Happy Endings

[BillBrasky]

This midseason comedy premieres on ABC on April 13th. It stars Zachary Knighton, Elisha Cuthbert, Eliza Coupe, Adam Pally, Casey Wilson, and Damon Wayans Jr. The series revolves around the lives of a group of friends whose little group will be rocked when the couple that brought them together, Alex and Dave, break up. This leaves the group in an awkward position of either trying to stay together or having to choose sides.

Basically, this show kind of sounds like "Perfect Couples", except better. The pilot was directed by Anthony and Joe Russo ("Community"), and other directors for season 1 include Fred Savage ("Party Down"), Troy Miller ("Mr. Show"), Lee Shallat-Chemel ("Arrested Development"), and Jay Chandrasekhar (Broken Lizard). Guest stars who will appear on the show in Season 1 include T.J. Miller, Rob Huebel, Ian Roberts, Brett Gelman, Nick Thune and Paul Scheer. Damon Wayans is also scheduled to star in an episode as the uptight father of Wayans Jr.'s character.

But mainly I started this thread to post this picture of Casey Wilson on the set dressed as Snooki:

[mueXog]

This was one of the new shows I've been looking forward to checking out. Yeah out of all the new "Friends"-ish comedies coming out lately, I thought this one stood out as the only one that looked like it was worth watching. I thought the trailer was funny (Casey Wilson was esp hilarious) and it has lots of funny people we like. Can Elisha Cuthbert do comedy? Who knows, but at least she'll be surronded by lots of other funny people. Casey Wilson & Adam Pally (funny UCB guy who will probably be on tv a lot soon) are obviously great, also Coupe & Wayans Jr have been funny in the few things I've seen them in. Hopefully if it does well, next year it can replace that terrible "Better With You" show that comes on before "Modern Family", this show looks like it would fit in a lot more with ABC's 8:00-10:30PM comedy block.

I'm glad there'll be lots of AST-favs guesting. I heard about TJ Miller and Paul Scheer's appearances a while back. It sounded like TJ might be in a couple episodes and Scheer will be playing Adam Pally's tantric-sex loving neighbor friend, which is already making me laugh.

[BillBrasky]

[Salmoneus]

I don't know. I'm one of those crazy people who actually like Casey Wilson but this one could go either way. The only thing missing from this sneak peek was record scratches; burps/farts; endless pop-culture/movie/tv show references and even more people falling and portmanteau/cutesy neologisms.

Is six some kind of magic number in sitcoms?

[scamboogah]

Who doesn't like Casey Wilson? I will fist fight anyone who besmirches her name.

Also, anyone who had 'neologisms' in the Salmoneus word of the day pool, speak up.

[Salmoneus]

Who doesn't like Casey Wilson?

Didn't she make a Funny Or Die video about that?

Also, Neologism bothered you and not Portmanteau? 'Cause the first one is way more common than the second.

Anyway, see you next time.

EDIT: I didn't know that the English language was conceived around AST user names.

EDIT 2: GREAT TALK! Buh-bye now.

[scamboogah]

There's no AST user named Natalie Neologism.

EDIT: Well now you do. Class dismissed.

[winnie4theTOUchDowN]

A while back I heard Gil Ozeri (is he known on AST yet?) mention on a podcast that he and a few other UCB comics are writing on this show.

Looks like a cute show, definitely a lot more fun than the other similar couples shows (like the Olivia Munn show on NBC or whatever that one with Jason Biggs is) from earlier this season. I'm kind of in love with Casey Wilson, so I'd probably watch this even if it looked terrible. I like the chick from Scrubs too, even though I never really watch Scrubs aside from occasional reruns on Comedy Central. She was also the secret service chick on Community last month.

Also this must be where the Snooki costume comes in:

(now I'm even more confused)

[mueXog]

Happy Endings Auditions - watch more funny videos

[sparklepicnic]

I liked this show a ton. Damon Wayan's kid can't act, but he's charming and has the mannerisms of his pop. Two episodes in one night made me thrilled.

[stevenac]

Adam Pally and Damon Wayans Jr. sold this show for me. They were pretty great. Casey Wilson was no slouch neither.

[mueXog]

They're doing two new episodes again tonight, only this time starting at 10PM.

I don't think the "2 episodes" thing is for good though. Apparently this times its to make up for some ABC special thats preventing most of the comedy block from airing on May 11.

Some guests to look for tonight (if the episode guides are correct) *BOLD = UCB/AST fav*
Brett Gelman, Danielle Schneider & Nathan Barnatt! Also the guy who plays Rick (aka "Doc Potterywood") on Community. Also spotted Jon Daly last night in the new commercials they've been running, not sure if his clip is from either of tonights though.
Next week: Damon Wayans & Paul Scheer!

[Salmoneus]

Very nice show so far. I had a hard time warming up to the Matthew Perry/Jason Bateman looking guy and the chick who used to co-host Popular Mechanics for Kids with Jay Baruchel (this one is for the Canadians in the house), but after 4 episodes, I'm getting there. All the characters feel very genuine and for once it's a pretty realistic/cohesive group.

