TVSquad

Well-read indie rockers the Decemberists, whose guitarist, Chris Funk, faced off against Stephen Colbert in an epic guitar battle that made that whole "Devil Went Down to Georgia" confrontation look like two little girls fighting over the last candy bar, are getting a bit of exposure again on Comedy Central.

This time, it's lead singer Colin Meloy, who will appear on an episode of L'il Bush voicing an "un-dumbed" Jeb Bush. I've placed a clip from the episode below.

Do you love professional tennis and completely unnecessary re-imaginings of classic cartoon characters and wish you could see a television series that combines them both? Well, you can't. At least not really. The closest you're going to get is the February 17 episode of Loonatics Unleashed that will feature tennis star Serena Williams as the voice of Queen Athena, leader of the Apacazons, a race of powerful women who confront the Loonatics while they're on vacation on a tropical island.

Williams also voiced herself along with her sister Venus on the Simpsons episode "Tennis the Menace." She has also appeared on ER, Law and Order: SVU, The Bernie Mac Show, My Wife and Kids and The Division. The Loonatics Unleashed episode will air February 17 at 8:00 a.m. on the CW.

Maurice LaMarche is the "go to" guy in animation when it comes to Orson Welles impressions. He used the voice for The Brain on both Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, and recently played a young Orson Welles in The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XVII." Back in the '90s, LaMarche made a few appearances on The Critic, playing the older, rotund Orson Welles who was far removed from his younger and more vibrant days, reduced to doing TV commercials and voiceovers. Unfortunate yes, but this is comedy, and the rule here is that pain and misfortune are always funnier than happiness.

After the jump, enjoy a brief clip from The Critic featuring LaMarche as Welles. It's one of my favorite moments from the series. The "green peaness" line cracks me up every time.

While recovering in the hospital from cancer surgery, the syndicated Ebert and Roeper has had a different guest host on every week to fill in for Ebert while he recovers. Now that it's been revealed that Ebert is actually going to be spending more time in the hospital than he initially thought, even more hosts have been lined up to keep the show going as he convalesces. The guests, which will appear on the show until the end of September, include Aisha Tyler, Fred Willard, television writer John Ridley, entertainment reporter Toni Senecal, and Chicago Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips. It is still uncertain when Ebert will be able to return to work, but I hope it's sooner rather than later. Having guest critics on is fun and all, but I do miss Roger.

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane spoke to Harvard's graduating class last Wednesday, but it wasn't part of commencement. Instead, it was for Class Day, which takes place the day before graduation ceremonies and was created to be a more relaxing send off for seniors than the "real" ceremony. MacFarlane addressed the crowd as several of the characters he plays on the show, including Stewie, Peter, and Quagmire. MacFarlane didn't attend Harvard, but he told the crowd he had been secretly living among them. Sounds like a pretty cool speech, but I'm not sure anything can top Conan O'Brien's address to the Class of 2000.

[via TV Filter]

Yesterday as I was getting ready to Tivo the Ricky Gervais episode of The Simpsons, I started to think about whether something like this had been done before, where an actor not associated with a cartoon was brought in to contribute to an episode. While I'm sure there's many, the only one I could think of was the Looney Tunes' short "The Mouse That Jack Built" which featured Jack Benny and his fellow stars from his famous radio and television program playing themselves as mice. The result was a hilarious short about Jack and his friends going out to eat at the Kit Kat Club, which turns out to be an actual cat. In the end, we're treated to a live-action shot of the real Jack Benny waking up from his nightmare, only to see the two mice from his dream crawl from his cat's mouth and scurry into a mousehole. Benny didn't write the episode, but by bringing in new voice actors with a more cerebral and less "cartoony" approach to humor, it resulted in one of the more unique Warner Bros. animated shorts when mixed with the slapstick and sadism for which these cartoons had become famous. Also, it should be noted that Mel Blanc, who voiced ninety-nine percent of the Looney Tunes characters, was also a regular on the Jack Benny Program, so maybe ol' Jack didn't need much convincing to appear in animated form. Rumor has it he asked for no money, just a copy of the cartoon. Oh yeah, and just to bring it full circle, the foppish shop owner on The Simpsons who says, "Yeeeeeesss???" is based on a character on Jack Benny's show. It's like a big ol' Mobius strip o' comedy.

So, my fellow cartoon-lovin' peeps, can you think of any other cartoons to turn themselves over to "new management" if only for one episode?