Liz is having computer troubles so I’m here to over-snark on the season premiere of Mad Men. Yes, everybody else over-analyzes but here we make excellent prostitute jokes.

”It’s somehow dirtier not seeing everything.”

Don Draper is the face of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. That is unfortunate for Don Draper, a man who has spent his entire professional life avoiding the spotlight and kicking ass behind the scenes. When Don doesn’t give up much information about himself to an Ad Age reporter, it results in bad publicity. While he was jeopardizing his fledgling ad agency, Don also had to deal with a father and son duo from Squaresville trying to sell their bikinis in a “wholesome” manner. In what I believe was on purpose, Don gets mad at them when he tries to pitch a sexy ad campaign, which they of course don’t like. Don actually kicks them out of the office and demands that Bert Cooper set up an interview with the WSJ, where a cocky Don Draper spins the reporter a confident yarn about how he triumphantly told Lane Pryce to fire him one year earlier. Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is about taking risks and being a part of the here and now of 1964.

Also we found ourselves seeing a Don who resorted to accepting a blind date with one of Jane’s friends. He didn’t even get to sleep with her! Not that it matters, because Don has acquired the services of a prostitute to slap him around and make sweet dirty expensive love to him. The son of a hooker hiring a hooker. Healthy! Or maybe he’s dealing with that issue? While having sex? So maybe he’s smarter than even I thought.

The show isn’t just about Dickie Whitman, so let’s see how everybody else is doing:

Peggy Olsen is now one of the guys. She is completely at ease and in control at her job. Peggers also sports the most progressive haircut of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with her Mary Tyler Moore doo. She still respects Don a bit too much, but that seems to be the case with virtually everyone else in Manhattan. Olsen has a steady, seemingly submissive boyfriend who referred to himself to Don as her “fiance”, a title that Peggy later claimed to Don as fraudulent.

Pete Campbell now goes by Peter, which is subtle but brilliant because that’s exactly something Pete would eventually insist on. Peter’s friend Ho-Ho still insists on keeping that awful nickname and continues to exhibit petulance when Don didn’t mention his beloved Jai Alai in the original newspaper interview. Even though Harry had just secured a deal with ABC to televise the sport, Ho-Ho let SCDP go. We have to wait and see if Peter’s big client will stick around and how he’ll react to that.

Harry is still the town boob. He was mocked by Joan and didn’t even realize it. He also burns easily.

Joan Harris now has her own office and returns to her throne as office Queen Bee. No word on her hubby Johnny VonRapenstein.

Roger was more dryly coarse than usual. One blogger (I can’t remember which; I’ve read about ten reviews of the episode) is worried that Mr. Sterling is suicidal – Roger twice mentioned something related to suicide. Not to mention Don and Peter seemed a bit worried in the beginning of “Public Relations” and intimated Roger is reaching Freddie Munsen levels of alcoholic drinking. Something to look out for.

Pryce and Bert did virtually nothing. Bert set up Don’s Wall Street Journal interview and that’s about it.

Betty…oh jeez. Betty is more of a monster than ever. Matt Weiner seems intent on making the former Mrs. Draper completely unlikeable. She’s now married to Henry Francis who is having a tough year: the man he works for, Nelson Rockefeller, didn’t even get close to getting the ‘64 Republican nomination, and he’s married to Betty Draper. His mother speaks for everyone when she wonders what he possibly sees in her.

Things To Say While Drinking with Desi and Lucy

“You know something. We are all here because of you. All we want to do is please you.”
“Believe me Henry, everybody thinks this is temporary.”
“A wooden leg…They’re so cheap they can’t even afford a whole reporter.”
“Johnnn.” “Marshaaa.”

Is acting difficult? Some comedians say it’s very easy and practically mock the profession on stage. Other comedians say they can’t possibly do it and mock the profession on stage. C.K. is a part of the latter group.

