While fanboys from coast to coast are creaming their jeans in anticipation of “Cloverfield” (most notably, the Vulture staff), your Uncle Grambo has got high hopes for Doug Liman’s latest jawn, “Jumper.” I caught this trailer during a pre-Turkeygiving screening of “The Mist” and meant to write about it then but, you know, the hackers and all [Ed Note - Is “my site got hacked by Turkish Russian commie pinkos” the new “strippers stole my digital camera”? Probs.]. Not even the wooden presence of Mr. Jukt Micronics himself can manage to dull my enthusiasm for what will surely be one of next year’s most kickass sci-fi actionfests. Or is it just me?

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Save for his enjoyable monthly “gadgets” column in Esquire, it’s been nearly 10 years since Barry Sonnenfeld has made anything even remotely resembling a positive contribution to society. If anyone were ever to compile a list of the Top 10 Worst Films That Cost More Than $100MM To Produce, your Uncle Grambo has no doubt that “Wild Wild West” and “Men In Black II” would both crack the Top 5. And as for “Big Trouble” and “RV”? At best, they rank somewhere between blurgh and Sofa King worst!

My distaste for Sonnenfeld’s post “M.I.B.” ouevre (a distaste that Jeffrey Wells seems to share) led me to completely blow off “Pushing Daisies”, the new ABC series that he EP’s, despite the heaps of buzz that it drew during the summer upfronts. But after hearing my (currently hiatused) Vh1Eyecandy partner-in-crime Molly shower it with praise and adulations, your Uncle Grambo began DVRing it a few weeks ago and, subsequently, watching it this weekend. And, what do you know, methinks I’ve found myself a new favorite TV show. Here’s why.

For starters, “Pushing Daisies” feature some of the most cinematic and immaculately gorgeous production design ever seen on the telly. Sonnenfeld has always been first and foremost a visual storyteller (he was, after all, the DP on all of the early Coen Brothers films) and, on a purely aesthetic level, this show is easily his best work since “The Addams Family.” We’re talking sumptuous stuff here, people. Second, there’s never been a show on network television that’s been more obsessed with cleavage (Exhibit A: the Kristin Chenoweth hottness pictured below). Third, and most importantly, it is wholly unique in its ability to blend elements of whimsy, romance, comedy and mystery in a way that never feels forced, cutesy or, heaven forbid, quirky. Simply put, never before has there been a show that does the fantastical so, well, fantastically!

If you aren’t watching, there’s no time like the present to get started (tonight at 9pm!). For those who prefer a little backstory, head over to ABC.com to catch some episodes (for some odd reason, the digitally impaired numbskulls at ABC only have the four most recent episodes streaming).

Four coneys pies, all the way!

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Until then, please go right ahead and visually gorge yourself on some delectable Liz Banks buzz from this month’s Gentleman’s Quarterly. Scrumdilly!

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Between this recockulous p0wnage (which will be going viral today, just you wait and see) and The Fiddler’s recent propers, your Uncle Grambo is proud to report that Munn is finally beginning to reap the buzz that I began sowing way back in May of Oh Six. Natch. MUNN!

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Forte + Arnett + Grizz Pullquote = 2007′S MUST PURCHASE OF THE YEAR!

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Wouldn’t you know it? Sometime over the last few days, some muggle hacked whatevs (dot org), leaving me unable to login and post to the site. Fortch, your U.G. was able to take some time today to put my back-alley HTML skillz to use to figure out what was causing the site to crash for all you Internet Explorer users out there, as well as what was preventing me to login. Still don’t know how the site got hacked in the first place, but as they say, onwards and upwards!

Before we get into Nummer and H-Bomb’s pre-show comments, I’d just like to point your attention to a few past SNL reviews that your Uncle has been extremely tardy in posting. With that in mind, dig if you will:

• SNL Season 32 … REVEALED! Episode 18: Scarlett Johannson / Bjork (4/21/07)

• SNL Season 32 … REVEALED! Episode 19: Molly Shannon / Linkin Park (5/12/07)

• SNL Season 32 … REVEALED! Episode 20: Zach Braff / Maroon 5 (5/19/07)

• SNL Season 33 … REVEALED! Episode 3: Jon Bon Jovi / Foo Fighters (10/13/07)

Now, on with the show!

