Guest Toby Huss! (Cowboys & Aliens, King of the Hill, Pete & Pete, Carnivale, Reno 911!, Seinfeld, Down Periscope, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Rescue Dawn, Childrens Hospital)

In the final show for the year our host Ed Crasnick explores the intersection between drama and comedy, which our guest, actor Toby Huss, has made a career mining. All this plus comedy news with Julie Mitchell with her hundred words or less year in review and updates and feedback from the nerve center of comedy that is Vicky Pezza. For more information, show notes and an upcoming schedule, go to http://thisweekin.com

Vicky’s Blog:

Hey guys! It’s our last episode of 2010! (We return live Jan 9th). And we’re wrapping the year with an amazing guest – Toby Huss!

We open with Ed discussing the series’ first episodes (including moments with guests Paul Provenza, Rick Overton, Geoff Bolt, Evan & Gareth), as well as his sister’s conversion to Christianity. Ed introduces two clips of Toby Huss as Rudy Casoni – a Funny or Die ode to Sarah Palin and an early MTV promo where the Chairman of the Board covers Snoop Dogg.

Ed reads his open letter to Woody Allen. Will he come on the show? Stay tuned…

Julie talks about her overview of this year in comedy, citing no funny movies have come out. She then read her 100-word essay about her year on this week in comedy (she admits to not liking me at first, but then reveals she does now, despite me still being a female).

Next I’m up, and I get to play a clip of one of my favorite lines ever delivered on Curb Your Enthusiasm by guest star Toby Huss.

We show a quick overview of some more classic Toby characters – Pete & Pete’s Artie the Strongest Man in the World, King of the Hill’s Kahn & Seinfeld’s The Wiz (and nobody beats him).

Toby joins Ed and discusses impersonating Sinatra, his character Rudy Casoni and the evolution of his live show (which features Mark Fite & James “Dr. Venture” Urbaniak). He describes targeting the token weirdo of other live shows and bringing them together as a cast – he thinks it’s more entertaining to watch things fall apart…within reason.

Toby talks about growing up in Iowa and his father singing standards, including Light My Fire. He’ll be in the upcoming San Fransisco Sketchfest opening for members of The State and covering the once-again-relevant Dead Kennedys’ California Uber Alles. (Now reread that last sentence and think about how awesome this guy is. Go ahead. I’ll wait.) We go to a clip of Toby playing recurring character Big Mike in Reno 911!

Toby discusses working with director Werner Herzog in Thailand on the film Rescue Dawn. He talks about Michael Anderson (from Twin Peaks!!) and antics on the set of HBO’s Carnivale. He recounts being recognized from Seinfeld in a very bizarre scenario, and how the character of “Big Mike” came to be. Then we see a clip of Toby in Childrens Hospital! Ed & Toby talk about appreciating the value of pauses in comedy.

We take some chat questions from Gary (Mark Fite), viewer Ed Cidade and …my Mom? Yeah. Ed then strolls down memory lane of the past 23 episodes. The first is Tom DiMenna as Telly Savalas.

Toby talks about the upcoming Jon Favreau film (with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig) Cowboys & Aliens! Then another one of Ed’s ‘best of’ clips – this one with David Cross talking about Inside the Actors Studio. This reminded Toby of the time him, Bob & David got a cease and desist for The Day the Clown Cried. Then the last clip of the year – Karen Kilgariff performing “Jesus Will Smash You”.

See you in 2011 – January 9th! “Like” us on Facebook to stay up-to-date with the show and follow us on Twitter!

Vicky