Louie gets interrupted in his stand-up bit about his brain talking to his asshole by a woman in the audience. She keeps talking and C.K. calls her a cunt, among other things for interrupting. Outside the Comedy Cellar she confronts C.K. in front of his comedian buddies and swears that she’s a good person that didn’t deserve the tongue lashing that she received. Louie explains she ruined his loser comedians’ lives tonight. Stand-up is all they have and she ruined it by not shutting the hell up during their sets. In reality, both parties had a point. After she leaves Todd Barry gets right down to what matters: Louie could have had sex with her but he went too far.

The next short film has C.K. pontificating about acting. C.K. says to his agent’s receptionist he just isn’t good at acting. He then explains it’s stupid to want to be an actor. Of course the receptionist is training to be one. His agent Simon browbeats Louie into taking a part in a remake of The Godfather, this time with Jews. Simon gets so aggravated he has a heart attack and dies, forcing Louie to take the role. Matthew Broderick and Louie run through a scene over and over again because C.K. can never quite hit the gravitas when informing Broderick that his father is dead. It’s very very funny. The funniest scene on television in months. Broderick tells C.K. to go take a walk to clear his head. Since Louie is still in his cop uniform we have an idea as to what’s about to happen. After meowing, blowing raspberries and making several other animal noises to a cat, two men try to rob the bodega. Louie, after licking off donut residue on his fingers draws his gun! Unfortunately for him it’s half of a gun. One of the criminals tells the other with the gun to shoot him. The criminal admits his gun isn’t real either. The two run off. Pussies.

Things To Say While Not Listening To The Comedian

“You don’t like rape?”
“Letting you live was medical malpractice.”
“That’s really ‘neg’.”
“Oh, your father’s dead.”
“Try to get yourself to give a shit. Comedian.”
“They don’t give you real guns?”
“Am I one of the Jews?”

DirectTV saved Damages from cancellation. Eventually the satellite company will scoop up every single critically-acclaimed and low-rated show in the world. Except Party Down…dammit.

Joshua Jackson held a “Pacey-Con” across the street from Comic-con. He even dressed like Mr. Witter. Joshua Jackson is a cool guy who doesn’t know what to do with himself when Fringe isn’t filming is what I got out of this story.

John Oliver will now be a series regular on Community. Hopefully he will have to defend the English soccer team and use a string of profanities in his counter-argument.

Justin Bieber showed the Twitterverse a shot of him guesting on the Season Premiere of CSI as some sort of jailbird. That’s right girls: he’s a bad boy too.

Family Guy will release a third Star Wars spoof on DVD December 21st. Just get it out of your system already guys.

Snooki’s dad understand his daughter’s appeal. Crazy old men thinking you need talent to have appeal, psh.

Linda Hamilton will play Chuck Bartowski’s mom on Chuck this fall. Yay Terminator puns!

Olivia Munn will join Dolph “I Must Break You” Lungren on the season premiere of the aforementioned spy-comedy show thing.

USA will produce and run a Burn Notice prequel focusing on Bruce Campbell’s character. I’m pitching the title Smoke Notice.

Remember when you had that dream of a live-action Fairly Oddparents? Well guess who Inceptioned your ass!

Tina and Artie from Glee are totes datingggggg. Yay real life mimicking art.

Meth cookers are getting inspired by Breaking Bad Boo real life mimicking art.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will show up on The Simpsons. You probably already read this on your News Feed.

Jon Hamm will also appear on the show that will never die.

30 Rock’s Tracy Morgan will have his own one hour comedy special on HBO this November. I will gather my entire family over to watch it after our Thanksgiving dinner! (I’m rather passive aggressive.)

The dude who threatened Trey Parker and Matt Stone was arrested for saying he was going to Terrorism School. South Park next season is going to be crazy.

Apparently the staff at House go to strip clubs, get drunk, do cocaine and fuck in trailers. And someone is suing the show for that for some reason.

The Office writer/producer B.J. Novak, who also of course plays hipster-in-training Ryan Howard signed a two-year deal to stay on the show, which indicates the show plans to continue without Michael “Albatross” Scott.

