TVSquad

Napoleon Dynamite lead Jon Heder will star in a new Comedy Central sitcom written and produced via Will Ferrell's Gary Sanchez Productions.

Heder exploded onto the entertainment scene when Dynamite made more than $40 million on the indie movie circuit after costing less than a million to produce. He went on to star opposite Ferrell in the less funny figure skating movie, Blades of Glory. Now Ferrell will shepherd Heder's first TV venture.

The show doesn't have a title yet, but it reportedly feature Heder as "an out-of-work IT specialist who leaves the city and returns to his small hometown to live with his parents and younger brother."

Last month's triumphant return of the "Celebrity Jeopardy!" sketch to Saturday Night Live was a hilarious bit of celebrity snark genius. It is without a doubt the only sketch in the show's history that just gets better and better every time a new one is rolled out for the public to digest and enjoy.

The most recent incarnation of the sketch was no exception. In fact, it built on the solid foundation that lay before it by casting Tom Hanks as a clueless himself and bringing back Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds. MacDonald's appearance was funny not just because he does a scary good Reynolds, but I also like to think that every time he returns to the show, Don Ohlmeyer cries a little inside.

As much as there was to laugh at in the sketch, a tiny but hilarious joke seeped through the cracks and no one seemed to spot it -- until now. I have found the missing joke from last month's Jeopardy! sketch, thanks to my keen eyes, my intrepid nose and my ever-widening butt.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• Land of the Lost, the new Will Ferrell movie, opened in theaters this weekend. I'm kind of undecided about whether or not I want to see it, but Cinematical's interview with director Brad Silberling is pretty interesting.
• The Summer of '91: Truth or Dare, Boyz n the Hood, Thelma & Louise, and Point Break. It was a good time. Relive it with Cinematical.
• Although I'm not so sure about John Krasinski's beard in this film, I do like the idea of he and Maya Rudolph playing a couple. Plus, Away We Go is directed by Sam Mendes, who helmed American Beauty. I'm so there.
• In honor of this weekend's release of The Hangover, Cinematical Seven looks at Wicked Hangovers on Film.
• Wow. This is probably the greatest wedding invitation in the history of the world. Cinematical gets away with posting this by calling it a "short film," so I'm totally going to link to it too. The video is four minutes long, but it's amazing.

Conan O'Brien's return to late night television as the fifth host of NBC's The Tonight Show (six if you count comedy genius Ernie Kovacs) felt like a jogger who is pacing himself for a long marathon.

That might sound like a bad review. But compare that to Conan's constant high energy Late Night and that makes The Tonight Show a Jack Russell Terrier on at least three Starbucks espressos.

Conan put aside the puppets and characters for his opening night on the Universal Studios lot for a very enjoyable transition to the new Tonight Show that's sure to get better in the months and years to come.

(S34E23) Wow. Way to go, Will Ferrell. Maybe they should just bring back Saturday Night Live alumni for season finales from now on, because this episode was spectacular. Ferrell brought back some old favorites and a slew of famous faces, from the familiar to the inexplicable, including Amy Poehler, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway and Artie Lange. Here are some video highlights from the evening (Hulu vids are US only. Sorry, kids... you can also watch these videos at NBC's website).

Radner. Louis-Dreyfus. Poehler. Fey. Shannon.

Suffice it to say, the number of women who became famous on Saturday Night Live before graduating to solo success is few and far between. Sure, Gilda Radner can be considered a pioneer in the art of sketch comedy. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus undoubtedly honed her comedic skills before becoming a sitcom icon on Seinfeld. And, yes, Tina Fey can easily be considered a heroine to comedy nerds everywhere who have witnessed her climb from Weekend Update anchor to Mean Girls scribe to single-handedly decimating the vice presidential chances of one certain gun-wieldin', six-pack-totin' Alaskan governor.

But, sadly, the number of men who left Studio 8 for the superstardom of Planet Hollywood (not the theme restaurant) easily outnumbers the ladies. For every Amy Poehler, there's a Will Ferrell. And a Bill Murray. And a Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler (although, to be fair, there's also a David Gary Kroeger, A. Whitney Brown, and Charles Rocket for every Melanie Hutsell, too). (And for the record, no, you shouldn't recognize those names.)

Believe it or not (and like it or not), there are only two episodes left in the 34th season of Saturday Night Live. It looks like no one from my "Nine people who must host SNL next season" wish list actually did it, but that's okay because there were some great stand-outs anyway, including Anne Hathaway and Jon Hamm.

The show seems determined to end with a bang, bringing in two sure-to-deliver performers. May 9th will bring in Justin Timberlake (and musical guest Ciara) and season finale duties will be left up to former SNL player Will Ferrell.

I didn't expect to be charmed by a show about a dude who snorts blow off a loaded rifle.

