Danielle Fishel on The Soup!

After the big news came out that Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel will be reprising their roles of Cory and Topanga on Girl Meets World, I was hoping that it would mean that we'd get to see the two stars appear on talk shows to promote the new series.  And while that hasn't technically happened yet, we did get to see Danielle Fishel pop up on The Soup!  She appeared various time throughout the episode, including this clip of her as Lindsay  Lohan playing Liz Taylor:

Here's a behind the scenes bit (that didn't air on TV) of Danielle Fishel getting into character to play Lohan as Liz:

It was somewhat of a homecoming for Danielle to appear on The Soup.  From 2008-2011, Danielle hosted her own Soup-style show called The Dish on E!'s sister network Style.  The show was very similar to The Soup, but more focused on style and fashion than random reality shows.  Here's a clip of Danielle Fishel on The Dish discussing Bieber Fever:

While Danielle hasn't been on TV much since The Dish ended in 2011, she's been hosting a series of online videos in that same Soup/Dish style called "Last Night on TV" for MSN. Here's today's episode featuring Danielle's recap of last night's Parks & Rec and Glee.  It seems that this will be her last episode of the web series, so I guess she's decided to focus all her efforts on Girl Meets World full time!

In other Girl Meets World news, following Danielle's heartfelt blog post about the new show, her Boy Meets World co-star Rider Strong (Shawn) posted his thoughts over on his blog.  In the post he reveals, "At this point, I have no official involvement in Girl Meets World. There might be a chance to see some of the BMW cast in a guest spot, and I think it would be nice to find out where our characters have been all these years."  Sounds like he's open to appearing!  Hopefully "Uncle Shawn" will pop-up on GMW!

Jaime Foxx and Martin Short to Host SNL!

Only two Saturday Night Live episodes remain in 2012, and we now know who the hosts will be!

12/8 Jaime Foxx (with musical guest Ne-Yo)

After a short 2-week hiatus, SNL will return with actor/rapper/comedian Jaime Foxx hosting for his second time (he previously hosted back in 2000).  While I admit I'm not that familiar with Jamie Foxx's work, I know he has a strong comedy background from doing stand-up, starring on his own self titled sitcom, and starring on the sketch comedy series In Living Color.  He has also starred in many dramatic roles, including his Academy Award winning performance in 2004's Ray.  This proves that he's both a really funny guy as well as a very talented actor, which usually leads to a great SNL host.  I'm very excited to see how he does on the show, since I don't recall his first time hosting and can't seem to find any videos online.  I did however find this video of Jaime Foxx as his popular recurring character "Wanda" from In Living Color:

12/15 Martin Short (with musical guest Paul McCartney)

On December 15th, SNL's popular "Christmas Show", Martin Short will return to host for his 3rd time.  Short actually starred on SNL as a cast member during the 1984-1985 season, where he often played his popular character Ed Grimley (which he originated on the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV). He has since returned to the show to host once in 1986 alongside Chevy Chase and Steve Martin (with whom he was co-starring with in the hilarious Lorne Michaels-produced film Three Amigos!) and then once again on his own in 1996.    Joining Short on the show is legendary rock star Paul McCartney, who will be musical guest for the 4th time.  Paul has been known to show up in sketches when he's on the show, so I'm really looking forward to see what he does this time!  Should be a great show!  Here's Martin Short as Ed Grimley, Paul McCartney on The Chris Farley Show, and Martin and Paul together making a surprise cameo during a show hosted by Alec Baldwin in 2006 (the last time either man was seen on the show):

BEN SAVAGE & DANIELLE FISHEL OFFICIALLY JOIN GIRL MEETS WORLD!

IT'S OFFICIAL!  After weeks of speculation, Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel have officially signed on to reprise their roles as Cory and Topanga on the new Boy Meets World sequel Girl Meets World!!!  As we've previously reported, the new Disney Channel show will focus on their pre-teen daughter Riley, who will be a student in her father Cory's 7th grade class (he's now a teacher).  While original Boy Meets World creator Michael Jacobs has been in negotiations with the stars for weeks, it looks like they finally reached a deal!

In our In-Depth Analysis of Girl Meets World post, we said that our two biggest apprehensions about the show were:

1) If Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel weren't in it and they were replaced by other actors
2) That it would turn into a typical Disney Channel sitcom with know-it-all singing kids and dumb dopey parents with cheesy plot lines

So now we don't have to worry about #1.  And as for #2, I'm starting to feel a lot better about that as well.  Shortly after this news broke earlier tonight, Danielle Fishel wrote a heartfelt blog post, where she said:

I promise with the entirety of my heart that we will make GMW with the same honesty, innocence, and intelligence that you learned to expect from BMW.

