Oh tha'ss right kids. I probably won't have time to do up the next post until sometime tomorrow, cause now is the race to the Production White.

Sometimes when you get blocked you need a bit of inspiration to keep you going. The inspiration that can only be had from someone like....Stewie.



Keep those cards and letters coming.

Next posts: Stelllaaaa! and Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darkness.

Comedy Week: Healthy Competition!

Little Mosque has been grabbing the headlines for the last little while, so it's no wonder that Corner Gas pulled its little "we're going away!" stunt.

Note to newbies: we call this "schmuck bait" in the room.

But all is well, and as Brett Butt states in this article/interview with the Toronto Star -- Corner Gas isn't missing a beat.


Back in the real world, CTV will announce today that Corner Gas has been picked up for a fifth season, including a production order of 19 episodes. In addition, two new writers are joining the show, creating what the network is calling a "dream team."

Emmy Award-winning Norm Hiscock comes aboard as a consulting producer/writer. He started on Kids in the Hall, where he was head writer for the last two seasons. He also spent three seasons on Saturday Night Live and nearly six with King of the Hill, where he was co-executive producer.

Gary Pearson joins Corner Gas as a story editor/writer. The highly regarded scribe spent three seasons with This Hour Has 22 Minutes. His other writing credits include MADtv, Just For Laughs with Russell Peters, 50 Years of CBC Satire with Leslie Nielsen and The Juno Awards.

Hiscock and Pearson enter a writers' room already brimming with serious talent, including Kevin White, the new show runner; Mark Farrell, consulting producer/writer; and Andrew Carr, story editor/writer.

TV Writers' names in print. Does my heart good. Does it good. Let's hope that now that they've got an angle the Canadian press will continue to pay attention to the saga of the two shows with the writing dream teams -- which maybe might spark the realization that, um...if writing is the backbone in the U.S. industry, and it's made a difference for Corner Gas, well...maybe...just maybe Brent's right.

Accountants? We love you keeping the numbers straight.

But leave the comedy notes to the professionals, m'kay?

That sounds bitter, doesn't it. I don't mean it to. My point really does not go further than this:

writers names in print. writers names in print.

Ahhhh.

Comedy Week II: Surfing the Transgressive: Why's Louie Less Lucky Than Sarah?

Psssst. So, did you hear?

Sarah banged God.

You heard me.

For real.

In the season finale of her eponymously named Sarah Silverman Program, whose finale aired on Comedy Central last week (it will follow in Canada in about 4 weeks,) everyone’s favorite trash talking sexy Jewish girl got it on with the man upstairs, then tried to get rid of him in the morning when he got all clingy.

After greeting God, (who was black, of course) as “God’s black friend,” Silverman pulled the age-old sucking the thumb as sexy come on trick to get God to be ‘into her.’

It’s actually really hard for me, even as a Catholic, to do justice to this stuff. You know what? I need to turn to the professionals.

Tere’s no one more diligent in cataloguing the many transgressions than the Parents’ Television Council. Let’s hear it for them, folks. They provide this stuff to get their side outraged about the filth that anyone can see on television, (which, besides miscegenation and illicit sex, could lead to dancing.) Though they mean it to fire up their base, I’m hoping that reading it you can see the funny for yourself. In any case, the synopsis of the content in the last episode of THE SARAH SILVERMAN PROGRAM is brought to you by them:

God and Sarah copulate.

God: "You're a little monkey aren't you? Who made your monkey? Who made you?"

Sarah: "You did."

(Editor’s note: Oh SNAP – what is more offensive to the PTC here, the fact that she just slept with God or that while sleeping with God she surreptitiously declares support for evolutionary theory? Mmm. I feel warm inside like tollhouse cookies.)

Sarah rejects God the morning after their tryst.

God: "I had a really good time. A really, really good time."

Sarah: "Thanks. Me too."

God: "Come to Heaven with me today."