Bored To Death will join Eastbound and Down for premiering their second season premiere on September 26th. The title is ironic because only the first few episodes of the show were boring.

David Cross has joined the Will Arnett starring show of Running Wilde. I’d love for the show to just devolve into characters asking each other if they think there will be an Arrested Development movie.

It was revealed that Saturday Night Live wrote a movie titled The Saturday Night Live Movieback in 1990. Obviously it never made it to the filming stage and not so obviously most of the bits Al Franken wrote are long since dated and sound awful.

We don’t hate Hermes but we never really give him too much thought either. We know he for whatever reason absolutely loves accounting. We know he has a wife who always seems to be on the verge of leaving him for superficial and monetary reasons and a boring son. And that’s about it. By the conclusion of “Lethal Inspection” however, we love him.

During a Sith War reenactment (“What the hoth?”) Bender wonders out loud how humans can live with the prospect of one day dying. He continues bragging of being an immortal robot until he leaves an oil stool sample on Farnsworth’s “chair with wheels.” It turns out Inspector No.5 – the one in charge of making sure all of Bender’s nuts and bolts were in the right places when he was assembled – wasn’t too good at his job: Farnsworth discovers that Bender doesn’t have a backup system in his body that would ensure immortality. This causes Bender to become hellbent on finding this shitty Inspector and perform a murder-suicide. Heavy!

In order to find him or her Bender recruits resident pencil pusher bureaucrat Hermes. The unlucky partners in crime enter Central Bureaucracy headquarters to find out Inspector No.5’s identity. After not finding much of anything Bender calls the all powerful Mom to rat himself out as a defective robot. His reward for such honesty is a group of mercenary robots out to kill him. Bender and Hermes run away to Tijuana, Bender’s birthplace, where they find Inspector No.5’s house. They find it deserted. Before Bender can off himself the pesky robots with guns appear outside and attempt to murder Bender again. Hermes hacks into the abandoned inspector’s computer to hack in and list Bender Bending Rodriguez as deceased, ending the rain of bullets and saving his and Mr. Rodriguez’s lives.

Once the group leave the conference room to go celebrate life with some sweet sweet liquor we find Hermes in front of a roaring fire. He throws mysterious Inspector No.5’s file from his jacket pocket into the flame. To the score of “Fly Through My Window” we see that Hermes was Inspector No.5 all along. Hermes, working for Mom, was about to throw away a defective baby Bender when he was overtaken by emotion. He decided to let Bender continue living and immediately resigned from his job. On three: awwwwwwwwww!

Not as powerful of an ending as the terrific and heartbreaking “Jurassic Bark” episode, and it breaks continuity, but damn. You’re a good man Hermes Conrad.

Things To Say When You Walk Away From A Cool Explosion Without Looking Back

“Good war…good war…”
“Suicide is not necessarily the answer!”
“Anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time.”
“This is every bit as fun as the real Civil War!”
“That’s a calculator. I ate it for it’s power.”
“Addition never solved anything.”
“That’s what you get for calling tech support.”
“I also would have accepted a bribe.”
“Someone said howlitzer!”

P.S.

We knew Hermes also liked the occasional ganja and the limbo dancing, but those are broad Jamaican stereotypes aren’t they?

My favorite was Darth Urderer.

The “middle square” sounding like Paul Lynde was a nice touch, a touch that 75 percent of Futurama’s audience can’t feel.

Here’s the pretty song. I actually never heard of “Fly Through My Window” before. What does that say about my childhood?

No follow-up story on Douglas’ new robot hand. Very disappointing.

