maya erskine – The Comedy Bureau

TCB Debriefing 1/14/24: Critics Choice Awards, AI Carlin, Get on Your Knees, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Laurie Kilmartin, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jenny Slate, Wes Anderson, Laid, Snowflakes, Drew Barrymore

January 14, 2024

ai, critics choice awards, curb your enthusiasm, donald glover, drew barrymore, george carlin, jacqueline novak, jenny slate, kelly carlin, laid, laurie kilmartin, maya erskine, mr and mrs smith, snowflakes, stephanie hsu, wes anderson

1. Barbie and The Bear win for Best Comedy, film and TV show respectively, for the Critics Choice Awards. Barbenheimer was Summer 2023 and Winter 2024 will be “The Barbear”?.

2. AI tried impersonating George Carlin for a whole hour and called it a “George Carlin special” only to offer a disclaimer that it was an impersonation. Suffice it to say, it didn’t go well (stick to original, human Carlin) and Kelly Carlin responded in “kind”.

3. Witness the poesy of fellatio in the celebrated Jacqueline Novak solo show Get On Your Knees that’s due out as a Netflix special on 1/23.

4. The Donald Glover/Maya Erskine version of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is different than the Brad and Angelina version (and definitely the Hitchcock one), but, then again, is it? (it is, it’s more grounded and they’re not such expert level spies) Take a gander at the first full-length trailer here, then look for it on Amazon Prime starting Feb. 2nd.

5. Laurie Kilmartin is coming out with her latest special, the wonderfully named Cis Woke Grief Slut on Jan. 30th, which will probably make it the first noteworthy special of 2024 (sorry Pete Davidson).

6. Here’s the trailer for season 12 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is supposedly the final season, but, then again, how many Cher farewell tours were there? Look for what might be the final episodes of Larry David on Curb starting Feb. 4th on Max.

7. Jenny Slate makes shorts classy as they’ve ever been in the first look of her new special Seasoned Professional. Take a gander here, then look for it on Amazon Prime on Feb. 23rd.

8. Wes Anderson already has a cast so stacked that it would be more than enough star power as is with Bill Murray, Michael Cera, and Benecio Del Toro (Deadline). Expect at least 10 more of Hollywood’s biggest stars to sign on.

9. Stephanie Hsu will be the star of Peacock’s latest comedy series, Laid, from Nahnatchka Khan and Sally Bradford McKenna (Variety). Since it’s a comedy that involves confronting the past as a result of all of her former lovers dying all of a sudden, it’s a pretty nice middle ground for Hsu between Everything Everywhere All At Once and Joy Ride.

10. Since Atlanta is over and who knows exactly when the next round of What We Do in The Shadows will be coming, you might be wondering what’s going on with comedy at FX. Cue in the Nick Kroll produced pilot from Ben Kronengold and Rebecca Shaw, Snowflakes (THR).

11. Guy Maddin, the mind behind one of the trippiest documentaries/meta pieces of art we’ve ever seen (My Winnipeg), has a G7 comedy in the works called Rumours with Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander already attached (Deadline).

12. Drew Barrymore is getting a fifth season of her daytime talk show (Variety). Daytime is still way more diverse than late night. Weird, isn’t it?

13. We’ll leave you with this: Maybe Jo Koy should have opened with AI written jokes to set expectations lower before launching into his Barbie joke?

TCB Debriefing 12/7/23: Jacqueline Novak, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Joe Pera/Atsuko Okatsuka, Surrounded

December 7, 2023

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atsuko okatsuka, donald glover, jacqueline novak, joe pera, maya erskine, mike falzone, mr and mrs smith, surrounded

1. Jacqueline Novak finally puts the frosting on the cake for her long running, critically acclaimed solo show, Get On Your Knees, the most hysterically poetic meditation on blowjobs, with it coming to Netflix as a special on Jan. 23rd.