Sarah: "Today?"

God: "We can see the past and the future. We can fly. And I will introduce you to Thomas Jefferson."

Sarah: "Oh, awesome. I told my friend Natalie I would help her move, though."

God: "I could stop time."

Sarah: "That is so sweet. Oh your pants are over there. I mean not like I'm asking you to leave. I just mean if you can't see it from this angle of still being in my bed."

God: "Right. I should go."

Sarah: "Okay. Um. Alright. I guess I'll see you around sometime."

God: "Do you mean it? Or are you just saying that?"

Sarah seeks help from God.

Sarah: "I learned that people in wheelchairs are allowed to have marathons, which to me seems like cheating, but what are you going to say? And I learned that You exist, and that You're black. And I think that's amazing. I mean I'm not one of those people that are like 'Oh, God is black, is he going to steal the moon or something?' And finally I learned that giving is its own reward. Which is really kinda like saying there's no reward for giving. Unless you're really into the process of giving, and that's a reward to you. But how many people, I don't know. Can you meet me half way? You're kinda breaking my balls."

That doesn’t even get into the climactic bit where God tries to get back with Sarah by pretending to be her father and manipulating those feelings she has about the old man’s approval into…

I can’t go on.

The eagle-eyed who may have watched the program probably would have cottoned onto the fact that this "season finale" was most likely actually the original pilot for the program. (Tipoff: the relationship between Sarah's sister and the cop is yet to be established, and the Gay friends don't yet have their personas down.)

What was funny about that was that I found this ep far and away the funniest of the series. Now don't get me wrong. Like every geek accredited, hetero-identified male with an interest in comedy, I'm somewhat devoted to Sarah Silverman. Yes the fact that she's hawt doesn't hurt...nor does the fact that she nails Jimmy Kimmel (Oh My God, think men across North America. He's hideous! All I have to do is get a talk show and she's mine.)

But the series so far has been the edge of her act -- the pretty girl who says transgressive things. I was looking for teeth. She's cruel and solipsistic and insensitive, but where was the real transgressive comic guts?

Well, sleeping with God? Then trying to brush him off? Okay, Sarah. I'll give you that one.

The truth is that I'm one of those tired old people who believes that comedy is at its best when it's making you uncomfortable. When it deals with things that you simply cannot talk about any other way, because it hurts so much to do so. (Wow, I really do use the italics a lot. Motherfucking commenters!)

I believe that racially, America is further apart today because the black comics play to their niche, and the whites to their own. For all the talk of the hood and the gangsta lifestyle, there is no incendiary force like Richard Pryor (or, don't laugh, in his time) Bill Cosby out there insisting that you pay attention and listen. For all the good Tyler Perry has done for his community, I don't believe whitey feels too bad for having largely taken a pass on Madea.

Whereas, once upon a time, if you didn't know Pryor back to front? You were over as a comic hipster, my man.

So let's take away the marketing pull of the hot Hebrew babe and look at another comedy experiment that crashed and burned in 2006, now lovingly preserved forever on DVD.

Lucky Louie divided people from the start. The HBO show wasn't cuddly like Entourage. It wasn't hooky like Six Feet Under. It was foul and a bit mangy. There were drugs and sex and jokes about killing your wife and masturbating in the closet. They didn't go over too well.

Louis C.K. has been plying the comedy trenches for twenty years. He is not sexy. He's a redhead goofus. But in 2006 he did an amazing thing. He went old school for a sitcom -- a show that not only was filmed in front of a studio audience, but which featured minimalist sets, just like the old days of The Honeymooners. This was his intent. (And in case you didn't get it, the pilot opens with a long version of a classic, "Why?" bit. Though somehow I doubt that in vaudeville days, this ever ended with "Because God is Dead."

