TV Clip of the Day: Lick it for 10!

As I've previously blogged, we are big fans of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. However, I realized that I never actually posted a clip from the show, so you can see what the show is all about. Well, here is a clip of one of our favorite Jimmy Fallon segments called "Lick it for 10". It's pretty self-explanatory. Basically, a few audience members are chosen to lick a randomly selected item, and if they do it, they are given $10. In the past, they have had to lick such objects as a lawn mower, a fish bowl, a tennis racket, and a bowling ball, but this particular installment of "Lick it for 10" has had my favorite assembly of licking items. See for yourself!

SNL Cast on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Update

As you've probably realized by now, the SNL Cast Member who's appearing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is Andy Samberg. (The listing of "Fallon: Andy Samberg" on our What We're Watching calendar should have been a dead give away.) In honor of his appearance, he has been ceremoniously greyed out of our photo. Andy will not only a guest on the show, but the musical guest as well with his singing group The Lonely Island. The Lonely Island is responsible for the amazing SNL Digital Shorts on Saturday Night Live, so I'm very excited to see what they are going to perform on the show tonight. Their latest hit, "Motherlover"? Or perhaps a new unreleased song? An old classic like "Lazy Sunday?" We'll just have to tune in tonight at 12:30 on NBC to find out! Also, former SNL star Maya Rudolph will be on the show Thursday night, so be sure to watch that too!

In other Late Night with Jimmy Fallon news, we have tickets to be in the studio audience of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon! A and I were thinking how much fun it would be to attend the show, since we live so close to New York City, and we realized that there's only a few days that we could go between when we finish college and when I start work, so we just called the number listed online for tickets, gave them my name, phone number and email address, and they emailed us tickets. It was that simple! So, June 1, we will be in the studio audience. Look here for a full report of the experience, and look for us on TV that night to see if we get called up to "Lick it for 10" or participate in a "Cell Phone Shoot Out" or perhaps become the "Late Night Audience President". Tune in to find out!

TV Mysteries: Where Did Grace Go to College?

Today we start a new blog segment called "TV Mysteries" where we will tackle some mysteries within our favorite TV shows. Today's mystery, "Where did Grace from Will & Grace go to college? As we were watching Will & Grace episode "Alive and Schticking" last night, a particular line grabbed our attention. This was the line:



GRACE: Jack, you've had affairs with married men, right?
JACK: I am insulted you would even ask. Of course I have. That's like me asking you if you rely too much on your hair.
GRACE: Guilty. It even got me out of my math requirement at N.Y.U.

Now, this, may seem like a normal exchange of dialogue, but what's interesting about it is that throughout the series, it had been stated that Will and Grace met while attending Columbia University, so therefore, why would Grace have needed a math requirement at NYU? We had a few hypotheses. 1) Grace didn't go to Columbia, Will went to Columbia and Grace went to NYU, she just hung out with Will at Columbia. This was proved false, after we saw episodes where they explicitly said they both went to Columbia, such as in the finale (they met during orientation, there rooms were across from each other) and in the episode where they visit an old college professor (they obviously went to the same school, if they had the same professor) 2) Will and Grace did go to Columbia, as we thought, but then Grace went to grad school at NYU, to get her degree in interior designing. However, we were able to find no evidence of this in any of our research. 3) Debra Messing, the actress who plays Grace, actually went to NYU to get her graduate degree in acting. Perhaps she just said the wrong line. It turns out, we think this is actually correct. That particular episode of Will & Grace, which was the 8th season premier, was a special live episode, that was actually filmed live twice, once for the east coast and once for the west coast. The version that we saw on the DVD (and the version that we saw when it aired live) was the East coast version. However, we found a transcript of the West coast version online, and that line about NYU is apparently not there! In the West coast version, the line is:

GRACE: Jack, you've had affairs with married men, right?
JACK: I am insulted you would even ask. Of course I have. That's like me asking you if you rely too much on your hair.
GRACE: I know, it's good right?

So, it seems that either Debra Messing improvised the line in the East coast and then after it aired live, they told her that Grace didn't go to NYU, so they got rid of the line for the live West coast airing, or perhaps it was actually in the script, but they realized between filmings that it is wrong. Either way, I think we solved the mystery! Grace never went to NYU, she just said the wrong line. Mystery Solved!