The rest of her post shares the same sentiment, that they she and Ben debated about joining the show, but signed on because they were both really devoted to creating a special show in the vein of Boy Meets World. They really do care about the show as much as the fans do, and it looks like they'll do their best to preserve the legacy of BMW and make the fans proud.

So now my apprehensions are gone!  I'm really excited for this new show!  It's supposed to start filming in February, so hopefully it airs in the next few months!  Cory and Topanga are back!

Ben Savage Address Boy Meets World Sequel! (Kind Of)

We've been posting all the details we can find about the highly anticipated upcoming show Girl Meets World, a spin-off of the popular 90's sitcom Boy Meets World.  But the one big question that still remains unanswered is whether or not Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel will reprise their iconic roles as Cory and Topanga.  The creepers journalists over at TMZ stalked interviewed Ben Savage and asked him about the new show, as seen in this video:

While Ben Savage doesn't give us much information here at all, I take this as a good sign.  If he really wasn't interested in doing the show, I think he would have just turned it down.  But the fact that he's not allowed to talk about it leads me to believe that he's currently in negations with Disney and they're just trying to agree on his salary. And if that's the case, with all the buzz surrounding the show, I'm sure Disney will give Ben and Danielle whatever they need to keep them from walking away.  Hopefully we get official word that they're on board soon!

PS TMZ is the sleaziest show ever to exist.

Our Favorite SNL Sketch this Weekend That Never Even Aired

Usually, after Saturday Night Live airs each weekend, we post our favorite sketch or two and write about how great it was. This weekend however, we did no such post.  We just didn't feel that any of the sketches were blog-worthy in what was a somewhat mediocre show.  So instead of posting about my favorite sketch of the week, I was planning to write about my disappointment that a sketch that I wanted to see never aired at all.

Last week, The New York Times reviewed celebrity chef Guy Fieri's new restaurant in Times Square and gave it a hilariously horrible review.  And for the first time that I can remember, a restaurant review went viral and everyone was talking about it.  As soon as I read it, I immediately said "I can't wait to see Bobby's Guy Fieri talking about this on Weekend Update. This is gonna be great!".  And since that moment, I had been looking forward to SNL more than usual to see this inevitable sketch.  And yet, when the show aired and Weekend Update came on, there was no Guy.  The two Update guests were Jay Pharoah as Katt Williams and a surprise cameo by NJ Governor Chris Christie.  And while I enjoyed both appearances, I still couldn't figure out why SNL chose to air these two bits over Guy Fieri.  I was thinking maybe once they booked Chris Christie they bumped the Guy sketch, but why wouldn't they bump Katt Williams instead?  While it was a funny segment, far more people are familiar with Guy Fieri (who Bobby has hilariously impersonated many times before) and his his "review read 'round the world" than they are with comedian Katt Williams and his recent scandal.  I couldn't figure it out.  So I figured it must have gotten cut at Dress Rehearsal.  SNL's website often posts cut sketches on Sunday after the show, but when I checked the site on Sunday afternoon, while there was a cut sketch, there was no Guy Fieri.  Had SNL actually not written a Guy Fieri sketch at all?

                  The real Guy Fieri                                                    Bobby Moynihan as Guy Fieri on SNL

So I was planning to post about my anger over not getting to see Bobby as Guy responding to the review.  I was gonna  post an old Guy Fieri sketch to show how hilarious Bobby's impression was, and then hypothesize about what they could have done with the sketch   But then, out of nowhere, just as I had given up all hope, the Guy Fieri sketch actually appeared!  It apparently was cut from Dress Rehearsal and for whatever reason wasn't posted online until today.  And...it's just as great as I imagined it would be!  I still can't understand why this got cut over Katt Williams (or why they couldn't cut one of the other sketches to extend Weekend Update), but I'm just glad that the video exists and we finally get to watch Bobby Moynihan's hilarious Guy Fieri respond to the infamous NY Times Review.

So without further ado, here's the highly anticipated Guy Fieri sketch from Saturday Night Live:

And in case you're wondering how Guy actually responded to the review, here's his interview with Savannah Guthrie from the Today show:

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SNL Alum on New Normal!

