Michael Richards-related stories
Posted Nov 30th 2006 11:04AM by Jay Black
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Watercooler Talk
Michael Richards' recent experimentation with Tourette's Syndrome has one fortunate outcome -- it provides a good excuse for me to introduce myself to the readers of TV Squad! I've been a professional stand-up comic for the last four years, and as TV Squad's newest writer I've been asked to give an insider's take on Michael Richard's use of the "N word."
I think the most important fallout from what I will from this point forward call "the Kramer incident" is that Jamie Masada, owner of the Laugh Factory where the Kramer incident took place, has banned the N-Word from his club. A club owner has the right to ban any kind of speech he'd like from his stage (I've worked places where you had to be Disney-clean and places where every foul word on the planet was not only acceptable, but encouraged), but Masada's PR move is fear-driven and wrong.
Continue reading My take on "Kramer Gone Wild"
Posted Nov 29th 2006 4:29PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, NBC, Law and Order, Games, Web
The Mayor of Television (hey, they had an election for Mayor of Television? Why didn't anyone tell us??) has invented the Law and Order Fantasy League Game. Basically, you guess which "ripped from the headlines" story one of the Law and Order shows (the original, Criminal Intent, and Special Victims Unit) is going to ripoff write an homage to. Will it be Michael Richards? The O.J. Simpson book controversy?
But you can't just guess which show is going to do which plot and be done with it. You have to tweak it a little bit, so it's "original" (cough cough). So, maybe a former sitcom actor says some nasty racial remarks, only this time it's not at a comedy club, it's at a private party. Or maybe a former pro baseball star (not a football star! accused of killing his parents (not his ex-wife and her friend!) decides to create a web site (not publish a book!) showing pics of the murder scene and how he might have done it.
The Mayor's idea for a Michael Richards-inspired story is more elaborate than mine, and would fit the L&O world nicely.
[via TV Tattle]
Posted Nov 28th 2006 4:14PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Industry, OpEd, Syndicated, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Seinfeld
If you've been following the Michael Richards apology tour, you know that the
actor made an appearance on the Reverend Jesse Jackson's
Keep Hope Alive radio program in which he claimed to be "shattered" by his own remarks. That wasn't good enough for the Rev. The day after Richards' appearance,
Jackson called for a boycott of the recent seventh season
Seinfeld DVD release to punish the actor where it really hurts - the pocketbook.
How boycotting the
Seinfeld DVD set would actually hurt Richards is beyond me. Between syndication points and a series-run as Kramer, I think Richards is pretty set financially. As a symbolic act or even one motivated by publicity, I suppose a boycott makes a bit more sense -- but not much seeing as Richards' words were spewed without the consent of the entire cast and crew of
Seinfeld. (I've linked to it in
the past, but if you want a better reason to hold
Seinfeld suspect, check out hip-hop artist
Danny Hoch's monologue about his scheduled appearance on the show.)
Continue reading Jesse Jackson calls for Seinfeld boycott
Posted Nov 27th 2006 2:39PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV Royalty, Celebrities
One forgotten victim in this whole "Michael Richards goes nuts and screams racist remarks" controversy just might be Kenny Kramer, the real-life guy who was the inspiration for the Cosmo Kramer character on Seinfeld. While it's great to have the fake Kramer be associated with the real Kramer during good times, it can be sort of disconcerting if people start to associate the real Kramer with the fake one when things are bad.
Kramer (the real one) is upset that news outlets such as The Drudge Report and Michael Savage are saying "Kramer's a racist." Personally, I don't see how the two could possibly be confused. I mean, to be honest, do people really even think of the real Kramer that much? I don't think the news outlet's are saying "Kramer's a racist" to confuse anyone, and I don't think it's misleading. They're using the last name because it's the name of one of the most famous (and beloved) characters in TV history.
Richards went on Jesse Jackson's radio show over the weekend to explain himself, apologize, and to begin the "healing." In a related story, the character of Kramer will now be edited out of all the Seinfeld episodes he appears in.
Posted Nov 22nd 2006 9:48AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: NBC, News, OpEd, Daytime, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities
One of my favorite one-off jokes from
The Simpsons was when some interview show (conducted by Kent Brockman, of course) had Gloria Allred as a guest. In pure
Simpsonian fashion the graphic below her identified her as "Gloria Allred: Shrill Feminist Attorney."
