Supporting comedy actor and actress finalists
Here come two more lists of the ten actors and actresses that are finalists for Emmy nominations in the supporting comedy categories. As with the other awards, there are some surprises on the list, and some notable omissions. For the ladies, the headline is that last year’s winner, Jaime Pressly (My Name Is Earl), didn’t make the cut. Surprise finalists include Conchata Ferrell (Two And A Half Men) and Amy Poehler (Saturday Night Live). I don’t mind seeing Conchata on the list because she is consistently funny on the show, but I don’t know that there is enough to her role for her to actually garner a nomination when you consider the competition.
On the other side of the coin, the defending champ, Jeremy Piven (Entourage), is back. None of the boys over at SNL managed to make the leap from Variety to Comedy that Poehler did.
There is one welcome surprise on the list, though. Fred Willard (Back To You) is in the running. Given the fate of the show, I expected it to be mostly forgotten by now, but Willard is always solid, and the acknowledgment of that is nice to see. I would have liked to see Tyler Labine (Reaper) in the running, but The CW, much like WB and UPN before it, might as well not even exist where the Emmys are concerned. The rest of the finalists, after the jump.
Supporting Comedy Actress
- Kristin Chenoweth - Pushing Daisies
- Conchata Ferrell - Two And A Half Men
- Jenna Fischer - The Office
- Jane Krakowski - 30 Rock
- Judith Light - Ugly Betty
- Elizabeth Perkins - Weeds
- Amy Poehler - Saturday Night Live
- Jean Smart - Samantha Who?
- Holland Taylor - Two And A Half Men
- Vanessa Williams - Ugly Betty
Supporting Comedy Actor
- Jon Cryer - Two And A Half Men
- Kevin Dillon - Entourage
- Justin Kirk - Weeds
- Neil Patrick Harris - How I Met Your Mother
- John Krasinski - The Office
- Jack McBrayer - 30 Rock
- Tracy Morgan - 30 Rock
- Jeremy Piven - Entourage
- Fred Willard - Back To You
- Rainn Wilson - The Office
For me, choosing who I would like to see win the actress category is pretty easy. I’ll take Kristin Chenoweth all day. She has a crazy role, on a great show, and she regularly steals scenes. Even when they aren’t dressing her up in red, white, and blue sequined bikini tops. On the men’s side, I’m a little torn. Jack McBrayer is great on 30 Rock, but it’s hard to go against Neil Patrick Harris. What do you think? Omissions? Favorites?
WALL-E Easter Eggs
Pixar is known to fill their films with fun easter eggs and WALL-E is no different. Here are some of the things you probably missed:
The Pizza Planet Truck: The truck has appeared in every Pixar movie since Toy Story (although its pretty hard to find in The Incredibles as its pretty much a blur in a car sequence). “The Pizza Planet actually has a very obvious shot, it’s just probably so quick people aren’t paying attention to it.” The truck can be found in the first 20-minutes of the film as EVE scans the truck as part of her “directive”. It’s really big, almost the full frame on screen.
Hammy: The character John Ratzenberger voiced in Toy Story appeats in WALL-E’s truck. See the photo below, Hammy can be found right to the left of EVE’s head.
A113: What started as an inside joke of CalArts alumni (a reference to the classroom number that was used by Animation students) has been present in not only every Pixar film, but Disney movies, Iron Giant, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Powerpuffgirls and Tinytoon Adventures. “A-113 is obvious in this film,” Stanton told. “It’s the most obvious we’ve ever made it.” In Wall-E, A-113 is actually part of Auto Pilot’s “directive” outlined by BuyNLarge CEO Shelby Forthright’s (Fred Willard) video recording. “Directive A-113” is also one of the tracks composed by Thomas Newman for the WALL-E soundtrack.
2001: Auto Pilot is an obvious homage to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
John Ratzenberger: Pixar considers the actor to be a “good luck charm”, and Pixar actually has a rule stating that Ratzenberger must be in all of the studio’s films. “John Ratzenberger is probably pretty obvious,” Stanton told. And he is. John Ratzenberger voices one of the few human characters in the film, not so coincidentally named “John”.
Apple: Pixar’s history with Apple is a long one. Steve Jobs, who co-founded Apple with Steve Wozniak, bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division in 1986, and served as CEO until Pixar was acquired by Disney in 2006. Apple has been featured in previous Pixar productions like on the hood of one of the race cars in Cars. There are several references to Apple in WALL-E, the most obvious is when WALL-E watches Hello Dolly on an older video iPod. Also, when WALL-E is done charging he makes the Mac startup chime.
Eve was actually designed by Apple’s behind-the-scenes design guru Johnny Ive, the guy responsible for the design of the iPod. Andrew Stanton told Fortune: “I wanted Eve to be high-end technology - no expense spared - and I wanted it to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous. The more I started describing it, the more I realized I was pretty much describing the Apple playbook for design.” Auto’s voice is the creation of MacTalk, Apple’s text-to-speach program. An old mac keyboard can also be found in WALL-E’s truck (photo below)
Button: A BuyNLarge advertising jingle can be found at the conclusion of the credits, right after the Walt Disney Pictures logo is displayed.
