Let's give it up for Seth Rogen. He plays the uptight neighbor living next door to the hard-partying sorority in goofy feature Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising, out May 20, and two days later, his passion project Preacher debuts on AMC. The guy’s got some range.
Preacher, with Dominic Cooper as a boozy cleric with a few secrets in dusty west Texas, is, in a word, nuts. Exploding holy men. A femme fatale wielding a homemade bazooka. Other oddities we can’t reveal pre-debut. Think, Tarantino in an opium fugue. Rogen and Evan Goldberg adapted Preacher from the comic book series, and Breaking Bad alum Sam Catlin runs the show. It takes violence to new heights—30,000 feet, at one point. It’s fun.
Speaking of hearty punch-ups, Sean McDonough, the new addition to ESPN’s Monday Night Football booth, addressed a colorful bit of family history on the conference call with reporters announcing his appointment. McDonough’s father, the late Boston sportswriting legend Will McDonough, had a little run-in with New England Patriots defensive back Raymond Clayborn in the locker room, the scribe reportedly flooring the player with a punch, South Boston-style.
Dad’s donnybrook provided Sean with some bragging rights at the bus stop.
“Never mind, my dad can beat up your dad,” he said. “It was, my dad could beat up an NFL football player.”
We’re curious to see if Sean will deploy some of the raconteur skills he brought to Red Sox broadcasts—and last week’s press call—on MNF.
The Boston brouhaha happened in 1979, around the time Match Game was ruling the daytime airwaves on CBS. When we think of Match Game, we picture Gene Rayburn, in a shocking tie, wielding that ridiculously skinny microphone that looked like an olive speared atop a skewer.
Alec Baldwin takes on the host’s role when ABC brings back Match Game in June. But what of the skinny microphone?
“We are working on that,” Jennifer Mullin, FremantleMedia North America co-CEO, tells B&C. “That’s the goal, to give him the skinny microphone. Everybody loves that skinny microphone. It’s iconic to the show.”
Game show hosts come and go. Skinny microphones? Notso much.