After leaving Saturday Night Live, actors usually follow one of two paths: They either become a huge movie/TV star (like Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, etc.) or they become character actors and pop up on various comedies in funny guest starring roles.  And while lately we've seen a lot of great guest spots from SNL alums such as Rachel Dratch, Molly Shannon, Chris Parnell, Will Forte, etc., there's one who we really haven't seen in a while - Cheri Oteri. Therefore, you can imagine our surprise when she randomly popped up in this week's episode of the new NBC comedy The New Normal!  Check out Cheri Oteri's scene-stealing appearance on The New Normal below:

And for those of you who don't remember Cheri Oteri on SNL, she starred on the show from 1995-2000, and is probably best remembered for her role as Ariana in the popular recurring sketch "The Spartan Cheerleaders" opposite Will Ferrell:

Ellen Responds to her SNL Spoof

A few days ago we posted  about how one of our favorite SNL sketches from last weekend's show was the hilarious parody of the daytime talk show Ellen.  So after seeing Kate McKinnon's spot-on impression of Ellen Degeneres, we were of course curious to see how the real Ellen would respond.  Well, it turns out she's a fan!  Ellen devoted the whole monologue from one of her shows this week to talking about the sketch.  She even showed some clips from the show, some of which aren't even available online!  Check out Ellen's response to seeing herself parodied on SNL below:

Hopefully Ellen will have Kate McKinnon on as a guest soon so we can see the two Ellens together at last!  And in case you were wondering, yes, Ellen has hosted Saturday Night Live before.  Here's her opening monologue from when she hosted back in 2001:

Matthew Perry's Woody Allen Impression on Go On

Woody Allen may not be making headlines or have any movies coming out for a while, but for some reason he's all over TV these days.  Two weeks ago, we posted some clips from New Girl and Conan of characters doing Woody Allen impressions, and now we have another one!  On this week's Go On, Matthew Perry does his best Woody Allen to prove to Owen's mom that he's funny.  Check out the clip below:

If you're a hardcore SNL fan, you might be aware that this is not the first time Matthew Perry has impersonated Woody Allen.  Back when he hosted the show in 1997 (at the height of his Friends fame), he played Woody Allen in a sketch called "Good Morning with Liza!".  I've spent most of the night searching every corner of the internet for a video clip of this sketch, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.  I was however able to find this nice screen-cap of Matthew Perry as Woody Allen from the sketch:

If anyone can find a clip of this SNL sketch, please let us know!  And since TV characters impersonating Woody Allen seems to be the latest trend, we'll continue to post more if we see them!

SNL Parodies Les Miz with Anne Hathaway!

This past weekend Anne Hathaway hosted Saturday Night Live for the third time to promote her upcoming film adaptation of the classic Broadway musical Les Miserables.  When it was first announced that she would host, I correctly predicted that she would sing at some point, but I had no idea that she and the entire cast would do a Les Miz parody!  Les Miz is one of our favorite musicals (we saw it on Broadway together a few years ago and I had previously seen it "On My Own" before that) and the epic song "One Day More" is one of our favorite songs from the show.  Therefore, we really enjoyed SNL's parody of the song, which featured every single member of the cast performing together with Anne for her monologue:

And in case you're not familiar with Les Miz, here's a performance of "One Day More" from the recent 25th Anniversary concert performance (yes, that's Nick Jonas):

New "Girl Meets World" Details and an In-Depth Analysis of the "Boy Meets World" Sequel

Last week we posted  the breaking news that Disney Channel was developing a Boy Meets World spin-off sequel entitled Girl Meets World  focusing on the pre-teen daughter of Cory and Topanga.  Since we posted that announcement, the following additional details have been released:

• The show will focus on Cory and Topanga's daughter named Riley.  In the official casting breakdown, she's described as "13 years old, indelible personality, an adorable girl on the cusp of whatever comes next in life, and wanting to rush into it head first. She is fiercely loyal to her friends, and spends most of her time juggling the obstacles that life throws her way... there is no obstacle in this girl's world that can dampen her bright spirit and eternal optimism.""  (Sounds like a good enough protagonist for the show. I can kind of see a blend between the good-natured Cory and the over-achieving Topanga in this child.)
• Riley's best friend is named Maya, who is darker and edgier than Riley, but still a great friend.  (So they're re-creating the Cory/Shawn friendship.)
• Riley's older 14 year old brother is Elliot, a know-it-all who bosses Riley around.  (Clearly they're not re-creating the Cory/Eric relationship.)
• And the big surprise...Cory will be Riley's 7th grade history teacher!  Yes, Cory has become the new Feeny.  I guess Feeny's influence rubbed off on him and he decided to become a teacher himself.  And I'm sure this will create all sorts of comedy with Riley having her father as her teacher.  (By the way, William Daniels, the actor who played Mr. Feeny (who's now 85 years old), is still acting with a recurring role on Grey's Anatomy, so he might just appear on the show too!)
• Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel are in still in talks to reprise their iconic roles as Cory and Topanga, but have not officially signed on yet.
• Filming is set to begin in February.