It's more funny than Traffic Lights but less endearing to my taste.

[thecomedian]

I've been really enjoying the series.

[mueXog]

Yeah, I'm really liking this so far. Casey Wilson and Adam Pally are so good on this that I almost wish the show was just about their characters. Liking all the UCB cameos too so far.

Also, it looks like I was wrong about the "no episode on May 11th" thing, I read that somewhere last week but I guess it's not true. Looks like they'll be playing the Jay Chandrasekhar (Broken Lizard) directed episode on that date now.

[BillBrasky]

I thought last night's episode was the funniest one yet. Damon Wayans Sr. and Jr. were great together, and Elisha Cuthbert made me laugh for the first time with that quick cut to her saying "When I'm drunk I eat ribs!" with rib sauce all over her face.

Casey remains the best thing about this show, and her whole runner of speaking Italian and her morning-after scene with the Italian guy were very well done. I also enjoyed seeing her interacting with Paul Scheer at the end of the episode.

I'm a sucker for dumb puns; "that new weight loss show for clairvoyants, 'Large Mediums' made me laugh even though it was really stupid.

I hope this show gets picked up for a second season; they could easily move "Modern Family" to 8:30, cancel the awful "Better With You", and put this show on after "Cougar Town".

[BKMaynard]

I thought last night's episode was the funniest one yet. Damon Wayans Sr. and Jr. were great together, and Elisha Cuthbert made me laugh for the first time with that quick cut to her saying "When I'm drunk I eat ribs!" with rib sauce all over her face.

Casey remains the best thing about this show, and her whole runner of speaking Italian and her morning-after scene with the Italian guy were very well done. I also enjoyed seeing her interacting with Paul Scheer at the end of the episode.

I'm a sucker for dumb puns; "that new weight loss show for clairvoyants, 'Large Mediums' made me laugh even though it was really stupid.

I hope this show gets picked up for a second season; they could easily move "Modern Family" to 8:30, cancel the awful "Better With You", and put this show on after "Cougar Town".

Yeah this episode was great. And I second the Large Mediums thing, I love that kind of thing. The ratings were up this week, so maybe we'll get another season.

[BillBrasky]

[mueXog]

Definitely liking this show and would like to see it return as well, already so much better than their other non-Modern Family shows which are mostly horrible from what I've seen and Mr. Sunshine was complete crap as well. If it does return, I would hope they'd give it a better timeslot than 10PM, the only advantage to being on that late is not having to compete with American Idol. But at the same time, I don't know if I can see it airing too early, might be too dirty to air alongside a family show like "The Middle", maybe they can swap slots with Cougar Town.

The writers twitter page (@happywrites) just posted that ABC is going to start doing back-to-back episodes again for the rest of the season. Hope thats good news and not just ABC trying to burn it off fast as possible. Hopefully it's in response to this weeks ratings increase, at least now they'll be able to actually air most of the already filmed episodes this season, instead of only airing the first 6 episodes, which it seemed was the original plan. I think with this new schedule all but one of the 13 episodes will have aired, unless they end up finding some other time to air that last one.

The writing staff twitter page (@happywrites) I mentioned above is a good place for getting info like that. Sounds like they have some interesting people writing on all the different episodes, they mentioned the Damon Sr episode this week was written by 2 guys from Adult Swim's Metalocalypse. And Fred Savage directed one of last weeks episodes (Splitsider just posted a funny video of Adam Pally interviewing him)

[BillBrasky]

Definitely liking this show and would like to see it return as well, already so much better than their other non-Modern Family shows which are mostly horrible from what I've seen and Mr. Sunshine was complete crap as well. If it does return, I would hope they'd give it a better timeslot than 10PM, the only advantage to being on that late is not having to compete with American Idol. But at the same time, I don't know if I can see it airing too early, might be too dirty to air alongside a family show like "The Middle", maybe they can swap slots with Cougar Town.

I think "The Middle" is a pretty good show. It's nothing that's really worth discussing in depth on a site like this, but it's well written and well acted. I particularly like Neil Flynn who plays the dad, and Eden Sher who plays the daughter, Sue Heck. (She's also in the first episode of "Party Down" if you want to see her playing a very un-Sue like character).
I don't really have a problem with "Cougar Town"; it's not really my cup of tea personally, but it's about on a par with "Scrubs" I think (the same guy created both shows). But yeah, "Mr. Sunshine" was pretty bad, and "Better With You" seems so out of place between all of those single-camera shows; it's like a relic from 1997.

The only problem I can see is that ABC may be reluctant to move "Modern Family" from its 9 PM time slot, since I think it's their #1 rated sitcom, and usually networks want to lead off an hour with those shows rather than stick them at 8:30 or 9:30. They could move "Modern Family" to 8 I guess, but I don't see them doing that either, since the humor in MF can get a little bit dirty at times ("Sondheimized these kids", anyone?) I guess it all depends on how many new shows they pick up at the upfronts in a few weeks; maybe they'll decide to continue with this 3-hour block of sitcoms on Wednesday nights.