TVSquad

The wackiest talent showcase (yes, wackier than America's Got Talent) is back with Comedy Central's The Gong Show. Hosted by Comedy Central veteran Dave Attell, The Gong Show will feature seven to ten bizarre acts each episode that will be judged by a rotating panel of celebrities. At the end of each show, the act with the highest score will be crowned the winner.

The premiere episode will be judged by Brian Posehn of Just Shoot Me, Steve Schirripa of The Sopranos, and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Other judges include Adam Carolla of Drawn Together, Kate Walsh of Private Practice, Andy Dick of Less Than Perfect, Ron White, Dave Navarro, Greg Giraldo, Jim Norton, and JB Smoove of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Comedy Central is presenting it's first unscripted series this summer called Reality Bites Back. Ten comedians will compete by making parodies of the most infamous reality shows. Whoever makes it to the end will win $50,000 in cash and the title "Lord of All Reality." And guess who's hosting? Michael. Ian. Black. The former State cast member will get to explain the absurd challenges and kick someone off the show each week.

Comedian contestants include Kyle Cease, Chris Fairbanks, Jeff Garcia, Red Grant, Tiffany Haddish, Bert Kreischer, Mo Mandel, Donnell Rawlings, Amy Schumer, and Theo Von. The series will satirize shows like American Idol, Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Biggest Loser, American Gladiators, Dancing with the Stars, and So You Think You Can Dance.

We've all seen the thousands of comedy videos that people upload to YouTube. Some of them are good, most of them are awful, and there are very few that you would describe as "brilliant." This guy is the latter.

They're from 17 year-old Bo Burnham, a Massachusetts teen who started uploading wacky songs a while back and became a viral video sensation. How much of a sensation? Hollywood agent Douglas Edley (who also reps Dave Chappelle and Drew Carey) saw the videos and called up Burnham. He's now his agent, and Burnham was signed to Comedy Central. He recently recorded an album for them and has filmed some comedy segments for the channel.

After the jump are a couple of samples of Burnham's work (check out more at the link above, especially "Cookout"). Warning: these are NSFW, or school, church, or ice cream social for that matter. But they are undeniably funny and very clever, and Burnham has the musical chops to back up the words.

Comedy Central has ordered a second season of the weekly series Lewis Black's Root of All Evil. Lauren Carrao, the president of original programming and development, made the announcement today adding that she was thrilled the second season could begin as early as this summer. Of the show's renewal, the comedian joked, "I am conflicted. I am thrilled it's been picked up but it means I have to go back to work."

For those of you unfamiliar with Black's show, it features a rotating set of comedians at a round table discussion of various pop culture topics. The press release gives "Dick Cheney Vs. Paris Hilton" and "beer vs. weed" as examples of past topics. The comedians argue who or what is the most evil and Lewis Black gives the final verdict. He also opens each show with one of his fiery monologues. Lewis Black also talked to TV Squad after the first season began.

Here are some of the comedians who have appeared on the show: Andrew Daly, Greg Giraldo, Andy Kindler, Kathleen Madigan, Patton Oswalt, and Paul F. Tompkins. The show returns on Wednesday July 30th at 10:30 p.m. ET/PT.

Disclaimer: TV Squad will soon be posting its own review of this Direct-to-DVD Futurama movie. Rather than keep our loyal readers in suspense, we'll be directing you to another review site until the DVD finally arrives in the mail.

Screen Jabber was able to grab an advance copy of the second Futurama DVD release, The Beast With A Billion Backs (lucky bastards). As a result, we are treated to a review by them.

The story takes place about a month after the events of Bender's Big Score. It seems that there has been a rip in time and space and a giant mutli-tentacled alien is reaching through to try and have sex with everyone on the planet (if two people having sex are the beast with two backs, then...well, you get the idea).

The giveaways continue... Now we've got three copies of Drawn Together Season 3 (Uncensored) on DVD for three lucky, random commenters. The DVD is already available in stores

To enter, simply leave a comment below before 5:00PM Eastern, Friday, May 23 telling us why you'd like to own this DVD set. As always, we'll randomly choose three winners amongst the eligible entries. Some other details:
Click here for complete Official Rules.

It looks like some extra goodies are being included with the South Park Season 11 DVD set. Not only do you get great episodes such as "Cartman Sucks", "More Crap" and the immortal "Imaginationland" story arc (I pray the season DVD includes the full commentary of the "Imaginationland" one), but the DVD also includes a 3-song download for the XBox version of the video game Rock Band.

