Before NBC’s Parenthood hit the air last week, it’s backstory was already an interesting one.  First a Ron Howard-directed movie starring Steve Martin in 1989, a short-lived TV spin-off in 1990 starring Ed Begley, Jr. and now it’s back in a new incarnation.  To talk about this latest version,

Tierney, best known for her long-running role of Abby Lockhart on ER, originally played the role of Sarah but had to drop out due to her battle against breast cancer. Now that she’s on her way to recovery, would Katims write a part for the Tierney in the future?“You know, I have no idea whether that would happen. I mean, obviously I love Maura, love the work that she does and right now she’s doing what she kind of needs to do to get healthy and get back to a place where we might have that conversation. But it’s nothing like that is anything that we’ve talk about yet.”

While Graham said she did not watch the original pilot shot with Tierney, she talked about the difficulties of stepping into the role and ensemble. “It felt really difficult in ways. I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to really do a great job. And I push anyway but then this just felt likeI hoped that it would go well and I hoped that we would all gel. And I hoped that actors wouldn’t mind doing a scene a second time, you know, with me. Ron mentioned it earlier, but I do have to say it didn’t feel so much like taking over or anything…it wasn’t like that. It was like we all together kind of started anew.”

Graham said when it came down to do the series, the decision really came from her gut. “I have been reading scripts for two and a half years or three years, whatever it is since Gilmore Girlsended. And there just wasn’t anything I connected to and that’s including things that I was developing that maybe didn’t get to exactly the place I wanted them to. It follows like the dating model of you have a list of things that you want and then you meet somebody and fall in love and half the things were not on your list. And this is kind of that in the ways that I didn’t plan to play a Mom, I didn’t plan to do an ensemble, I sort of was thinking about a comedy and maybe cable. And then, you know, and then I read this script and I met with Jason. And just the idea of being able to collaborate with a writer who has such a beautiful group of work but also is encouraging in the take your idea and kind of run with it and improvise once in a while if that makes sense to you.”

The casting of the family was an incredible experience, said Katims. “You’re trying to create a family, you’re trying to create a group of people who when you put them together the sum will be greater than its parts. And so that’s what was sort of that was what was, you know, the complicated and challenging part of it is making sure not only were you getting wonderful people for the roles which is what you’re always doing.

If you look at the people we were lucky enough to be able to work with – with Lauren and Peter [Krause] and Craig [T. Nelson] and on and on and  Bonnie Bedelia…I feel so excited and humbled by having this sort of embarrassment of riches is really what it is. And that wouldn’t have happened had we not gotten the support from the network to say you know what we’re not just going to put one person in this that we could go out and sell, we’re going to build a beautiful show here and we’re going to put our resources behind it.”

Having been involved in television since he was a child starring on The Andy Griffith Show, Howard was asked what he thinks of the television landscape today. “There’s more going on and so there are more opportunities to stub your toe along with doing something really special. But I think that cable TV and the series – the short 12 and 13 episodes a season cable shows have really been great for the medium because I also think it sort of challenges the more traditional network shows in exciting ways. I love the variety that you find on TV. I think that from an acting standpoint and a writing standpoint it’s pound for pound the best work in the world is going on in that medium.”

Parenthood airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on NBC.

It was 1986 when the third season of NBC’s Night Court hit its stride. Sandwiched between huge hits like Cheers and LA Law didn’t hurt but the show, about a New York City night court, was hilarious in its own right and this third season can be yours today courtesy of Warner Brothers Home Video.

As season 3 opened, a bit of sadness hung in the air since actress Selma Diamond, who had played baliff Selma, had died during hiatus, only to be replaced by Florence Halop (who, ironically, would die a year later.) Another addition was in the female public defender/love interest for Judge Harry Stone (comedian/magician Harry Anderson). While the first two seasons saw more than one actress slide in and out of the role,Markie Post’s Christine Sullivan was popular enough with viewers, and clicked with the rest of the wacky cast, to stick around through the end of the series in 1992.

The season 3 DVD includes all 22 episodes from the third season and while there may not be a lot of extras, the episodes hold up very well and you’ll find yourself laughing at Anderson, Post and, of course, John Larroquette as the lecherous, no-morals lawyer Dan Fielding.  Larroquette would make the biggest splash with the award circuit by winning the Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Emmy four years in a row from 1985 to 1988.  To get your copy of Night Court, go to www.nightcourtdvd.com.

