The Paley Festival kicked off last weekend at the Arclight. Here again the schedule:
Tomorrow’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” reunion event sold out less than an hour after its tickets went on sale to Paley Center members. The “FNL” and “Gossip Girl” events sold out subsequently, but tickets for all the other upcoming events are still on sale. A lot of AICN Coaxial readers attend the Paley Fest, so hopefully reports will continue to stream in!
In the meantime, here’s a look at Monday’s Judd Apatow extravaganza from new AICN spy “Pancake’s Dad”:
Hey Hercules,
Saw that you are looking for a report from the evening with Judd Apatow. I've been going to the PaleyFest for about 20 years and this was by far one of the most different panels I've seen.
Before we got into to the show, my wife practically kicked me off of the parking structure elevator because Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill were taking the stairs. Playing it cool, we decided to just stalk them as they walked into the venue. Jonah Hill was cool enough to hold the door open for my wife. BTW, neither one of them looked to be the fat asses that you see them play all of the time. Both looked like very normal guys in real life.
Each night, the Paley Center chooses a clip to show prior to panel discussion to set up the evening. The clip on this night was from the Ben Stiller show and it was the Tonight Show auditions with Judd playing Jay Leno. It completely underwhelmed the audience and when Judd came out, he stated that he was ready to kill himself when he realized that clip was being played.
The new PaleyCenter CEO came out to introduce Judd (why is she the most annoying person ever?) and the audience gave him a very luke warm response. He immediately demanded from the audience a much better welcome. One of the nice things about this panel is that Judd was the moderator. He was in complete control of having everyone on the panel jerk him off and tell him how great he was (his words, not mine).
His first guest was Gary Shandling and they spent about 30 minutes talking about the Larry Sanders show experience. Very fun to watch them interact and bust each other's balls. Judd introduced the Jim Carrey clip from the final episode and it got a HUGE response. He admitted that they probably should have shown that one instead of the Ben Stiller clip. Nothing new came out in this conversation but Shandling was very funny and clearly proud of how Judd had developed.
I think Tom Arnold came out next. They talked about what it was like for Judd when he was writing for Tom and making $800 a week. There were some funny stories here but really the big shocker was how bad Tom Arnold sounded. Not sure what has happened to him but he seriously sounded like he's had a stroke or something.
The Freaks & Geeks folks came out next - Paul Feig, Busy Phillips, and Jason Seagal. Lots of Freaks & Geeks talk about how the show got on the air and how NBC didn't mess with the casting because a new exec was in charge and didn't realize that they needed to ruin the show with their bad decisions.
Next up with Seth Rogan, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd. Jonah got a huge hand for hosting SNL this week. He shared how Mariah Carey didn't get any of the jokes at all and how she has someone whose entire job is to hold her Diet Coke (in a glass).
Gary Shandling immediately told Paul Rudd how amazing he was in the chair scene in Knocked Up. It seemed like Rudd was truly touched that he was receiving a compliment from Shandling.
Jonah Hill also had lost his voice from partying all weekend so he was writing notes down for Paul Rudd to read for him.
Jason Segal talked a lot about how loyal Judd was to him and how he was really the only person in Hollywood that was trying to get him in movies. Judd corrected him and told him that they only reason he was trying to get him into movies was that he was sick of studios telling him not to cast Jason in movies and getting him into a starring role was a way to prove that he was right.
Judd then showed a clip from Forgetting Sara Marshall where Kristen Bell is dumping Jason Segal right after he gets out of the shower. At first, it looked like Segal thought the Judd was joking but then the lights went down and the scene rolled. This scene got huge laughs and I'm not sure if it was it was truly funny (because because as he is getting dumped, he drops his towel and plays the scene completely nude with at least three full frontal nude scenes) or because it was funny watching someone have to watch his big nudie scene in front of a huge audience. Lots of comments from the panel about about how Jason has nothing to be ashamed of (think baby elephant trunk holding an apple).
Last up was Andy Dick. He immediately said that he was last because Judd was afraid that Andy would show his butt crack or his nut sack on stage. He didn't do either.
It came out that Tom Arnold is Andy Dick's AA sponsor. That got some big laughs. Apparently at one point, Chris Farley was Andy's sponsor. It was funny watching how uncomfortable Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill would get sitting in between Tom Arnold and Andy Dick (while both appeared sober, clearly they were both the craziest peeps on the panel).
Judd showed an expanded Abortion debate clip from Knocked Up that was fucking HIGH-larious. It was good times.
They showed one more clip - the car chase scene from Pineapple Express with Rogan and James Franco. It's a funny car chase scene.
They only had two questions from the audience and nothing earth shattering came out of those two questions.
It was nice to see some many unannounced stars show up. Shandling was great. Tom Arnold was a train wreck...but great. Too bad Jonah Hill lost his voice.
I've seen funnier Paley panels. Both the panels for the Daily Show and the Office were much funnier than this one.
Overall, I'm glad I went but I don't know if I got anything new out of this particular event.
If you use this, please call me "Pancake's Dad."
