Buy Or Don’t Buy

Rather than suffer you through an Apatow Improv Don’t Buy, I thought I’d stay positive with a Jon Benjamin/Jonathan Katz tribute. The duo is best known for their Dr Katz and Ben father/son relationship in Dr Katz, Professional Therapist. More recently, you may remember them from such shows as Home Movies Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4. If not, Home Movies was an Adult Swim cartoon from ’99-’04, about three eight-year-olds who produce their own movies and hang out with their alcoholic soccer coach.

While both of these styles (Apatow and Jon/Jonathan) center on improv, it becomes pretty clear that the Jon/Jonathan banter has been… edited. Let’s just go through Apatow’s resume from the last year: Pineapple Express, Step Brothers, Drillbit Taylor, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Walk Hard, Superbad, Knocked Up. Maybe he could edit some of those titles, eh?

Meanwhile Jon/Jonathan’s take on “retroscripting,” where they outline a scene and fill it in with improv, never fails, having every line cutting deep once it reaches the actual show. Though DKPT had the benefit of being graced with different comedians, some of its best moments rest on the family scenes. See Dr. Katz and Son work the magic for the first time below:

And while both Ap and Jon/Jon sport a sort of lackadaisical humor, or a kind of playfulness with failure (discuss), Apatow’s tired formula always closes with stupid little rings of hope. Jon and Jonathan just let it be. Ending with one of Dr. Katz’s good-humored chuckles.

McGuirk and Erik are together for once in Home Movies, starting around 2:00:

Katz made an appearance on The Larry Sanders Show, with his retroscript chatter only to be brushed off by Gary Shandling. Taken out of (animated?) context it just don’t work, and Katz wipes his brow. Katz appears at 4:58 with “So I’ll lead you into the lap dance thing, I’ll thank you for the treat, and you ask me how did it go, and I’ll say I think I blew it because she pointed to the chair and I said thank you but I’ve been sitting all day”:

For the marathons:

DKPT (You can skip the Ray Romano ones)

Home Movies

Apatow