Lucky Louie's target was the minefield of the lower middle class marriage. It was not the impossible ideal of Friends, where six marginal people all managed to hang out in an apartment that would cost 3500 a month. In Lucky Louie, there was never enough money. Your wife was pissed at you because she worked more. You worked part time and took care of your kid and felt trapped. And that kid? Sure she was cute, but you also weren't interested in showing her to be a cute kid. More often than not, in the way of little kids, she was a monster.

Lucky Louie was about what happens to a lot of us; when we realize that our dreams aren't going to happen and this life that we have is about as good as it's going to get and somehow, that kind of sucks.

Lucky Louie, unlike The Sarah Silverman Program, didn't hide behind the veneer of irony or an outsized character. Louie was not noble. His wife, Kim (played by Pamela Adlon, the voice of Bobby on King of the Hill) was adorable, but also kind of a pill who caused as much trouble as she solved. This is not a show about how the wife is always right. But it is a show about how, sometimes, relationships hide uncomfortable truths.

The episode where Louie calls his wife an unmentionable name during sex because he's mad at her, and she gets into it because he's....passionate. Well, there was no funnier half hour on American TV last year. Ditto the ep where the couple figures out there's nothing they can do to stop their daughter acting out.

Then there were moments like this...totally NSFW moment.



It's no wonder it didn't last. Watching the show, never for a second did you want Louie's life. They didn't glamorize his kid or his marriage. His friends were imperfect and screwed up. Like Roseanne, probably the last show in this lineage, the pain of never having enough money informed every scene. Unlike Roseanne, because it aired on HBO, they could say fuck. And did. A lot. More than Ian McShane ever dreamed (though never in front of the kid.)

So Sarah's getting her 2nd season on Comedy Central, where she'll continue to bang God. And I'll watch. And enjoy. But Lucky Louie, a show I always admired and frequently busted my gut at, chose to try and find funny from the uncomfortable truth of American life. It's no wonder that HBO ran in the other direction as soon as they could.

Louie would never have subscribed to HBO. In fact, openly stealing cable (and using it to babysit your kid cause you're too hungover) is a plot point. And when they have the discussion of whether to have another kid? Well, let's just say they don't sentimentalize.

Louie: Look i would love to tap that ass.
Kim: So Tap it
Louie: I want to, but my dick is too aware that your pussy is a chamber of financial ruin.

The show looked horrible to begin with, so the transfer isn't an issue. There's a couple of fairly interesting docs, and a couple of bitter commentary tracks from people who've obviously just gotten the news that the show isn't coming back. (They ordered 8 scripts for a second season.) This is definitely a worthwhile set if you're interested in pushing boundaries in scripted comedy. It's part cautionary tale, part lab experiment -- that's what I like about it and that's also why I think ultimately its legacy will be viewed more kindly than it is now: as a failed HBO show of no real consequence.

You can make whatever connection you like - about the pretty girl vs. the homely guy. But what I suspect is that 20 years from now somebody will be able to watch Louis C.K. (who thankfully seems to have a winner on his hands with the new Chris Rock Movie) and Pam Adlon in this show and recognize truth, while Sarah, Deity-shtupping notwithstanding, will seem as quaint as the sweet broad comedy of John Ritter pretending to be Gay for old Mr. Roper.

In the end, Lucky Louie probably never had a chance, despite clever writing and painful truth, because of things like this. Just watch this clip.



I mean, the Parents TV Council didn't even bother to be offended by the show. I should have known then it was screwed.

EDIT: I'm adding one more clip here as commenter Gdott reminded me of it below, and it kind of rocks on the theme of the PTC and stuff above. I will warn you though that this clip is ... really, really raw. I'm right on the edge of thinking, "woah. Too much."

Which is why I love it even more.

So, thanks Gdott for the reminder of this Lucky Louie clip where comic Jim Norton debates the existence of God:

Comedy Week Special: Watch That Ipod

It's not just funny cause it's NY. I'm so totally this guy. "Hi, I'm a Mac. I'm a P.C., I'm a stain because I tried to cross the Grandview Highway wearing my Ipod."