SNL Cast on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

As you probably know, Jimmy Fallon was a cast member on Saturday Night Live for many years, before he landed his current gig as host of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Late Night is executive produced by Lorne Michaels, who is also the creator and executive producer of SNL, which films in the same building in New York City as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Therefore, it should be no surprise that many members of the SNL cast have been members on the show. So far, in the 2 months or so since Jimmy Fallon started hosting Late Night, 5 of the 14 current cast members of SNL have been guests on the show (including Amy Poehler, who left SNL mid-season to have a baby and star in Parks and Recreation). Therefore, we are starting a new recurring segment called "SNL Cast on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"! Basically, we have a picture below of the current cast of SNL (it's from the beginning of the season, so it includes Amy Poehler who left mid-season, and doesn't include Abby Elliot, Bobby Moynihan, or Michaela Watkins who joined mid-season, so we added them in little circles on the bottom). Those who have already been guests on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, namely Amy Poehler, Seth Myers, Fred Armison, Kristen Wiig, and Bill Hader, have been greyed out, leaving the remaining 9 cast members left. (Technically speaking, Casey Wilson did appear on Late Night in a sketch about a pie snatcher, but I'm not counting that since she wasn't technically a guest on the show). My prediction is that by the end of 2009, the entire SNL cast will have hosted (of course, by then, there will be a "new cast", as some current cast members may leave, and some new cast members may join, but we can deal with that in the fall). Anyway, let's see how long it takes the whole cast is greyed out! And, I happen to know that one more SNL cast member will be on Late Night next week! Who will be the next to get greyed out? Look for a new blog post next week to find out! (Or you can just check www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com. I mean really, I don't have any insider information, I just spend a lot of my free time looking up this stuff on the internet.)

Famous Comedians on Sesame Street 2

Here's another batch of famous comedians appearing on Sesame Street! This time, we got Superbad star Jonah Hill teaching us about the word "mustache", Ben Stiller singing about the people in our neighborhood, and Jack Black returns, to teach us about the word "disguise". Enjoy!

Jonah Hill


Ben Stiller


Jack Black

SNL Returns with Justin Timberlake!

After a 3 week absence, Saturday Night Live is back with an all new episode this weekend, hosted by Justin Timberlake! Now I was never a huge N'Sync fan growing up, and I'm really not into Justin Timberlake's music right now, but you can't deny that there's something special happening with Justin hosts SNL. He's only hosted 2 times, but somehow from those 2 episodes plus a few cameo appearances, he has managed to become one of SNL's greatest all-time hosts. From co-hosting the Barry Gibb Talk Show with Jimmy Fallon (will he make a surprise cameo??? He is in NY now for his new show...) to his break dancing mascot charachter, to his unforgettable SNL Digital Short, Justin Timberlake has definately made his mark on Saturday Night Live history. Just as Steve Martin was the ultimate host of the 70's and 80's, and Alec Baldwin was the ultimate host of the 90's, Justin Timberlake has become the ultimate host of the current SNL era. I would not be surprised at all if an SNL: Best of Justim Timberlake DVD came out in a few years, and I would be the first to add it to my DVD collection.

Enjoy some of these great Justin Timberlake SNL sketches, and be sure to tune in tomorrow night at 11:30 for the newest episode! Also, don't miss another great host, Will Ferrell, hosting next weekend!

The Barry Gibb Talk Show


Give It On Up to Homelessville


Recap of if Justin Timberlake had Hosted


A "Special" Holiday Box

Penguins!

While we are no longer in the Nickelodeon's target demographic, we can't help but watch their newest nicktoon, The Penguins of Madagascar! For those of you who haven't seen the Dreamworks animated films Madagascar and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, the films are about a bunch of zoo animals who escape from the Central Park Zoo to go back to their natural habitat in Africa. The film stars Ben Stiller (as a lion), Chris Rock (as a zebra), David Schwimmer (as a giraffe) and Jada Pinkett Smith (as a hippo). While these main characters are great, the real stars of the film are the minor characters, mainly, the quartet of penguins who are always on a James Bond-style mission, Skipper, Rico, Kawalski, and Private. The penguins were really hilarious in the films ,and when we heard the news that they'd be getting their own cartoon series, let alone a Nicktoon series, we were very excited! The show features the 4 penguins, back at the Central Park zoo with their new friends, the lemurs (from the film), minus the 4 main animal characters (as they are still in Africa, as the second film ended). The penguins go on all sorts of fun missions at the zoo, interacting with other animals, and arguing with the lemur King, King Julian. It sounds silly, but it really is a fun show. It airs on Nickelodeon, so check it out!

