Mar 23 2009David Cross Back on TV... in the UK
Broadcast Now reports David Cross, who's already made himself a TV favorite with Mr. Show and Arrested Development, will star in a new comedy pilot he's written with Shaun Pye. Fellow Americans, time to warm up our downloading machines, because this one's going Channel 4:
The US actor will star in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, a culture-clash comedy he has written with Shaun Pye for RDF Television. It centres on a US executive who finds himself out of his depth when he is mistakenly sent to run his company's UK arm. Cross' Arrested Development co-star Will Arnett is also in talks to appear.(via Flick News.)
UK, is it not enough you've already made most of the recent great television comedy? Now you're stealing some of our best people to work for you too? This must be how every non-US-based sports fan feels.
Reader Comments
1. squeehunter - March 23, 2009 5:30 PM
This guy still around? Someone should fix that.
2. gamacrit - March 23, 2009 5:46 PM
Will there be any computer animated singing rodents in this one? Because computer animated singing rodents = awesome.
3. sully - March 23, 2009 6:49 PM
A curse on their houses! (Parliament)
4. Dan - March 24, 2009 5:22 AM
Dude is lookin oooooold.
5. mike - March 24, 2009 9:05 AM
dude, world baseball classic. we aren't as good as we think.
well, I guess theres no way we'll ever lose in olympic basketball...
oh, wait.
6. CrackedPepper - March 24, 2009 9:42 AM
I love seeing David Cross in stuff but he needs to get back to doing stand-up. His is some of the best I've heard.
7. andy - March 24, 2009 5:14 PM
"Now you're stealing some of our best people to work for you too? This must be how every non-US-based sports fan feels."
Is that a David Beckham reference?
hahahahahaahahaha. ha.
8. Paul - April 18, 2009 4:39 AM
Morning all!
In 2004 David Cross came to London and played at the Soho Theatre. This was my review at the time:
My wife and I went along to see David Cross at the Soho Theatre, London, last night, (Saturday 21/08/04).
I made great attempts NOT to find out anything about him. I was going solely on the advice of Jack Black, (School Of Rock), who was quoted on the flyer as saying:
Quote: "If you miss an opportunity to see him perform....you're a total a-hole. David Cross dominates my world"
And with that kind of recommendation, you couldn't possibly resist the cheapo ticket at £15, right? So off we went.
Quote: "A truth teller in the noble tradition of Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce"
So said the quote from the The Onion. This guy most be hot stuff, right?
Wrong.
We got there early. We sat in the front row, directly in front of Mr Cross. However, there were times during the evening when I was reaching for the remote control, and wanting to go and make a cup of tea. David Cross was not that funny.
Starting with a review of porn availibility in London, and then carried on into TV adverts on British TV, the audio tape at the National Gallery, gay men's voices, gay marriages, and some more stuff I can't recall it all came out in a very mediocre style. At this point he was only worth paying a fiver to see.
If that was the warming up, or tame part of the act, we then got onto more "controversial" subjects. With a gag about wanting to go to see the "Passion Of Christ" and sneakily dressing up as a Rabbi and laughing at the screen when Christ was being crucified, he then went into a whole monologue about Christ as a carpenter, the Christ "Teenage Years" and generally Christ stuff. This was clearly a subject he was comfortable, (coming from the Jewish background that he does), and whether accidentally or not, this was the best flowing part of his act.
The show was just short of 1.5hrs. By the time he'd nailed Christ, (as it were), we were about half way through. He'd clearly got the attention of the audience by now, and so he went onto more controversial issues such as paedophilia in the American Catholic church, a couple of comic observations on 9:11, handicapped children on American airlines, and finally a thing about a one year old news item about a Georgia cemetary where the owner was dumping the bodies in the lake instead of cremating them.
By themselves you'd look at the list of subjects above and think: "Yeah - good comedy material", right? Well, yes. But it depends how you treated them. David Cross had a style which I would have catogorised as "unsure". He tended to start a controversial subject, but then did nothing with it. (At the end of his 'gay marriage' stuff he said "But I'm definitley against mixed race gay marriages - OH NO!" And we were left hanging there as we waited for him to explain what he meant by that comic outburst - but he never did).
He had a style which you just wanted to shake roughly by the shoulders and shout:" Wake up that man there!" His treatment of controversial subjects was bordering on the "amateurish" sometimes, and you left with the impression like:"God, I could have done better than that myself!" It's not that I thought he wasn't very good - he was just generally okay.
He ended his act with a couple of impressions, including a crack-cocaine baby, (as he said "I didn't say it was going to be funny, I just said it was going to be accurate" - but it was sick & funny), and a thalidomide drummer - complete with drumming sounds on a backing tape. If you wanted to leave an audience on a "high" with the best part of your act, then David Cross will be remembered for being the sick impressionist guy. If he wanted people to remember him for being a "truth teller in the noble tradition of Bill Hicks etc" - he's really got to sharpen his act up.
At the end of the night he was still worth only a fiver to see.
__________________
Paul
This was originally posted in here http://www.blowupthemoon.com/community/showthread.php?p=6680#poststop - where there then proceeded to be a running battle with the David Cross die-hard fans who could not understand how someone could be critical of their messiah.
To summarize - unless David Cross has had a personality/career/humour transplant - I doubt there'll be a dramatic improvement in his ability to entertain me. I'm sure he's a very nice guy, and I'm sure he'll make, at least, an adequate effort in the new UK show - but I won't be setting my Skyplus to record it.