Roy gets a beautiful new girlfriend named Julia who unfortunately carries the baggage of being an orphan. Julia reveals that her parents died in a tragic sea park fire. A sea park fire? She refuses to bring the story up ever again (“I said I don’t want to talk about it”) causing Roy to go crazy and obsess over how such a thing is possible. At one point he even pretends he was on a laptop for masturbating instead of revealing to Julia he was looking at sea park seating charts. In another scene Roy plays with his mash(ed potatoes) to figure out the logistics. In the end he recreates a fire in a miniature sea park and figures out how such a thing can happen. In the process however he burns his hands. At the hospital Julia asks Roy what happened to his hands. Roy, not wanting to admit his obsession, tells her he doesn’t want to talk about it. Bazinga.

Jen isn’t a fan of Linda, a coworker who outshines her in every aspect during business meanings. To make herself become “the best woman” in the office in Douglas’ eyes she lies about knowing fluent Italian. This predictably leads to confusion between the Italian businessman, Jen and everyone in the office at their important international meeting. Jen tries to fake it, causing the Italian, Bernatelli, to assume he is being mocked and to storm out of the meeting loudly proclaiming in his native tongue that Reynhold Industries has made a big enemy. Unpredictably Douglas blames Linda for inviting Bernatelli in the first place. Jen gets away with it.

Moss…well Moss ended up stuck in an arcade crane machine. After dropping his cell phone in the toilet he had discovered an iPhone in the crane machine and just had to have it. As the credits roll we see that he is still inside the machine. It would be kind of funny if the last two episodes of the series had Moss back at his IT job but still inside the machine.

Things To Say While Waiting On Line for The Free Willy Reimagaining

“Sorry did that sound like words?”

“But she’s still an orphan right?” “Yes, her parents have yet to come back to life.”

“What are you doing on the computer?” “Masturbating.”

“I may be able to get an iPhone without giving any money to Apple. I’ll be living the dream!”

“These toys may smell as wee come the morn.”

For the third week in a row Futurama makes fun of a pop culture phenomenon that took place during their long hiatus. While this process seems transparent at this point, “The Duh-Vinci Code” at least shed some light and advanced the story on the dynamic between Phillip J. Fry and his very very old and cranky great-great nephew Professor Farnsworth, who whether he realizes it or cares to admit or not is his father figure.

Fry loses on the very first question of Who Dares To Be A Millionaire?! Professor Farnsworth doesn’t hide his disgust with the lack of intelligence his great-great uncle possesses. The Proffesor shows a distraught Fry a personal museum of his intellectual heroes, singling out Leonardo Da Vinci as the biggest smartie pants kahuna. Farnsy explicitly states that Da Vinci’s beard is his most prized possession which leads to Fry sneezing into it, scattering ridiculously old hairs everywhere. Fortunately the beard contained blueprints for Da Vinci’s great lost invention. Boy that was lucky! A few leaps of faith designed to lampoon the leaps of faith in The Da Vinci Code later, we discover that Da Vinci built a robotic St. James to help him with his painting of The Last Supper and to protect the “big secret.” This robot isn’t very good at his job, because less than two minutes later Fry and the Professor are catapulted in Da Vinci’s secret spaceship to the planet Vinci.

It turns out that Dan Brown forgot to mention that Leonardo Da Vinci was an alien that traveled to Earth because he was tired of being ridiculed as being an idiot on Vinci. It turns out Leo is the Fry of his world. Unlike Fry and a lot like Marty McFly, he is ridiculed by a man named Biff (any villain can and should be named Biff. It’s kind of perfect.) Leo is overjoyed when Fry and the Professor hand him the blueprints to his final invention. While Farnsworth sits in on some classes in the super intelligent planet’s university Fry and Leonardo get to work on the invention. At a presentation in which Fry’s armpit orchestra was the opening act (what was his cut you think?), Da Vinci reveals the invention is a gigantic killing machine, designed to murder everybody on Vinci for making fun of his stupidity. Farnsworth is more than happy about this because he was ridiculed for he had just recently been outed as the dumbest person in the class he audited. Fry pleads for the two of them to stop and to just accept their intellectual fates. Fry destroys the machine. Leonardo wasn’t moved by Fry’s words and attempts to get the machine started again and kills himself in the process.