Tuesday: Surfing the Transgressive: Why's Louie Less Lucky Than Sarah?

Comedy Week Special: Woody Allen

You lucky people. Your Dead Things on Sticks - Comedy Week wristband gets you into Will's digs today, where he's talking Woody Allen. I am now horrified and ashamed to admit that I have only had the edited Standup Comic version of Allen's nightclub stuff. Suddenly that seems to taste like ashes in my mouth. Fie, Will Dixon. Fie upon you!

Comedy Week, I: Let Us All Praise Gassy Men

Brent's selling the station? Lacey's moving back to Toronto? Stephen Harper can hit a mark?

Whaaaaaa?

It's really difficult to believe that Corner Gas has only been around since January, 2004.

It's waved a tattered flag for Canadian-produced programming at a time when that programming was at an all time low, when regulatory changes and the peculiarities of the Canadian broadcast system rendered it a defiant, inconvenient truth. If one day, creative people can actually look out on a stable and sustaining Canadian domestic television industry, it will be Corner Gas that carried the water at a very dark time.

There were shows that were admired before Corner Gas, of course. Trailer Park Boys had already become a cult hit when Canadians first got their first look at the citizens of Dog River. Made In Canada had its adherents, though that savage satire of television always seemed to owe more to its forerunners like The Larry Sanders Show. The Newsroom, too, caused a splash and a ratings sensation -- but that curdled when its creator descended further into the excesses of the auteur, breaking the compact with his audience.

When Corner Gas premiered, no one expected it to do well. There were people who had championed it at CTV and the Comedy Network, like Louise Clark and Brent Haynes. But the show snuck onto the air. It didn't have CTF money. It was there because CTV had to spend money because of a fund that was created when BCE bought CTV. To say expectations were low is an understatement.

Everything that was said about Canadian TV then is still being said now, "Canadians would rather watch American shows...", "Canadian TV looks cheap...", etc, etc.

But people watched. And how. Tonight, CTV will probably post something like its 69th consecutive airing with over a million viewers. Gas has never dipped below that mark, despite being pre-empted and moved around the schedule, especially in its early days. When rumors (stoked by CTV's publicity folk, who show that they do now how to promote a show when they want to) circulated that the season finale airing tonight might be it for Corner Gas, the outpouring of love and concern that the show was going away was huge, heartfelt, and sincere. That doesn't fit the narrative about Canadian TV at all, now, does it?

How important is Corner Gas?

Well, the politicians won't stop coming. Canada's current PM, Stephen Harper, appears on the show tonight in a pivotal role. He becomes the 2nd consecutive serving Prime Minister to appear on the show, after Paul Martin, Jr. Former Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, Sascatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, and Former Governor General (Canada's head of state) Adrienne Clarkson all have made the trip to Dog River (in real life, Rouleau, Saskatchewan.)

There are lots of theories about why this show has caught on in Canada. Most of it boils down to the fact that the good-natured, semi-absurdist humor just tickles Canadians where they sit. It's well produced. Brent Butt understands his comic persona and appeal intimately, from years of criss-crossing the country, performing to all manner of Canadians. The writers' room is stocked with top talent. It's incredibly inclusive. (So inclusive, in fact, that it's one of the few series that has a described video track on its DVD sets. Ladies and germs, THAT is inclusive.) It feeds into Canada's preferred vision of itself: an unassuming, low-key, mostly rural place where people are sensible and not prone to unecessary flash or pretension. (It doesn't matter if that's true, or if many of the writers -- gasp -- come from .... Toronto! Or whether Canada is really that rural anymore. (Check the census: it's not.)) It resonates with Canadians, and they reward it with steady viewership. They're concerned at the thought of its demise. By every measure, it's a hit.

A well promoted, well-written, well run show is a hit on a Canadian network. It can be done.

