#HA! TV Comedy Network

[jimintomystery]

We've got to strengthen our knees Strengthen our knees for comedy We've got to strengthen our knees Strengthen our knees for HA!

[fredalan]

The Talent Pool HA! TV Comedy Network 1990

"Performance Artist" was the term of art in the late 80s. As producer Christine Ecklund remembers co-creator Albie Hecht's definition, "...longer form material, no joke tellers. A downtown feel."

Monologist Spalding Gray had a hipster success with his performance piece (and eventual film) "Swimming to Cambodia." His recitation of his travel, writing and acting experiences, mixed pathos and humor to engaged audiences for several years in New York theater.  

When MTV Networks launched HA! in 1990 we pitched channel head Debby Beece that among Gray's contemporaries were humorists with the goods that would hone the network's reputation with up and coming talent.

"The Talent Pool", an anthology of performance artists, set up shop in midtown Manhattan's Lamb's Theatre, site of a beautiful gospel brunch, and started casting. Between Chauncey Street and the network we settled on a pretty stellar bunch (pictured above from the top):  

• John Leguizamo is a writer and actor who went on to win four Tony Awards, appear in over 100 films, and whose Columbian/Latino roots and community are always up front.

• Lewis Black, who's angry rants about history, politics, religion, and cultural trends eventually gave him a regular perch on "The Daily Show."

• Jim Turner became a star when MTV presented him as his creation ‘Randee of the Redwoods’, and later acted in movies and TV. 

• Frank Maya was one of the first openly gay performers to gain a foothold in mainstream stand-up comedy, who sadly passed away from AIDS in 1995.

• Danitra Vance was a comedian and actress who came to great attention in the 1985 season of "Saturday Night Live." She was on The Talent Pool during her diagnosis and eventual death from breast cancer. She was awarded with an Obie and NAACP Image Award. 

• Chucklehead was a troupe whose comedy addressed fears of the Cold War, entropy, mortality, and the likelihood not enough tickets would be sold at their shows.

• Julie Hayden was a delightful writer and actress who was later in Ben Stiller's "The Cable Guy" with Jim Carrey, She was finding her way in the TV pilot season when she died of cancer in 1997. 

• Jeffrey Essman (not pictured) is often referred to as avant-garde, but he’s a hilarious writer, an often costumed performer and, a Benedictine monk.

• Barry Yourgrau (not pictured), a South African born writer and performer, has published several books and whose fictions have appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, VICE, Bomb, Poetry, Film Comment.

The show wasn't particularly highly rated, but we were completely taken by each of our fantastic cast and heartened when so many of them went on to highly visible and acclaimed careers. ..... Created by Albie Hecht & Alan Goodman Producers: Christine Ecklund, Craig Coffman Directors: Craig Coffman, Dana Calderwood Business Affairs: Elliot Krowe, Jim Arnoff Executive Producers: Alan Goodman, Albie Hecht, Fred Seibert  Chauncey Street Productions, New York

[neil-gaiman]

I'm incredibly glad that Amazon have let you pursue your creative vision so that we end up with a Good Omens that 100% reflects you and Terry, but do you ever have any qualms about working with a company so generally exploitative and unethical? How do you reconcile that?

Probably the same way that people using Tumblr who don't like Amazon cope with the fact that Tumblr runs on Amazon Web Services.

Good Omens was meant to have been made originally by the BBC, but the budget cuts that the BBC has endured over recent decades meant that once they had approved the scripts they also had to face the facts that they couldn't afford to make it without a partner. They approached a number of potential partners and the only one who was willing to come on board and who enthusiastically understood and embraced what Good Omens as TV could be was the Prime Video comedy department. So the BBC did it with them and with BBC Studios producing. (For season 2 the relationship changed slightly and BBC studios is making it for Amazon.)

I very much hope that Amazon workers get to unionize, and get treated better, and that the Amazon shopping interface goes back to being useful rather than a parade of sponsored irrelevance. And at the same time I've worked with many other streamers and studios and networks and I am very grateful for the people and the culture at Prime Video.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

Daily OFMD Renewal Tasks - Updated 01/31/2024

Hey all! These were starting to get a bit big for the Recap, so I'll link here instead. I'll keep this updated every day so feel free to reference back here and I'll link to this inside the Recaps.

==Things to remember==

Keep it positive! We are wooing them!

Only address one platform at a time!

Make it personal! Tell them why you want to be on that platform (inclusivity, diversity, other shows that are similar, etc)

“It’s okay to reuse some content with new tags but try to space the posts out a couple hours so they dont stack up on top of each other in hashtag very obviously.” -Jac

==Today's Hashtags==

#AdoptOurCrew

#SaveOFMD

#FinishOurStories

==Platforms to Reach Out to==

Netflix

AmazonPrime

AppleTV

If you reach out on the social medias, you can cater to individual mission statements per platform.

Cheat Sheet Below provided by @aproperpirate on Twitter

If you wanna talk about the shows creativity, feel free to reference Ra Vincent's site, he was the Production Designer for OFMD. Great inspiration and pictures to use to show off to the networks.

It's also helpful for Amazon to show them the international reach

== Vote on the Queerties! ==

You can vote once a day!

Best TV Comedy

Best TV Performance

== US Social Media For Each Platform ==

Instagram:

Netflix @netflix

PrimeVideo @primevideo

Apple TV @appletv

Threads:

Netflix @netflix

PrimeVideo @primevideo

Twitter:

Netflix @netflix

PrimeVideo @PrimeVideo

Apple TV @AppleTV

Facebook:

Netflix @netflix

PrimeVideo @PrimeVideo

Apple TV @AppleTV

==Daily Helpful Tasks:==

1. Push That Petition

2. Fill out Feedback forms:

Make sure to request Our Flag Means Death on all the platforms, and indicate why you like the show (if that's an option) and keep it positive. Source: @Lcmwriter100 on Twitter

Netflix

AppleTV - looking for an example letter? Check out @saltpepperbeard’s post

AmazonPrime

For Amazon Prime - Courtesy of @yougotofast over on twitter.