On the spaceship ride home to Earth the Professor apologizes to Fry for saying the things he did.

P.S.

Dr. Zoidberg’s doctorate is in Art History. That explains a lot.

Did Da Vinci commit suicide? Or am I reading too much into it and he was just dumb when he pulled the lever? Probably the latter.

Things To Say To Hermes And His Not Big-Boned Body

“Chit-chat achieved!”
“I may not have brain smarts, but at least I have street smarts.” Fry then gets hit by a car.
“Didn’t we used to be a delivery company?”
“Leela, wanna join the mile-deep club?” Leela said yes by the way.
“There can be no question!”
“Note how the perspective lines draw the eyes right to his dong.”
“Bye, Animatronio!”
“How’s your football team?” “Learned.”
“The ice cream is only a byproduct of the machine.”

Entertainment Weekly featured a promotional photo for the Lost epilogue coming out August 24th. Looks like Ben is still rocking the satchel.

This thing reveals which episodes the actors submitted to get their Emmy nominations. Jon Hamm and John Slattery went with “The Gypsy and The Hobo”. Christina Hendricks went with the one with the severed toe.

Beavis and Butt-Head might possibly probably will be coming back! Music videos will be snarked on again!

Jay Leno’s ratings are virtually the same as Conan O’Brien’s one year ago. What else is there to say?

January Jones and Jason Sudeikis are dating. As Warming Glow said, Sudeikis must be doing his What Up With That? dance nightly.

A Mad Men actress is posing nude for Playboy. No not her. No not her. No not even her. Lawnmower lady. Yeah…don’t think this will sell well in Britannia.

Michael Showalter launched a new web series. That he isn’t in.

FX announced that Sons of Anarchy, the best show I haven’t seen yet but totally will soon I promise premieres September 7th. It’s Always Sunny… and The League will start anew on the 16th.

Amy Ryan will in fact be returning to The Office next season to reprise her role as Holly Flax, in effect saving the show. Hopefully Kathy Bates won’t have to cut off an appendage to get her to move back to Scranton.

Ambe Tamblyn will join those crazy kids on House. You may know her as Joan of Arcadia and the the only person under the age of 50 interviewed in the Kerouac Big Sur documentary. Okay maybe you don’t know that. Well now you do. Watch documentaries on books once in awhile. She’s also David Cross’s girlfriend. She’s as cool as the idea of Zooey Deschennel.

HBO has ordered a Dustin Hoffman starring, David Lunch written series called Luck, a show involving horse racing. Dustin Hoffman is my favorite actor who is under 5 feet tall.

Betty White will be playing an Anthropology teacher in at the very least the season premiere of Community. Watch out Big Bang Theory! Old people!

Funny story: Tosh.O is pulling better ratings than The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Only South Park attracts more eyeballs for Comedy Central.

Jon Benjamin is finally getting his own show on Comedy Central. It involves a van. But no horse racing.

Shaq vs. Justin Bieber: this summer on ABC. FINALLY!

The final episode of The Hills took place this week apparently. The twist that was revealed at the end – that the entire series took place in Perez Hilton’s mind – was interesting to say the least.

Glee’s resident moron Brittany will get her moment in the sun in the Britney Spears themed episode planned for next season, which will begin September 21st. She’d write about in her diary but her cat would read it.

Joe Jonas will appear on Hot in Cleveland next month. More like Hot in My Living Room If You Know What I’m Sayin!

Melina Kanakaredeseseses left CSI:NY a few months before their viewers do when it moves to Friday nights. On CBS!

Why am I combining these two episodes you ask? Oh what was that? You didn’t say anything? I’ll tell you anyway. Love Among the Ruins had a few points that had to be made known to set up the rest of the season, but no event really stands out as important to the overall plot. A brief run through of Love Among the Ruins and then a full recap of an unbelievable, foreshadowy episode that is My Old Kentucky Home.

