It's truly inspiring to imagine that it's been almost ten years since people first started making you feel like an asshole for not watching The Office. And then, when you finally buckled down and fell in love with Michael Scott and the gang, those very same people defecated on your self-esteem once again by informing you that the British version was far superior. Ah, people, can't live with 'em, can't think of a legal way to live without 'em.

Nevertheless, Ricky Gervais, the comedic genius responsible for it all, shared some insight on why his show has captured the hearts of millions around the world:

It reflected some of the symptoms of a society fascinated by celebrity, but it was truly about real, everyday people. I resisted saying normal people because I feel it wouldn’t be interesting watching a program about “normal” people. Particularly in Britain. We love the peculiar. The Office, like many other sitcoms before it, finds humour in a dysfunctional family. The reason why we find this both funny and comforting is that we all belong to a dysfunctional family. If you don’t, there’s something wrong with you.

See that, if you don't find The Office funny, there's something wrong with you. Everyone's saying it! Even Ricky Gervais! Well, OK, maybe he's not saying that exactly. But if he were saying it, he'd be right. Ten years and counting, well done!

Read more of his thoughts on The Office here, and then check out this classic clip of Ricky Gervais chumming it up (that's British) with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

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by Intern Ash Mahtani

Upcoming Roastee Charlie Sheen will star in a new sitcom based on the movie Anger Management. [EW]

James Spader is joining the cast of The Office as the new Sabre CEO. [AV Club]

Meanwhile, Allison Silverman (former head writer of The Colbert Report) will be a writer/producer at The Office as well. [SplitSider]

Veteran comic/podcaster extraordinaire Marc Maron talks about his new TV show and searching for the dark side of comedians on WTF. [AV Club]

Lisa Lampanelli at The Creative Coalition panel talks about how a heckler made her into the insult comic she is today. [The Comic's Comic]

Seth Rogen, Will Reiser, Evan Goldberg and Jonathan Levine will be teaming up again (after 50/50) to make road-trip comedy called Jamaica, about a white teen boy on vacation with his grandmother. Hilarity likely to ensue. [/film]

Second City TV unleashes their in-depth investigation of the Hogwarts houses, revealing no one has any idea WTF a hufflepuff is. [Buzzfeed]

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew just landed two feature film deals, one of them starring Willie Nelson and featuring the gang doing their own stunts. [Deadline]

Rob Lathan doesn't let being a single father get in the way of his dream of being a stand-up. He'll take his baby right on stage with him and let her feel what it's like to bomb before she can even walk. [Splitsider]

The trailer for Super, James Gunn's new indie superhero comedy starring Rainn Wilson, is online. [Pop Culture Brain]

HBO has set a date for airing Colin Quinn's Broadway one-man show Long Story Short as a special. [Playbill]

Today was the last day of filming for Steve Carell as Michael Scott on The Office. I'm sure everyone spent all day crying over there! [EW]

Longtime Conan writer Brian Stack dispenses some advices, "I think when you love what you do, as you’re coming up, it shows in your work, and people want to be around you." [Splitsider]

It's a week later, and people are still talking about Ricky Gervais's performance as host of The Golden Globes. It's pretty much the most controversial Golden Globe event since Rutger Hauer beat out Kirk Cameron for the 1988 award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV. Anyway, with that in mind, it seems like a good time to revisit Ricky's many appearances on The Daily Show. And if you like this collection, just wait for the American remake starring Steve Carell and David Schwimmer.

September 21, 2005

More clips after the jump.

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

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I want to pick out a quote from this interview with Amy Poehler but it's all so good, so you should just go and read it. [HitFlix via Splitsider]

Did you know John Oliver's first high five was given to him by Norm MacDonald early in his career as a Daily Show correspondent? It's rare, but sometimes comedy news makes you feel genuinely proud of your high-fiving culture. [Time Out]

Michael Cera, Martin Starr and Tony "Teach!" Danza star in this video promoting Gallery 1988's comedian portrait exhibit. Oh, look, it's Nick Kroll. That guy's the best! [Funny or Die]

Speaking of Gallery 1988, Zach Galifianakis took some time out of his busy schedule of being in every movie ever to write the man who painted his portrait a nice thank-you letter. Everyone's doing a great job today! [Mike Mitchell]

Ricky Gervais will meet his American alter-ego Steve Carell on next week's The Office cold open. This is going to be like when the Flintstones met the Jetsons except with less hardcore butt-sex. [Vulture]

Aziz Ansari remakes the Parks and Recreation theme song in his own image. There's so much Parks and Recreation content out, it's almost like they really want us to watch their show or something. Weird. [College Humor]