Small Wonder: Some series should be sent off to the big TV heaven in the sky never to be heard from again while others, like the 80s situation comedySmall Wonder fell somewhere just shy of that. While many critics have called this show, about a family whose father builds a protype for the first girl robot, one of the worst series ever made. Thankfully, the people at the Shout Factory didn’t believe them and, honestly, I don’t either. There are small chuckles to be had with the show and the acting, writing and directing are not even close to being the best but was Gilligan’s Island a masterpiece?  No.  Small Wonder is painless and goes down pretty easy.

With the first season on DVD nearly 24 years after its debut, Small Wonder is mostly watchable because of Tiffany Brissette, who brought stiff life to V.I.C.I. (Voice Input Child Identicant). The family is predominatly forgettable but the show did have Edie McClurg (best known for Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and her TV work on such shows as The Hogan Family) as a nosey neighbor.  There are a few bonus features, too, including commentaries with the creator and cast, original episode promos and a Fan Art Gallery.  Small Wonder is not the cream of the crop but it’s pretty enjoyable just the same.

FAMILY DRAMA AT ITS FINEST: While ABC Family has redefined itself as more than just a rerun landscape for Gilmore Girls and other lame sitcoms, the network has brought a number of quality, somewhat edgy dramas to television including the super popular Secret Life of the American Teenager and Greek. WithLincoln Heights, the network brought viewers a family drama that focused on a somewhat affluent black family that makes a conscious decision to move back to the urban neighborhood that they had once fled.

The first season of Lincoln Heights is now available on DVD and viewers who don’t know the Sutton family will want to check out the first 13 episodes of the series. While much of the series is about the new economically challenge neighborhood, there are also issues such as race, drugs, sex and plain old marital relationships but, probably due to the fact that the show’s producers come from shows like Soul Food and Prison Break, there is a briskness to the story telling that pulls you in quickly as a viewer.  Thumbs up on this edgy show with a big heart.

The only extra is a booklet with an introduction to the episodes by Executive Producer/showrunner Kathleen McGhee-Anderson but the episodes are strong enough on their own and definitely worth the purchase or rental. It’s also the kind of show parents should watch with their teens to form a bridge to be able to talk about sensitive, but important, topics.

One for the money…and two for the show and that show is starring a young, sexy Kurt Russell as none other than Elvis Presley. This 1979 TV movie was groundbreaking in the cinematic quality of this story about how Elvis Presley went from a young kid to being one of the biggest stars ever in the music industry. Russell was only in his late 20s when he took on the role and, wanting to break from the Disney-type roles that had pigeonholed him in the earlier stage of his career, this movie did it. The DVD of this film is coming to DVD on Tuesday shortly after Elvis would have turned 75 years old if he had lived.

Directed by feature film director John Carpenter (Halloween and The Thing, which also starred Russell), not only was the performance by Russell strong enough to warrant an Emmy nomination but also features great performances by Joe Mantegna, Ed Begley Jr, Season Hubley and Academy Award winner Shelley Winters as Elvis’s mother, Gladys.

The DVD also as some great extras from the time of the filming (Russell and Carpenter) as well as commentary on the movie from “The Voice of Elvis” Ronnie McDowell and Author Edie Hand. There are also rare clips from American Bandstand and a photo gallery of Elvis’s life. The DVD is available on Tuesday from The Shout Factory.

Until next time…keep watching!

Model: Cecily Lopez

ARISE Magazine presented their FALL 2010 preview collection at New York’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week featuring 3 designers: BLACK COFFEE, LOIN CLOTH & ASHES and DEOLA SAGOE. The much anticipated fashion presentation was brought to a stimulating crescendo when model, Cecily Lopez (Above) strutted down the cat walk to tribal beats in Deola Sagoe’s brilliant collection!

WATCH THE VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS BELOW!

Cesar Galindo featured his FALL 2010 preview collection at New York’s Fashion Week at cabaret nightclub, THE BOX. The inspiration came from his muse, Joan Jett, whom he was commissioned to design for her tour and red carpet events. Check out the rock n’ roll inspired collection below.

WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS FROM CESAR GALINDO SHOW BELOW

DIESEL BLACK GOLD showed their FALL 2010 preview collection at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in New York featuring their new designer, Sophia Kokosalaki. The packed stylish house was buzzing in anticipation which stylist Carlton Jones, called a collection that moved out of the 80’s and into the 90’s while keeping the Diesel philosophy alive.

WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS BELOW WITH STYLIST CARLTON JONES

KORTO MOMOLU, Season 5 runner-up to Project Runway, debuted her new FALL 2010 fashion collection at New York’s Fashion Week to rave reviews. The Project Runway favorite tells  stylist, Carlton Jones how she edited her collection down for this important first presentation.

WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS OF KORTO MOMOLU’S 2010 FALL FASHION SHOW

Mik Cire is a new contemporary label for men by former founder, CEO and designer of Monarchy Collection,  Eric Kim. Stylist Carlton Jones was a fan of the collection as it featured all of his favorite trends of military inspired pieces, re-worked motorcycle jackets and fitted outerwear done with a twist.

WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS FROM MIK CIRE FALL 2010 PREVIEW

Y-3 featured their FALL 2010 fashion preview at New York’s Mercedes Benz Fashion Week which was at the Park Avenue Armory. Designer Yohji Yamamoto showcased chic urban wear including capes for him and her.

WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS BELOW OF Y-3 FALL 2010 COLLECTION

Zang Toi has been designing beautiful women’s clothes for over 20 years always keeping in mind his glamorous clients. His new collection preview for FALL 2010 showcased Prince’s “Purple Rain” as a perfect backdrop to the purple inspired beautiful collection held at TOUCH NIGHTCLUB.

WATCH VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS WITH STYLIST CARLTON JONES BELOW

Actress/comedian Aisha Tyler plays Lana Kane on FX's ARCHER.

The half hour animated comedy Archer has made quite a splash since it’s debut last month on FX. Created by Adam Reed and starring the voices of H. Jon Benjamin (as spy Sterling Archer), Judy Greer (as Cheryl and Carol), Jessica Walter (as Archer’s mother Malory) and Aisha Tyler as Archer’s fellow agent/ex-girlfriend Lana Kane, Archer is a hyper-look at the spy business but really is about the zany and wacky things the characters do, say and experience in every half hour. With espionage, global crises and bitter and angry spies all trying to outdo one another, Archer is a hilarious find and audiences are responding as it was just announced Monday that FX is renewing the series for a second season.

To find out more about the ins and outs of Archer, I participated on a press call with other journalists and star Aisha Tyler, who shared how she is able to say some of the outrageous lines, how her animated breasts seem to be getting bigger and what she would say if a feature film animated version of the series were to happen.

Jim Halterman: I want to know just kind of in general, how do you get some of these lines out without just busting up, like, “My vulva is smoother than a veal cutlet.”  How do you say that line?

Aisha Tyler: I was just talking to somebody about this, and I was saying that this show is in some ways just a series of out of body experiences because I feel so much kind of confusion and joy every time I go into the sound booth to record this stuff because it’s just such extraordinary language that I’ve never been able to use in television. My background is in standup comedy where I’m very free to choose the words and ideas that I express, but when I’m acting, obviously, and especially when you’re doing network television, there are a lot of constraints, and so this show is just a joy to do. I laugh constantly. I’m incredibly undisciplined. I fall all over the place. I spit into the microphone. I cackle. Luckily for me Adam Reed is as much of a doof as I am, and so we kind of just crack each other up, and the session takes too long and the sound recordist in the booth is tapping his watch, and we don’t care. We just lay on our backs like turtles and wave our legs in the air. It’s a joy. It’s a joy to make the show.

Lana Kane is a sassy spy and former girlfriend of Archer.

JH: You’re so good at comedy, but I’ve also seen some of your dramatic work, like I saw the movie .45that I thought you were so good in it. I wanted to know which, I guess, muscle is more difficult for you, drama or comedy? Which one is a little tougher for you to get into?

AI: That’s a really good question. I’ll say two things about it. Comedy is the muscle that I’ve trained probably the longest and the most intensively. It’s how I got started in entertainment, and because I do standup and that’s really my own…I’m on stage for an hour plus at a time, and it’s just me, and there are no lights and no do-overs. It’s very strenuous, but it’s the muscle that’s most well trained. I love doing drama, and when I started I was very lucky. I did an episode of Nip/Tuck several years ago that was just an extraordinary role, and I was really fortunate to get it, and I was able to do something that I was really proud of with the role, and I started to get a lot of drama offers. A lot of people are like, are you leaving comedy behind to do drama? And to me the transition’s been very natural and easy. I enjoy drama. It uses different parts of my brain. I think if you look at some of the most celebrated dramatic actors right now, they came out of really strong and big, broad comedic backgrounds and Tom Hanks is a perfect example. Everybody thinks about him as being this Oscar-winning actor with this incredible gravitas, but his first job on television Bosom Buddies…for me I enjoy the challenge of drama because it’s a little bit outside of my wheelhouse. I really love it. It’s a different set of problems to solve, but comedy is definitely tougher.