That's what I was thinking when I saw her on the
Today show this morning. Apparently, she's representing the targets of Michael Richards'
racist tirade last Saturday, Kyle Doss and Frank McBride. And, in true grandstanding fashion, she decided to take the opportunity to challenge Richards to meet the two men he yelled at and have a retired judge arbitrate the "compensation" they deserved (
Video is here).
They deserve compensation? For getting yelled at? Who's kidding who, Gloria?
Continue reading Attorney challenges Richards on the Today show
Posted Nov 21st 2006 4:19PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Programming, Web, Celebrities
Have you checked out Trivial TV? It's a great site about, well, TV of course. But it has an incredible search engine for TV schedules. Type in the day, month, and year and you can see the TV network schedules for that night! Very cool. - Paul Davidson has two TV-related posts up at his blog this week. One is Prison Break: The Drinking Game, and the other is about Battlestar Galactica and Lucy Lawless' fingernail.
- Ken Levine has some thoughts on the O.J. book/TV special (written before they were canceled).
- Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog says that John Stamos has pumped so much life into ER that the show just might be renewed for a 15th season.
- A TV Guide reader tells Matt Roush that the reason why Jericho is a hit is because "it's Lost for Republicans."
Continue reading Out of the Blogosphere
Posted Nov 21st 2006 3:57PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, CBS, Late Night, Celebrities
If you missed Michael Richards' appearance on Letterman's show last night after his racist tirade at a comedy club in West Hollywood, CBS' Late Show Web site has the video, which you can see here.
Setting aside Richards' racial slurs aside for a moment, watching the video of his onstage meltdown made me think of the kind of heated exchanges people get into where one becomes so enraged they reach deep into their reserves for the ultimate atomic bomb of an insult, the one word or phrase they can say that will completely flatten the person who is attacking them, and in Richard's case his racist comments . During his appearance on Letterman's show, Richards acknowledged that he lost his temper, and it seems fairly obvious to me that whatever self-censoring mechanism he had was overrode by his need to take down the people who were heckling him.
Continue reading Watch Michael Richards' appearance on Letterman
Posted Nov 20th 2006 3:02PM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Web, Celebrities, Seinfeld
TMZ will be the downfall of more than one celebrity. The LA gossip hounds have posted
video of Michael Richards' soon-to-be infamous Laugh Factory performance in West Hollywood.
On Friday night, Richards proved that trying to shake the
Seinfeld curse can get to a guy. In the middle of his stand-up routine, Richards took on two hecklers with a racist tirade that included your standard issue racial epithets along with this charmer, "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass." It was, of course, caught on tape by someone in attendance. Richards has already told the press that he's sorry and will "make amends." I'm tempted to take bets on whether he'll enter rehab, offer a tearful apology to Diane Sawyer or both.
Less you think this incident came out of nowhere, check out hip-hop theater artist
Danny Hoch's monologue from Jails, Hospitals and Hip-Hop on his brush with the
Seinfeld cast.
Posted Sep 6th 2006 8:38PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Retro Squad, Seinfeld
(S03E22) Like I said when we started this whole Retro Squad exercise, the reason why I picked Season Three of
Seinfeld is because during this year you really saw the show develop before your eyes from a pokey, single-story, funny, but unremarkable sitcom to a densely-packed, fast-moving, hilarious classic. And the season finale, "The Keys," is a great example of the show's metamorphosis. Jerry and George's dispute over the spare keys, the whole spare key trade-around among the Fab Four, Elaine's secret
Murphy Brown spec script, and Kramer's journey to L.A. are all crammed into this 30-minute episode. And there's
still room for stand-up bits and a really funny recurring joke.
Continue reading Seinfeld: The Keys (season finale)
Posted Sep 6th 2006 4:03PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Retro Squad, Seinfeld
(S03E21) I'm the only person I know who actually drives in New York. The funny thing is, the only reason why I drive is because I live 30 miles away from the city, and I tend to find that sometimes driving is much faster than taking the train. But if I were actually
living there, I'd ditch my car in a nanosecond. Most people who live in New York don't own a car, because it's too tough to find parking and the subway can get them to just about anywhere they need to go.