Orange Caution Cones: The Orange Cones from Toy Story can be found all over abandoned earth, and inside WALL-E’s truck. See photo below.
Skinner’s Scooter: The scooter Skinner used in Ratatouille can be found in the trashpile early in the film. See photo above.
BURN-E: The DVD release of WALL-E will include a short film would be “very connected to WALL-E.” Pixar has done this in past releases with Mike’s Car on Monster’s Inc, Jack Jack Attack on The Incredibles, Mater and The Ghostlight with Cars, and Your Friend The Rat on Ratatouille. The short film on WALL-E will be titled BURN-E. In the feature film there is a sequence where Eve and WALL-E fly around the Axiom Starliner, and enter through a door locking a poor welder bot on the outside of the ship. The bot bangs his fists against the door after he realizes that he has been locked out. You can watch a clip of the sequence here. Apparently the welder bot is actually named BURN-E, complete with a logo on the side of his head. If I were to guess, I would say the short film will follow BURN-E on his journey to break back into the Axiom.
Hidden Mickey: A subtle formation of a silhouette of the head of Mickey Mouse and his two ears can be found in many Disney films. In The Incredibles, when Mr. Incredible was launched off the airplane to the island, several trees on top of a hill form a hidden Mickey. In WALL-E, a hidden Mickey can be found in the background of a scene on earth (seen above on the upper left corner)
Crush the Turtle: Finding Nemo’s Crush the Turtle can be seen in the animated credit sequence.
Incredible Humans?: reader T-Mack writes: “During one of the introductions to the sedentary humans, there is a Sigurney Weaver voice-over detailing cool new fashions - where a quick shot of a billboard featuring three thin models in red jumpsuits appears. The models are uncannily done in a style similar to The Incredibles, with one of the models looking very much like Mr. Incredible.”
Rex: reader Alex saw the Rex the dinosaur toy from Toy Story can be seen in WALL-E’s truck. reader RageTreb confirms “He’s pretty obvious– seen on one of the first shelves seen in WALL-E’s truck at the beginning of the movie. He’s behind few other items, but it’s a close-up so he’s hard to miss.”
Bird from Bug’s Life: Alex from FirstShowing says the bird from A Bug’s Life appears in the animated ending credit sequence.
And these are only the easter eggs that we have found so far. Find any WALL-E easter eggs? Post them in the comments!
New WALL-E Trailer with Live Action Humans?
Disney has released a strange new trailer for Pixar’s WALL-E. “Meet The Bots” introduces us to the many bots we’ll meet in Andrew Stanton’s film. The strange part is that it begins as a promotional video from the Buy N Large Corporation. For a few seconds we get to see what live-action humans look like on the luxury starliner (before they became giant couch potato blobs, or course). It looks very Happy Feet-ish.
Stanton confirmed last year at WonderCon that “There is a live action element involved” but wouldn’t reveal more, only insisting that “We’re not doing anything like Happy Feet.” Fred Willard later revealed that he appears on a television monitor as the live-action spokesman of Buy N Large. So it’s clear that the human characters that left earth use to look like live action humans (as opposed to the animated Captain played by Jeff Garlin). And we have since seen that WALL-E watches a live-action version of the musical Hello Dolly in his trailer full of human collectibles. So I’m very curious to see if this is actually part of the film itself.
Thanks to Reader Dustin R for sending over the tip.
Sightings: Jonas Brothers, Britney and Kenny
SEALS OF APPROVAL: The Jonas Brothers, proclaiming “seals are awesome” while shooting a quick video testimonial for the Humane Society’s “Club Sandwiches Not Seals” initiative at the Z100’s Zootopia 2008 in New Jersey.
SWEET TOOTH: Britney Spears, enjoying some tiramisu and Coca-Cola during a late night stop at Il Sole in West Hollywood with Las Vegas impresario George Maloof.
SPORTING LIFE: Laird Hamilton, picking up wife Gabrielle Reece and their two kids in a chauffeured black SUV at LAX airport.
YEE-HAW! Kenny Chesney, dancing with a couple of go-go girls at the Playboy Club in Las Vegas.
DADDY DINNER: Ryan Phillippe, buying guacamole, popsicles and hot dogs with daughter Ava and son Deacon at a Trader Joe’s in L.A.
FUNNY BONES: Sarah Silverman, goofing around backstage with Ray Romano and Fred Willard at the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation Night of Comedy VI benefit at the Wilshire Theater in Beverly Hills.
COUNTRY TIME: Criss Angel, shopping at the Billionaire Mafia booth at the Country Music Awards’ Backstage Creations gifting suite in Las Vegas.
Additional reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum