TVSquad

I thought I'd get this in before we get too far away from the Republican National Convention.

Conan O'Brien sent Triumph The Insult Comic Dog to St. Paul last week to cover the convention, and as usual the results are hilarious. He manages to get an interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. Well, at first Cooper just sends him a note from across the convention hall (I won't spoil for you what the note says) but Triumph finally gets a face-to-face interview with Cooper, where he lays down an awesome dig at MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews that Cooper laughs at (Cooper should be looking at Triumph during the interview but keeps looking at Robert Smigel instead).

Triumph also gets Wolf Blitzer. Actually, Wolf doesn't talk to Triumph, but that doesn't stop the dog from thanking Blitzer for keeping his porn name even after he got into journalism. There's also a mention of Law and Order, thanks to Fred Thompson, and he screams to Greta van Susteren and other pundits and hosts.

After the jump is the video (in two parts).

For those who haven't seen them, NBC has posted a set of hilarious videos involving Triumph the Insult Comic Dog appearing at the San Diego Comic-Con. Triumph creator Robert Smigel was at the event to plug the DVD of his short-lived Comedy Central series TV Funhouse, so it should come as no surprise that the puppet dog he created would show up as well.

Despite Triumph's insults against the nerd community, it should be known that Robert Smigel is a bigger nerd than anybody attending the convention. This is useful as he can at least insult fellow conventioneers with knowledge. This must make his insults sting all the more.

I had the pleasure of seeing Triumph live at a comedy concert. However, once you've been to one of his live shows, you can tell that his television appearances are heavily edited to make sure only his best bits appear. Despite this, Triumph remains hilarious to watch in any medium.

Videos are after the jump.

OK, so the writers and the studios have come to an agreement and the strike is over. Now we can start dumping on everyone!

The Writers Guild of America East held their awards show on Saturday night in New York City, celebrating each other and also the end of the three month strike. The event really got lively when Triumph The Insult Comic Dog (with help from Robert Smigel) took the stage and unleashed some choice barbs at the WGA. He also gets in a few shots at NBC head Jeff Zucker, the late night hosts, and John Ridley. There are too many funny lines to just reprint here (though nothing about pooping on the new contract, which is odd), but here are a few highlights.

Robert Goulet, who passed away this past week at the age of 73, had a lot of great credits on his resume: singing and acting on stage in Camelot and Man Of La Mancha, movies like Toy Story 2, and Grammy and Tony Awards. He also got drunk with a bunch of raunchy animal puppets.

But that was part of his sense of humor, the guy who do Broadway but also make fun of himself (I like this odd Emerald Nuts commercial.) After the jump are clips from TV Funhouse, the episode where the Anipals go to Atlantic City to see their successful friend Triumph The Insult Dog. Please note that the clips show animal puppets drinking, using bad language, and one real dog giving fake oral sex to a puppet dog. Thank you.

No, not the TV Funhouse from Saturday Night Live (that's already on DVD, a best of). I'm talking about the short-lived Comedy Central series that that Robert Smigel did in 2000-2001. Paramount has announced that the DVD is coming in December.

If you've never seen the show, it was truly one of the more bizarre TV shows we've ever seen on television. It took the form of a kids shows hosted by Doug Dale and his "Anipals," really crass, creepy puppets. Each show had a "theme," such as "Western Day" or "Christmas Day" or "Astronaut Day."

Like Paul, I don't watch the Tonys, which isn't saying much because I don't watch the Oscars or the Emmys, either. The only award show I'll watch is the People's Choice Awards, and only because I didn't figure out until recently that the winners aren't all chosen by Nia Peeples. I just have a lot of respect for her opinion, I'm not sure why.

Anyway, Late Night with Conan O'Brien's resident insult dog puppet, Triumph, was as the Tony Awards (equipped with his Gaydar 4000), and as usual when Triumph crashes an event, the results are freaking hysterical. I want so badly to list all of my favorite lines from the bit, but since I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't seen it, check out the video below.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien's resident funny dog Triumph was inducted into the Las Vegas Police Department's K-9 Unit at this week's Las Vegas Comedy Festival. The cigar-chomping insult comedian accepted the honor with gratitude, "This is really an honor for me because my brother was a bomb-sniffing dog. In fact, that's how he was able to find Ben Affleck's last three movies." Fortunately, Triumph refrained from sniffing any of his K-9 colleagues' butts and, as of yet, has not pooped on any unsuspecting officers.

The week-long comedy festival was sponsored by HBO and AEG. Most of the performances were taped for later broadcast on TBS including the Jim Henson Company's improv performance Puppet Up! and Comic Relief 2006. The festival also played host to Dave Chappelle's latest no-show.

There hasn't been much talk about NBC's broadband video site DotComedy, and I've only poked around it a little bit myself, but before the end of this year, NBC plans to kick the site into high gear with clips of old shows, including Late Night with David Letterman, Coach and Dream On, and classic TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and The Munsters.

In an effort to woo viewers, the site will take on an aesthetic more akin to Comedy Central's Motherload site and feature both original and viewer-submitted content. The original series include "Hot Tub in Space," about a group of friends, in a hot tub, in space; "Untitled Comedy News Show," a parody of news programs that will actually pay viewers for jokes; "Easter Bunny Begins," a prequel to "The Easter Bunny Hates You" (video after the jump); "Triumph the Insult Comic Dog: Live In Las Vegas;" and "Kyle's in a Coma," about a guy named Kyle, who, funny enough, is in a coma.

The improved DotComedy will also feature clips from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Saturday Night Live. What, they can show classic Letterman, but not Carson?

[via Market My Monkey]

Hey, that would make a great title for a Smigel-hosted talk show, but it's actually the title of this Entertainment Weekly interview with the comic, writer, and puppet master.

He talks about several things, including his appearance at San Diego's Comic-Con, his new Best of TV Funhouse DVD, picking on nerds in high school, Borat, and why he wants to get Triumph The Insult Comic Dog on the Home Shopping Network.

He also talks about something I didn't even know was in the works: a big-screen Ambiguously Gay Duo movie. He says that a couple of A-list comedy stars might play Ace and Gary, but he can't talk about who they are right now. Hopefully it's the actual people who do the voices, Stephen Colbet and Steve Carell.

Conan O'Brien is once again taking his show on the road... all the way to windy Chicago. For the week of May 9-12, Conan will broadcast from the Chicago Theater. It's not something he does every year. In 1999, Conan went to Los Angeles, but his all-time best trip was to Toronto, Canada in 2003 where Jim Carrey and the Barenaked Ladies made the audiences go nuts. And Triumph the Insult Comic Dog famously became a topic of discussion in the Canadian Parliament when he targeted French-Canadians in a legendary sketch.

When he visits Chicago, what does Conan need to see?