TVSquad

Another week, another guest star announced for NBC's 30 Rock. But this is one I'm actually looking forward to.

Actually, I'm looking forward to all of the guest stars that have been announced for 30 Rock this season (OK, maybe not so much the Gossip Girl cast), including Jennifer Aniston and Oprah Winfrey. But this one seems particularly impressive and funny. Steve Martin will appear on the Thursday night comedy.

Hopefully the gelt you received this past holiday season hasn't been all used up on paying your credit card bills for the gifts you gave this holiday season. That's because there are a number of books about television that you could be using that free money towards. There are books about TV shows, books about TV characters, books written by TV characters, and just general television history books. There are so many books about television already out or about to be released that you could easily spend countless hours reading them on the steps of your local library after the nuclear holocaust.

Just don't break your glasses.

So, here are eight titles to get you started.

Man, that must have been a hell of an after-party Saturday night, huh?

Saturday's episode, hosted by Alec Baldwin, set the record for guest cameos: Tracy Morgan, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Tony Bennett, and Paul McCartney all showed up to help bring some juice to what turned out to be a middling episode (the Nancy Pelosi sketch and the Baldwin/Martin sketch were good, as was Alec's line, "Bobby McFerrin raped my grandmother," but that was about it). Some of the participants, like Short and McCartney, were true surprises, but the others weren't. Why? Because NBC's promotions department are a bunch of putzes, that's why.

I suppose by now I should have been prepared for this. Prepared to be let down... again. You wait for something and build it up in your mind and when you finally get it, it's so far from what you imagined you feel like you've been duped (although I think the technical term for that now is "James Frey-ed"). Am I painting a clear picture? Talk about a disappointment. This feels worse than finding out Santa Claus doesn't exist while at the same moment receiving a call from your doctor confirming your gonorrhea diagnosis.

Cold Open - See, now this was misleading, because I thought this was hilarious. It was a pre-taped segment where Steve Martin was on a date with Kelly Ripa. It seems her and Steve have been involved for a while and that she had plans to leave her husband for him. So Steve pops some Viagra. Subsequently, his ETB ("estimated time to boner") clock pops up. Suddenly he receives a call informing him that Alec Baldwin is going to host SNL tonight and break Steve's hosting record. He rushes to the NBC building, sneaks inside Baldwin's dressing room, strangles him, wraps him in some carpet, and chucks the body out a window where it lands on the Rockefeller ice rink. Favorite part? Steve rushes by Lorne with the body while Lorne stresses about not being able to find Baldwin. He tells Will Forte to get Tom Hanks on the phone. At this point, Steve punched Lorne. Doesn't that sound funny? Too bad they couldn't keep it up.

 

Ladies and gents, Steve Martin will be coming back to host Saturday Night Live on February 4. Whoo-hoo! This guy is such an important part of SNL history, it's as if he used to be a cast member himself. Actually, a lot of people think that Martin used to be a player, but nope, he's like Benjamin Franklin to the presidents (just because he's on the $100 bill doesn't mean he was ever president, y'know). Anyway, this will be an exciting episode. I hope they do this legend justice.

Prince will be the musical guest (I'm trying to think of some sort of Prince-like squeal to express happiness but I can't figure out how to spell it). I hope he and Fred Armisen (who sometimes plays him on the show) will do something together... Hey, maybe Steve Martin can bring Beyonce (his co-star in the new movie, The Pink Panther) to fill in for new mommy Maya Rudolph and Prince can fill in for Armisen! That way, they'd have a real "The Prince Show"! Oh man, that'd be twelve different kinds of awesome.

Remember the good ol' days of Saturday Night Live? You can. On your video iPod, or just on your computer. This week, iTunes released all sorts of video clips that span the last 30 years of Saturday Night Live. You can purchase individual sketches, including The Hanukkah Song, Wake Up and Smile, Schwetty Balls, Motivational Speaker, plus a few oldies-but-goodies like Word Association with Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor, and King Tut with Steve Martin. There are also all sorts of commercial parodies such as Colon Blow, Oops I Crapped My Pants, and Mom Jeans (what? no Clear Gravy?). You really have to love those sketches, though, because they each cost $2. The collection is by no means complete, but it looks as though SNL is just getting started. For instance, I didn't see any of the Wayne's World or Church Lady sketches available for individual purchase. However, those are included on the "Best Of" compilations that are also available for download, for $10.

Our good friends over at Cinematical are reporting that the Oscars, rejected by everyone from Chris Rock (well, to be fair, he wasn't actually asked to host) to Billy Crystal (too busy) to Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg, may finally have a real live host....The Daily Show's Jon Stewart! Okay, it hasn't actually technically been confirmed yet, but we knew you'd be as excited as we are to hear this rumor, and since it was started by the LA Times "The Envelope", it has some cred. This is even better than getting William Shatner to host!  Stewart, with his political snarkiness and awesome comedic timing, is the perfect choice to host the Oscars (and I don't say that just because he's my secret TV boyfriend, either). Now for the real question -- will he work in Steven Colbert interviewing Oscar nominees? Oh please oh please oh please!

I still like the idea of a reality show to pick next year's Oscar host, though.

[ via Defamer ]