Recently in Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List Category

kathygriffinstandup.jpgStandup opening. Kathy jokes that Oprah now gets to pick the U.S. President, and Kathy's fine with it, because it can't be worse than the last two elections. Word, Kathy.

Company meeting! Kathy meets with Team Griffin and one of the dogs. Have I mentioned yet that one of my dogs looks just like one of Kathy's dogs? I'm not sure if it's Pom Pom or Chance, though. Kathy informs her team that they are going to Walter Reed Medical Center to visit the soldiers who are in rehab after being in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jessica is worried that she'll cry, because they may see some pretty rough stuff. Kathy encourages them to cry if they feel like crying, and just be natural. Kathy is nervous about the show, even though she's performed for the troops overseas, because the people in the audience won't be quite so riled-up and rowdy. That is a tough crowd.

Continue reading this entry on Television Without Pity.
kathygriffin.jpgKathy's opening stand-up snippet is all about Woz and his perpetual cluelessness. I would think that would be a bottomless well of material there. Back at the house, Kathy gathers Team Griffin to tell them that she's been asked to speak in front of a class at USC business school, due to her kick-ass managerial skills. "Such as?" is Jessica's not unreasonable question. It turns out that the professor is gay and a fan and asked her to speak. ...Yeah, that does tend to explain it. It also makes Kathy wonder if this is a "gay business" class or not. I wouldn't know -- I tend to keep my gay business to myself. Kathy says that they're going to help a lot of people this week, so Team Griffin should get their PowerPoint presentations ready. My prediction is that Jessica's PowerPoint presentation will be thrity-seven consecutive slides of her flipping the bird.

In keeping with the agreed-upon formula, the Team Griffin meeting is followed by the Maggie Griffin consultation/wine-tasting. They're talking about Woz, and Kathy's reading some emails he's sent her. In one he talks about one of his dogs making off with a loaf of garlic bread he brought home from the Old Spaghetti Factory. Kathy asks Maggie if it's weird that a billionaire would eat at the Old Spaghetti Factory, but Maggie thinks it's refreshing. Though Maggie quickly adds that if she had a billion dollars, that would not be her choice. If Maggie Griffin had a billion dollars at her disposal, the world would be so terribly awesome. Kathy continues to rail about Woz's small-potatoes retail and dining ambitions: Costco. Bob's Big Boy. Suits from the Men's Wearhouse. "Ooh!" Maggie perks up, "Your dad used to have some suits from Men's Wearhouse -- they're very nice." "Dad didn't have a billion dollars!" Kathy yells. Maggie just doesn't want Kathy to blow this simply because she's too good for Costco and Bob's Big Boy. "I don't want to go to Bob's Big Boy," Kathy wails in her interview. "I'm with a billionaire; I want to go to Fancytown. Or the Fancy Buffet." She almost cracked up at that last one. I love those moments.

Continue reading this entry on Television Without Pity.
kathygriffin.jpgKathy Griffin's starting stand-up is about how Jennifer Lopez had to sneak in a side entrance at an award show to avoid PETA protesting her fur-wearing ass. Kathy jokes that she would have posed for photos while they tossed paint on her and used it as her Christmas card. If she shows up at the Grammies wearing some of the wigs we've seen, she might get that chance, because a few of them do look like the pelt of some spectacular red rodent.

Kathy drives up to some kind of photo shoot, telling us that since she's won the Emmy, she hasn't had to resort to her normal crass publicity-seeking schemes. Like officiating at a wedding. Or opening a school in Mexico. None of that for her. Instead, she's shooting a cover for some magazine. I couldn't tell if it was "American Way" or "American Wig." Either one seems appropriate. They asked her to bring her Emmy with her, and then posed her at a bus stop like some fabulous Emmy-winning hobo. (For all my bitching, Kathy's hair/wig truly looks amazing during the photo shoot. The stuff on her head looks so much better since she stopped letting her untrained former spouse style it.) And then they pose her with a Chihuahua. And then some hot dreadlocked passerby. He's kind of charismatic, in a creepy way, and he and Kathy bond over an apparent love of Family Guy and cocktail wieners. (For a few seconds, I thought they were blurring the passerby's package, like what's up with that? Is it that enormous and/or disturbing that they can't show it on Bravo? But it turns out it was just, like, water on the camera lens.) Kathy interviews that her Emmy is getting worn out, so she needs to win a new award.