Lily Niksay now and on BMW

In addition to all that news, Lily Niksay, the actress who played Cory's little sister Morgan in the first two seasons (but was then replaced by Lindsay Ridgeway for seasons 3-7) reportedly wants to be a part of the new show, even though she hasn't been asked. Since Lily Niksay was replaced on Boy Meet World, I can't really imagine they'd go back to her playing Morgan on the new show.  If [Aunt] Morgan were to appear (in what I imagine would be a guest or recurring role), it would make the most sense for her to be played by Lindsay Ridgeway, who played Morgan when the series ended.

I'll give you a minute to let all of that sink in.

OK. Now, when I first read the news about this new show, I was so excited by the possibility of Cory and Topanga returning to my TV that I could hardly contain myself.  But now, it's been almost a week and I've had time to digest the news.  So let's fully analyze this situation.

Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln Lincaaaaah

Last night, comedian Louis C.K. made his highly anticipated appearance on Saturday Night Live as host of the show.  As we've previously posted, we're big fans of both Louis C.K. and his show Louie, and were really looking forward to seeing him host, although we did have some apprehensions about how he'd do in the role.  And as it turned out, he did a great job!  Louie really went all out and played lots of silly characters, did funny accents, wore ridiculous costumes, and had one of the longest and messiest make out sessions we've ever seen.  But our favorite sketch from the night was  the excellent Louie parody - "Lincoln"!  In the sketch, Louie did  a perfect parody of his hit show as Abraham Lincoln, complete with stand-up, women troubles, and a shot-for-shot remake of his show's opening theme.  While there is a Lincoln movie coming out next weekend, the subject of Abraham Lincoln was a bit random, but it still worked in the sketch.  Here's the  web exclusive Director's Cut (no, Louie surprisingly did not direct this) of "Lincoln", including a full minute of material that didn't make it on air! (See more Louie on SNL after the jump.)

Random Clip of the Day: Mayor of Portlandia on Sprockets

A few years ago, as a big fans of Mike Myers's Austin Powers movies, we decided to buy the "SNL Best of Mike Myers" DVD to see what Mike Myers was like earlier in his career on SNL.  We were already familiar with his popular sketches "Wayne's World" and "Coffee Talk", but a sketch that just came out of nowhere and was really random and hilarious was one called "Sprockets".  "Sprockets" is a sketch about a German talk show hosted played by Mike Myers's character Dieter.  In this particular edition of Sprockets, Dieter welcomes fellow-German Karl-Heinz Shelkar to show us Germany's Most Disgusting Home Videos.  We have seen this sketch many times on DVD, but we didn't realize until yesterday that the actor who plays Karl-Heinz Shelkar currently has a recurring role on one of our favorite shows!

Look familiar?  Why it's none other than Kyle MacLachlan, who recurs on the sketch comedy show Portlandia as the mayor of Portland!  Apparently he hosted SNL back in 1990 when he was famous for starring on Twin Peaks.  It was so surreal to see Kyle MacLachlan so young and German when we're more used to seeing him act like this:

Portlandia returns to IFC for its third season on January 4th (with a Holiday Special on December 14th), and yes, The Mayor will be back!

Boy Meets World Sequel????

Future Cory and Topanga from episode "Seven the Hard Way"

According to multiple reports, Disney Channel is developing a sequel to the popular 90's sitcom Boy Meets World to be entitled Girl Meets World focusing on the pre-teen daughter of Cory and Topanga.  (To those who need a refresher  at the end of the series Cory and Topanga got married and moved to New York.)  Original Boy Meets World creator Daniel Jacobs is behind the project, and he is currently in the process of trying to get Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel to reprise their roles of Cory and Topanga.  Boy Meets World was a large part of my childhood, and it would be truly amazing to see Cory and Topanga 12 years later raising a child of their own!  Hopefully Shawn, Eric, Feeny, and the rest of the gang will come back too, even if its just  as recurring guests.  We'll be sure to post updates on this developing story.  Hopefully this show actually happens!

SLIGHT UPDATE:
Danielle Fishel (Topanga) is being very coy about the news on twitter:

Clip of the Day: Zombie Woody Allen

While we may not always post about them, in addition to our favorite NBC comedies we do watch many non-NBC shows too.  One of those shows is the very funny FOX comedy New Girl, from which we found today's Clip of the Day.  As big fans of Woody Allen, we really enjoyed this short clip from this week's Halloween episode of New Girl, in which each of the roommates takes turns doing their best Woody Allen impressions in response to Jess's Halloween costume. 