Existing Prime subscribers, you can access a Suggestions/Feedback form on the Prime Video app in the Settings > Help & Feedback section. The form is automatically tied to your Prime account, not sure if that makes any difference compared to anonymous feedback.

3. Platform/Article Engagement

HBOMax

If you still have HBO Max, please still go ahead and stream Our Flag Means Death, it keeps up engagement and numbers.

Search Our Flag Means Death on Netflix

If you have Netflix, after your search, stream the first title that comes up for a few minutes.

Article Engagement - Source: @candiedsilkmoth on twitter

@itsmfgames Has been kind enough to be keeping up a running list of Articles about the campaigns -- so if you have the time and want to go catch up on some articles, please checkout the guide below and visit this google doc for the list!

4. Make Calls

Contact Netflix and say why you love OFMD

You can call them at (844) 505-2993 as well and let them know about a hoard of pirates looking for a new home. You're welcome to try their toll free number as well (888) 638-3549

5. Daily Link Clicks to keep up engagement

Our Flag Means Death Wikipedia Page

Google Search for Our Flag Means Death

Google UK Search for Our Flag Means Death

Our Flag Means Death IMDB

Current @renewasacrew Daily Links:

Tumblr

Twitter

Instagram

For Industry specific help see @TheCozyPirate on Twitter as well. I will try to include any pertinent information in the Daily Recap or here, but if you have twitter they're a great resource

== RADIO! ==

Some awesome new suggestions from @AdoptACrew Check out the thread here. Link to the NPR suggestion site: Here

=== Staying a Polite Menace to Max ===

For those of you who are still up for it-- We are still contacting Max and Commenting on their posts. Thank you @asgardian--angels for the reminder! I'll update this section with more details tomorrow once we have some more.

Current focus with Max is less requesting Renewal and more to Expressing Disappointment about them cancelling marginalised Stories (OFMD, Rap Sh!t, etc), specifically to give them bad PR.

We're still letting Casey Bloys and David Zaslav know no peace.

As usual please be polite, we're not letting max off the hook, but Monday there will be a news article coming out regarding this (Source: Jac (@TheCozyPirate) on Twitter))

==Media Resources (Pics, Gifs, Vids)==

Gifs, Pics, and Videos to use: show clips to use Src: @havethisonelife

Our lovely @kiwistede made some great custom gifs you can use to tweet and message the platforms with. Check out their tumblr here

== Stats ==

Some Cool Stats you can use:

==Infographics==

Some folks like infographics instead of text so here's some stuff for you! Courtesy of @edandstede on Twitter

I have a limited amount of pictures I can put on one post so here is a google drive with more: Google Drive

==Other ideas for engagement:==

Courtesy of @sandwrite2 on Twitter

[adamsmasher]

Okay it's after 1am and I've had a lot of wine so obviously it's time for a late night wall-of-text post, but this time it's less likely to piss off your weird uncle or whatever because once again, I gotta talk about the best $4.99 a month I've ever spent.

Please, if you haven't yet, I'm begging you to look into all of the incredible content available on the Dropout.tv streaming service (formerly known as College Humor) . Not only did Whose Line Is It Anyway's Wayne Brady say that the Dropout crew are the only ones doing improv comedy on the same level as Whose Line, but they were also one of the only studios/streaming services allowed to work during the writers' strike because their contracts went above and beyond industry standards. (And, from my own observations, Dropout LOVES hiring queer, trans/nonbinary, and BIPOC performers + crew. Obviously I don't know much about the industry, but they seem like one of the most inclusive companies in Hollywood.)

"Alex, thanks for the recommendation! What shows do they have that you think I'll like?" Oh, you're asking me to gush about my favorite tv shows? Don't mind if I do!!!

Are you D&D curious, but took one look at actual play shows like Critical Role and thought "6 hours an episode? and there's like 750 episodes or whatever? oh baby not my adhd ass..." Don't worry, me too (sorry CR I love you I promise). But Dropout has a show called "Dimension 20" where comedians play Dungeons and Dragons with emotional, immersive storytelling, gut-busting laughs, and spectacular set design that makes you forget it's a fully improvised series controlled by the roll of the dice. They even did a miniseries perfect for D&D beginners called "Dungeons and Drag Queens" where absolute novices and Drag Race royalty Jujubee, Monet X Change, Alaska Thunderfuck, and Bob the Drag Queen embark on an adventure full of mystery, intrigue, and stupidity. I mean, Alaska plays a muscle-bound, axe-wielding, caveman-grunting Orc named Princess, what more could you want? Plus, the primary game master Brennan Lee Mulligan is so easy on the eyes. Oh, you're not into dorky ginger dudes? How about Aabria Iyengar, a 6 foot tall goddess who's equally as nerdy as Brennan but loves basketball. that's right, if nothing else, there's eye candy for every person in every season.

"Oh, why aren't there any good game shows on TV?" you wonder, wishing that the Game Show Network could come up with something that isn't a lame remake of a free-to-play phone game. Well how about Game Changer, "the only game show where the game changes every show (except for [...] Game of Games, Taskmaster, and a few others that have come to light AFTER [Game Changer first aired]. That's right, [the] players have no idea what game it is they're about to play. The only way to learn is by playing, the only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning." And yes, I did sit there and watch the beginning of an episode to make sure I was accurately quoting Game Changer host (and Dropout CEO) Sam Reich's description of his flaghship game show that has THREE separate spin-offs. (for context, he only mentions the other shows that copied his in the one episode I pulled up to get an accurate quote. could you imagine how uncomfortable it would be if he said that every episode? hah!)

Are you more of a traditional Whose Line fan? Look no further than Game Changer spin-off Make Some Noise, where contestants act out "improvisational prompts that [they have] never seen before, isn't that right contestants?" ("We won't know if we've seen them before or not until we see them!" Brennan insists every time he's on...)