Continue reading this entry on Television Without Pity.
teamkathygriffin.jpg

This week's stand-up opener is about Oprah, and how Kathy wants to steal her thunder by opening a "Kathy Griffin Leadership Academy For Girls" in Mexico. "Para las niñas," of course. And as luck would have it, that's what's happening on the show this week. Back at the house, Kathy tells Team Griffin that they're taking a working vacation in Mexico, where they're going to fix up a school library in three days and call it a Leadership Academy. So the punch line to the joke is a shoddy, half-assed school in Mexico? Ha...ha? Just for that, I'm going to note that this week features a truly unfortunate array of wigs on Mrs. Kathy. (And by the way, when I say "wig," bear in mind that I have no concrete knowledge of the state of Kathy's follicles, but she's made wig and fake-hair jokes before, and somethin' in there is synthetic, so that's the word I'm goin' with.) Anyway, Kathy's also planning on hitting Woz up for some know-how and some free computers. Of course Woz, like Steadman, is being kept in the dark.

The next day (or, you know, "next" day), Kathy has her friend Michael McDonald from MadTV over. I don't watch that show, but I will always have a teeny space in my heart for McDonald as the voice of Gandhi on Clone High. So Kathy explains the deal with the escuela while Jessica and Tiffany giggle and make cookies. McDonald plays the incredulous asshole, with the sarcastic clapping and the annoyed sighing, very much like the guy he played on Scrubs that one time.

Continue reading this entry on Television Without Pity.
kathygriffin.jpgThis week's opening stand-up salvo involves a story about Kathy Griffin's mom watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians, a show that manages to be too trashy and pathetic even for me. And while it's a funny story, nothing will top my Grandpa watching Sex and the City, so let's move on.

Kathy gathers Team Griffin for a company meeting, at which point she informs them that she signed the three of them up to teach a class at the Learning Annex on how to be a celebrity assistant. The enthusiasm is noticeably absent, even given Tom and Jessica's usual state of catatonia. The Learning Annex people even misspelled Tom as "Tim" on their brochure, and the best reaction he can give is a weary rubbing of his eyes. I guess all that nonstop masturbating can really sap your energy, but what's Jess's excuse? Tiffany, of course, giggles her way through the entire meeting, particularly when Kathy and Jess re-enact the moment they decided Jess needed an assistant. Nobody's laughing when they find out the seminar is three hours long, though. Well, nobody but Kathy. Oh, and it's in two days. Go team!

Continue reading this entry on Television Without Pity.

kathygriffin.jpgTonight's episode-starting stand-up focuses on The Bad Girls Club, a show I totally haven't seen every episode of. Much love is given to "Pop Off!" as a catch phrase. Kathy holds a company meeting to discuss her shows at Madison Square Garden (which were in January -- and for which I totally was not on the ball and failed to get tickets before they sold out). Kathy reminds her staff (and us) that she's been re-banned from The View after her Barbara Walters/Astroglide joke from her last Bravo special. Yeah, I kinda thought that might get her in trouble. Kathy's excited because it's her first re-banning -- plus, honestly, being banned from The View was always better stand-up fodder than being on it. Though I'd kill to hear her thoughts on Sherri Shepherd.

Kathy breaks the View news to her mom, who is unexpectedly fired up and pledges not to watch The View again... or any other show Kathy's been banned from. Kathy: "Well, it's down to Judge Judy." Maggie does advise Kathy not to talk about Barbara in her stand-up anymore, and that way she might get invited back. So that hardline stance of hers lasted about five seconds there. Maggie advises Kathy (not all that seriously) to kiss ass to get along, but Kathy quotes her dear, departed dad: "Fuck 'em!"

Continue reading this entry on Television Without Pity.

Pick A Show

RSS

Archives