Did not mean to five star my own submission. Sorry guys, I was doing a couple things at once.

Don't know who Jeselnik is, but yeah, it wasn't funny at all. I guess that's why it airs on Sunday? There must be something demographers and all the social science people and marketing people that are probably employed to figure out who watches TV on Sunday know that I don't.

Jeselnik has been around since the mid 2000s but he really started to become popular within the last two years when he got his own show on Comedy Central.

But this is from 2008. Note his inflection and how this Mulaney guy is basically imitating him to a tee.

http://youtu.be/TFnKTs6CXwQ

Huh? Mulaney is conversational, Jeselnick does joke/punchline. They look and sound very similar but i don't agree that he's ripping off anthony.

He is not imitating his content but the fact that he is trying to sound and look just like him is hackery. Even the way he moves on stage is similar.

The fact that his jokes are awful are just shit icing on the shit cake.

The entire thing just screams "recycled sitcom jokes from successful shows"

this show looks absolutely fucking awful. It makes my skin crawl to watch this.

I barely see any similarities between the 2 (and does ripping off the look/intonation even matter if the comedic styles otherwise have nothing to do with each other?), but at least we can all agree that this looks unbelievably bad. How did it make it past the pilot?

The inflection is similar, but it's not very distinctive in either case. Just a plain northeast cadence. I'm not convinced.

Don't see the similarity with Jeselnik. I agree this is 5 star shit.

I understand why you may think they're similar, but does anyone really own "unwatchably unfunny" as a routine?

Huh, I thought we had a while longer to go before they made "That 90's Show", but I guess lazy amalgam of popular sitcoms from the era works well enough as a structure.

John Mulaney is not biting Jeselnik's act.

He's an established comedian and writer who looks to have made a likely middling sit-com (also see: most every comic you've ever loved, ever). He also appeared on the Kroll Show in the "George and Gill" segments, co-created Stefan during his stint writing for Saturday Night Live, and has a couple of comedy performances/albums with Comedy Central.

There may be plenty of reasons not to like him, but stealing jokes isn't one.

If it's any consolation, this show only has a six episode order, following extensive rewrites ordered by the network--so, it ain't likely to stick.

Dude will never top his work with the Stefon character.

Jeselnik really blew up after appearing on a few roasts and his show even got two seasons on Comedy Central.

what the fuck are you morons talking about

Anthony Jeselnik is a snarky dudebro from Pittsburgh who tries to piss people off and make cancer jokes all the time. John Mulaney is a neurotic New York Jew in a lanky Chicago Irish Catholic's body who rarely tells jokes about content more racy than watching Law and Order or how his mom met Bill Clinton.

the only reason you're comparing them is because you don't really know who many contemporary stand-up comedians are but you still want to feel smug, which isn't working because you aren't funny or insightful and no one respects your opinions about anything

(...but serious, laugh tracks? in 2014? I thought you were better than this, Fox)

oh man corn you NAILED it.

btw if his bit about trying to scam his doctor to give him xanax and he ended up getting a finger up his ass doesn't make you laugh you're a bit of a cunt.

That's another thing. Does Martin Short owe someone money? His last couple of roles have been reprehensible.

I suspect that he has never ceded Canadian citizenship, and is in the same boat as Dave Foley, has back child support and unpaid taxes and thus can't ever return.

That or he is dying of MS, which has always looked to me like the possibility.

I don't think Martin Short has had great luck with the Box Office. His best shot at a big hit was probably "Inner Space" which I just found out was the 48th top grossing film of 1987. He's talented enough to keep working, but without any Box Office Mojo, he may not get to pick and choose much.

Incidentally: He was the creepiest Law and Order SVU Guest rapist of all time!

OF ALL TIME!

I'm having trouble thinking this isn't poorly executed anti-comedy or something

I just have this nagging feeling that the trailer is purposefully misrepresenting the actual show, and that the entire show is about a guy playing the main character on a poorly made Fox Seinfield knockoff.

But that would probably be giving Fox too much credit...

Of course, Seinfeld already did that.

This could turn into a decent show. Seinfeld was pretty lackluster to start with. So was the Office. If you've seen the British version, the American version of the first episode literally took the British pilot script and changed all the British referneces to American ones, and it fell pretty flat, but the ensemble was permitted to build it's characters and it became great. In Parks and Recreation, Lesley Knope started out as Michael Scott in drag. They started out in the obvious place, and worked from there, and it got good.

I'd love to see that happen here. The premise seems open ended enough so that's possible. It would be great to see Martin Short and Elliot Gould on the top of their game. Probably won't happen, but it could.

If it's an ironic capital-S Sitcom, there's possibility. We no longer do sincerity here in the Empire.