Now. Here's the real question for all the politicians who've traipsed through Dog River and all the people making decisions about Canadian TV development:

What did you do differently with this show? Why is it a hit? How do you learn from it?

I've talked about this before. But it seems like broadcast organizations still want to spin the show as a fluke, and politicians don't want to engage on the Corner Gas question at all. Why try to encourage -- really encourage -- more Corner Gas'es? Might it have something to do with that being inconvenient when what you really want to be able to do is peddle U.S. products to Canadians thanks to protected simulcasts? If you had three or four C.G.'s it might get harder to free up those timeslots for simulcasts.

Why don't we ask the politicians trading on Gas' s goodwill something like that?

Canadians, there is absolutely no reason why you can't have four or five programs on the air like this: not programs that you watch because you're patriotic...programs you watch because you love'em.

But it takes will. It takes a strong creative vision. It takes network execs who believe. It takes MONEY TO PROMOTE THE SHOW -- and it takes a bit of nurturing. But mostly, it takes honesty and forthrightness, and love and dedication and sincerity, and courage. It also takes, every time someone tries to write off "Corner Gas" as a fluke, for someone to stand up and say -- "that's ridiculously defeatist and simply untrue."

Things might get even wackier in Dog River, since later this year the show will come to WGN, the Chicago-based superstation.

Will U.S. exposure change Corner Gas? I doubt it.

Would that that muscular, creative confidence existed elsewhere in this country.

Now...who's to say it doesn't?

Little Mosque has a chance to join that fraternity. For all the critiques of the show's content (and I've had a couple of those myself,) there's no doubt that it's hitting a similar chord. And it's getting noticed in ways U.S. product simply doesn't. What is the lesson to take from this?

Canadians are not Americans. (Yet.) You can still apply the methods that work so well for U.S. entertainment, while spinning a Canadian sensibility that is, at its core, fundamentally different -- and have that strike a chord elsewhere. Even in the States. Because the most important thing for the show is to follow the advice they give actors trying to craft a performance: just be true.

Little Mosque may be the first post-Gas show to learn the lessons of Butt and Co. As Vinay Menon points out again in today's Toronto Star (with a small aw shucks tip to this blog,) Mosque has even learned enough to go for the talent: two of the show's writers have now crossed the street to CBC. I would probably quibble a bit with Menon's choice of the word "defected" to describe the writers' move. Why does it have to be a negative thing? Paul Mather deserved to run a show. Rob Sheridan is a hard working comedy writer (though a lousy card player) who's been plying his trade for years. This is the way it's supposed to work. There's supposed to be a way for people to move up. This isn't a defection: It's cause for celebration. The venerable Gas franchise found great writers, and will find great writers to replace them. Corner Gas has finally taken its first step from Canadian TV success to industry changer: it's pollinating another network's slate!

As I sit down to watch Corner Gas tonight, I'm sure I'll enjoy the script from Mark Farrell that's getting raves all over -- but I'm also going to raise a glass and thank Allah, Vishnu, God, and Mom that the show beat the odds and got to the point where it could be our little inconvenient comedy truth.

Well done, guys. We owe you. Enjoy those new writers, and we'll see you all in Season 5.


CORRECTION: It's been pointed out to me by a few people that Paul Mather was already Gas' showrunner, so it's not exactly like he's moved to Mosque to be the showrunner. That's true. My bad. What I meant, I guess, that in Corner Gas's case, the show is already strongly identified with its star (Butt) and Mark Farrell. In the U.S., often a writer will move up and showrun a show they've been on for a while. But it's when they make that next jump, to the new show, that they land in the trades. I'm willing to bet that far more people know Paul Mather's name this week, post-Mosque jump, than they did when he was on Gas. Not only is that good for Mather, it's good for our industry. In any case, the blog regrets the error.

Oh, I also originally spelled Mr. Haynes' name wrong. Thought I'd just change that and not tell anybody, but so long as I'm being all Catholic and confessin'...