Love Among the Ruins can be summed up like as so: Betty is not a happy pregnant lady; Grandpa Gene is getting worse and now moving in with the Drapers; Peggy is taking control of her life, one one night stand at a time; and lastly everyone hates Jane and Roger by proxy, including his daughter who is getting married November 23rd, 1963. Something really important happens the 22nd guys! Oh and a commercial for Patio (now Diet Pepsi) is in the works and it is based on the opening scene from Bye Bye Birdie.

While doing auditions for their Patio commercial, Ken and Pete drop in on the rest to drop a bomb. For their Bacardi campaign they have to come up with some new stuff by Monday. But they have plans! Too bad. If they aren’t tied down to Roger and Jane’s derby party, they have to stay in and put those thinking hats on. So Kinsey, Pegs and Smitty are stuck at the office over the weekend.

Don comes home to find that his father-in-law thinks he’s still in the army, peeling potatoes for the masses. Nothing you can really do to off set dementia, so he says goodnight and makes Sally go to bed, no more reading The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire tonight.

It is quite the busy Saturday for us! We are not only following many Sterling Cooper men to a party, but watching them at the office, Joanie at home and Sally stole $5 from Grandpa! He totally knows it was her too.

Peggy, Kinsey and Smitty are half-assing their work in the office. Drinking and talking of things that are not office chatter. Weed, mostly. Peggy leaves to find a blender, (and finds that her secretary, Olive, is there for no real reason) and the boys talk about scoring some dope. Kinsey calls up his connect and he comes through offering an array of drugs, but they’ll just settle for the small time stuff. While they were enjoying themselves, Peggy took a nap on her couch and when she asked Olive if they’re still there, shes warned to not join that kind of behavior.

“I’m Peggy Olson and I want to smoke some marijuana.” Fantastic. She joins the boys and Kinsey’s friend rags on how he used to talk like he was from Jersey and how he got kicked out of their college a capella group. Kinsey gets mad but then proves his friend wrong, singing and then eventually reconciling over song. Peggy cannot believe how high she is.

While Smitty tries to make a move on Peggy, asking her up to the roof, Peggy is struck with genius and comes up with her idea for the Bacardi ads. She tells the boys they can go home, she has it from here. When she goes back to her office she finds a judging Olive but consoles her. Peggy is going to get everything she wants, so you don’t have to be looking out for her all the time, Olive. She will be okay.

Out, in what I believe is the Hamptons, Don and Betty are joining the party to open arms and ass kissing. Trudy and Betty wander off, exclaiming about how this reminds them of their childhood and the boys wander as well. Pete talks to Don about who is there and Don tells him, just don’t hand out a business card.

The next time we see this bunch is quite the sight. Roger is donning shoe polish singing to Jane in a very racist way. No one but Don and perhaps Pete seem to see a problem with this and Don even walks away. He finds a bar and naturally assumes the man behind it in the tender. Nope, just looking for some bourbon. Don hops on back and makes Old Fashions while they talk of how they came from meager beginnings and still feel like the don’t belong. Well, nice to meet you, Connie. May our paths cross again? Hmm?

While Betty is waiting by the bathroom a man comes up and begins talking to her. He asks about her baby, and how it feels to be pregnant. He blames the liquor but even asks to touch her belly. She obliges but does quickly walk away once reunited with Trudy.

Later during the party, Roger and Burt bring over the belly touching man, introducing him as Henry Francis. He works for Rockefeller and was just in attendance to his wedding to some broad named Happy. Betty and his eyes meet in a way that you know he isn’t going away soon.

Joan and Dr. Raper are readying the house for a dinner party. He is apparently up for a big promotion and the chief of something important must sit at the head of the table. They have a little tiff about what is the proper etiquette for seating and Joan solves the problem in a calm manner.

She keeps on her happy face while with their guests and even when the women make personal suggestions like not having children yet and how no matter what happens to Greg, he is in good hands with Joan. Sounds like the wives know a little more than Greg does at this point.

