Language and Humor Blog

The live-performance video of “The Wal-Mart Song” has continued to make me laugh on repeated viewings, especially the final verse. It’s an ode to the diversity of products available at Wal-Mart stores.

Link to video

The song is by the duo Rhett and Link, who will be hosts of The CW’s new Internet-related show Online Nation on American television this fall.

If you’re good at making sketch-comedy videos, you could win video-making equipment, a trip to the premiere of the movie Hot Rod (IMDb listing), and a contract to make a video for Sierra Mist in the Youtube Sketchies sketch comedy contest. [EDIT (6/7/10): Link now goes to 2008's Sketchies II contest.]

The contest is in partnership with Andy Samberg and his The Lonely Island pals from Saturday Night Live and Hot Rod.

EDIT (May 23, 2007):
“You must be at least 13 years old, a legal U.S. resident and a registered member of Youtube to enter.” Sorry, most of the world.

Round 1: Submit first video May 24 to 31, 2007.

Round 2: If you’re one of ten semifinalists chosen by June 13th, submit second video by June 19th.

Round 3: If you’re one of five finalists chosen by June 27th, submit third video by July 3rd.

Winner Announced: July 12, 2007

If you’re not good at making sketch-comedy videos, you can still participate by voting and crushing the dreams of others. I mean, rewarding excellence.

Do you want to see actors and comedians being courageous? Wait no more . . . than a few days. As I mentioned a couple months ago (U.S. reality comedy ‘Thank God You’re Here’), NBC is coming out with an American version of Thank God You’re Here, the hit Australian improvisational reality show.

The two-hour premiere (double-header) of the series is:

Monday, April 9, 2007, at 9 p.m. Eastern Time.

Future episodes will air:

• Monday, April 16, 2007, at 9 p.m. ET
• Wednesday, April 18, 2007, at 8 p.m. ET
• Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET.

The first episode features:

• Jennifer Coolidge (Best in Show)
• Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle)
• Wayne Knight (Seinfield)
• Joel McHale (The Soup)

Future celebrity guests include:

• Jason Alexander (Seinfeld)
• Tom Arnold (The Best Damn Sports Show Period)
• Fran Drescher (The Nanny)
• Shannon Elizabeth (American Pie)
• Ana Gasteyer (Saturday Night Live)
• Tom Green (Stealing Harvard)
• Chelsea Handler (Girls Behaving Badly)
• Angela Kinsey (The Office [US])
• Mo’Nique (The Parkers)
• Alanis Morrisette (Nip/Tuck)
• Paul Rodriguez (Resurrection Blvd.)
• Nicole Sullivan (Mad TV)
• George Takei (Star Trek, Heroes)
• Eddie Kaye Thomas (‘Til Death)
• Fred Willard (Best in Show)

The official site has some interviews and promos, as well as the whole first episode and clips of Jason Alexander’s and Tom Arnold’s segments.

Thank God You’re Here is different from Whose Line Is It Anyway? (UK and US) in that it isn’t a multitude of group improv games and suggestions from the audience. Instead, a performer individually gets into a costume (which reveals a little of what is to come), goes through a door into an unknown situation, hears someone say “Thank God you’re here,” and wings it through the scenario. Judge Dave Foley (The Kids in the Hall, NewsRadio) decides when the sketch ends and gives feedback to the performer.

In between the four sketches of different scenarios are tapes of practice sessions with the performers all doing the same scenarios individually (but different sketches from the ones in the main program).

At the end of the episode there’s an “all-in challenge,” with all the performers together in one sketch. Dave Foley picks a winner for the coveted plastic award. David Alan Grier (In Living Color, Life with Bonnie) hosts and produces.

I enjoyed the first hour (online). I got a few laughs out of Wayne Knight’s and Bryan Cranston’s segments (and Tom Arnold’s clip) and smiles out of all of them. I thought Knight’s was funnier, but Cranston got put on the spot more and ran with it. The all-in sketch was mostly funny for the wardrobe malfunctions. I hope future episodes have a little more camaraderie among the performers in the all-in. Admittedly, that’s hard when, unlike Whose Line Is It Anyway?, they’re only together briefly.

Future episodes should also be available online after they’ve aired (useful when the show moves to Wednesdays and you want to watch Jericho and record Bones, or vice versa).

I’ll be checking it out.

There was a cute in-joke at the end of last week’s episode of the American television drama Numb3rs (3.7, “Blackout”). The father, played by Judd Hirsch, turns on late-night TV saying that’s when “the classics” are on. Then we hear the theme song from Hirsch’s classic sitcom Taxi (1978-83).

A running in-joke on the show is that mathematician Amita’s last name is Ramanujan, as in the genius Indian number-theorist Shrinivas Ramanujan.

The series could use more humor. Plus, the characters need more humor. They have very stressful jobs as FBI agents; it’s hard to imagine them not joking around a lot. The last two episodes have had some mildly humorous banter between the characters Colby and Megan, but the only memorable funny scenes in the series were back in the first season. In one, the widowed father’s first date goes horribly wrong (1.4, “Structural Corruption”). In another, Don’s FBI subordinate and former girlfriend Terry (female; a psychological profiler no longer on the show) learns that the female Secret Service agent they are working with is also an old flame of his, and Terry starts subtly then not so subtly pumping colleague David for information about that former couple’s past (1.7, “Counterfeit Reality”).

The actors are up to the challenge of doing some comedy amid the drama. Not only was Judd Hirsch (the father Alan Eppes) in Taxi, but Rob Morrow (Don Eppes) was in Northern Exposure, and Peter MacNicol (physicist Larry) was in Ally McBeal. If the writers are up to it, the show could be much more entertaining than just the interesting math and family dynamics.