TVSquad

Have you been watching The Line, the online summer series from Saturday Night Live cast members Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, and Jason Sudeikis? Well, then you might already be familiar with the newest addition to the NBC late night show.

The new guy is Bobby Moynihan, who costars in the online series (about two obsessed science fiction fans waiting in line to see a popular space movie). Others might know Moynihan from his years with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, including his improv work on ASSSSCAT (recently with this guy).

Mad Men is that rare show that is damn near perfect. Of course, I say "near" perfect though I can't figure out what fault the show has. Everything, from the acting to the writing to the direction to the set design to the music to the costumes - is so well done. Heck, even the secondary characters are drawn in a way you hardly ever see on a television drama.

OK, it is perfect.

Rich Sommer plays Harry Crane, the Sterling Cooper ad exec with the glasses and bow tie. The character is so well written and Sommer plays him so well. You know guys like Harry, whether it's 1960 or 2008. He's the nice, married guy with glasses, but he's not so nice that he isn't above joining in on the sexist talk with his buddies and drinking too much.

Rich was nice enough to talk to me via e-mail while he was filming the second season of the show, which debuts this Sunday (new day) at 10pm on AMC.

Last weekend, the original members of the Upright Citizens Brigade filmed four shows in LA for an upcoming DVD release from Shout! Factory. In an interview with The Coming, UCB member Matt Besser recapped the shows' highlights and announced that this may be the start of an actual DVD comedy label for UCB. Expect to see excerpts from the group's ASSSSCAT improv performances and sets from monologists Paul F. Tompkins, Tom Lennon and Kate Walsh on the DVDs.

Another interesting TV-related tidbit from the interview. Besser has been cast as Kayne West's chauffeur in the rapper's new show in development with HBO. Besser has spent the past month coaching Kayne in improv. Kayne doing improv? Looks like West may be vying for the title of hip-hop comedy king. Shouldn't be too hard to steal from Snoop "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle" Dogg.

Read the full interview at The Coming.

The four original members of the Upright Citizens Brigade - Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, Matt Besser and Matt Walsh - are reuniting to tape their signature ASSSSCAT improv show for a DVD release by Shout! Factory. Other early UCB-ers are expected to participate, including Chad Carter, Sean Conroy, Andrew Daly and Horatio Sanz. If you live outside of New York or Los Angeles, you may remember Comedy Central's televised version of UCB from their 1998 to 2000 run. Maybe this will jog your memory:

There are a lot of SNLers that go on to their own sitcoms. Others go on to star in movies. Still others end up playing guest roles on various shows. But how many current or former cast members of the venerable sketch show have created a cartoon series?

That's one of the reasons why I like Amy Poehler, besides the fact that she's one of the funniest people on the planet these days (I base that statement on her work doing ASSSSCAT at the UCB Theatre in New York, not her SNL stuff): she's willing to try projects that other comedic actors would never think of. As a good example of that, she's created a cartoon called Mighty B, where she will play the voice of Bessie, who TV Week describes as "the word's most ambitious 10-year-old Honeybee scout." Nickelodeon has picked up the cartoon and will air 20 episodes. It's part of a push to create new episodes of its animated series, including veteran ones like SpongeBob SquarePants.

Given Poehler's penchant for selecting odd character roles and her ability to do some great funny voices, this should fit right into Nick's surreal but kid-friendly slate of cartoons.