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January 11, 2010
'Archer' hits comedy bull's-eye
It’s always sunny in Philadelphia, but programming executives at FX Network won’t be satisfied until they have another comedy series as good as FX dramas “Damages” and “Rescue Me.”
To be sure, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has blossomed into a bona fide cult hit, and fall comedy series “The League” has been picked up for a second season. But now it’s time to call in a new A-team. So meet Archer. Sterling Archer.
The title character in FX’s new, very smart, hilarious animated spy spoof, which premieres at 10 p. m. Thursday is a buff-bodied secret agent who probably could erase memories of that famous shot of Daniel Craig rising out of the surf in “Casino Royale.”
Except James Bond never worked for his mommy. That was the hook that series creator Adam Reed found to hang this clever, adult parody on, he says.
“That was exactly the ‘Eureka!’ moment,” Reed recalls. “It came to me as I was pulling into my driveway. I thought, ‘Oh. There we go.’ ”
This secret agent parody is built around the life and adventures of hunky but self-absorbed secret agent Sterling Archer (voiced by H. Jon Benjamin). As an agent for the International Secret Intelligent Service, Archer is forced to work with agency head Malory Archer (Jessica Walter, “Arrested Development”), a hard-to- please mother who gives him an emasculating code name: “Duchess.”
Archer’s chief competition for missions is his Amazonian ex-lover, Lana (Aisha Tyler), who now is hooked up with effete ISIS comptroller Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell, “Saturday Night Live”).
Tyler, a video game junkie, says she jumped at the chance to play the formidable Lana.
“I play all the shoot-em-up (video games), so she really is a secret alter ego that I have been holding in my pocket for a long time,” Tyler says.
Reed admits that Parnell never fails to amaze by coming up with multiple, equally funny readings of every line (although the show features loose-sounding overlapping dialogue, the actors actually record their lines separately, and technicians, including Reed, mix the results in the editing room).
“On ‘SNL,’ you’re reading 40 different pieces a week and having to make what are often spot choices about how you are going to interpret what somebody else has written for you,” Parnell says. “It’s an amazing training ground, to make quick choices and come up with variations even in the rehearsal process.”
While Reed says he is delighted with his cast of voice actors, he takes special pride in snagging Walter, whose work he admired so much in a previous TV comedy.
“I am such a huge fan of hers,” he says. “For me, the two best comedy shows of all time are ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ and ‘Arrested Development.’ When we sent out letters to casting agents, for that character we added in parentheses, ‘Think Jessica Walter.’ We got an e-mail back from her agent saying, ‘How about the real Jessica Walter?’ And then I just ran around the office in circles.”
And Walter’s casting has paid off in another benefit. Her “Arrested” TV spouse, Jeffrey Tambor, does a guest stint in an early episode that the actor enjoyed so much that Reed has created a new character — the head of a rival agency called ODIN, who shares a secret sexual history with Malory — for Tambor. That’s right: the bickering George and Lucille Bluth will be going at it in again in animated form.
It all adds up to the kind of smart, edgy and very adult comedy that FX apparently is looking for.
Source: Buffalo News
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