After Kad & Olivier sign off and the Satisfaction production logo fades, viewing audiences are oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly becomes the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Frenchman making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of...
wait, *what*?! That's right.
The Late Late Show's Craig Ferguson appears to have
a not-so-secret French admirer -- one who's not above ripping off both his opening titles and
his signature dance sequences (including
the iconic animal puppets):
"ABC" by The Jackson 5,
"Flashdance" by Irene Cara,
"On the Floor" by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull,
"Waka Waka" by Shakira,
"Men in Black" by Will Smith,
"Let's All Chant" by the Michael Zager Band,
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!,
"It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls, and
"Vive Le Vent (Jingle Bells)" by Tino Rossi.
Luckily, Ferguson's sense of showmanship is
more prodigious than litigious -- he responded to Arthur's "
homáge" by booking a pair of translatlantic crossover shows, with Arthur visiting LA that week and Ferguson flying out to Paris just last month. Video of both shows (plus lots more) inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jul 11, 2011 -
12 comments
Late Night Political Zingers. The best of Leno, Letterman, Fallon, Maher et al for those of us who don't have the time to watch. e.g. "New Rule: Stop asking Miss USA contestants if they believe in evolution. It's not their field. It's like asking Stephen Hawking if he believes in hair scrunchies. Here's what they know about: spray tans, fake boobs and baton twirling. Here's what they don't know about: everything else. If I cared about the uninformed opinions of some ditsy beauty queen, I'd join the Tea Party." –Bill Maher
[more inside]
posted by storybored
on Jun 28, 2011 -
43 comments
No time to read a babillion nineties Batman comics in the run-up to the
Dark Knight Rises? Cooking With Comics will
explain Knightfall for you in less than nine minutes! (SLYT) (
via)
posted by EatTheWeak
on Jun 11, 2011 -
24 comments
Larry Gonick is a veteran American cartoonist best known for his delightful comic-book guides to science and history, many of which have previews online. Chief among them is his long-running
Cartoon History of the Universe (later
The Cartoon History of the Modern World), a sprawling multi-volume opus documenting everything from the Big Bang to the Bush administration. Published over the course of three decades, it takes a truly global view -- its time-traveling Professor thoroughly explores not only familiar topics like Rome and World War II but the oft-neglected stories of Asia and Africa, blending caricature and myth with careful scholarship (cited by
fun illustrated bibliographies) and tackling even the most obscure events
with intelligence and wit. This savvy satire carried over to Gonick's
Zinn-by-way-of-
Pogo chronicle
The Cartoon History of the United States, along with a bevy of
Cartoon Guides to other topics, including
Genetics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, The Environment, and (yes!)
Sex. Gonick has also maintained a few sideprojects, such as
a webcomic look at Chinese invention,
assorted math comics (
previously), the
Muse magazine mainstay
Kokopelli & Co. (featuring the shenanigans of his
"New Muses"), and
more. See also
these lengthy interview snippets, linked
previously. Want more? Amazon links to the complete oeuvre inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 6, 2011 -
29 comments
30 and Pregnant "How did this happen?" he said. I couldn't believe he didn't know. "We were so careful." I sighed heavily, twirling a piece of spaghetti around my fork, feeling overwhelmed that now I would officially have to come down on one side of the cloth versus disposable diapers debate.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero
on Jun 3, 2011 -
212 comments
“According to Leanne Payne’s 1985 classic
Crisis in Masculinity, the main reason men become gay is because they’ve lost touch with their masculinity. This causes a void in their souls, which they then attempt to fill with other men’s dicks. To rectify this situation, I gave my life
a full heterosexual makeover . . .”
posted by Houyhnhnm
on May 23, 2011 -
92 comments
Today is a day to celebrate the Risen God. I mean, of course, Cthulhu, that most adorable of Old Ones, who stars in
The Adventures of Lil Cthulhu. If you haven't been eaten yet and need to waste time until then,
The Calls for Cthulhu series is a nice way to distract yourself from your impending doom. If all that cuteness isn't enough, or perhaps too much, then you might want to check out oldie but goodie
Cutethulhu.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 24, 2011 -
35 comments
"
English As She Is Spoke is a broken Portuguese-to-English phrasebook written by two translators, José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino. Sort of. You see, in reality, translator Pedro Carolino wanted to create a phrasebook on his own. Not knowing English, he took José da Fonseca’s French-to-English phrasebook and then used a Portuguese-to-French phrasebook to translate that. It’s sort of like what you and your friends do on Google Translate, but with a poor, mislead Portuguese man doing it by hand in candlelight."