NUMMER AND H-BOMB’S PRE-SHOW COMMENTS
Episode 4: Brian Williams / Feist (11/3/07)
NUMMER If one trend is starting to emerge for the ‘07-’08 season, its unconventional hosts. Besides actor Seth Rogen, our other two hosts have been an athlete and a rock star. While sports and musician hosts are nothing new, now that a genuine news man has been thrown into the mix, suddenly we’ve got ourselves an interesting start to the season. I was initially put off by the announcement of NBC News anchor Brian Williams hosting, until I was convinced by a number of people that Williams is actually a pretty funny guy. I’ve been told all about his Daily Show and Conan appearances, and I’ve even read that he’s participated in a few ASSSSCAT improv nights at Upright Citizens Brigade. How all this will translate to 90 minutes of live comedy remains to be seen, but I’ll admit to feeling better about Williams than I did when Don Pardo first announced the billing back on October 13th. It is also worth noting that Williams isn’t a complete stranger to SNL. Some may remember the 2006 season premiere when he showed up on Weekend Update thinking he was Tina Fey’s replacement. Prior to that, he had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part in Fred Armisen’s excellent “Tangent” digital short from the cameo heavy 2/06 Steve Martin episode. Filling out the show is 31-year-old Leslie Feist (or simply Feist). Feist’s varied background involves friendships with Peaches & Gonzales (BEST!) as well as her work in Broken Social Scene. Apart from a few tracks here and there, I don’t know a ton of her solo catalogue, but I’m sure this Canadian won’t snap Season 33’s early streak of excellent music.	H-BOMB For it’s fourth live show of the season, SNL once again boasts another first-time host and this time around it’s NBC Nightly News anchorman, Brian Williams. While on the surface Williams may seem like a random choice to host the show, I feel he’s actually a pretty refreshing alternative to, say, the latest flavor of the week in Hollywood. For me, a certain element of anticipation is always added to the show when Lorne decides to take a chance on a host that isn’t exactly mainstream, but still exhibits charm and a well-rounded personality. It’s a direction I’d like to see SNL take more often. What’s even better is that Williams already has a bit of experience on the SNL set with his Weekend Update cameo during the Dane Cook Season 32 premiere last year and definitely proved he has a pretty good sense of humor. Here’s hoping that combination gives Williams an edge for delivering a fantastic show. Canadian singer-songwriter, Feist, is also debuting this week as SNL’s musical guest. Besides her single, “1,2,3,4,” from the I-Pod Nano commercial, I’m sorry to say that I’m not very familiar with her music. Nonetheless, I’m really looking forward to her performances this Saturday. Hey, you can’t really go wrong with a girl who used to perform as a sock puppet called, “Bitch Lap Lap,” during her friend’s band sets (Peaches) and also played a guitar whom she referred to as, “Smoker’s Tooth,” right?! Best.

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Mario Party DS! November 19th! Watch the trailer! Pre-order that shit! Exclamation points! Your Uncle Grambo’s only regret is that I don’t know anyone else in New York who owns a DS. Think that’ll stop me from buying the latest installment of the greatest video game series ever invented? Negative Ghost Rider, your pattern is FULL!

I said it before, but I’ll say it again. If The Muggs are the Next Great American Band, I’m moving to Slovakia. Or maybe Bratislava.

The freshman bitties at MSU are nowhere near as hot as they were two years ago. The same cannot be said for the NSFdubs dorms of C-Bus. [via Big Ten Poon]

Cowboy Junkies. Performed “The Trinity Sessions” in its entirety. In London. Two weeks ago. How come no one told me about this?

Does the Fiddler have a foot fetish? We’re going with “YES!”

R.I.P Mo Pitkins.

Are tempura pumpkin blossoms the new zucchini flowers? No-eye-deer (and No Eye Becky Irabu). Howevs, we will go on record saying we will eat anything that’s been deep fried in sweet, sweet tempura. Even looseleaf paper … but only if it’s college-ruled!

Big ups to The Heff for pointing out the oh-so-fab vlog (Ed. Note - “vlog” = worst word evs) I Do Nothing All Day. Awesome extension of a concept first pioneered by the seminal (heh) Office Pirates featch, “Women Walking Around During Lunchtime.” Btw, every day in NYC is like this. At least in Midtown during the lunching hours, that is. Which begs the q, why are you still living where you live? Seers.

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Anyway, the track is available exclusively at NME.com. They make you jump through some hurdles in order to download the track, but if you click here, you get to skip most of the shenanigans. Don’t know about you, but my fingers are crossed that The Verve’s reunion tour will eventually bring them back Stateside … Coachella `08, anyone?