After their meal, the chatter continues and the conversation takes a little turn for the worst. Apparently Greg had botched a surgery and didn’t even tell Joan. This mistake could have possibly cost him his promotion, but we will over look that since Joan is now going to entertain us. Greg practically forces her to play the accordion and you can just tell she is not happy about him keeping these secrets. But Joan is Joan, and puts on a great performance for her guests.

Before leaving, Betty wants to take one more round at the buffet and a drunk Jane tumbles on in. She tries to get her own food and fails miserably so they help. Jane remarks on how she knew they would work out their problems and grabs at Don asking why he never liked her. Roger comes in just to see the more scandalous parts and doesn’t care so much that Jane is wasted, but that Don has had a sourpuss on all day. Roger thinks that it’s because he is conspicuously happy and no one is ever glad to see that. Don corrects him, no one thinks he is happy. Everyone thinks he is foolish. Roger offers some parting words that are a more eloquent way of saying get out of my party.

As Don is leaving, he gets Betty’s things and finds her a fair distance away, staring off. He embraces her and they kiss. It’s amazing how their relationship evolves later, you would never know from this last scene.

A few notes and quotes:

• Grandpa Gene might be losing his mind but he sure knows how to read his grandchildren. I always felt that way about mine too. Best part about them? They never punish you and then let you read inappropriate material to them before bed. Awesome!
• I wanted to do a grab of the black face…but it’s black face! I gasped the first time I saw it and cringed every time after. I could barely stand to watch that scene so, much like Don I walked off to find a bar and talk with a hotel mogul about life.
• Pete and Trudy’s dance was great, but sad at the same time. Since they don’t do things like procreate, they have to fill up their time somehow. The worst part was how Pete was watching the crowd intently. “Look at how I dance! Impressive! Much like the way I do business!”
• Anyone else surprised that Greg didn’t hit Joan when she told him to stop talking? I was. He totally has a horrible temper and maybe we will see this rear its ugly head on season four.

Louis C.K. is known for his hilarious stand-up specials and for his current hit show Louie. But most people are sadly unfamiliar with the long comedic road that got him to this point. The internet documents that C.K. is actually a prolifically talented screenwriter and filmmaker in addition to being a talented veteran comedian. Here are some of his greatest unknown hits.

C.K. wrote and directed short films throughout the early to mid 1990’s, none of which more ambitious and just plain weird than “Ice Cream”, a thirteen minute short that won the grand prize at the Aspen short film festival and was screened at Sundance.

Another short he made was “The Legend of Willie Brown” which somehow is a brilliant parody of Ken Burns’ Jazz miniseries years before it was aired. These shorts helped Louis land his first television writing gig on Late Night with Conan O’Brien at its infancy.

On a few occasions Louis appeared in front of the camera while writing for Conan. In fact on December 16, 1993, he got to play the third President of the United States.

Television writing did not stop C.K. from working on his stand-up. He sat down on a cartoon couch and made a few appearances on Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, an animated Comedy Central show that ran from 1995-2002. It turns out that before he had kids of his own Louie showed some contempt for children. Humorous contempt.

After leaving Conan and quitting after a brief stint writing for Letterman, Louis C.K. was offered a showrunning position by former boss Robert Smigel on The Dana Carvey Show. Despite what one would assume by its title, The Dana Carvey Show was actually a very funny program. The 1996 ABC sketch comedy began with a C.K. penned sketch in which President Bill Clinton talks about his re-election campaign. What starts off as a seemingly straight, above-average SNL bit goes off the rails when Clinton reveals he went through estrogen hormonal therapy. The operation leaves Clinton with the ability to breastfeed babies and puppies and lay on eggs with a hen’s ass, all in order to be the “mother and father of the nation.” Considering this was the very first sketch of the series, it isn’t surprising the show only lasted six episodes.

