Natalie Toren

Jersey Shoresical co-writers Danny Franzese and Hanna LoPatin as Ronnie and Sammi Sweetheart

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You probably know him as Damian, the flamboyant scene-stealer from the 2004 film Mean Girls, where various quips ("I want my pink shirt back") earned Danny Franzese a modest cult following consisting primarily of tweens and queens. While his film cohorts Tina Fey and Lindsay Lohan graduated to 30 Rock and 90 days in rehab, respectively, Franzese journeyed -- at least artistically -- to Seaside Heights.

Jersey Shoresical: A Frickin' Rock Opera, starring and co-written by Franzese, recently began its Los Angeles run at the Hayworth Theater. The parody of MTV's Jersey Shore garnered attention over the summer in the New York International Fringe Festival, where its cast of spray-tanned comedians won Best Ensemble.

Franzese spearheads the cast, wearing a foam-rubber muscle suit and an Ed Hardy wife-beater as he portrays Ronnie. L.A. Weekly took the opportunity to pick Danny's brain on what to expect from this fist-pumpin' musical satire.

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During the obligatory morning check of my inbox to see which spa was offering a Groupon for a colon cleanse and infrared therapy (what?), I noticed a smug cat atop a stratocumulus cloud giving me the evil eye from underneath the participating spa's details. I scrolled down to see that he was spouting off some nonsense about purchasing Ferraris in the "Groupon Says" portion of the email at the bottom of each featured deal, where the cat typically appears.

What does buying a Ferrari have to do with colon hydrotherapy? And why must this cat have his tongue out, as if to brazenly hiss his point across? It is too early for that kind of sass. This cat is snarky, arbitrary, nonsensical and omnipotent. If Garfield is a depressed cynic, Groupon Cat is a digressive comedian.

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Michael Kovac for the Paley Center

Napoleon Dynamite panel, one of the many, many panels that take place at the Paley Center

​By Jeremy Blachman, Zachary Pincus-Roth and Brian Guillian

The Paley Center for Media's PaleyFest, which begins tonight at the Saban Theatre, always seems exciting, with its parade of panels featuring cast and creators of your favorite shows, from Mad Men to Two and a Half Men to Modern Family.

But there are, after all, only so many ways for people who make television to talk about television, and after years of attending television panels of these sorts, certain aspects start to seem a little repetitive.

To help keep you interested, we created the game PaleyFest Bingo. After the jump, you'll find the PaleyFest Bingo board, which you can print out and bring with you to the events. The first person to fill out a row -- writing in the exact quote and the person who said it -- and then scan it in and send to arts@laweekly.com will get a prize to be determined. Good luck!

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Rachel Roderman

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Caught in a bad romance? So bad that you can't even bear to think about chocolate or candlelight with your partner?

Lucky for you, we have compiled a list of the five least romantic Valentine's Day dates in Los Angeles you'll go gaga over.

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Flickr/89AKurt

Not so funny anymore: former SNLer Victoria Jackson joined the Tea Party because she enjoys Snapple.

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Careers after Saturday Night Live aren't as easy as you think. For those alums who haven't reached Adam Sandler-level box office heights or thrived in sitcom character roles -- or passed away, sadly -- there's a cache of them who have just left comedy entertainment entirely.

Here are five career 180s committed by former SNL players on their resumes, to go with our new cover story on Victoria Jackson (who knew we'd ever be writing those words).

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Wade Rouse with Marge

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I'm Not the Biggest Bitch in This Relationship: Hilarious, Heartwarming Tales About Man's Best Friend From America's Favorite Humorists is the new book edited by Wade Rouse, with essays by Jen Lancaster, Rita Mae Brown, Laurie Notaro, Jane Green, Beth Harbison, W. Bruce Cameron and many others, plus a forward by Chelsea Handler's dog, Chunk. It does not, however, contain the story of the time my shaggy mutt Guinness ate the umbilical-cord stump of my newborn son, but there's always the possibility of Vol. 2.

Rouse (author of It's All Relative: A Memoir of Two Families, Three Dogs, 34 Holidays and 50 Boxes of Wine) will appear at Book Soup on Jan. 25, joined by contributors Jiffy Wild, W. Bruce Cameron, and Annabelle Gurwitch.

Here's our interview with Rouse:

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​For the past three years, Christwire.org creators Bryan Butvidas and Kirwin Watson have come off sounding like the bastard sons of Ted "Kill It and Grill It" Nugent with their right-wing rhetoric on gays, liberals and foreigners. Most followers eventually caught onto the joke, as did major media outlets, which outed the conservative Christian web site as pure satire in 2010.