So why are so many episodes of
Seinfeld so auto-centric? Jerry has a car. Kramer has a car. George doesn't have a car here but eventually gets a car. Thank goodness for Elaine; she never got a car (and we find out later in the series that she's an illness-inducing driver). But, really, that ratio should at least be reversed, if not doubled (8 non-drivers for every driver, if you don't feel like doing the math). Oh, well. At least most of the driving-related episodes, including this one, are pretty good.
Continue reading Seinfeld: The Parking Space
Posted Aug 30th 2006 8:37PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Retro Squad, Seinfeld
(S03E20) I know this episode was produced over fourteen years ago, but it was still hard for me to recognize Catherine Keener in this episode. I'm usually pretty good at recognizing younger versions of now well-known actors, but even when I watched this episode the other day, I was surprised when the "Notes on Nothing" mentioned that Nina, Jerry's jealous artist girlfriend, was played by Keener. Maybe it was because she was younger, or it could have been her hair or something. Either way, she did a great job in this episode, foreshadowing how she'd do in movies like
Being John Malkovich and
The 40 Year Old Virgin.
Anyway, if you're a fan of Neil Simon, you probably loved that episode. If not, then it was still pretty damned good.
Continue reading Seinfeld: The Letter
Posted Aug 23rd 2006 8:35PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Retro Squad, Seinfeld
(S03E16 / S03E17) "And
you want to be my latex salesman."
For the last couple of weeks, I've been reviewing two
Seinfeld episodes each Wednesday so I can get them out of the way before the fall season starts. But this one has to stand on its own, because it's one of my three favorite
Seinfelds, right up in the pantheon with "The Junior Mint" and "The Contest." It's the culmination of what Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld and the writers had been building since the first episode of Season Three, chockablock with storylines, pop culture parodies, sports references, classic lines, physical jokes, and switcheroos. There's so much to talk about here, that I don't think I'll have the energy to go over another episode.
Continue reading Seinfeld: The Boyfriend
Posted Aug 9th 2006 4:04PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Retro Squad, Seinfeld
(S03E12) The synchonization of the airing and production orders of the Season Three episodes started to getting a little dicey as the series entered 1992. For instance, the episode "The Suicide" was produced before "The Subway", but was aired two weeks after "The Subway" aired . But since I'm trying to present these in the order they aired, I'm doing "The Subway" next.
At this point in the third season, the memorable episodes are coming with more frequency. And they're getting more daring; because most of the scenes were shot on a subway-car set specially made for movie and TV shoots, the episode had to be shot out of order without a studio audience. Considering the logistics involved in the previous audience-less episode, "The Parking Garage", this one was realtively easier to do. But it still wasn't easy. The results, though, are pretty damn great.
Continue reading Seinfeld: The Subway
Posted Jul 26th 2006 8:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, OpEd, Retro Squad, Seinfeld
(S03E09) This episode is always the one I remember as either -- using
Friends nomenclature -- "the one with all the flashbacks" or "the one with all the cut-ins." It's a format that
Seinfeld used rarely before or after this episode, but this episode seems to be rife with it. When George mentions how big his girlfriend Audrey's nose is, we cut to a close-up of Audrey's face, then we cut back. We see Jerry introduce himself to the beautiful Isabel as he's talking about it with George. Then, when he later explains to George how he tried to get Kramer to keep him from calling her again, we flash back to that, too. Add to that Jerry's imaginary "brain vs. penis" chess match, and this is one of the more conceptual episodes Jerry and Larry ever made.
Continue reading Seinfeld: The Nose Job
Posted Jul 24th 2006 8:28AM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV Royalty, TV on DVD
That's the word from Jason Alexander anyway. He revealed the news that the 7th and 8th seasons of the show will come in November while at the Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal.
This is good news for fans of the show that were worried that there might be some odd delay in the next DVD sets being released, since the most recent DVD sets for the show were released last year. These two seasons actually have some of the best episodes in the series (and how often can you say that about a show in its 7th and 8th seasons?), including "The Soup Nazi," "The Yada-Yada," "The Maestro," "The Sponge," and "The Checks."
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