Before taking the Carvey job, Chris Rock offered Louie a head writing job writing for his new HBO series The Chris Rock Show. Once Carvey tanked C.K. joined Rock’s writing staff and stayed on for its three seasons. While writing for Rock a character began to take shape, albeit a shape that was very hard to understand. This character would end up getting a movie of his own. Yes, Louis C.K. wrote Pootie Tang. The 81-minute 2001 cinematic adventure was a lot of things, but more than anything it was silly. In a good way. In the funniest scene, we find that Pootie Tang is so cool that he “don’t need no words” and “don’t even need no music” when recording his number one hit song. Somehow an Asian boy listening to silence steals the movie from a pimp Andy Richter and an afro rocking Chris Rock.

The 2000’s found C.K. more focused on his stand-up comedy than ever. In this 2004 clip Louie performs at the Hollywood Improv where his hilarious bits in which he gets enraged at his innocent children are first developed. There’s also a good joke about martini sipping in Central Park.

In this bit that didn’t make it to either Chewed Up or Shameless, Louis C.K. informs us what he would do if he had Bill Gates’ money. Talking about what you would do with an obscene amount of cash has been done quite often with comedians, but nobody does it funnier (and cruder) than our goateed hero.

While traveling the country Louie found time to go back to making other movies. In this clip Louie tried to produce animation on his own, but couldn’t seem to get past his daddy issues.

And here Louie takes advantage of being bigger than a child. He would recycle the funny gag of escaping in a helicopter in the date episode of his new FX show.

I’m not “old” and I don’t have children, so this show and particularly this episode shouldn’t really “speak to me.” However, the outwardly misanthropic, always uncomfortable male with a heart of gold always will. This is already a favorite show. Gold stars for everyone!

Louie is approached by a 26-year-old woman who has a fetish for “old” men. She pontificates on how he has the smell of death on him and how he doesn’t have the annoying energy of younger men. Louie and the young lady have sex. To get her excited Louie gives her examples of how old he really is: he remembers smoking on airplanes! Jamie Moyer is the only baseball player that’s older than him! He’s seen movies for $3. That one shocked me actually. After the nasty there is no pillow talk: the young lady in no uncertain terms says not to call. As she leaves C.K. and I both wonder to ourselves what her father must be like.

In the second short Louie goes to his first PTA meeting. Most of the parents are assholes to the teacher and are in general overprotective. One had the nerve to name her child Never. C.K. sets up a play-date with Pamela Adlon, a producer on the show and the woman who played Louie’s wife in Lucky Louie. Adlon is a natural foil to C.K. in her caustic but well-meaning manner. While her kid Serge (I thought it was Sir) played with Louie’s daughters she talks to Louie about her deepest darkest secret: she imagines hitting Serge when she’s bored. Louie responds by admitting he thinks about killing himself when his youngest daughter turns eighteen because he wont be a father anymore. Dude seriously? Adlon has too much of the wine she insisted on and falls asleep. It’s exhausting being a parent. I don’t even have kids but I get tired just watching people portray parents on television, so I believe it.

Interspersed randomly at three points during the episode were scenes involving Louie and a really awful therapist. The awful therapist at first slightly exaggerated for comedic effect what I suspect all psychiatrists do: bringing up shit and insisisting that you were subconsciously worried about it the entire time. In this case the shrink asked Louie if he was bothered about his weight before Louie brought it up. The post-credits portion went over-the-top; the shrink this time asked if C.K. ever heard about someone dying and then getting an erection. He admits to asking because he had. Yikes.

P.S.

SUIO Exclusive: A friend was shocked to see that the 26-year-old senior citizen lover was played by a high school classmate.  Apparently the actress wrote pretentious poetry and liked horses.

Seriously, how awful is C.K.’s insurance plan where he has Gervais as a doctor and this dude as his shrink?

The muzak that plays over the final psychiatrist scene was a nice touch.

I’m a fan of his stand-up specials but so far I’m a bit underwhelmed by the stand-up bits on this show. Admittedly he’s set a high standard for himself.

I decided to just write Louie instead of switching back and forth between Louie and Louis. Did you notice?