UPDATED

And speaking of Woody Allen, here's another Woody Allen related TV clip from this week.  From Conan, here's Woody Allen's audition tape to direct the new Star Wars film:

My Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Adventure

Living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, I have been very lucky throughout Hurricane Sandy in that my building had no damage and I never lost power, cable, or internet.  My office did lose power however, so I've been out of work all week. And after 2 days of sitting in my apartment watching reruns all day, I finally decided to go out yesterday to explore the city. That's when I saw this tweet:

Longtime readers of this blog will remember that we attended a taping of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon back in 2009, but I've always been interested in attending Jimmy's monologue rehearsal.  I wondered what kind of jokes didn't make the cut, and if there were alternate punchlines for each joke that were tested by the audience's response.  So I decided to leave my apartment for the first time since the storm hit 3 days earlier and venture downtown to 30 Rock. (Of course the subways were still down, so I had to take a very slow downtown bus.)  I arrived at the NBC Store at 2:00, I asked for a ticket to Jimmy's Monologue Rehearsal, and I was told I got the last one, and was handed the following ticket:

I was so excited to have gotten the last ticket that I didn't read it closely and just headed off into Time Square to find some pizza to eat before I had to be back at 2:45. But when I checked back at 2:45 as I was told to do, I was informed that the ticket I had was not a ticket to the Monologue Rehearsal, but rather a Standby Ticket to the actual taping of the show!  (I should have been tipped off by the fact that it said "STAND-BY TICKET" on the top.)  The Monologue Rehearsal group had already left, so that was no longer an option, so I figured I'd stick around and test my luck on Standby to attend the show.  As I mentioned, I got the last ticket (number 150), so I thought my chances were pretty slim, but as it turned out there were a lot of no-shows (presumably due to the hurricane damage) so I ended up making it in!  I was given an actual ticket to the show, and eventually made it in to the studio!

Two Fun Men

As was the case before, the warm-up guy worked the crowd by making fun of the few people in Halloween costumes and gave us some ground rules for the show. Then The Roots came out and gave us a little pre-show concert, featuring a special performance from Two Fun Men.  Sadly, Higgins wasn't there, but head writer A.D. Miles filled in and announced Jimmy Fallon as he walked out and the show got started!.  It was a great show featuring Ryan Seacrest rapping, Bobby Cannavale doing Al Pacino, a fun Halloween video (which I realized was actually the same one they showed a few years ago), and a performance from the aforementioned Two Fun Men.  But best of all, I got to see a live performance of Jimmy singing "Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet" as Bob Dylan! Here's a clip of the song.  When he runs up into the audience, you can see me in the crowd singing along!

Overall it was a great show and a lot of fun, especially since I had no intention of going when I woke up in the morning.  Maybe one of these days I'll actually make it to the Monologue Rehearsal, but until then I'll gladly settle for attending a taping of the full show.

Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Renner to Host SNL!

NBC has just named the remaining two SNL hosts for November! After Louis C.K. hosts this weekend, the next two SNL hosts will be:

11/10 Anne Hathaway (with musical guest Rihanna)

Anne Hathaway will host for the third time on November 10th with Rihanna as musical guest (for the fourth time).  Anne Hathaway is a great host and I'm really looking forward to her returning to SNL.  Not only is she an Academy Award nominated actress for her dramatic work, but she's also great at comedy and is not afraid to get silly.  I assume she'll be promoting her highly anticipated upcoming musical film Les Miserables, so there's a good chance we'll get to see her sing.  Check out my favorite Anne Hathaway SNL sketch below, featuring Anne doing an amazing impression of (her Princess Diaries co-star) Julie Andrews.  Also, with Rihanna as musical guest, maybe Andy Samberg can return for Shy Ronnie? Unlikely since she didn't do it last time, but it could happen!

11/17 Jeremy Renner (with musical guest Maroon 5)

When I read that Jeremy Renner would be hosting SNL for the first time, I honestly had to Wikipedia him because I had no idea who he was.  Turns out he's an Academy Award nominated actor most famous for starring in The Hurt Locker, Mission Impossible, and The Avengers.  Believe it or not, I actually haven't seen any of these movies, or any movie he's ever starred in.  Therefore, I really don't know what to expect from him as SNL host.  I generally prefer it when comedic actors host the show, so I'm not really looking forward to this one, but he could surprise me.  We'll see.  Also, with Maroon 5 as musical guest (for the 4th time), maybe Andy will return this time to reunite with Adam Levine to do Iran So Far - Part 2?  Again, unlikely, but it could happen!