If podcasts aren’t your thing, this may be the podcast to convince you otherwise. Dana Carvey and David Spade are the hosts of Fly on the Wall, a retrospective comedy tour back to the original years of Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. It picks through a handful of the late night comedy show’s best casts and hosts for a lighthearted chat, for anyone who wants to burst out laughing for one full hour each week. Twelve episodes are already ready and waiting for you right now. Featured guests so far include 15+ time SNL host Tom Hanks, original Not Ready for Prime Time player Laraine Newman, cast members Chris Rock, Jon Lovitz, Darrell Hammond, Weekend Update host and senior writer Tina Fey, former SNL writers Conan O’Brien and Sarah Silverman, and former SNL hosts Rob Lowe, Johnny Knoxville, and Jon Hamm.
Sometimes things are exactly as you hope for. That’s true for Murderville, a new experimental comedy-mystery series on Netflix. Mixing the irreverent police procedural comedy of Angie Tribeca with the improvizational hijinks and fun of Whose Line is it Anyway?, Improv-a-ganza, and Thank God You’re Here, the six-episode series is all about the laughs. In the spirit of Sam Francisco and Beverly Hills Buntz (Korben Dallas? Yosemite Sam? Carmen Sandiego?), Will Arnett stars as Terry Seattle, a swaggering, bumbling senior detective with the earnestness of Barney Fife and the marital issues of John Luther, but without all the real-world drama. Guiding a new guest celebrity each episode to maneuver the story as his new partner, but without the benefit of a script, Arnett does his best to both help the guest star while also trying to get them to break character and laugh at his own off-the-cuff antics. This is neither Dragnet nor Law & Order, but it’s darned funny.
Some ideas arrive with exactly the right creator, and that seems to be the case with Netflix’s next experimental series. Mixing the irreverent police procedural comedy of Angie Tribeca with the improv fun of Whose Line is it Anyway?, Improv-a-ganza, and Thank God You’re Here, Netflix’s new six-episode series Murderville stars Will Arnett both in front of, and behind, the camera. He’s featuring a guest star for each episode about detectives trying to solve a murder, only this isn’t anything like what you’ve seen before on a TV show.
It’s just what fans of DC Comics have been begging for. Finally, a Batman portrayal worthy of Adam West and Michael Keaton. The complete membership of the classic Justice League as fun as we all remember them from the comic books. Homages to famous artists adapted to the big screen from the best of DC Comics, like cover artist Jock, plus throwbacks to the campy series of the 1960s. And more homages to the musical scores from the best of the DC Comics cinematic adaptations of the past, including callbacks to Danny Elfman’s score to the 1989 Batman movie and John Williams’ Superman theme.
What was your favorite DC Comics adaptation before 2017? How far back do you go? Most superhero movie fans seem to agree upon the original Superman starring Christopher Reeve as the modern rebirth of the superhero film, and count Reeve among the best embodiments of a superhero on film. But after Reeve, fans begin to disagree as movies based on DC Comics are concerned, and usually turn to the CW Network television series for the next best DC iterations of comic book adaptations.
So when all of it finally comes together, it finally comes together in 2017, after the likes of misfires including Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad, we finally have an exciting and worthy DC Comics outing that is fun for the entire family, and best of all, it is all heart.
And as a bonus, it features villains worthy of a movie from the DCU. Sure, you might expect a pantheon of villains like The Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze, Egghead, Scarecrow, Bane, Clayface, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, Man-Bat, Captain Boomerang, Crazy Quilt, Eraser, Polka Dot Man, Mime, Tarantula, King Tut, Orca, Dr. Phosphorus, Killer Moth, Magpie, March Hare, Frank Miller’s Mutant Leader, Dr. Hugo Strange, Zodiac Master, Gentleman Ghost, Clock King, Red Hood, The Kabuki Twins, Calendar Man, Kite Man, Catman, Calculator, Zebra-Man, and Condiment King. But all in one movie? And battling some of fiction’s other greatest supervillains, like Dracula and the other Universal Monsters, The Daleks, Lord Voldemort, Jaws, King Kong, Gremlins, velociraptors, the Wicked Witch of the West, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and Sauron? Wait–was Darth Vader tied up in some other project?
Originally a Hanna Barbera character that became the impetus for the animated superhero TV genre that took off in the 1960s, Space Ghost got his own reboot in the 1990s as a has-been superhero hosting his own late night talk show Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Originally airing on Cartoon Network and later Adult Swim, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast was a series with its very own style of humor, featuring the animated superhero interviewing real-world guests via a television monitor to the right of his desk.
Oddly surreal, Space Ghost often spent more time talking about himself than showing any interest in his guests. His guests often seriously looked as if they had no idea what the series was about, and seemed genuinely irritated–as if they expected to be interviewed on a real entertainment show. Cringeworthy moment after moment became the hallmark of the series, yet it all worked for fans of oddball animated TV. If you want to look at human nature in a different way, and see what celebrities have a sense of humor and who can think on their toes, this may be the series for you.
Now you can stream all the episodes here at the Adult Swim website for free. The Bee Gees, Weird Al Yankovic, Jim Carrey, Alice Cooper, Billy Mumy, Mark Hamill, Lassie, Catherine Bach, Jimmie Walker, Bill Nye, Goldie Hawn, Charlton Heston, Steve Allen, Michael McKean, Tom Arnold, Bob Costas, Conan O’Brien, Tenacious D, Willie Nelson, and William Shatner all appeared in Space Ghost’s interview seat, plus many others.