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2. The trailer for Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Donald Glover and Maya Erskine is here. If you’re Gen-Z, this isn’t your sibling’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith (with Brad and Angelina) and if you’re a Millennial, this isn’t your great grandparents’ Mr. & Mrs. Smith (from Hitchcock). Get ready for a dark, moody, and quietly sassy Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime on Feb. 2nd.

3. Joe Pera and Atsuko Okatsuka are both wonderful and both deserving of your time and money and have just added dates to their upcoming tours. Get tix now at joepera.com or at atsukocomedy.com/#tour.

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4. In case you didn’t know, Mike Falzone went VR with his hit in-the-round crowd work show, Surrounded and it went well enough that they got a second season coming at the end of the month. That gives you enough time to put a VR headset on your Christmas list.

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5. We’ll leave you with this: We might still have free tix for Brett Goldstein on Sun. 12/10 in Pasadena. E-mail us at thecomedybureau@gmail.com to find out.

TCB Debriefing 7/14/23: Deadpool 3 Stopped, Command Z, Mrs. & Mrs. Smith

July 14, 2023

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1. A minute past midnight is when history was set and SAG-AFTRA went on strike, joining their fellow union, the WGA in arms, for a fight for fair wages, which pretty much shuts down the entire entertainment industry in its tracks. Case in point, Deadpool 3, which was in the middle of filming, has been ceased production (Variety). Get ready for plenty more announcement likes this.

2. Steven Soderbergh, one of cinema’s auteurs most dedicated to always switching things up, is coming out with a time-travel (with a souçon of Being John Malkovich) comedy called Command Z. Michael Cera is a floating virtual head and beloved NYC comedian Chloe Radcliffe makes her feature debut along side Roy Wood Jr. Oh yeah, the time travel, body inhabiting machine is a dryer(?) This ought to be fun. Watch the trailer here.

3. Once a lesser known Hitchcock film, then a seminal movie for both Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and now a TV series for Donald Glover and Maya Erskine, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is coming soon to Amazon Prime. Get a tiny glance of this latest incarnation of the Mrs. & Mrs. here.

4. Note to all comedy photographers from comedians: please stop taking pictures of comics from the side/profile. It’s almost always our worst side.

PEN15 Is Going to Have an Animated Special Next Month

July 22, 2021

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Animation has been a saving grace for many a show throughout the last year and a half including No Activity and One Day at a Time and it looks as though that will continue to be the case as PEN15 has just announced that it will have an animated special due out next month.

Other shows have opted to try doing a special via Zoom (Mythic Quest did a pretty smashing job with that), but that can’t really be an option for PEN15 as Zoom has several years before being invented and dial up not being the only option for an Internet connection.

This very special episode will be technically be part of season 2 and titled “Jacuzzi” and is due out on Hulu on Fri. Aug. 27th. So, you will actually have a much needed hit of PEN15 while you’re anxiously awaiting season 3.

This does have us imagining, if they did have a functioning, open teleconferencing platform, Anna and Maya would waste most of their time turning their cameras on and off depending on how “secret” whatever secrets they’re divulging really are.

Yep, PEN15 Season 2 Is One of 2020’s Best Seasons of TV

September 21, 2020

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As far as we have seen (and we have binged so much TV together since we have to stay at home seemingly endless amounts of time), the best TV comedy series in 2020, thus far, clearly comes down to the second seasons of both What We Do In The Shadows and now, PEN15 (kudos to Hulu for exclusively streaming the pair). Honestly, with Schitt’s Creek sweeping at the Emmys last night, this showdown might extend to awards season as well.

This latest batch of PEN15 carried pretty high expectations as creators Maya Erskine, Anna Konkle, and Sam Zvibleman enraptured us all with the first season of an incredibly honest coming-of-age dramedy, which is incredibly impressive having to follow in the wake of the likes of a crowded field of critically acclaimed, unrelentingly honest coming-of-age dramedies including Eighth Grade, Lady Bird, and Big Mouth. Konkle and Erskine’s bold choice to play their teenage selves next to real kids really paid off in a way that we’ve never seen before in any sort of coming-of-age series or movie.