The ARCHER cast of characters

Question: What did you love about Lana, and is the sketch, is how she looks after you, or did you see the sketch first?

AI: They created Lana’s look before they hired me. I think they definitely had an idea in their head. Whether they were thinking about me when they drew her, I don’t know because she does look like me, but they created just mad genius and…I suppose. It’s her personality that I love. I love that she’s a beautiful person and she’s obviously a sexual person, but I don’t think that she’s precious with it, and that’s what I like about her. It’s just an aspect of who she is. She’s never trying to be cute. She obviously knows that occasionally her sexuality is a weapon, but unlike Archer, who I think is a slave to his look, I think Lana is so badass that she would be attractive even if she wasn’t as stacked as she is, and by the way, she gets more and more stacked every episode. She’s getting extraordinarily top-heavy. At some point she’s just going to tip over onto her back, never be able to get up again, and just her lungs will crush under the weight of her chest like a lame horse. We’ll have to shoot her, but I think she lives in her head, and she’s a surgeon, and then she’s a surgeon who’s stacked, which I love.

Question: Do you think you could get away with doing a live-action version of her?

AI: If I had a penny for every fan that has already written me and asked me dress up like Lana, so…good Lord, people. There’s porn on the Internet. It’s free. Don’t look at me. I don’t know. Adam and I have talked a lot about this, and Adam feels pretty strongly that part of the joy and the compulsion of the show is that it’s animated. It allows us I think to be a little bit edgier and crazier than we could be if we were a live-action show. Somehow some of these ridiculous things feel a little less ridiculous and a little less barbed coming out of a cartoon mouth.

Question: As an actress, how do you prepare for you role in Archer, and is your method different from a live-action series?

AI: Well, I could tell you the truth which is I don’t prepare at all. I just kind of show up and see what happens, but I also say because, my process is, at least my comedic process definitely has a lot of its roots in my comedy, my standup background, and luckily for me this is such a well-written show and the lines are so fun to say that I don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out what my internal process is or what my character is thinking. I feel like she’s really strongly drawn. Adam and I spent some time really crafting her in the early episodes, and so I know how she thinks and feels, and so my main goal is just to try to say the line in the funniest way possible. One nice thing about doing animation is you get to go in and do the line over and over again until you say it the funniest possible way you think you can, and then we play sometimes. We change words around. I ad lib. Adam says we’ve done it, now go nuts. What would you say here? What would Lana say, and so we really get to play a lot, and a lot of it I like it to just be organic and in the moment versus when you’re doing live action and you’ve got to hit a mark and you’ve got to react to the other actor’s lines and how they’re looking at you. Those things can constrain in some ways how you perform and deliver lines. We just try to get in there and just be funny, and we’ve got the luxury of time. We don’t have 200 people waiting to light the next scene, so we just go until something great happens. Sometimes it happens right away, and sometimes we just hammer at it until we either get something awesome or Adam gives up on me. Most of the time we find really fun ways to deliver the lines, and we’ve got the freedom just to go nuts until it happens.

Question: What’s the one thing you want people to take away from watching this show?

AI: That Archer is the funniest…show on TV. That’s what I want them to take away, and that it deserves to be a cult hit and be on the air for many, many years and then finally explode into the film world with an X-Files-like, but more successful than the first X-Files film feature.

Question: So you would like to do a feature then?

AI: I would love to do that. I’ve already told Adam that we have to do a feature…and then do a big badass, like, twisted Bond, like just an upside-down, crazy, booze-addled Bond super-epic. Think about how much more epic Bond could be if you didn’t have to pay to blow things up? You could just draw explosions. It just would be, like, just two and a half hours of explosions, and then it could be in 3D. I’m getting so excited talking about it.

A marathon of four Archer episodes airs Thursday night on FX from 10pm-midnight ET/PT. Episodes airing are “Diversity Hire,” “Honeypot,” “Mole Hunt” and “Training Day.”