Jim Carrey’s new website makes me feel like I’m tripping balls. [Jim Carrey]

Aziz Ansari talks about the standing ovations in his upcoming special, "some people might say, ‘Wait a second, it looks like it was edited to look like there were 53 standing ovations,’ but that’s not the case.” [Entertainment Weekly]

Kumail Nanjiani talks to The Sound of Young America. [Maximum Fun]

Elizabeth Beckwith has a new book coming out called Raising The Perfect Child Through Guilt and Manipulation. Click on the links for an excerpt and the book trailer respectively. [Vanity Fair, YouTube]

Wanda Sykes talks about the diversity of the writing staff on The Wanda Sykes Show, "It’s 50/50 on men/women, and also African-American/white writers, it’s the same thing." [AV Club]

Mental health groups are offended by a mock hanging in an episode of The Office. Is it weird that a lot of people are essentially paid to get offended by things on TV? [E! Online]

Derrick Comedy has a new original short up. It's been so long, guys! Also, Mystery Team is slowly expanding to theaters across the country. Support it, so it can get a national release! [/film]

Julianne Moore is going to guest star on 30 Rock, because it's her turn now. [Entertainment Weekly]

As part of the New York Comedy Festival coverage, I had the distinct privilege of sitting down with one of my personal heroes, Ricky Gervais. Yeah. That's right. This Ricky Gervais.

Even though it'd only been two nights of coverage so far, I was already feeling a little haggard. Slight patches of hair were blossoming over my face like weeds on a dying field of grass. And I had to go meet with Ricky Gervais in those conditions, wearing the same underwear I'd had on for a million days straight (TMI!)

Considering the fact that he's a super genius at TV, and he should be in charge of all the TV shows, I decided to play a game with him where I gave him fake titles for TV shows and he'd pitch me the concept. Here are the ones he came up with:

My Sack of Kids

"I think it's set in the future. It's a sitcom, but set in the future, where they tax – there could be overcrowding- but they tax you if you get a kid, like in China. So what people do is they secretly have them, but if they're not exactly how they want, they throw them away. So someone comes around and collects them all and they leave them outside the hospital. It's a weird sitcom. It's on late. I'll give you that. Tim Allen would be perfect. He's the investigator who knows what's going on."

Catholic Rodeo

"They train choir boys to be really flexible and the Catholic priests try to enter them. It's a late night reality show."

Cake Subordinate

"[Laughter] I don't even wanna mess with that. That's just a great title." (Ed Note: I just included this one to brag about making Ricky Gervais laugh)

That Fucking Cat!

"That's a drama series. It's about something else, but every day, when the guy gets home, he's a cop who had to give up his badge because the drinking got to him. He goes without a badge. He doesn't need a badge. It's sort of hardcore. He comes home every night. He sits down and has a drink and he looks around and his cat has shat everywhere. And he just goes, 'That fucking cat.'"

So, after getting some of the silly stuff out of the way, Gervais and I rapped (we were totally rapping, yo bros!) about The Office, its impact and the future of television.

He talked a bit about all of the reality television flooding our televisions, "Everyone's guilty of making exploitative terrible, terrible TV. That's why it's such a joy when you have some of the greatest shows, and the most audacious, beautiful shows ever made. Things like The Simpsons, Dexter, Damages and Arrested Development."

I mentioned The Office really helped define the decade, and Gervais stopped me saying, "I think it's a bit too strong. There's slight innovation in a few aspects. I stood on the shoulders of giants. Spinal Tap is a direct influence on it being a fake documentary. Christopher Guest was the biggest influence on my acting. People have done no laugh track before, like with Larry Sanders. People have done no stars. All we did was put all those bits of innovation in one show and maybe moved them on a bit.

"I think the most outstanding thing," he added, "And I don't mean outstanding like brilliant, I mean it stood out, is that it's so naturalistic. We were obsessed with that because without that, it was just a pretty boring sitcom where not a lot happened.