[more inside]
posted by item
on Apr 18, 2011 -
52 comments
Years after its final broadcast, the award-winning, pond-hopping, cult comedy hit
Whose Line is it Anyway? is returning to television! Sort of! Tonight in just a few minutes,
Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza (
promo,
sample segment) makes its debut on GSN, reuniting Carey with popular "Whosers" Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, Wayne Brady, and
many more. Though the show will air every weekday, you don't have to wait around for new episodes to get your improv fix -- in spite of the lack of DVD box sets, there's a veritable treasure trove of past content available free from multiple online sources, including
the complete run of the American Whose Line on both YouTube and
fansite WatchWLIIA along with
every episode of the original UK run from Channel4's official YouTube channel and
their streaming video site 4oD. Too much content? Look inside for selections of the show's most hilarious moments as sampled from
the show's burgeoning TVTropes entry. See also:
Fan guide -
American episode guide (
UK version) -
List of game types [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 11, 2011 -
49 comments
The Ward (
Part 1 -
Part 2 -
Part 3) is a silly little Lovecraftian sitcom from the folks who bring us the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast. (previously:
1,
2,
3,
4) The guys Lackey and Fifer are also writing a graphic horror novel set in the Jazz Age,
Deadbeats.
posted by JHarris
on Apr 9, 2011 -
11 comments
10 O'Clock Live is a show currently airing on Channel 4 in the UK. It could be considered a British take on the Daily Show, but longer, weekly, with more discussion, and performed live. MeFi favorite
Charlie Brooker is one of their presenters, along with David Mitchel, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr. While focused on British issues, the show sometimes covers international topics, and is wildly funny. Here are some highlights:
Charlie Brooker: On Gaddafi - On Berlusconi - On the 'Big Society' - On Sarah Palin -
On the iPad 2 - On the English Defense League & the Daily Star - On Ed Miliband (Leader of the Labour Party, beating out his brother David) - On Prince Andrew
David Mitchell: On political hyperbole - On language in the media - On encouraging rich people to immigrate - On what to do with the Olympic Stadium
Jimmy Carr: As Berlusconi - On Product Placement
Lauren Laverne: Guide for new democracies - Inside the brain of Ed Miliband - British PR companies helping tyrants
Everyone on David Cameron on The One Show (this one's awesome) [more inside]
posted by JHarris
on Mar 24, 2011 -
84 comments
Romantically Apocalyptic is a morbidly funny webcomic from Russo-Canadian digital artist
Vitaly Alexius (
interview,
gallery). Set in the
starkly diaphanous wreckage of post-nuclear Manhattan, it follows
an eccentric contingent of Soviet soldiers as they poke through the detritus of the past and contend with the mutants, cultists, aliens, and other horrors that inhabit the ruins. The comic's
striking art style is the result of an arduous process, using
"Photoshop, live actors, dead actors, sexy assistants, greenscreen, a camera, and a Wacom tablet" to composite "6 years worth of textures: 1 terabyte of stock footage, shot in real abandoned, forgotten places of our world." This multimedia ambition has burgeoned into plans for a
community-powered animated/live-action web series (
teaser video,
animatic,
fanart). While waiting for that to come together, be sure to spend some time on
Kimmo Lemetti's excellent
Gone With the Blastwave (
previously), a very similar webcomic project with a more subdued palette that turned out nearly fifty pages of richly-illustrated post-apocalyptic humor before going on indefinite hiatus.
posted by Rhaomi
on Mar 3, 2011 -
18 comments
Social news site
Reddit recently held their
"Best of Reddit 2010" awards honoring key players in the site over the last year, including the progenitor of
the Rally to Restore Sanity, the clever drive-by cartoonist
Sure_Ill_Draw_That, unofficial image host
Imgur, and feel-good story of the year
"Today you, tomorrow me." But perhaps most interesting was the winner for Best Big Community:
FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU! Originally inspired by 4chan's popular
Rage Guy meme, F7U12 (for short) is a clearinghouse for user-made web comics, slice-of-life affairs that
tell a story or
share a common frustration using
a small collection of crudely drawn yet highly evocative facial expressions. Several have become small memes in their own right -- the wily
Trolldad, the doormat
Okay, the prideful
Fuck Yea, the melodramatic
Gasp. And
one comic, inspired by the warped text randomly generated by
reCAPTCHAs (
previously), has given us
Lord Inglip --
god of
a dark religion now
rivaling FSM whose
cryptic commands marshal
loyal armies of
gropagas,
falcows,
Sellicks, and...
canary into exploits both
monstrous and
inconvenient (
timeline,
wiki). Obey him --
or else! More fun with F7U12:
rage face origins,
rage faces in real life,
Twitter feed,
search comics,
create your own (
alternate).
posted by Rhaomi
on Feb 8, 2011 -
168 comments