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Can’t say that your Uncle Grambo is necessarily down with Team Panettiere — after all, short blondes aren’t my bag, particularly when they’re 18 going on 29 — but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t pay top dolla to witness V-Mars frenching Claire Bear. Alas, for now, we’ll all just have to subside with these pictures of them staring lovingly and longingly into each others eyes. Howevs, in the pic below and to the right, I’m pretty sure their boobs are touching. Electric Youth!

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This clip might be old to you, but it’s new to me. I like it because it manages to simultaneously exist in two polar planes as both the biggest spoiler of all-time (bad!) and also an almost incomparably compelling call-to-action to watch their show THIS WEEK (good!). Probably the best television promotion I’ve seen since I started paying any sort of real attention to what makes a good television promotion. And man oh man, that Smulders. Want … to touch … the heinie.

Also, anyone else feel like Jason Segel’s concentration is elsewhere this season? Or is it just that his portrayal of Marshall in the first two seasons was just SO awesome that everything else is bound to be a letdown? I mean, it’s not like I don’t think that the former is kind of forgivable for the first few episodes. After all, he is coming off a big summer in which he wrote and starred in the Judd Apatow produced “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” All I’m saying is that I miss my Marshall. Come back!

PS, you should all join the HIMYM Awesome Gang on Facebook. I’m in like 30 Facebook groups, but this is the only one that I have been compelled to visit a couple times each week. Good stuff.

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Are you the kind of person who’s curious what handicapped people look like when they are in their 50s? OF COURSE YOU ARE! Don’t feel guilty to be curious, most of ‘em don’t make it to the ripe ole age of 51, do they? Come on, you know it’s true, THAT’S WHY WE’RE ALL LAUGHING ABOUT IT! But do you think we’re gonna show you the goods on the homepage? Hell to the Naw, we’re gonna make you click to see how cruel fate truly can be (and also serve up some extra page views in the process)! TMZ! ALL THE WAY! WE RULE! MUST CREDIT TMZ!

Ok, enough’s enough. End Scene.

When your Uncle Grambo first saw this post go up at 10am this morning, I thought (and hoped) that Harvey or someone at TMZ HQ would come to their senses and do the right thing and pull the post (or, at the very least, change the headline). So I took a screenshot of it, just for posterity’s sake. So, imagine my surprise when I pulled up TMZ at 7pm this and realized it was NOT ONLY still up, but they changed the timestamp from 10:00am to 2:15pm to ENSURE THAT IT REMAINED ON THE HOMEPAGE!!! Gotta get those page views, people! Now it’s not like I’m anything even remotely approaching a Goody Two Shoes or a crusader for the rights of the disabled myself, but come on, this is a MAJOR MEDIA COMPANY making fun of handicapped people. How can this fly? How come Gawker or the HuffPo or Drudge or SOMEBODY hasn’t put them on blast for this offensive and revolting post yet? Truly astounding on every conceivable level.

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Why don’t people respect Will Forte’s genius? Really. The first time we all saw MacGruber (back in the Piven episode last January), did anyone even DREAM that one day we would eventually see him morph into a plastic surgery addict with a “taste for brow lifts”? Your Uncle Grambo would argue the neg on that one — everyone thought it was a toss off skit that satisfied Lorne’s penchant for pushing the envelope with what can and can’t be said on TV (“Hand me that bucket of bum sperm!”). However, with the benefit of hindsight, it seems crystal clear that Forte always had this sort of endgame in mind for MacGruber, which to me only reinforces his twisted brilliance.

Sure, Andy Samberg gets all the geek (and the girl) love for being the face of SNL’s digital shorts and Kristen Wiig is thisclose to breaking out as one of the first TRUE female comediennes accepted by the mainstream since the Roseanne Barr train got derailed in the mid `90s, but neither one of them can hold a candle to Forte’s unparalleled genius in developing characters and then pushing them beyond one-trick pony status to the outer limits of awesomeness (case in point, “The Falconer”). If anyone other than myself, The Grizz and Nummer actually saw “The Brothers Solomon” when it was in theaters for four days back in September, they too would be singing his praises on high. But for now (and perhaps for always), Forte remains an underappreciated enigma. Here’s hoping more people come around to his Overall Greatness™. Now quick, round up all the pubic hair you can find!

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“Gawker and the Age of Insolence” by Vanessa Grigoriadis
The innocuous downtown offices of Gawker Media are the world wide headquarters for the lucrative trade in ad hominem Internet biliousness. Who are these people, and why are they so mad?

Man oh man, I haven’t been this excited for Monday to come since the Bears invaded the Silverdome for “Monday Night Football” back in `85!