You like musicals but wish they were less... ya know, scripted? Check out "Play It By Ear", a fully improvised musical! (you may be familiar with its primary cast members Jess McKenna and Zach Reino from the podcast that inspired it all, "Off Book: the Improvised Musical Podcast with Zach and Jess")

Or maybe you're more into trivia, cuz you're a total nerd like me (and every single performer that's ever appeared on dropout.tv). How about "Umm, Actually" where contestants are given an incorrect statement and have to buzz in to correct it - but you have to say "Umm, Actually" first!

Straight up, you can't go wrong on Dropout. Please, check it out. They're nearly doubling the amount of original shows they have in 2024, and no other streaming service is doing it like them. If I haven't convinced you yet, get the 7 day trial and give em a chance. There's no referral code I can give you that gives me some sort of kickback or whatever, I genuinely wrote what looks like a thousand word essay about Dropout at 1am just because I love them so much.

[volleypearlfan]

Where are the teenage/YA cartoons?

Recently, two cartoons that were slated to be on Cartoon Network, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal and My Adventures With Superman, are now going to be on Adult Swim.

To me, this move makes no sense. These shows could have diversified Cartoon Network’s very barebones lineup, but they were shoved to Adult Swim. I sorta understand Unicorn, as it is dark (but definitely not on the same level as Primal, one of Genndy Tartakovsky’s other shows), but My Adventures with Superman? That show seems pretty innocuous. It has a bright color palette and doesn’t seem similar to Harley Quinn or the later seasons of Young Justice.

This reminds me of the desperate need there is for teen/YA-oriented western cartoons. In western animation, there are three primary audiences:

Preschoolers; anything rated TV-Y, shown on PBS Kids, Nick Jr, Disney Junior, or Cartoonito. Example: Doc McStuffins.

Big kids/elementary school crowd; anything rated TV-Y7, can be seen on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney Channel. Example: The Amazing World of Gumball.

Adult; anything rated TV-14 or TV-MA, seen on Adult Swim, Comedy Central, or the prime time Fox lineup. Example: Rick and Morty.

That’s it. Despite what the rating of TV-14 might lead you to believe, the stuff on Animation Domination or Adult Swim isn’t targeted to teenagers, obviously.

This leaves teenagers in a weird spot when it comes to watching cartoons (western ones, that is. They definitely watch anime). They tend to stick with big kids and/or adult cartoons, like Avatar. With all of the heavy subject matter it and Korra tackle, they definitely feel more like teenage cartoons, especially since they were inspired by anime.

I bring up anime because they have clearly defined demographics, including teenagers. They have manga/anime for teenage boys, shonen (Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z), and teenage girls, shojo (Fruits Basket, Kamisama Kiss, Yona of the Dawn).

Shojo anime (except Sailor Moon) pretty much never air on American TV, but when shonen anime are exported here, they end up on Adult Swim’s Toonami block. For example, Demon Slayer aired on Toonami (they had to stop airing it because it got too expensive), and in America, the Mugen Train movie was rated R. This despite Demon Slayer being aimed at teenagers, and also being enjoyed by small children in Japan. They even had a Japanese Happy Meal promotion that ran alongside Pretty Cure, a show that actually is aimed at small children (kodomomuke).

With America’s teenagers flocking to anime, I believe that the American animation industry should keep up with the times and try to capitalize on the teenage demographic instead of shoehorning shows to be for elementary schoolers or adults.

Here are some western cartoons I believe could be classified as YA/teenage shows:

Avatar and Korra, as mentioned above.

Most cartoons aired on MTV, such as Daria, Beavis and Butthead, and Clone High. It helps that MTV itself was aimed at teenagers. Aeon Flux is an exception however, as it is clearly for adults. They’re often shoehorned into the category of “adult animation,” but their subject matter is more appealing to teens.

6teen. It’s right there in the title! Canada knows what’s up.

Total Drama, another Canadian cartoon. I know that they made the younger-skewing DramaRama spin-off because teenagers weren’t watching cartoons anymore, but now that the main show is coming back, it will definitely be aimed at teenagers again.

Sym Bionic Titan, yet another Tartakovsky show, pretty much is a teen/YA show, minus swearing. If I remember correctly, it aired on Toonami for a little while.

Regular Show. The most obvious example of a YA cartoon disguised as a kids cartoon.

Infinity Train. Never forget that it was cancelled because “no child entry point.”

As Told By Ginger is essentially a teen drama in animated form.

Invader Zim - Nickelodeon asked Johnson Vasquez to make a show directed towards older audiences, got exactly what they wanted (most of the viewership was from teens and adults, especially of the shops-at-Hot Topic variety) and cancelled it anyway.

Arcane is technically an adult series, but League of Legends is rated T by the ESRB, so I’m putting it in the teen/YA category (there IS a distinction between ‘young adult’ and ‘adult’)

I highly doubt that the likes of Nickelodeon will add a teenage animation block to their lineup (and TeenNick is nothing but iCarly reruns), but I hope that streaming services will start capitalizing on the YA demographic for western animation. Bee and Puppycat is a good start, featuring relatable young adult situations while technically being watchable for all ages. At least Unicorn is gonna air on ACME Night, which isn’t too late in the evening (currently, the block starts at 5:30 EST). And with Clone High and the aforementioned Total Drama making a comeback, I’m holding out hope for more YA animation.