This marketing move makes sense on a couple of levels. First, Trey Parker and Matt Stone are big gamers so they probably got some cool stuff that other gamers only wish they had access to. They even confess their hobby on one of their DVD mini-commentaries. Second, the season includes the episode "Guitar Queer-o", which uses the predecessor game Guitar Hero as central to the plot.

Comedy Central is reviving The Gong Show. The original '70s variety show featured amateur acts who tried to impress the celebrity judges panel and avoid ... the gong.

The new show, which is currently casting for tapings on both coasts in Los Angeles and New York, will be hosted by Dave Attell. Yeah, remember him? The former stand-up comic from New York had his own show on Comedy Central called Insomniac with Dave Attell. I used to love that show. Attell would walk around the streets of different cities (mostly here in the States, but he went aboard too) and talk to people who were completely inebriated. He also occasionally talked to people who worked night shifts. I think he'll be a great host for this new project.

I think that because this show is on Comedy Central, it's going to be way more interesting and entertaining than the train wreck that is America's Got Talent. What do you think? Will you watch the new Gong Show?

[via BuzzerBlog]

When I was younger, people I knew had various ways of smoking weed. One guy even made a bong out of an apple once. I didn't know it at the time, but now I look back and he seems like the MacGyver of pot smokers. Though he's not the only one who did such a thing, of course.

Case in point: the cover of the new Comedy Central Home Grown DVD. It's a DVD that showcases various episodes of Comedy Central shows, including Chappelle's Show, Reno 911, TV Funhouse, The Sarah Silverman Program, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, and Strangers with Candy. This is the cover that Paramount released to media outlets back in March. Now they've changed the cover to this, a closeup of a giant mushroom. Looks like they had second thoughts about having a bong on the cover of a DVD and decided to change it. Of course, I'm not sure if a mushroom connection is something they thought about all the way (and also having some people think of a penis when they see the cover, ahem).

The DVD comes out on June 10.

(S12E07) While the kids are on an educational field trip to a living museum called Pioneer Village, Cartman forces Butters to sneak away with him from the class to go to the amusement center located nearby. While they're having a good time at the amusement center, a group of thieves break into Pioneer Village and take the class hostage. Hilarity ensues.

This episode is the last of the first half of season 12. South Park will return later in the year with seven more episodes.

(S12E06) South Park, along with the rest of the country, has lost the Internet. As a result, Randy Marsh takes his family on a trek to California to find it.

As someone who is an Internet addict, I certainly can understand the dilemma of this situation. I don't think we could go back to being a society without Internet, much as we can't go back to being a society without phones, television or cars.

As someone who works with the Internet for his day job, I had some problems with the simplistic way that it was presented. The Internet is used for much more than shopping or e-mailing (or, indeed, porn). Entire industries rely on it. The only part that struck me as truthful was seeing people live in a Great Depression-type state without the Internet.

(S12E05) It must be very tough for Trey Parker and Matt Stone to keep outdoing themselves. I don't know which image from tonight's episode was funnier: the mouse with the penis on its back running all over town (and, at one point, singing at the moon) or the photo of Mickey Mouse with a huge erection. It's a tough call.

More after the jump...

(S12E04) The South Park guys are going after the Writer's Guild of America, and it's about time.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone are not members of any of the unions, and they negotiated Internet profit-sharing before it became an issue for the WGA. They have also remained consistent with their dislike of the Hollywood creative elite (including actors and writers, although they are both) and their willingness to take a different viewpoint than the popular media.

(S12E03) To begin, for those unaware, South Park Studios has started to offer full episodes of the show on their official site with limited commercial interruption. I originally reported this in November.

I'll say this: when the South Park team put their minds to it, they can come up with some fantastic animation. When you watch the crudity of the animation in standard episodes, it's easy to forget that they're pretty damn talented at their craft.

As the first Futurama straight-to-DVD movie, Bender's Big Score, begins airing on Comedy Central (they'll air the movie as a four-episode blok on Sunday night), Fox has announced the name and release date of the second straight-to-DVD epic.

AnimationMagazine.net reports that Futurama: The Beast With A Billion Backs will be released on June 24, and they note that Fox calls it "the most tentacle-packed Futurama epic." Since it's a continuation of Bender's Big Score, I'll talk about the plot of the new movie after the jump, for the benefit of those who haven't seen the first movie yet.