TVSquad

You know, I've always wondered about Creed's background. We know he was with the 1960's band The Grass Roots, he runs a fake I.D. business with a laminating machine stolen from the police department, he faked his own death so he could get benefits, he keeps bean sprouts in his desk, and he's been homeless.

Now maybe we'll get to learn even more about his background. In a major time-slot coup, it looks like a one-hour episode of The Office will air directly following the Super Bowl on Feb. 1, 2009. Exec producer Paul Lieberstein said these longer eps offer a great opportunity to delve into the characters:

One of the more interesting things to come out of the Silverman-Graboff executive session (which I promise will be up later today ... probably this evening) is that, though Amy Poehler has been signed to be in a show produced by The Office's Greg Daniels and Mike Schur, that show will not be an Office spin-off. It'll have the same comic sensibility and style as The Office, but the characters won't be part of the Office universe. However, a real Office spin-off is still in play, and there's potential for Rashida Jones to be a part of it.

Got that? Neither did the critics, who repeatedly asked mostly Silverman to clarify the situation during both the panel and the scrum that followed.

Aziz Ansari seems to be the hottest name around Hollywood casting circles. According to Variety, the stand-up comedian, who's also one-third of the MTV's acclaimed sketch team Human Giant, has been cast in the upcoming Office spin-off. He's also signed a one-year talent hold deal with Universal Media Studios.

What's interesting about this news is that Ansari was also tapped to play one of the new interns on the eighth season of Scrubs, which is produced by and will now air on ABC. What I'm guessing is that, since Scrubs will finish shooting in August, this deal will start after his deal with the veteran medical comedy ends. If there happens to be a ninth season of the show, as Bill Lawrence told me might happen, I'd imagine he'd come back after his Universal deal ends or they'll just replace him with someone else.

NBC's press tour day continued with a panel on Sunday Night Football.

When it concluded, panelists including Tiki Barber, John Madden and Al Michaels tossed out signed footballs to 10 or so lucky members of the press. Score! I caught the ball thrown to me by 2006 Super Bowl champion Jerome Bettis, formerly of The Pittsburgh Steelers, now an NBC sports analyst.

In my dreams. It actually sailed over my head to a journalist behind me. "Fumble," he said as he scooped it up.

Sometimes press tour swag can be elusive.

Sunday's edition of the Newark Star-Ledger had a good article about the relatively new phenomenon of online-viewable deleted scenes, and how show-runners have been utilizing them. Alan Sepinwall, the paper's TV critic, spoke to Greg Daniels of The Office, Jason Katims of Friday Night Lights, and Ronald D. Moore of Battlestar Galactica, about how they've been able to throw in little plot or character details in the deleted scenes, knowing that the fanatical viewers of each show will see them on the web.

Fox is giving King of the Hill a great lead-in: The Simpsons. The network announced that Hank and the gang are sliding back to the 8:30 pm timeslot on Sunday nights starting with the season premiere on January 28. The season premiere sounds pretty goofy. It's called "The Peggy Horror Picture Show" where Peggy befriends a woman with whom she can talk about her girl issues, such as not feeling feminine enough. Little does she know, her new friend has some issues of her own.

I often watch King of the Hill reruns on FX in the evenings as I'm making dinner, but I forgot that it's actually still on. When it resumes next month, it will be season 11 for the animated series.

The move from 7:30 to 8:30 bumps War at Home to Thursdays with unfunny 'Til Death. American Dad slides into possible oblivion at 9:30 pm.

I'm just catching up after the closest thing that I have ever seen to a hurricane blew through volcano country and knocked out the power for 30 hours, and my internet has just gone all Dunder Miflin on me. Anyway, there is a good article over at the L.A. Times about writers as actors and what that means for comedy on television.

The focus is on The Office as many of the members of the cast are also the writers of the show. Executive producer Greg Daniels (The Simpsons) goes through his reasons for choosing to move people from the writers room in front of the camera. And it's not just because he's lazy. There is a method to his madness. Given the mockumentary style of the show, he feels that unpolished actors that may seem awkward at times add to the realism of the show.

They also touch on the character of Toby. Played by Paul Lieberstein, Toby was originally intended as a bit part. But when NBC President Kevin Reilly saw the character he responded, "He's funny. More of him." And Paul's acting career was born. The story for Mindy Kaling's character, Kelly, is much the same. Both of them say that they prefer writing to acting. Joel talked with Kelly about this back in March as well. It's a good behind the scenes piece, and worth a look.

This may come as a shock to you, readers, but the writers of scripted television programs hate reality TV. And, do you know what they hate even more than reality TV? Network censors. If you've been watching Studio 60, you already know this. Those standards and practices people are such prudish little worrywarts - cowering in their offices, praying the FCC won't smack the network's hand for using the word "butt" in primetime.

This past Wednesday, television's top showrunners got together for a Hollywood Radio and Television Society luncheon where they got to grouse collectively about the twin evils of Mark Burnett and broadcast standards. Chiming in were Family Guy's Seth MacFarlane, The Office's Greg Daniels, Lost's Damon Lindelof, Gilmore Girls' Amy Sherman-Palladino and Battlestar Galactica's Ron Moore (pictured) among others. The discussion was facilitated by Jimmy Kimmel. How much would you have loved to be in that room? How much would I love to be working for any single person in that room - really, any of them?

(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.