HBO's Eastbound & Down turned out to be my favorite new comedy of the year. The show, produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, seemed like a one-note joke at first. It stars Danny McBride as Kenny Powers, a deluded and self-obsessed former baseball star forced to move back to his hometown and work as a middle school gym coach.

Surprisingly, this thing got funnier and more addictive with every episode. Danny McBride is great as the extremely vulgar Kenny Powers, and the show has a lot more going for it than most of Ferrell and McKay's juvenile big screen comedies.

Eastbound & Down had an abbreviated first season – only six episodes – but HBO just renewed it for a second season.

Who knew this was George W. Bush in reflection week? I must have missed the memo. But when I tuned in to watch the HBO debut of Will Ferrell: You're Welcome, America, his take on President Bush since the end of this presidency, I couldn't help but recall that just a couple of days ago on Hard Ball, MSNBC's Chris Matthews was going at Bush's former press secretary Ari Fleischer hammer and tongs as Fleischer defended his old boss.

Don't these post-mortems usually take a few years to take place? But this post isn't about politics. It's about Will Ferrell, and my thoughts are mainly about Ferrell's show, which has a certain raunchy charm, which apparently offended quite a few people when it played on Broadway. All the raunch is still in place in the HBO version, so if you're curious about Bush's little George (allegedly), check it out.

As much as there have been movies about the theater and movies about movies, the films that have been made about television are some of the best ever. This year alone, there are two movies nominated for Best Picture of the year by the Academy Awards that are all about television -- Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon. Without TV, neither of these films would exist. Looking back, here are the films about TV that set the standards by which Slumdog Millionaire and Frost/Nixon are measured.

It looks like even the magic formula that Will Ferrell and Adam McKay created to become comedy movie mavericks doesn't work on the aptly named "idiot box."

HBO's new Eastbound & Down bombed in its premiere episode and lost nearly 40 percent of the lead-in audience from Flight of the Conchords. It also only scored a measly .3 in the ratings, which is dangerously close to "HelloLarrydom."

But fear not, Ferrell freaks. This is HBO, the network that dared to mess with convention, give fledgling shows time to grow and kept Arli$$ on the air for six whole seasons.

I have to get something off my chest, and I'm not talking about my man boobs. It has to do with Will Ferrell. See, I like Will as an actor. He had some fine roles on Saturday Night Live and has proven himself a qualified movie actor. Some of his roles have even revolved around television show remakes. Unfortunately, those remakes tend to, um, not make fans of the original shows very happy.

Okay, they don't make me very happy. Sure, his redo of Bewitched was okay, but it really didn't have the "magic" and quirkiness of the old series. Now, he's remaking the classic Saturday morning show Land of the Lost. From the most recent trailer, it seems that Ferrell is going to go the action comedy route (heavy on the comedy) to draw in the audiences. For fans of the old Sid & Marty Kroftt series, this is not good news.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• It's super commercial night! There may be some sort of game on in between, but this is the day of sweet new ads. A few have popped up online already: check out the trailers for the Transformers sequel and Star Trek.
• ...And here are the trailers for Land of the Lost, starring Will Ferrell and Pushing Daisies' Anna Friel, Year One, Up, and more.
• "So you're just gonna make SPITE NOISE until the movie ends, huh? Just because I had the ignorance to ask you to stop talking during a movie. And you, the parents, condoning it. Brilliant." --Cinematical's Scott Weinberg did not have a good experience watching The Uninvited.
• I love Jennifer Garner and think she should be in movies all the time (that is, if she doesn't want to make me really happy by returning to television), so it makes me sad that she's doing movies like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It... doesn't look good.
• So I'm trying to find someone who would be interested in watching my baby for about 12 hours or so, so I can go to an AMC theater and watch all five Best Picture Oscar nominees. Any takers?

Ah, the celebrity roast. Comedy Central resurrected the tried and true comedian ass-kiss off with hilarious specials featuring Denis Leary, Flavor Flav, Bob Saget and William #*$&$ing Shatner. Then came the capper: a roast of music legend Willie Nelson. It was a shift in evolution so great, it could have made Charles Darwin buy into the theory of intelligent design.

Then the network caused a global groan so loud that it shifted the tectonic plates when they announced that Nelson had to cancel and they would replace him with Larry the Cable Guy.

It's such an obvious and safe choice that might be a good recipe for ratings, but it's a sure fire recipe for boring. Here are the iconic stars who would have made much better kindling for a white hot comedy roast.

Manofest has this great list of the twenty funniest Will Ferrell moments, picked from various moments of his career. There are a few clips from his film career (sorry, but no part of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby should be on this list, let alone exist), but most of the points harken back to his Saturday Night Live days. There are a lot of interesting choices; it's fun to look back and re-visit where Ferrell got his big break.

Check out the full list for videos. I don't recommend lingering on the Manofest site for long stretches of time, because they promise "masculinity times infinity." Halfway through the list, I blacked out and crushed four beer cans on my forehead. None of them were empty.