[panelshowsource]

rather than who you would like to see on the next taskmaster series, who do you think will be on it? like just your predictions or any inklings you may have!

anon if you're still around then you'll know i really took my time with this hahaha so sorry! i hope anyone reading this takes it as just a bit of fun and nbd, who knows who we'll get or who alex & the network have in mind! i'm answering thoughtfully (bc i always feel guilty not to 😩 so sorry this is long lol) but it's really just fun!!

i will say, of the more recent-ish series, i did get a few right!!! krishnan guru-murthy, nicola coughlan, alan davies, judi love, sue perkins, john robins, and joanne mcnally were people i just knew would eventually be on if the show could get their schedules right, and i was also certain sarah millican and dara ó briain would be asked — though not necessarily that they'd actually agree. when you have a level of seniority and esteem, the "it's such a great opportunity" aspect of the show isn't such a draw 😅 for some reason i feel SO PROUD about guessing nicola! i was just WAITING and wish sooooo much she had done a full series 😭😭😭 (how fun would saoirse-monica jackson be too!)

anyways, as for people who haven't been on yet — and this isn't to say i want them all to be, just that i think it's likeliest they have been asked or will be asked; i talked about who i want to see a little while ago here — it's important to consider the casting 'roles' the network has in mind when working with the producers to form a series, so i will keep that in mind too!

established comedian, typically a straight white man over 40: bill bailey, vic reeves, harry hill, geoff norcott, kevin bridges, adam buxton, ade edmondson (tommy tiernan? god i feel bad for not saying ed byrne but why do i feel like he's not gonna make it in the next few series? i'm on the fence with nick helm — unless he's friends with alex, then his chances go up significantly imo — and tom allen for some reason, and i feel like john bishop is almost too much of an ask?)

fresh talent comedian, typically a man under 40: rhys james, huge davies, ahir shah, darren harriott would be my top guesses but tbh any of the semi-recent edinburgh comedy award finalists are good bets as a majority of the winners from the last ~10 years have been on the series + throwing out tom rosenthal (i know he's not fresh fresh and also mostly an actor)...and, like, jazz emu?...just because if taskmaster know how much its audience adores weird little white twinks then they'll cast them

female or non-binary comedian: 100% sarah keyworth + harriet kemsley, maisie adam, jess fostekew, suzi ruffell. i've shifted away from betting on cariad lloyd and catherine bohart for some reason... (joanne was my no.1 lady bet for the last like 4 series hahaha)

non-comedian: this is very, very hard to predict because between comedy actors, non-comedy actors, tv presenters, news people, reality & social media stars... the potential predictions are just so endless! logically, the most likely is an established actor with a lot of comedy connections (think sally phillips, lolly adefope, liza tarbuck, sian gibson, daisy may cooper, susan wokoma; this category is where tm gets quite a few of its female contestants): matt holness, kevin eldon, amanda abbington, tom davis, sharon horgan, kathy burke, georgia tennant (also friends w alex?), su pollard, tom basden, apparently anyone from the cast of ghosts, and so on and so on and so on... + i'll also throw out maggie aderin-pocock as a serious contender + i really feel like one of the spice girls will be on new years treat

friend of alex: john robins was the prediction for the past few series, so just worth keeping in mind other people in this circle include elis james, matthew crosby, tom neenan, and so on

freebie answers because alex/greg have mentioned them before: jack dee, lorraine kelly, joanna lumley (i want jennifer saunders SO BAD give us an epic series w both ade and jen pleaseeee tm gods!!!!)

complete wild card bets that are either my instincts kicking in or my bias taking over: limmy, adam buxton, paddy mcguinness, diane morgan, daniel sloss, joel dommett, jess hynes, spencer jones??, alasdair beckett-king or josh pugh + if suzy izzard wasn't doing a big nyc show i'd say that's a good guess if only bc you know greg & alex grew up big fans

did i mention too many people?? if i had to put my money behind a single person it would be either ahir shah or sarah keyworth

these are almost all of my fr big heavy hitters when it comes to placing bets! but there are of course so many people i didn't name who i could totally see on either a main series or the ny treat — so many people just make sense and that's the beauty of taskmaster!!

[charmac]

A decade ago, Sunny sent out their Season 10 press, highlighting the milestone they were about to reach with 10 seasons, including a comparison graphic with the few other long-running comedies in existence:

This week, at the 2023 (in 2024) Emmys, Sunny presented alongside many celebrated TV shows, including Cheers, all of which ‘reunited’ or were honoured for their past runs. Sunny has now out-run every show on the above graphic, they didn’t have to reunite (as press may want you to believe) to celebrate their show, because they continue to air as the longest running network show on television today.

Nah, still no Emmys, still no nominations, but they're a part of television history that has grown impossible to ignore. They're taking their space on the stage now, and they're gonna continue to remind everyone they're still around for years to come. Extending their historical run every year, press acknowledgement and prestigious awards be damned.

[dweemeister]

August 7, 2023

By Maureen Lee Lenker

(Entertainment Weekly) — We'll always have Paris, but for a time, it seemed as if we might not always have Turner Classic Movies.

Since 1994, TCM has aired films, uncut and commercial-free, 24 hours a day, all enhanced by monthly themed and curated programming, hosted introductions and conclusions (known as outros), conversations with filmmakers and talent, and original content. In its nearly 30 years of existence, the network has expanded beyond its already estimable remit as a cable network-meets-film-school, with fan events including a film festival and cruise.

The brand also plays a key role in global film preservation efforts. Restorations of bigger studio titles are typically done by the studios themselves, but TCM is more often than not the showcase for such work — both on air and at the annual film festival. TCM won a Peabody Award in 2008 for its "commitment to film preservation and restoration." 

In 2023 alone, TCM partnered with the Film Foundation and the studio to restore 10 classics for the Warner Bros. 100th anniversary, including 1932's One Way Passage, 1941's The Strawberry Blonde, 1959's Rio Bravo, and 1955's East of Eden, all of which screened at the film festival and aired on the network. Last year, TCM celebrated its expanded partnership with the Film Foundation with the premiere of a 4K restoration of the Elizabeth Taylor/James Dean/Rock Hudson epic Giant at the 2022 festival. (Going even further back, in 2007, TCM tracked down the rights to six "lost" RKO films, including William Powell comedy Double Harness and Ginger Rogers rom-com Rafter Romance, not seen in over 50 years).

But on June 20, all of that seemed to be in peril as news broke that the entire executive leadership team of TCM (most of whom boasted 20-plus years of experience with the network) were being laid off alongside other members of the staff. The latest round of layoffs, which network staff tell EW they were blindsided by, are part of Warner Bros. Discovery's continuing attempts to cut costs across the studio.

Some backtracking from the executives at WBD is alright (especially in terms of staff rehires and bringing back the TCMFF Director), but they cut away at something that wasn't broken to begin with!