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BIG NEWS, PEOPLE! After taking a sabbatical during Season 32, both your Uncle Grambo and Nummer are excited to announce that we’ve managed to convince H-Bomb to come back into the fold for Season 33 of “Saturday Night Live”! Welcome back, H-Bomb — we all missed ya!

Also worth noting is the fact that long-time Whatevs institution and all-around legendary dude Nummer recently got married! Congrats to both him and GP Jenn on the nuptial buzz.

While your U.G. is hard-at-work getting reviews of the LeBron/Kanye and Rogen/Spoon eps coded (should be up by Monday A.M.), please enjoy the Dynamic Duo’s patented pre-show comments for tomorrow night’s Jon Bon Jovi / Foo Fighters episode!

NUMMER AND H-BOMB’S PRE-SHOW COMMENTS
Episode 3: Jon Bon Jovi / Foo Fighters (10/13/07)
NUMMER I’m still not sure why Jon Bon Jovi was selected as host instead of musical guest, but I won’t complain if it gets us another Foo Fighters appearance (their sixth). Making the situation even stranger is when NBC announced back in September that Jon will actually be joined by his band mates at some point during the show to perform the title track from June’s “Lost Highway” album. Not sure if this will happen in the monologue or if we’ll get three separate musical performances. Let’s just hope Foos don’t get cheated out of two segments to make room. Jovi is no stranger to the show though. Bon Jovi has acted as musical guest three times in the past (’93, ‘95 and ‘01), and his last appearance saw JBJ and Richie Sambora show up in a sketch together (remember those old bits where Parnell and Kattan used to dance as an “audition” to join bands?). Jon’s music was also the center of a sketch in last season’s Jamie Pressly episode that saw Will Forte’s band “Jon Bovi” attempt to get a record deal by recycling the real Bon Jovi’s hits. Best.	H-BOMB My first reaction upon discovering that Jon Bon Jovi was hosting the upcoming episode of SNL was simply, “Huh?” What exactly is Bon Jovi doing at the moment to warrant his selection as this week’s host? I still don’t know the answer to that one, but whatever it is, my fingers are crossed that he can pull it off. Fortunately, Jovi does have some acting chops, so hopefully that, along with some good quality material, will help him out. As for the Foo Fighters, they have earned a place as one of my musical acts to ever grace the stage in Studio 8H. They have never failed to deliver high-energy performances and I anticipate that this time around will be no different. If Lorne could somehow work these guys into a skit as well, I would be one happy camper.

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So, how was your summer vacation? Really, you did? That sounds like so much fun! Me? Mine was good, thanks for asking. Worked a lot, played a little, you know how it goes.

Ok, now that we’ve displensed with the pleasantries, how amazing spice is “Kid Nation”? Fuckin-A (or is it fuckinay? fuck-in-eh? fuchiné?), reality TV hasn’t been this fargin’ awesome since “The Pick Up Artist” went off the air. Ok, that was only like two weeks ago or whatever, but STILL. Kid Nation! Between that show and “Gossip Girl”, Hump Day is now even better than Howie Day!

But back to Kid Naish. Rather than recap the show (Ed Note: I don’t care if you click, bookmark, Google or RSS them, but whatever you do, don’t miss either Lindsay’s Vulture reviews OR Gabe’s HuffPo liveblog), I’d rather focus my time and yours contemplating three quick things:

—WHERE DID THESE KIDS LEARN ABOUT SHOTS? Not sure about your childhood, but neither The Senator nor your Uncle Grambo even knew what a shot WAS until we were like 14. Your Uncle Grambo has a sneaking suspicion that there’s a strong correlation between 10 year olds pounding root beer boilermakers to kill time in Bonanza City and the perpetual drunk fest that “The Real World” has been ever since show producers figured out that drunk people = great television. Thanks for nothing, Dommer!

—TAYLOR IS WELL ON HER WAY TO BECOMING HER GENERATION’S ALYSSA MILANO. Back in 1984 or so, if you were a male who just so happened to be born between 1970 and 1976 AND had a working television in your home, all you could think about when watching “Who’s The Boss” was how much you wanted to bone Alyssa Milano. My guess is that Taylor holds that same appeal to today’s suburban youth, only with the bonus of a Southern accent (and arms that are significantly less hairy).

—IF ERIC ISN’T RICHARD MAZUR’S ILLEGITMATE CHILD, MY NAME AIN’T NATHAN ARIZONA! Ferreals.

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