@avclub-2586d0717b58d4f4383144ca1341d079:disqus : I don't know, do people really hear the name 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and think, "Man, that show is probably humorless and without a drop of irony; those idiots should have chosen a less comical name than 'Buffy' for the title character of their very serious and…

The trouble with Buffy is that it works on multiple levels.  I enjoyed it tremendously when I saw it, but was terribly disappointed to learn that the majority of the fandom wasn't really in it for the subversion of horror movie tropes and stealth puns or the cleverly constructed metaphors about growing up seasoned…

I lived with someone who was seriously into the Stargate TV franchise, and thus was exposed to a bunch of it, despite it being very, very mediocre.

Honestly, anytime you run an open online poll to determine who gets your entertainment award, all you're really determining is which fandom is most willing to slavishly click for the thing they love and/or cheat.

Born enemy of fun that I am, I was actually a little distracted during the bug bomb gags by my suspicion that in real life Dwight might have needed a trip to the hospital, or something.  Especially with the second instance occurring in his car.  Yikes.

"There's a way to do it, and you can try to emulate what we do,
but…celebrities aren't funny. Comedians are funny. Great actresses can
be funny."

Harold and Black Swan Escape from Swantanamo Bay

@avclub-4ff25c60792fa2f9cb596e4666530aec:disqus :   Re: gameplay genres, my point isn't that there aren't any, it's the lack of familiarity with those genres culturally.  I can't remember a time when I didn't know what a romantic comedy was, even though I have no special interest in romantic comedies, and that makes…

Where did I say "is not special"?

Just working from the description, I've having a hard time not imagining this as a straight up Black Swan knock off.  The protagonist is a fragile, childlike woman, "stuck forever in a pre-sexual state of mind",  "clearly crazy from the first frame" but descending into "a more advanced form of madness".  Instead of…

I wish "My Year of Fops" was actually a thing.

While I hear you on the lack of necessity of the Huge Multi-Volume Fantasy Epic publishing model, your note to writers may as well be addressed to your kitchen wallpaper.  With rare exceptions, publishers really aren't buying standalone fantasy books these days;  it's not worth the gamble of promoting a new IP that…

The price point may not be far off from a video game or a night at the movies, but in a culture where movies and games are mainstream and keeping up with new board games is not, the effect of the price tag is, I would argue, magnified.  It's not as if we get ads and casual board game recommendations everywhere we turn…

I got nothing against The BNW.  It sounds rad.   I'm just saying the
list theme is notable comedy incubators, and 11 names in 50 years, many
of which require further explanation, does not sell that idea to the
point where it seems like an insulting omission or anything.

And yet, there's a difference between laughing at the end of a joke and yelling, say "YOU ARE SO FUCKING HILARIOUS!" while the comedian is still talking.  So positive or negative, not all 'feedback' is created equal.  Sighing, rolling your eyes, or even groaning a little when you're meant to be laughing?  That's not…

At risk of sounding like a total ass, that list is actually not super-impressive for a training center that's been operating for 54 years.  This is not to knock the BNW or anything, but comedy schools benefit from a self-selecting applicant pool, and I would assume most produce this many successful and semi-successful…

If we're just going by number of names in the credits, sure, but most of the non-State cast of Wet Hot American Summer were semi-established to established comedians.  Amy Poehler had already done Upright Citizens Brigade and was part-owner of a comedy training school.  Molly Shannon was on SNL.  Janeane Garofalo and…

I don't know how we're grading here, but it still seems reasonable to think of The Vacant Lot as "the one Lorne Michaels production that failed to make anybody famous."

I think it's worth separating "low hit-to-miss ratio in an SNL way" from "low hit-to-miss ratio in an Exit 57 way". Exit 57 was wildly original, brilliant when it worked, and kind of a hot mess when it didn't.  SNL's failures rarely come out of ambitious experimentation, so more of it lands in the narrower range…

As much as it thrills me to see any mention of the bizarre and wonderful Exit 57, there are probably stronger picks for comedy incubation, considering that only Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris went on to do much  (in the case of Paul Dinello, this is a tragedy).  Also, the Colbert-Sedaris-Dinello comedy unit came out…