[netscapenavigator-official]

If I had to describe the Nancy Drew game series as if it were a TV show, it would be like this:

Secrets Can Kill (OG): The animated short that runs on another network. The foundation is there, but it's a foreign entity compared to the main series.

Stay Tuned For Danger: The official pilot episode. It's very similar to the main series, but some elements from the animated short still linger.

Games 3 - 9: Season 1 (the episodic comedy season)

Games 10 - 15: Season 2 (hints of a bigger plot are sprinkled in)

Games 16 - 26: Season 3 (the plot has arrives and the show is great)

Games 27 - 32: Season 4 (we concluded the plot last season, but the network forced us to renew for another, so we don't know what to do aside from some falling action and conclusion episodes)

Midnight in Salem: The cash-grabby reboot, written by a different person, that no one asked for.

[justforbooks]

Christina Hendricks

The star of Good Girls discusses Mad Men, sexual harassment and squaring her glamorous reputation with her ‘weird, goofy’ personality

Christina Hendricks appears on our video call with the most dramatic backdrop. Art deco gold peacocks bedeck a black wall, making her look, as she has so often in her career, a bit too good to be human. Perfectly poised, perfectly framed, perfectly lit, she is more like a dreamy vision of what humans look like. “I, erm, like your wall,” I say, pointlessly. She flashes a smile, as if to say: “Obviously.”

We are here primarily to discuss the comedy-drama series Good Girls, the fourth season of which will resume in the US this month after a midseason break. The elevator pitch would be Breaking Bad for girls: three suburban women, each hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, unite to embark on a life of cack-handed crime, only to discover they are good at it. The ensemble – Hendricks, Mae Whitman, who plays her sister, and Retta, their friend – works strikingly well, their pacey comic rapport instilling a sense of perpetual motion. You just can’t imagine Good Girls ending. Every time a plot line seems to be reaching its climax, something worse – and funnier – happens.

“It’s funny you say that, because originally, when I read the pilot script, I thought: ‘I love this, but I can’t imagine this being more than one episode,’” says Hendricks. “It felt like it finished itself.” She is unsentimental about it. Hendricks wasn’t looking for a new show – “I was happy doing films, taking my time” – but went into it with her eyes open. It is a network drama, for NBC – it is shown on Netflix in the UK – so producers are always aware that “it’s going into every house in the US on a Thursday or a Sunday and a family is watching it. They’re much more careful about numbers and advertisers and people being offended or not getting it. A cable show is much more: ‘We trust this creator – they’re a visionary.’”

It has a conventional tone – however dark the material, it is handled very lightly. Yet you can’t help but notice some hard-boiled social commentary from the off – if it weren’t for the bracingly callous US health system, the generation of wage-stagnation casualties and the patriarchy, none of the characters would have gone anywhere near a supermarket heist. More than Breaking Bad, it reminds me of Roseanne and the golden age of US mainstream comedy, when you could be poor on TV without that being a breach of good taste.

The 48-year-old has been a household name for almost 15 years, thanks to Mad Men. She was born in Tennessee, where her mother was a psychologist and her father worked for the Forest Service, and educated in Oregon and then Idaho. She didn’t have time for formal acting training; by the time she was 18, her modelling career had taken off. Later, when she had a manager, she took acting lessons: “I did that for almost a year and a half and put auditions on ice. Then I was watching a film – I don’t even remember what film it was or who was in it – and I thought: ‘I’m ready. I can do this.’” She has the most insistent work ethic; as she describes her life’s trajectory, she notes diligently the jobs she had while she was at high school, at a hair salon and a menswear shop.

In 2007, she appeared as Joan Holloway in Mad Men. She played the role for the next eight years, her character growing around the depth she brought to it, until by season seven she was almost the central part. In the early 2010s, Hendricks was talked about constantly, although she says the original focal points of obsession were the male characters: “Men started dressing like Don Draper and Roger Sterling. Suits came back in, skinny ties came back in. It took three to four seasons and then all of a sudden people wanted us [the female stars] on magazines. We were like: ‘This is strange – we’ve been doing this for a while.’”

Hendricks, along with January Jones, who played Betty Draper, came to represent so much. There was a great deal of rumination on their physicality, Jones as elegant as an afghan hound, Hendricks like the pin-up painted on the side of a bomber. What did it mean, people asked, that in the middle of the 20th century there were multiple ideals of the female form, whereas in the 21st century there was only one? How did that complicate the perception of gender equality as a steady march towards the light? Thousands of column inches went on that question – but, from the actor’s perspective, it was an annoying distraction. “There certainly was a time when we were very critically acclaimed, and getting a lot of attention for our very good work and our very hard work, and everyone just wanted to ask me about my bra again. There are only two sentences to say about a bra,” she says.

The signal impression the show left was of an ensemble at the peak of its creativity: actors, writers and the creator, Matthew Weiner, working in almost telepathic unison. It won the Emmy for outstanding drama series four times in a row, but the more notable year was 2012, when it was nominated for 17 Emmys (and didn’t win any of them). The take-home was: everyone involved with this is absolutely brilliant.

That harmonious picture was blurred two years after the show ended, when one of the former writers, Kater Gordon, accused Weiner of sexual harassment. Marti Noxon, a consulting producer on Mad Men, concurred that Weiner had created a toxic environment and said that he was an “‘emotional terrorist’ who will badger, seduce and even tantrum in an attempt to get his needs met”.

Hendricks takes this head on, in a considered, straightforward manner. “My relationship with Matt was in no way toxic,” she says. “I don’t discount anyone’s experience if I wasn’t there to see it, but that wasn’t my experience. Was he a perfectionist, was he tough, did he expect a lot? Yes. And he would say that in a second. We were hard on each other.”

It is impossible, from this distance, to adjudicate on Weiner’s character, but Hendricks’s response reveals something of hers. The easiest response in this situation, and the one 90% of actors give, is: “No comment.” Hendricks is always collected, never evasive, doesn’t gabble. She reminds me powerfully of Joan Holloway – and I am sorry to say it, because she insists throughout: “I’m an actress. I am completely not Joan. Not in any way. I wish I was more like Joan.”

