NBC, which placed 8th in the ratings last Thursday during “The Firm” (behind even Univision) has picked up several new pilots in an effort to dig itself out of its years’ long hole. The spectrum ranges from “decent idea for a show that won’t be seen because it’s on NBC” to “bad idea for a show that won’t be seen because it’s on NBC.” What we can promise you is that if you eventually love the show, it will most certainly be under a perpetual threat of cancellation. These are, however, only pilot pick-ups, and there’s no guarantee any of them will make it to series. Here are the highlights:

Downwardly Mobile: Roseanne Barr will be making her return to scripted television as a character that sounds very similar to her character in “My Name is Earl.” She would be the “proprietor of a mobile home park and surrogate mother to all of the unique people who live there in a challenging economy.” How timely.

Friday Night Dinner: This one has the best prospects for being an actually good show, as it comes from Greg Daniels (“The Office,” “Parks and Recreation”) and it’s another remake of a British series, this one about “a quirky family that has dinner together every Friday night.” David Koechner is the leading contender for the role of the father, although he’s not really all that “quirky.” Goofy, maybe.

Jimmy Fallon Untitled Project: This one has lame written all over it: It’s a multi-camera sitcom (and thus, most likely a laugh-track show) about “three thirtysomething guys who enjoy the adventures of parenting despite the fact they haven’t grown up themselves.” Yeesh. Just what television needs: More man-children.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you take Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert out of the equation, then the answer to the above question is probably yes. Over on the the AV Club, ahead of Jimmy Fallon’s third-year anniversary, Steven Hyden has come around to what I’ve been saying elsewhere since Fallon became the only network talk show host to come out of the Leno/Conan controversy unscathed.

Fallon’s transformation from widely derided lightweight—a man assumed to have secret knowledge of where Lorne Michaels keeps the bodies buried in order to continue getting such good jobs—to heir apparent to the King Of Late Night crown is complete and shocking. Jimmy Fallon is now so likeable that it’s actually a cliché to point out how likeable he is. Not only has he become the opposite of what he used to be, he’s made thinking otherwise seem mean-spirited. He is the puppy-basket of late-night talk-show hosts.

Hyden continues on to say that Fallon “has the brightest future of any late-night host.” I don’t disagree. As someone who grew up on Dave, disliked Fallon on “SNL” and hated his short-lived movie career, it took me a while to warm up to him, but now if I bother to watch any of the late night network talk shows at all, it’s always Fallon.

Read the rest of this entry »

David Chang is awesome. Let’s get that out of the way first. As a chef, he is responsible for Momofuku, which is revered in foodie circles as one of the more creative and top-notch restaurants around. As a frequent guest on Anthony Bourdain’s Travel Channel show “No Reservations,” he is engaging and funny, and more than holds his own with Bourdain. And he also participated in this GQ story where he, Aziz Ansari, and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem went to Japan and gorged themselves on fine food, drink, and conversation. Basically, he spends his life eating and drinking like a king, and hanging out with people many of us willingly pay money and stand in line just to be in a room with. I would trade lives with him so fast it would make all of your butts fall off.

As if all that wasn’t enough, earlier this week he appeared on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to talk about bourbon, the brownest of the brown liquors. I love bourbon. As I type this I’m sitting less than five feet from bottles of Bulleit and Van Winkle Special Reserve, so this clip is so far up my alley it might as well come with a free autographed copy of The Sandlot. In it, Chang discusses his favorite bourbons, how to drink them, what some of them should be paired with, and whatever else comes to his mind. (On Elijah Craig: “Usually I’m double-fisting this and an American beer. I love American beer. All the beers Europeans make fun of — I think are delicious. We should be very proud of our crappy beer. It’s like water and you can drink a lot of it.”) Also, he drinks a sh-tload of booze and tells people not to drink Jim Beam with Coke, which is an important public service announcement. In that way, he’s kind of a hero.

Long story short: David Chang = Awesome. Bourbon = Also awesome. Me = Jealous.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last night on “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon,” Tina Fey settled a beef with Roots’ drummer ?uestlove by eating a giant hoagie. As much as I want leave this post at that and hit publish, I will explain. The other night on the Bravo talk show “Watch What Happens Live,” ?uestlove had called out Fey, saying she was “never nice to The Roots” even though they’re both from Philadelphia. When she appeared on “Fallon,” she brought this up, saying her initial reaction as a Philly girl was to “key his car, drag him behind the Wawa” and kick his ass. Instead, they made up in the traditional Philadelphia way: they shared a huge hoagie.

As Uproxx’s resident Philadelphian, my official analysis of the whole situation is this: Wawa is the best. You don’t even know. It’s like the Wonka factory of convenience stores. (NOTE: If you try to come at me with some “So, what, it’s like a 7-Eleven?” bullsh-t, I swear to God I will cut you with a broken Yuengling bottle. Same for any of my fellow Eastern PA residents who bring up Turkey Hill or Sheetz. You would be unwise to test me.) They have delicious hoagies and coffee, as well as their own line of ice cream and ice teas. Without exaggeration, I would estimate that I went to Wawa for one thing or another no less than four times a week during college. It’s a little less frequent now, but BARELY. Usually, I get my standard order of one (1) foot-long chicken salad hoagie and one (1) half-gallon of ice tea. Sometimes I get chocolate ice cream, too. Seriously, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. Good Lord, now I’m getting hungry.

In conclusion, all you Californians with your In-N-Out Burgers can go jump in a lake. Wawa, son. Philly stand up.

Read the rest of this entry »

“Hey, did you hear about this? This is in the news: the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, passed away on Saturday. Yup, yup, it’s true. They say he SMALL JOKE while WEARING SUNGLASSES, and it’s rumored that AMERICAN POP CULTURE CELEBRITY will take over.”

I hate late night monologues. Just everything about them: the set-up, the formula, the body swaying to indicate an “I’m just joking” demeanor, the conversational asides in the middle of the joke, the repetition of certain words and names, and most of all, the oh-so-topical punchlines. I don’t usually watch “Letterman” or “Kimmel” or even “Conan,” simply because I can’t stand the first 10 minutes of every show (I also don’t watch the other 50 when it comes to “Leno.”) The text above, that’s pretty much the route every late-night host took to tell their Kim Jong-il’s dead joke(s) last night. But can you match the joke with said host? No cheating! Here’s the first, with the other three — as well as the answers— after the jump.

Well, in North Korea, they announced the passing of their supreme leader Kim Jong-il, and his younger son will take over. At first, there was speculation that power could be passed down to Kim’s two sisters, Kourtney Jong-il and Khloe Jong-il…And Michele Bachmann, foreign affairs not her strong suit, when she was told of the Supreme Leader’s death, she said, “I didn’t even know Diana Ross was sick.” And Rick Perry, y’know, Rick Perry, Rick Perry didn’t fare much better. When he was told about Kim Jong-il, he said, “I never heard of him. Then again, I don’t listen to that rap music.”

Read the rest of this entry »