TVSquad

(S05E03) You know, I hammered The Office pretty hard last year about its use of Michael. I was worried that Michael Scott was going the way of late-period Homer Simpson: from buffoonish but believable head bee guy, to too-stupid-to-function lesser bee guy.

This season seems to be committed to undoing last year's damage. The Michael/Holly storyline has been sweet, surprising, and funny. Further, it's allowed for Michael's character to have some breathing room; giving him his "own" Pam seems to have freed the writers from making Michael so ridiculous that you feel he's less like a mid-manager from Scranton as much as he is a well-meaning sprite from the dimension Ergo.

Now, let's just hope that they don't ruin all that progress by giving Dwight something unbelievable to do like spending the episode destroying a $1200 stroller. Oh, wait...

So, if you're a High School Musical fan and if you live in New York, New Jersey, or California, you're in luck. To promote the new reality series, High School Musical: Get in the Picture, ABC is hitting beaches on both coasts with free ice cream, games and prizes. The promotional tour will begin this weekend and continue all month leading up to the premiere of the series. The show, hosted by Nick Lachey, will feature talented teens from all over the U.S. as they compete for a chance to be in the next High School Musical.

As if anything to do with High School Musical needed any more promotion...

The schedule for the tour is after the jump. High School Musical: Get in the Picture premieres on Sunday, July 20th from 8-9 p.m. on ABC.

Ben & Jerry's is jumping into the marketing mania surrounding the upcoming The Simpsons Movie by making a special ice cream flavor just for the premiere. It's called "Duff and D'oh-Nuts" and it's a combination of the two best flavors in the world-- at least, according to Homer Simpson. The ice cream is a combination of chocolate and cream stout with chunks of glazed chocolate donuts. As I typed up that sentence, my brain said "gross" while my stomach said "yummmm".

Now here's the bad news. It's only for the kind folks of Springfield, Vermont because they won the nationwide contest to host The Simpsons Movie premiere in their town next week. Ben & Jerry's is calling the new flavor "extremely limited, one-time and one-day-only flavor."

[Via TV Tattle]

I'm not always floored by what springs from the mind of Andy Milonakis, who, according to TMZ, recently gave a homeless guy a buck, but I like that he does his own thing and stays true to himself.

Before I joined the TV Squadders and before he had his show on MTV2 (The Andy Milonakis Show), I did a phone interview with the youthful-looking Milonakis (he's 31 now) about the Web videos he had been making that had caught the eye of Jimmy Kimmel and led to his deal at MTV. Back then, his humor didn't always hit, but when it did, I found it hilarious. And, even when it landed with a thud, I had to admire him for trying something different. Also, Andy and I are the same age and both seem to have a penchant for the absurd, so I was pretty much tuned in to his wavelength from the beginning.

Permits have been denied to the producers of The Sopranos to film in the town of Bloomfield, New Jersey on the basis of the show's "offensive depiction" of Italian-Americans. The producers had intended to film the series' final scene at Holsten's Brookdale Confectionery in Bloomfield. The permits for shooting were approved and then revoked after complaints reached Mayor Raymond McCarthy who was quoted as saying, "I don't think The Sopranos depicts the life of a typical Italian-American in a positive way, and I still don't like the way people see New Jersey based upon The Sopranos series." (The way people saw New Jersey pre-Sopranos was apparently downright Utopian.)

The filming permits are being reviewed again next week because of the flood of calls supporting Holsten's, the actual shooting location. As council member Peggy O'Boyle Dunigan said, "If you don't like the show, you can turn it off. It's hard enough to have a small business in town. I don't want to discourage them." If they get the permits, I guess we know where The Sopranos will finally end - in an ice cream parlor - hopefully, not in the freezer.

UPDATE: A loophole has been found because Holsten's is a commercial space. Filming will proceed as planned.

Ben & Jerry's has released the all-new AmeriCone Dream flavor ice cream, a salute to everybody's favorite faux right-winger, Stephen Colbert. Right now, it's as hot as an ice cream can get without turning into soup. Unfortunately, some people are having trouble finding supermarkets and stores that sell the flavor. Well, fear not, Colbert Nation members who are not lactose intolerant! The No Fact Zone blog has started a wonderful little project to help Colbert Report fans all across the US.

Here, you can find a Google Map of various locations that carry the flavor. The map is always growing because it is based on user-submitted finds. Track down a pint, or help out the rest of us by putting your local AmeriCone Dream store on the map!

It turns out the rumors were true after all: Stephen Colbert, that champion of liberty and master of satirical rhetoric has his own Ben and Jerry's flavor. Americone Dream consists of waffle cone pieces covered in fudge mixed in with caramel and vanilla ice cream. Damn, that sounds mighty tasty, though in my opinion Ben and Jerry's has yet to come up with a flavor that rivals Phish Food. When I eat Phish Food it's like being punched in the face with a boxing glove of flavor.

Speaking of Phish Food, Colbert rightly pointed out the liberal bias of Ben and Jerry's past flavors, and the liberal bias of dessert in general. I say it's about damn time our man Stephen was represented in the freezer aisle. Between this and sales of his potent man seed (Formula 401), he should be raking in the dough. Actually, Colbert is donating his proceeds to charity. He's a class act all the way.

The rumors have reached a fever pitch. Will Ben and Jerry's be producing a Stephen Colbert-inspired ice cream? Well, take a look at this. It's a packaging sample sent to Colbert fan site No Fact Zone by a Whole Foods corporate employee.

Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream. Vanilla Ice Cream with Fudge Covered Vanilla Cone Pieces and a Caramel Swirl. Ben and Jerry's will neither confirm nor deny the partnership. However, they did tell Salon that "...there's been a lot of experimentation with red, white and blue."

So truthy, it's giving me brain freeze just thinking about it.

(S18E07) I usually take on the role of apologist when it comes to The Simpsons, defending it against those who say it's not as good as it was in the early years. I still maintain the series is the funniest and smartest thing on network television, but even I can admit when an episode isn't quite up to snuff, and this one was nowhere near snuff, up to it or otherwise.

I'm enough of a fan of the show that even a mediocre episode still has enough to entertain me, and there were a few moments in this episode I thought were pretty funny, such as the dead ice cream man being buried with a giant ice cream scoop, or Homer taking Polaroids of himself to show Marge how sad he was that he wrecked her popsicle stick sculptures, but the basic plot had been done before (Homer upsets Marge by not taking enough of an interest in her and finally redeems himself in the end) and it's been done better.