By then, everyone from Howard Stern to Rachel Maddow to one of the blog's own contributors had been duped, not to mention countless readers who still send the boys daily death threats. (Anyone dumb enough to believe that there's a link between Thai food and homosexuality is ripe for the duping).

Now, Butvidas and Watson are spreading their faux gospel in a just-published book, The Christwire Handbook: Staying Saved in a Wicked World, a sort of bible for folks both in on, and way outside, the joke. They'll be signing the book Sunday at the Barnes and Noble in Santa Monica.

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The author practicing for his big laughter audition

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It's 7 a.m., I'm struggling with jetlag from the red eye I took into LAX the night before and I'm in the wilds of the Valley, about to audition for the world's only team of professional laughers. None of it makes sense, but then again, not much of my life has since I embarked on the Humor Code, a collaboration with humor researcher Peter McGraw, in which we travel the world in search of what makes things funny.

Our oddball expedition got its start last year, when, as a staff writer at Westword, the Denver-based sister paper to the LA Weekly, I learned about McGraw, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who'd become obsessed with uncovering comedy's underlying DNA. To do so, he launched the Humor Research Lab, aka HuRL, which involved off-the-wall experiments such as exposing test subjects to clips of Hot Tub Time Machine.

To prove that his research held up outside the lab, McGraw offered to try his hand at stand-up at Denver's toughest open mike night. The results were not pretty (you can read about the carnage at our post called "What makes us laugh?").

It was enough to convince McGraw that he had a lot to learn about comedy in the real world, so he decided to take his research on the road, with me along for the ride. So launched the Humor Code, an expedition that's involved tracking dick jokes in sex-ed PSAs in Washington, DC, liquoring up funny ad men in Manhattan and tracking down Occupation humor in the West Bank.

Now we're in Los Angeles, exploring the comedy culture that stretches from the film sets to the TV studios to the comedy-club circuit. The humor stakes are so high around here that live-audience sitcoms are turning to laughter ringers, folks so good at guffawing they're planted the audience and get everyone else cackling at the right moment.

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Wikimedia Commons

For no relevant reason whatsoever, here are some baby carrots next to a ruler. Thanks, Wikipedia.

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The following description appeared in a recent casting call for an indie television pilot, as identified by the blog angry asian man:

[ CHANG ]
MALE: 20's - 40's. Asian. Petite, Average, or chubby. Great with comedic timing preferred. FRONTAL AND BACK NUDITY. MUST HAVE AN EXTREMELY SMALL PENIS. (Via The Hangover 2 joke) Pay rate: $100

Does he have to be a 'show-er' or a 'grow-er' or, we suppose it doesn't matter -- the producers are clearly looking for diminution that shows...whether or not it necessarily grows.

So, what's the deal, is this some racist b.s. or what? The production, called Mouthpiece is described thusly:

"An urban Entourage meets The Hangover dramedy. Five young men search for success, love, sex, and power in Los Angeles. One thing [sic] for sure...to make it, you have to have game, you have to know 'the laws,' you have to have a 'Mouthpiece.'"

It's not always entirely racist to require actors to look the part -- a quick read through of casting calls can tell you that. Acting chops aside, one doesn't exactly cast Patton Oswalt as the lead in a Manute Bol biopic. So why does Entourage 2.0 want to rip on an Asian guy with a tiny penis in a world of comedy already surfeiting with crotchal racism and bad body humor?

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Rachel and Carlyle brainstorm the next Couple Time vignette

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There are few Internet series that have me itching for the next installment, checking the Vimeo page for new videos several times a week and squealing with delight when one's posted. But that embarrassing behavior is exactly what I do with Couple Time. Comedians Patrick Carlyle and Allyn Rachel, who have been a real life couple for coming on eight years, write and star in the series of 90-second vignettes that explore, in their words, "weird stuff couples do when no one else is around."

No! Not kinky weird stuff! Silly weird stuff. Things we all do when we feel so close to someone that it's almost like they're part of us. Like singing the full Ally McBeal theme song in the middle of breakfast, or having a serious debate about what percentage of pumpkin carving is scooping, or making up fantastical bribes to convince your partner be the one to crawl out of bed and feed the cat .

These moments might fall flat when described in words, but Rachel and Carlyle bring them to life with such honesty, love, and pitch perfect comedic timing, that each vignette leaves you not only in stitches but also with the odd, poignant feeling that you will now appreciate the small joys of life a little bit more.

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