In this brand new season, PEN15 really takes the magic of Konkle and Erskine being the most convincing adult children of all time and hysterically runs with it to new heights. The more fantastical moments of this new season not only happen more often this time around but are bolder, more truthful, and so damn funny.

We truly don’t want to give any very satisfying surprises away here. However, this second season really swung for the fences with the adult/kid duality of Anna and Maya, allowing for the sheer absurdity of how genuinely strange and painful those teenage years in the year 2000 to really shine. The episodes of “Three” and “Play” in particular really ratchet up the cringe-worthy tension, sit in it, and then break it in such unexpected, beautifully hilarious ways that would, again, only happen as adults convincingly playing the child versions of themselves.

The accuracy of the year 2000 being depicted in the show is painstakingly spot-on in such a damningly funny fashion. Yet, PEN15 does seem to stand apart in that it is more than its nostalgia for the turn of the millennium and truly capturing the awkwardness and heartbreak of being in middle school, even more so in this second season (especially when it comes to exploring the further separation of Anna’s parents).

Again, PEN15’s second season, though far too short to have us last us through more of the pandemic, currently stands, for our money, as a frontrunner for best comedy and best TV lists in 2020.

All episodes of season 2 of PEN15 are now streaming at Hulu and we highly suggest, for your own peace of mind and a break from the weight of the world seeming like it’s going to end bearing down on you, to go binge watch it right now.

PEN15’s Season 2 Trailer Is Here and Promises More Pitch Perfect Teen Awkwardness

August 7, 2020

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PEN15‘s first season was such a marvel, especially with the already crowded field of prestige coming-of-age dramedy in TV/film. It really can’t be overstated how magnificent Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle playing the teenage versions of themselves amongst real teenagers and really making that work seamlessly.

So, with so much critical acclaim and a fervent fan base, the second season has been pretty hotly anticipated since the credits rolled for the first season’s finale (maybe even earlier?). Luckily for us all, the second season of PEN15 is not too far away with a release date set for Fri. Sept. 18th on Hulu and there’s a trailer to remind you how wonderfully weird and great this show is.

Please enjoy it here.

Please Watch PEN15, One of the Best TV Shows of 2019, If You Haven’t Already

March 23, 2019

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PEN15 has been out for over a month and a half on Hulu and we hope, at this point, that you’ve binged the series out of an immediate love for Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle’s ride-or-die friendship. We got so invested them being BFFs that we truly felt anxious whenever they inevitably end up fighting.

Its heightened (though only slightly) portrayal of middle school falls perfectly in line with this wave of great coming-of-age dramedy (that includes Eighth Grade, Big Mouth, and Ladybird) that’s been really hitting hard over the last few years and Maya, co-creator Sam Zvibleman, and Anna really nail it. The attention to detail of the unique time right before 9/11 has just the right touch without feeling nostalgically manipulative.

Also, it can’t be stressed enough how much they both convincingly pull off playing 7th graders amongst age appropriate actors. Seriously, their performances should put them in Emmy consideration immediately.

It’s truly a beautiful show and you ought to give it a watch (or watch it again) ASAP.

OK, Early 2000s (Pre-9/11) Nostalgia Is Coming Soon with This Trailer for “PEN15″

January 18, 2019

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The turn of the millennium and, subsequently, the year before 9/11 happened, saw a world that was pretty ridiculous. Looking back, perhaps the excesses of the time (remember what TRL was like in 2000?) were a result of Y2K not happening and people thinking everything was pretty alright.

Well, that time was almost twenty years ago and, perhaps, ripe for a nostalgic single camera series about it. Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle’s PEN15 looks to be a pretty strong candidate (even if you’re nostalgic for the year 2000) for this role as evidenced by this trailer.

Both Erskine and Konkle created the series and play teen versions of themselves, which all seems promising.

If you’re into it, look for all of episodes of PEN15 to start streaming on Hulu starting Feb. 8th.