Two of my favorite things are combining: Jane Lynch and The Simpsons. The Glee star (who in my mind will always be the Mighty Wind star) will appear on The Simpsonsas Homer’s new assistant, Roz. In the episode, “Replaceable You,” Roz goes into All About Eve mode, undermining Homer and trying to usurp his job. (To be fair, the man’s completely incompetent, so it’s probably not hard for someone to do better than him.) Executive producer Al Jean described Roz thusly: “This woman seems terrifically nice, but then it turns out she’s just completely undermining him every step of the way and gets his job – until he can discover her one weakness with the help of Ned Flanders!”
Despite my general disinterest in anything on The Simpsons post season 10, I am going to have to watch this episode.
For their September issue (the one with J.Lo on the cover), the magazine polled their readers about everything from beauty products to fictional characters. A couple of their questions touched on workplace stuff. A majority of readers chose Liz Lemon as the boss they’d like to work for over Grey’s Anatomy’s Dr. Miranda “The Nazi” Bailey. Wow – you mean people might want to have a boss who is usually too busy dealing with her own weird personal dramas to care what you do over one who who regularly yells at and berates you in front of colleagues? Color me shocked.
As for “Who Would You Most Like to Share a Cubicle Wall With?,” the results were:
Pam from The Office: 45 percent
Betty from Ugly Betty: 42 percent
Mary from The Mary Tyler Moore Show: 13 percent
I like all three of these ladies, but two of them are on shows that have been cancelled. (To be fair, Ugly Betty was only cancelled last year, so Betty is still pretty zeitgeisty.) Does this mean we need some more examples of strong women in the workplace on TV? The answer to that is pretty much always “yes.”
After the huge success of The Hangover, screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore could pretty much do whatever they wanted. And they’ve chosen to make their next movie about the workplace. The still-untitled project will center around that office staple: the drunken company Christmas party. If they’re looking for ideas, we might suggest starting with some of these holiday party themed horror stories:
Either way, I’ll definitely see this movie whenever it comes out, especially since there will probably be a couple of assistant characters on display. Who’s joining me?
As much as I disliked the movie Outsourced, I am willing to give the TV show of the same name and premise a try. The show is about a US company that makes wacky novelty items like foam fingers and whoopee cushions. They decide to save money by outsourcing their call center to India, and a hapless American employee gets sent to India to manage the office and teach the employees about American culture. Here’s a preview of the show. Will you watch it?
Until now, I was opposed to the making of Scream 4. I mean, unless they were going to try and go all 3-D line Jaws 4, then there was no point. But now there is! Alison Brie, who plays the wonderfully be-hatted Trudy on Mad Men as well as Annie on Community, will be joining the cast of Scream 4 as “a jealous personal assistant” to Neve Campbell’s character, Sidney. It’s not clear who/what she’ll be jealous of, but her addition to the cast and to the list of silver screen assistants is more than welcome.
Besides, remember when Pete and Trudy did the Charleston? That ruled.
Flavorwire’s list of their favorite assistants from pop culture is pretty good. They have some of the usual suspects in there (Betty Suarez, Smithers, Jessica Zajicek), some up-and-comers (Andrew from Kell on Earth, who I keep meaning to do a post about), and some unconventional picks (until this list came out I thought I was the only person who preferred Emily to Andie in The Devil Wears Prada). But there’s one assistant they single out who I have sadly not ever done an ode to here on STA:
PAULA DEEN’S GAY ASSISTANT BRANDON.
That guy is so awesome. Gay Southerners are among my favorite people ever.
I may not know much about the upcoming Smurfs movie, but I know two things: Hank Azaria is playing Smurf-hater Gargamel, and now word is that Tim Gunn will be in the movie as well! He will be playing an executive assistant at a cosmetics company. In other words, everything about this is amazing.
In a poll conducted by Movietickets.com and news-pegged to Administrative Professionals’ Day (which is next week, bitches!), Anne Hathaway’s character Andie in The Devil Wears Prada has been voted the all-time best assistant character in film. While I agree that her character was very relatable and hit a lot of the right notes for me, I always disliked Andie’s (in the book and in the movie) entitlement complex and holier-than-thou attitude. I probably would have voted for one of the 9 to 5 ladies, personally, but I also am hugely biased toward anything that involves Dolly Parton. Apparently, I’m not alone, since Dolly came in second. Here’s the list, clearly written by someone who cared more about using the actors’ names than the characters’:
Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada
Dolly Parton in 9 to 5
Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich
Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man
Maggie Gyllenhaal in Secretary
Interesting that all the winners were ladies. Perhaps this has something to do with our culture’s view of assistants as primarily female? I sort of wonder if this list was more of a “vote for the most recent assistant character you can remember,” although the inclusion of 9 to 5 would be the exception. Maybe this is a “which assistant character would you most want to sleep with?” I’d believe that one. Memories are short, and not everyone cares as deeply about people who play assistant roles in movies as I do.
As any regular STA reader knows, I’m a big Conan O’Brien fan. Even though I wish he would still go back and write episodes for “The Simpsons,” I’ve been totally grossed out by the way Jay Leno and NBC have treated Conan during his stint on “The Tonight Show.” One of the upsides of the whole late night war, though, is all the awesome television coming out of it. Conan has not pulled any punches, making fun of NBC and Leno as much as he can before leaving the network. This clip, though, was one of the best yet: a crossover with fellow NBC star Jack McBrayer in character as 30 Rock’s Kenneth the Page. And what was Kenneth doing at the Tonight Show? Giving a studio tour, of course.
Elisabeth Moss may be a brilliant actress, but it seems like her success as Mad Men’s secretary-cum-copywriter Peggy Olson could be backfiring for her. Since the show has started, she’s been part of two other high profile projects – and she played an assistant in both of them. First, she costarred with Raul Esparza and Jeremy Piven in a Broadway production of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow, which concluded with Piven’s hilarious fake “mercury poisoning” incident. Now, she’s in the new Sarah Jessica Parker/Hugh Grant vehicle Did You Hear About the Morgans?, where the two actors play a couple who accidentally witness a murder and are placed in the Witness Protection Program. Elisabeth plays SJP’s character’s assistant. First Jennifer Hudson and now this – how does Sarah Jessica Parker keep getting such high-caliber actors to want to play her second banana?
Anyway, Elisabeth is pretty awesome playing non-assistants too. I loved her as Zoey Bartlet on The West Wing (minus that whole terrible storyline with the gross French boyfriend and the kidnapping), and recently she did this great Funny Or Die video with now-husband Fred Armisen:
Two of my favorite things are combining: Jane Lynch and The Simpsons. The Glee star (who in my mind will always be the Mighty Wind star) will appear on The Simpsons as Homer’s new assistant, Roz. In the episode, “Replaceable You,” Roz goes into All About Eve mode, undermining Homer and trying to usurp his job. (To be fair, the man’s completely incompetent, so it’s probably not hard for someone to do better than him.) Executive producer Al Jean described Roz thusly: “This woman seems terrifically nice, but then it turns out she’s just completely undermining him every step of the way and gets his job – until he can discover her one weakness with the help of Ned Flanders!”
I may not know much about the upcoming Smurfs movie, but I know two things: Hank Azaria is playing Smurf-hater Gargamel, and now word is that 
In a poll conducted by Movietickets.com and news-pegged to Administrative Professionals’ Day (which is next week, bitches!), Anne Hathaway’s character Andie in The Devil Wears Prada has been 
Elisabeth Moss may be a brilliant actress, but it seems like her success as Mad Men’s secretary-cum-copywriter 
