Today is funny lady day.

Last night, while I should have been catching up on sleep, I was instead catching up on reading every single post (something I’ve only done twice, once here and here) by slut machine. Her blog, One D at a Time, is an intensely funny, extremely well-written, exploration of one woman’s sexuality, a repository for illustrated essays on celebrities that are probably gay, and her ongoing quest for the best bathroom to do a line and a dude in, among other things. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

And the other funny lady I’d like to talk about is Sarah Silverman. Tonight marks the debut of her new Comedy Central program, aptly titled “The Sarah Silverman Program.” I’ve had the good fortune of viewing two of the episodes, and if they are any indication of the rest of the season, the show will quickly become one of my favorites. It’s been receiving glowing reviews from a number of publications and I think The New Yorker’s take on it is a great primer for the show. It also features a snippet of dialogue from tonight’s episode with Officer Jay that is genius, “You know, being a cop, I’ve seen things that make you crap a book on how to puke,” he tells Laura. “But—I’ve never seen your kind of compassion.”

Here’s a video from the pilot:

And as an added bonus, a live set from 6/5/06 at The Largo that I recorded. Enjoy.

Have you ever wondered how Sir Ian McKellen gives such great performances? Hint: he pretends to be the character he’s playing.

In this hilarious clip from “Extras,” Sir Ian pulls back the curtain on his process and lets Ricky Gervais know exactly how he does it.

Pornographic publisher Dean Learner, and his most prolific, and horrific, writer, Garth Marenghi, have returned to the small screen with a new show called “Man to Man with Dean Learner.” The geniuses behind Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace have resurrected the characters and placed them in the world of the late night talk show. England’s Channel 4 recently started airing the 6 episode series last week. You can download the first episode here.

Man to Man is broadcast from Learner’s palatial penthouse apartment, and features Learner having a sit-down chat with a different guest each week in front of a live studio audience. For the first episode, Dean tapped the man who he “fell in like” with at first sight, Garth Marenghi.

Dean and Garth spend the episode reminiscing about the ups and downs of their long friendship, as well as Garth’s belief that the Dutch will pose the next world threat, and the hardships of a party with too few toilets. Garth takes the opportunity to plug his new book, “The Oeuvre,” a hardback collection of every novel he’s ever written, all in one easy-to-read volume.

And it turns out Garth has recently embraced his nascent painting abilities, as evidenced by a piece entitled “My Family Without Skin”:

The visual jokes on the show are clever, and some of the dialogue between host and guest is quite witty and enjoyable, but I can’t shake the feeling that a talk show isn’t the right format for these guys. While it does allow the actors to showcase their improv abilities, the show is marred by the raucous studio laughter, which seems especially high in the mix. The laughter is from an audience clearly in on the joke, as they’re laughing at Dean and Garth, not with them. This is in stark contrast to “Darkplace’s” laugh-track free audio.

“Darkplace’s” greatest strengths were the wooden acting, horrible dubbing, scandalously cheap special effects, and some of the most stilted and cliche-ridden dialogue to ever be put on film. “Man to Man’s” format precludes the use of any of these elements. That’s why it’s telling that the funniest moment of the show comes not from anything on “Man to Man,” but from a clip of Garth’s new film, “War of the Wasps,” which features all of the above mentioned attributes:

My new favorite show, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, will begin airing tonight on the Sci-Fi channel at 10 pm. If you haven’t already watched the episodes, I highly recommend giving it a view.

I watched 27 episodes of The Office americana in two days. I saw the pilot way back when and hated it, and as a result didn’t give the show much of a chance. I decided to give it another shot and boy am I glad I did. I could watch Jenna Fischer smile all day long.

They’ve used a lot of the best elements of the bbc version, but have also branched out in entirely new directions, which makes for a very entertaining show. I can’t wait for the third season. Anyway, I think my favorite episode is “Dwight’s Speech,” which you can download here.

I recently uploaded some episodes of Tom Goes to the Mayor for a friend of mine and figured I put the links up here as well. I was kind of on the fence with “Tom,” but after watching a few episodes I got used to the sensibility and started to really enjoy it. Anyway, Pipe Camp features Sarah Silverman in a fatty suit. I find it a little odd that I like everything she does except for her standup. As per this new rule, she was great in the episode too.

And Vehicular Manslaughter features Michael Ian Black.

Enjoy.

tvshowsondvd.com announced the release date today for one of my all-time favorite shows, “Stella.” Stella is comprised of Michael Showalter, David Wain, and Michael Ian Black. Season 1 will come out September 12. The set will contain all 10 episodes (215 mins) on two discs, plus tons of bonus features including “History of Stella” documentary, “Comedy Central Presents - Stella,” deleted scenes, extended takes and bloopers.

If you’ll recall I interviewed them back in 2004. The disappointing thing about Stella, and other alums of “The State,” is that most of the things they do are never appreciated when they first come out, the Stella TV show and its subsequent cancellation being yet another example of this. I saw Michael Showalter and David Wain speak and they said that there seems to be some sort of 6 year rule where 6 years after they do something it’s finally appreciated. Sad but true.

The season finale of “Wonder Showzen” was last week. On that episode there was a “special report” by Clarence the puppet about the state of TV. The entire episode is Clarence asking people what’s wrong with television and then telling them to make some compelling TV. Dramatic music underscores the fact that the people really have nothing to say. Then, in an odd twist, someone starts harassing Clarence. This clip encapsulates the whole episode.

I appreciate that Wonder Showzen is trying to push boundaries and mess with viewers’ expectations, but I really didn’t find this episode funny. I can see the merit in the idea of the episode, but the execution of it was just not that entertaining. It reminded me a lot of something an artist would do. Like putting a toilet in an art gallery to make people re-evaluate what art is. I mean, I like the idea of a toilet sitting in an art gallery, but let’s face it, toilets are fucking boring.

I was trying to think back of an example of a show where you realized, “Oh, they’re really going to do this for the whole episode,” but then you end up really enjoying it. I thought of an episode of Sea Lab 2021 where the entire 12 minute episode was a single shot of the Sea Lab headquarters and the lights were out. A bunch of the characters are trying to figure out what’s going on, why they’re trapped in the clost and the insanity and hilarity of Captain Hazel “Hank” Murphy carries the episode. That worked. I’m not so sure this Wonder Showzen episode worked, but regardless it made me think, and I belive that’s ultimately the goal the of show’s creators.

Download the episode here.

The 2 most recent episodes of Wonder Showzen have been really amazing. In the first one the gang has no budget and decide to go to Chinatown to buy a bootleg version of their show, which they then watch. The bootleg looks like a 3rd generation vhs dub and has tracking lines on it and skips quite a bit. The crew then declares war on the bootleg versions of themselves and after a brief scuffle they come to a truce. And then this happens:

Devendra Banhart, who I interviewed awhile back, is also in the episode. Download it here.

And then in the most recent episode it’s a full length parody of “Hee-Haw,” which I’ve never seen, called “Horse Apples.” They had previously done a “Horse Apples” segment before:

The episode stars David Cross, Zach Galifianakis, Will Oldham, Jon Glaser, Todd Barry and a ton of other funny people. Download it here.

The DVD cover art for two of my favorite shows was released today.

Here’s the cover for season 3 of Arrested Development, out August 29, which I will say again was the best show on television in forever.

And a week before that one comes out we’ll see season 2 of Veronica Mars, which features Alia Shawkat and Michael Cera from AD (one episode only), and is an equally entertaining show.