Fox picked up Party Down creator Rob Thomas's single-camera sitcom Little in Common to go to pilot, thereby destroying hopes that he will devote his entire life to the attempt of bringing back Party Down. [Deadline]

Vulture somehow landed Paul F. Tompkins to write their American Idol recaps, marking the first time I will ever read an American Idol recap. [Vulture]

Chris Gethard shares the story of his year-long struggle to get Diddy to appear at his UCB show tonight. It just inspired me to follow my dream to get Diddy to appear on my show IN SPACE! [Splitsider]

Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg may team up to play father and son in a script re-written by David Wain and Ken Marino. Didn't wake up this morning expecting to see all those names connected to the same movie. [THR]

Making Of has two good new comedy-related interviews, one with Rob Huebel discussing how he got into comedy as a career and another one from Ben Schwartz on writing for the Oscars. [Rob Huebel, Ben Schwartz]

Bobby Moynihan was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last night and talked about his most popular character, Snooki. I realize Snooki is less of a character and more of an impression of a real person, but is she really a real person? [LNwJF]

Steve Carell will be leaving The Office a month before the season finale, meaning there will be a few episodes showing the aftermath of his departure. [NY Mag]

There's a certain sub-genre of Daily Show interviews that are enjoyable on a whole other level than the regular interviews. Yeah, sure, it's great to get schooled, along with Jon, by some political scientist or biographer. And, of course, it's amazing to watch Jon and a political ideologue enter into heated debate about constitutes a fact and what's actually spin.

But there's something specially joyful about watching him spend nearly an entire interview laughing hysterically, barely able to squeeze in a response to his interviewee's barrage of jokes…

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

As you know, CNN's Rick Sanchez joined the overflowing ranks of the unemployed last week after making some offensively stupid remarks on the radio. It was pretty stunning, to be honest. That's just not the Rick Sanchez I know. No, the Rick Sanchez I know makes offensively stupid remarks on TV.

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

Here's a cool thing about the top 50 showrunners working in TV, including Tina Fey, who lists Short Attention Span Theater as her favorite TV moment. [THR]

Aziz Ansari says he'll be introducing Kanye West at this year's–Yo, I'm real happy for you and I'mma let you finish, but it's against the law to reference Kanye and the VMAs and not do this joke. [Aziz's Twitter]

Conan writer and Sex: Our Bodies Our Junk co-author Todd Levin talks about the book's influences, "One book I kept coming back to as we were writing this, though, was John Hodgman’s Areas of My Expertise. That book was such a great achievement in the way it used a consistent and authoritative voice to communicate hundreds of pages of fairly convincing bullshit." [Splitsider]

I love you, but you got Halloween costumes like a dickhead. This year, try going as Kenny Powers. [Lindsay Robertson]

Apparently we'll know Michael Scott's replacement by the end of this season of The Office, and it won't be Harvey Keitel. Which basically narrows it down to Donald Sutherland, Chuck Knoblauch or Elle Fanning. [Live Feed]

Videogum put on a big back-to-school comedy show last night with John Mulaney, Max Silvestri, Jenny Slate, Jon Glaser, Judah Friedlander and a bunch of other great laughsmiths. Check out some pics. [Videogum]

Paul Mooney has a new pay-per-view stand-up special. Here's a review. [Punchline]

He just caused a big splash at Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and now Bo Burnham just landed a pilot deal with MTV. And the goddamned beatnik still doesn't have the decency to get a haircut?! Does he want people to think he's a draft dodger? [Variety]

Norm Macdonald on being difficult when it comes to comedy, "A lot of people are in it to make money, and coming from stand-up, you have to work hard because almost nothing works… If you lose the audience for three minutes, you’re dead." [NYT]

What will Mad Men look like in its tenth season when it hits the 70's? Trevor Williams, of The Whitest Kids 'U Know, wrote this sketch that answers that question. [Babelgum]

Good news, everyone! The cast and crew of Futurama shared their favorite moments from the first one hundred episodes. [Wired]

Stand up Wil Sylvince was in this short boxing film for HBO. It's not funny. In fact, it's quite dramatic. It's already inspired me to become a boxer. Is there a boxing category below lightweight? [Comic's Comic]

Paul Lieberstein, who plays Toby on The Office, seems to be stirring up some rumors of late, "Maybe when the series is done we'd do an Office movie. I'd be up for that…" [E!]

I already brought you the news that Ochi's Lounge in New York shut down. Christian Finnegan wrote a really nice eulogy to the comedy staple. Break out the tissues, NY comedy nerds! [Facebook]

That SNL documentary James Franco shot found a distributor. Also, did you know James Franco masturbates a lot. Yeah, we didn't need to know that either. Thanks, interview! [THR]