Here's one of the episodes, "Penguiner Takes All". Enjoy!

Blog Updates!

Hello again. As you've probably noticed by now, our blog has some new additions. First, we have added a calendar on the side, which shows "what we're watching" in the next few days, so you can watch what we're watching along with us! We Like TV is also now on Twitter! You'll find a link to our Twitter on the right side of the page. If you follow us on Twitter, your Twitter page will receive a notification whenever we update the blog, as well as some exclusive little tweets that won't be on the blog! Follow us!

Also, keep checking back, as we continue to improve the blog, such as updating the picture of the DVDs in the top banner to reflect all our new TV DVD additions!

Edit: We forgot to mention that as of now, the feed going to Twitter updates with current entries but then since we put our Twitter directly on the blog, all blog posts will appear both in the main area of the blog as well as in summary form in the Twitter widget. Until we figure out how to make this not happen, we guess you'll just have to read everything twice. Twice as nice!

Sitcom Moms & Dads: Will's Mom

I actually have been doing a lot of studying since the last blog entry that I posted, but during a short study break I stumbled something so fascinating (at least to me) that I had to post this. On Will & Grace, Will's mother is played by actress Blythe Danner. Blythe Danner, to our generation is perhaps most famous for playing the mother of Ben Stiller's character in the Meet the Parents movies (wife of Robert DeNiro's character) as well as for being the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow. I was aware of all of this, however while I was casually perusing her IMDB profile (don't ask me why), I stumbled upon an interesting listing in her filmography. She played the character of Martha Jefferson in the classic film version of the musical 1776. 1776 is one of my favorite musicals, one of the first shows I saw on Broadway, and I always particularly enjoyed the film due to the the fact that the lead character of John Adams was played by William Daniels, who starred on Boy Meets World as Mr. Feeny (in the show, they went to John Adams High School, get it?). Anyway, so I'm very familiar with the film, and I had no idea that Martha Jefferson was played by the same actress who years later played Will's mom and Will & Grace! So now compare for yourself, Blythe Danner as Will's Mom and as Martha Jefferson.

As Will's Mom in Will & Grace.



As Martha Jefferson as she sings about Thomas Jefferson's passion for the violin in 1776.

TV Clip of the Day: Final Exam Procastination Edition!

As I sit in the silent floor of the library, the day before my toughest final exam, I still cannot bring myself to study, and so I check all my usual websites, one of which is http://www.blogger.com/www.sitcomsonline.com. On the site, they had an interesting news item, about how on a recent episode of The Rachel Ray Show, they had an Iron Chef-style cook off between some audience members, and in honor of Mother's Day this weekend, the cook-off was judged by 3 classic TV moms! The first was Florence Henderson, who of course played Mrs. Brady on The Brady Bunch. The second was Marrion Ross, who played Mrs. Cunningham on Happy Days. And the third was Shirley Jones, who played Mrs. Partridge on The Partridge Family. Now I am quite familiar with The Brady Bunch and Happy Days, so I was quite familiar with those two, but I have never seen The Partridge Family before, so I was not expecting to know who Mrs. Partridge was, but when Rachel Ray announced Shirley Jones, and she came out, I thought "Shirley Jones, wasn't she Marrion Librarian in The Music Man?" Sure enough, she was. I had no idea that she starred on The Partridge Family! Maybe someday I should check it out. Anyway, enjoy this Rachel Ray cook-off, judged by classic TV moms, Florence Henderson, Marrion Ross, and Shirley Jones:

Oh no! I can't embed the videos! Grr, I guess you'll just have to click on the link and watch it on the Rachel Ray site:
http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/show/segments/view/elimination-challenge/