"So we liked to get caught up in the world. It had to be about TV eating itself. And I think that's where the most innovation happened. In the fact that it was probably the first comedy about comedy and that it concentrated so much more on body language than on lines and plots. It was like an anti-sitcom."

Even though he had stopped me when I said The Office was a pivotal sitcom for the decade (we got into a big fistfight over it which ended in mutual tears), I said the show had a big influence on American television in particular.

Gervais seemed a little uncomfortable taking on that role though, stating, "I don't know about that. I don't think it changed anything. I don't think the biggest shows are going to be things like the English Office and Larry Sanders and Arrested Development. I think the biggest shows are going to be Two and a Half Men and Friends. And they are great at what they do.

"I think broad comedy will always be the mainstream, but there's always going to be room for the antidote."

I asked him what he thought the next decade of television would bring, and to say he was pessimistic is a bit of an understatement.

"Obsession with celebrity and fame will take over AIDS and cancer in decaying mankind. (Internet) Forums will be the new graffiti that will destroy the youth and society as know it… but I hope to work with Elmo again."

Seriously, I'm so grateful to Mr. Gervais for giving me the opportunity to interview him. He's a hilarious man, and it was a great honor.

From the Tosh.0 blog…

The trampled cheerleader gets another chance to "work it, hey hey, yeah, work it" without getting run over by a football team.

Want more redemption? Head over to our Web Redemptions category to catch all the redeeming moments you may have missed.

And don't forget to check in tomorrow at noon when we'll post the Trampled Cheerleader's extended interview, featuring even more insight into how it feels to get bowled over by a football team!

[Via The Daily What]

Futurama airs weeknights at 1am / 12c.

From Indecision…

When I heard Glenn Beck had appendicitis, I thought there were only a few reasonable culprits. A vengeful God certainly came to mind. It could have also been the last dying act of the tattered remnants of Beck's conscience. But what if it's bigger than that? What if it's bigger than all of us? Fortunately, Jon Stewart was willing to ask the tough questions last night.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

Another clip from the special can be seen after the jump.

Canada is sneaky. That's a fact. They sit up there quietly minding their own business, almost never even bombing the shit out of any third-world countries. Half the time I mistake them for Minnesota's big backyard. But that's just what they want. After all, if we forget they exist, we'll never suspect them of sabotaging our speedskaters.

Click here to donate to the US Speedskating team.

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

Do you guys know those Smirnoff Ice commercials where all those hipsters fill that pool with foam and cardboard and then are all like, "We were there. Be there." That's what I felt like backstage at the New York Comedy Festival's Stand Up For Heroes event, like a corporately co-opted hipster awash in a pool of Lisa Lampanelli and Stephen Colbert. I was there. But now you too can be there, through the magic of this three minute video I made for you guys.

As promised, I'm going to keep the New York Comedy Festival reporting coming, so stay tuned for more interviews and junk!

Flight of the Conchords' Bret McKenzie on their U.S. tour, "It was overwhelming. Really, really ecstatic audiences and some really crazy moments – like some slightly Beatles moments with people chasing the bus" [Independent]

As the decade winds down, some wonderful nerds are making some wonderful lists of their favorite shows of the decade. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report both made it onto this one! [Paste]

Aziz Ansari on his early years, "I was the only minority in my whole school… if you're a funny kid, that makes you a little more accepted. I pretty much became the class clown." [National Post]

Just as the news of the Onion/Comedy Central show hit your ears and brains, I discovered this New York Times profile of America's finest news source. [NY Times]

Doug Stanhope talks about being difficult to manage, "Things I think are fantastically funny and things to do at night are reprehensible to people the next day." [Comic's Comic]

Kristen Wiig read from Suzanne Somers's poetry. If the beautiful words coming through your headphones are too much for you, put the video on pause for a second and take a breath. You know, take it step by step. [Best Week Ever]

Why did he do that? Well, as with everything John Hodgman has ever done, it turns out this was an attempt to outdo The RZA.

The other half of this interview can be found after the jump. Meanwhile, John Hodgman's book More Information Than You Require is now in paperback.