I wonder if, while we were all fixating on Joan’s bras and whether or not, in the asinine words of Lynne Featherstone, the UK’s equalities minister in 2010, she represented a “curvy role model”, the audience was responding to Joan’s deeper life lesson – that self-possession is 9/10ths of the law.

What Hendricks emphatically doesn’t do is minimise the existence of sexism and sexual harassment in the industry: “Boy, do you think anyone in the entertainment industry comes out unscathed and not objectified? I don’t know one musician or one model or one actor who has escaped that. I have had moments – not on Mad Men; on other things – where people have tried to take advantage of me, use my body in a way I wasn’t comfortable with, persuade me or coerce me or professionally shame me: ‘If you took your work seriously, you would do this …’

“Maybe it was my modelling background, but I knew to immediately get on the phone and go: ‘Uh oh, trouble,’” she says. “That’s where it’s very much a job. We need to talk to the producers and handle this professionally.”

Yet, at the same time, she is defensive of her industry. “It gets a lot of attention because people know who we are. I’m sure there’s a casting couch at the bank down the street, I’m sure the same thing happens in management consultancy, but people don’t know who the management consultants are.”

Modelling always sounds like a harsh environment – predatory photographers vying with stringent agents to give everyone a complex about their thighs and stop them eating carbs. But that is not how Hendricks describes it at all. Her career sounds like one out of an 80s Judy annual: innocent and hearty, good for pin money and travel opportunities. “I think I was lucky – I didn’t start when I was 14. When I was about 18 or 19, I went to Japan for the first time, I went to Italy. We’d be lots of girls, sharing a house, and I sort of became the den mother. I’d make everyone egg salad sandwiches and Greek salads, going into this mother hen role.”

That is what they say about being taken hostage: if you want to survive, choose someone to look after. “Oh,” she says, coolly. “I wouldn’t consider being a model as being a hostage.”

She was only ever medium-successful, she insists – an “unusual and quirky” hire, rather than the slam-dunk face of everything. About as far as it went was that she never had to get another job to supplement her income. Probably the most famous image of that era in which she was involved was the poster for American Beauty. Two models were in the frame, so they took a photo of the stomach and the hands of each. In the end, they used Hendricks’s hand on the other model’s stomach. It sounds like a clunky metaphor, but it is true.

During this period, she moved to London with a friend, for the hell of it, living in a flat on Gloucester Road, “surviving on cider and hummus”. It is a glimpse of the oddball she says she was growing up, the outsider as whom she is rarely cast. This has been the story of her CV. “Early on in my career, I would get auditions and I would call my manager and say: ‘I would never cast me in this – she’s a cheerleader, she’s a bimbo. Can I audition for the other one, the weird doctor?’ And they’d be like: ‘No, they saw your picture.’ And I started realising that people didn’t see the weird, goofy me that I saw.”

She made the jump from modelling to acting via adverts, with what looks like fairytale ease. In fact, it was “a lot of pounding the pavement and showing up for auditions and getting rejected – and learning, as a young woman, to not take that personally”. By the late 90s, she was the face of ultimate female confidence, the woman who drinks Johnnie Walker and doesn’t need a chauffeur (these are two ads, not one for drink-driving). “I always thought of modelling as freeze-frame acting. It felt like a scene, and I still consider it that way. There are so many technical things that I think people don’t notice. They see you playing dress-up.”

From the commercials, she learned “how to hit a mark, how to memorise a line”, but acting wasn’t novel. She had been doing community theatre since the age of 10, and grew up expecting an alternative life, supplementing an art-house existence any which way. She never amplifies her creative urges. She is much happier talking about professionalism and graft, but that is strategic more than anything else. “I am incredibly emotional and I take things very personally. But I’ve learned to be a little bit of a politician and a little bit of a producer along the way. As a female actor, the easy go-to is: ‘She was emotional, she was hysterical.’ It can be a million other people’s fault, but it’s easy to point your finger at an emotional artist. So, I realised: if I’m going to be taken seriously, I need to have professional perspective and I can cry about it to my friends later.”

Yet she cares deeply about creativity, as is clear when she talks about Mad Men. “It may eclipse anything I ever did. And, if it does, it was a good one and I’m proud of it,” she says. “I got to bring who I was as a woman. I think I learned some of how to be a woman from Joan. No one would give a shit about me if it wasn’t for that show. I’d still be doing good work, but no one would have found me. If that’s the best thing I ever do, it was pretty good.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[ponett]

could i bother you for your general opinion on venture bros, having watched it recently? i've been interested in it and know it has devoted fans, but most of the fans i see have been so for a long time- and i haven't been sure if the less-than-stellar aspects of it would be worth tolerating as someone with no pre-existing nostalgia for it. you're very good at offering nuanced thoughts, so i thought i'd ask. thanks!

i ended up loving the show, but it definitely has a lot of jokes in earlier seasons that haven't aged well, as is the case for basically any adult comedy series from the '00s. racial stereotypes that are probably intending to mock the racial stereotypes in the jungle adventure shows they're parodying but don't always hit the mark, jokes where characters speculate about whether or not dr. girlfriend is trans because of her voice, a minor recurring character who's a parody of the thing who's an extremely crude ableist stereotype (and also for a stretch of multiple seasons it feels like they had a quota to say the R slur at least once an episode), the pedophilia jokes with sergeant hatred, etc.

the thing is, like i said, it's kind of just what i expect for a comedy series from the '00s? obviously there was shit like south park, and the early seasons of always sunny loved to try and push the envelope, but even TV-14 network sitcoms like scrubs or the office had these sorts of issues. it's there, and you should be braced for it if you're gonna watch the show, but it feels like it revels in "politically incorrect" shock humor WAY less than a lot of concurrent comedy central and adult swim shit did. it's worlds apart from something like drawn together, which is just unwatchable. and most importantly it isn't trying to drive home some sort of insufferable libertarian moral, unlike south park. it just has some jokes i roll my eyes at

thankfully, as the show went on a lot of this was toned down and/or phased out entirely. but even in the front half of the show there were consistently tons of jokes that hit the mark for me, and i found the gradual shift towards more dramatic storytelling (without sacrificing the humor) really, really engaging. henchman 21 gets singled out as a character with an incredible arc, but i also loved seeing hank and dean go from being bumbling hardy boys parodies whose irrelevance was always the butt of the joke to being characters i actually cared about. and if you like superhero stuff at all, their take on organized supervillainy where it's effectively a union job where you're assigned an arch nemesis to torment is a lot of fun. the show just really gets how fun it is to follow the daily lives of over-the-top supervillains

there are a lot of comedy shows from that era i just can't go back to, but watching the venture bros. for the first time in 2023 i had a really good time

[brostateexam]

Writers have always endured indignities in Hollywood. But, as long as there are millions to be grabbed, the trade-off has been bearable—except when it isn’t. The past month has brought the discontent of television writers to a boiling point. In mid-April, the Writers Guild of America (the modern successor to the Screen Writers Guild) voted to authorize a strike, with a decisive 97.85 per cent in favor. The guild’s current contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers expires on May 1st; if the negotiations break down, it will be the W.G.A.’s first strike since late 2007 and early 2008. At issue are minimum fees, royalties, staffing requirements, and even the use of artificial intelligence in script production—but the over-all stakes, from the perspective of TV writers, feel seismic. “This is an existential fight for the future of the business of writing,” Laura Jacqmin, whose credits include Epix’s “Get Shorty” and Peacock’s “Joe vs. Carole,” told me; like the other writers I spoke to, she had voted for the strike authorization. “If we do not dig in now, there will be nothing to fight for in three years.” TV writers seem, on the whole, miserable. “The word I would use,” Jacqmin said, “is ‘desperation.’ ”

How did it come to this? About a decade ago, in the era of “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Veep,” TV writing seemed like one of the coolest, best-paying jobs a writer could have. As with the talkie boom of the nineteen-thirties, playwrights and journalists were flocking to Hollywood to partake in the heyday of prestige TV. It was fun. “We were all just trying to figure out, like, where to live. How do we sublet? Do we buy a car? Do we rent a car?” Liz Flahive recalled. In 2008, Flahive had just had a play produced Off Broadway when she got hired to write for “Untitled Edie Falco Project,” which became Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie.” TV, unlike big-budget movies, was a writers’ medium, and it was undergoing a creative explosion. “The old-timey mentality was: you go work in TV, and it breaks your brain, and you learn all these terrible habits,” Flahive said. “But you didn’t. You were writing great scenes, and for really good actors.”

The “Nurse Jackie” writers’ room, Flahive recalled, “was half queer, majority female. It was half people who had done TV for a long time, and half people who had never done TV before.” But it was possible to learn. “I turned in my first script, and the co-E.P.s sat me down and said, ‘This is really great. But this is the most expensive episode of television ever written. It’s a half-hour show, and you have forty-one setups.’ I was, like, ‘What’s a setup?’ And they explained, ‘If you set this scene here, and you write this scene here, this is a whole company move, and this is a whole new set we have to build.’ And then I got to take that script and go sit on set and actually see what it meant when you write ‘EXT. SUBWAY PLATFORM,’ and why that’s complicated.”

Flahive rose through the ranks of “Nurse Jackie” and went on to co-create the Netflix comedy “GLOW” and the Apple TV+ anthology “Roar,” both with the playwright and producer Carly Mensch. But, in the intervening years, the profession has devolved. Streamers are ordering shorter seasons, and the residuals model that used to give network writers a reliable income is out the window. The ladder from junior writer to showrunner has become murkier, with some people repeating steps like repeating grades, and others being flung to the top without the requisite experience, in order to meet demand for new content. Studios are cutting writing budgets to the bone by hiring fewer people for shorter time periods, often without paying for lower-level writers to be on set during production, which makes it all but impossible to learn the skills necessary to run a show. On “Roar,” Flahive said, “we had to fight to budget for writers to prep and produce their episodes,” and some of her writers had never been to the set of shows they’d worked on, “which is astonishing to me.”

[teeth-cable]

Im the CSA victim from UniformedArtists blog and I agree with you 1000% dropping everything Vivziepop.

Like I only watch Helluva even after the shit she's done to see how far it would sink but jesus christ.

You know her just saying the counselor is 18-19 isn't fucking good enough because the show says a different thing.

Like before people bring up the argument counselors can be adults... Most TV shows in media actually have minor counselors and we know Vivziepop doesn't research shit about hell or actual royalty so why the fuck am I supposed to believe Adam or her researched counselor age ranges.

Also nobody should have a twitter to figure out if you did or didn't make a grooming subplot.

You know in Curse of Strahd there's a controversial character Gertruda who 50 (500) year old Strahd is implied to planning take as another bride because of where you find her and in the book it states she's recently a teenager. However as much as I hate this plot line due to trauma I understand why it was added because WOTC portrays Strahd as a piece of shit. Like his goal is to chase down the reincarnation of his brother's fiance throughout time until he catches her, makes her a vampire and possibly brainwash/assault her to make her love him. Strahd is meant to be a gross creep. I as a DM and many other age Gertruda up to 18 because we don't want a pedo plot line and it keeps the predatory nature of Strahd intact.

Barbie seems to be portrayed in a significantly more positive light and her grooming behavior is never called out as a bad thing. Like Moxxie should say something at god damn least since he has morals.

There are so many things wrong with the EP. What gets me is writing has multiple stages, first the person needs to come up with the EP pitch, get the directer or network's approval, finish the first draft, then revisit it for grammar mistakes and continuity, then revise it a few more times for a stronger script, and send it to the directer or network again to approve of filming the finish script and that's not even counting how long animation takes too. So during the process of writing to animating, did no one at SpindleHorse see how weird and problematic the script was? The camp for pre-teens is called, "IWannaKumMore"(Their logo being a cum splat), Millie and Moxxie's human backstories of being siblings then making out at the end was unnecessary because they could have just been good friends whose mothers sent them to the same camp, Moxxie this grown ass adult who pretending to be a pre-teen is acting sexual and wants the kids attention, Millie who everyone else thinks is a young boy is getting sent nudes from kids and adults, and Barbie saying how easy teenagers are to manipulate then flash her ass to a boy is implying she grooms kids.

To be clear, I don't have a problem when a dark comedy make these types of jokes as all as they portray the topics and groomers as bad and show they understand that. SpindleHorse did not, like you mentioned they portrayed Barbie in the positive light and Moxxie never calls out her behavior despite being the voice of reason. In fact the tone of the Barbie's scene was supposed to funny but not in a dark ironic way. I don't understand why the camp couldn't be for college students and the consolers are stated and look like actual adults. Everything about the canon camp is childish and filled with teenagers, it's very uncomfortable to see them in sexual situations. In America the youngest a camp counselor can be is 15 y/o but that changes from states to states so no body has a clue, also with the camp counselor having a pitch voice, Barbie referring to him as kid and teenager and him, not once trying to correct her about his actual age, I'm convinced he was kid but Viv had to age him up for damage control.

I'm sorry if this response is all over the place because I'm having trouble describing my thoughts but the writers are in their 30s, and they saw nothing wrong? The writing for HB has been going down for a while now and it was fun to see how the writing could get worse but never in my years of watching awful shows did the writing get so bad, the writers had to resort to terrible jokes about sexualizing teenagers, making an incest joke, and a minor getting groomed unironically. I can't support a person or company that are fine making content like that.

"Unhappy Teenagers" was the first time, I have watched a show and felt a sinking feeling in my gut so much so it still lingers even a day later. I never felt so sick from watching a show and I'm sorry writers and companies think making this type of content and jokes of your trauma and abused experience is okay to do.

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

01/25/2024 OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast & Crew Sightings; Queerties; How to Help; New Renewal Effort Resources; stats; gifs; petition status; morale boost ; self care pitstop; love notes; Rhys

== Cast & Crew Sightings ==

While not related to OFMD-- Leslie Jones has been nominated for Outstanding Performance Award from @naacp for "After the Cut" on The Daily Show! Just something to celebrate for our crew!

Nathan Foad, Samba Schutte, and Con O'Neill are obviously excited about OFMD coming to the UK! All seen on their instagram stories.

Next, Kristian Nairn answered some fans on the #WeeJohnDays Coming back. You can add to the thread here if you'd like.

== Queerties ==

If you're down, please vote for the Queerties each day! If you want to just vote for OFMD categories, feel free to visit: TV Comedy Best TV Performance

== How To Help ==

How To Help Save OFMD Task List - US How to Help Save OFMD Task List - Outside US

= New Renewal Campaign Resources =

Found some cool resources today if you're out campaigning on any of the platforms, feel free to use these, they're all tagged with sources. (These have been added to the Daily Recap Task Lists)

== Stats ==

Srcs (in order of appearance LTR): @lucyrosebutler , @bonnypitty @meowzawowza_ on Twitter

== Gif Resources ==

Our lovely @kiwistede made some gorgeous gifs that you can use on social media when you're @ing the networks.

==UK News==

@lamentus1 Gave us a brief update on the happenings in the UK:

Not much to report today, I’ve just been focused on promoting the show off the back of the UK talent, hoping to enlist new fans now that we have a date for season 2 on the BBC. The Guardian article was great, despite ending on a somewhat pessimistic note. It links to the petition though, which is amazing! The Guardian Article

==Articles==

We made it into the guardian! Holy Crap!

‘Unhinged – in a good way’: Our Flag Means Death was cancelled. Its fans are fighting back"

As @lamentus1 mentioned, yes, the last quote in it is very pessimistic, however I don't think that's the part we should focus on, instead we should focus on the fact the campaign got big enough to warrant getting picked up by The Guardian AND our petition was linked in it. Think of how many new folks will be clicking in?

The 20 best feel-good TV shows

Our Flag Means Death Season 2 Finally Confirms UK Release Date

‘Our Flag Means Death’ Season 2: Fans Petition To Save Beloved HBO Show (this last one has a weird date at the end, which @OFMDBingo42 on Twitter speculates coincides with the end of the Social Media Strike for Palestine, just fyi it was confusing many of us).

==Petition Status ==

Almost at 81K!

== Morale Boosts ==

Feeling low cause things have slowed down? A lot of crew have brought up some excellent points across the platforms as to why things aren't as down as they feel right now. Please check out: @PehmoKoira's Take on Tumblr

== Self Care Pitstop! ==

If you are feeling overwhelmed-- stop by @flowelineblog's post! It's quick, and efficient :)

== Love Notes ==

So while looking for cast and crew sightings I found this lovely message on @VicoOrtiz's IG Story, so I'm going to share it instead tonight by @thebehappyproject.

==========================================

Our Rhys picture tonight is courtesy of @rhysdarbinizedarby via a post about "The Jaquie Brown Diaries": Night on the Brown (2009)"

I couldn't get over the look, so now you have to see it. It's literally haunting my dreams and I haven't even fallen asleep yet.

Anyway, night lovelies, hope you all have a great day/night <3 Stay safe, hydrated, and keep being the ever wonderful yous <3

[thealogie]

"I cannot get over this I know he’s saying Kelsey Grammer by accident but this has the quality of the best-acted most deadpan sketch comedy of all time" GIRL i cannot believe nobody is correcting you but he is not fucking saying kelsey grammer by accident lmao. david letterman didn't spend 30 years being a late night host on network tv for you to think he's being randomly senile on tiktok and not actually doing a well-acted dead pan sketch ??? why do you think his staff are barely correcting him ??? why do you think he is corrected and says it right once and then proceeds to say kelsey grammer again 30 seconds later ??? girl :)))

Cool. I’ve never watched letterman and the way I saw it reported in news articles made it seem accidental! Some of you need media training on how you speak to strangers on the internet you don’t need to take that tone.