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‘Our House’: Nancy Lenehan & Phil Hendrie To Co-Star In CBS Comedy Pilot

EXCLUSIVE: Nancy Lenehan (Veep) and Phil Hendrie (New Girl) are set as leads opposite Katherine Heigl and Malcolm Barrett in CBS’ multi-camera comedy pilot Our House, from Sony Pictures TV and CBS TV Studios. In addition, Chris Harris (How I Met Your Mother) has been tapped as executive producer and showrunner as part of his overall deal with CBS TV Studios.

Written by Brendan O’Brien and directed by James Burrows, Our House centers on a devoted dad, Shawn (Barrett), and mom, Bridget (Heigl), who are committed to raising their children with the love and support the mom never got as a kid but discover how difficult that is with her insane parents, played by Lenehan and Hendrie, and siblings back in the picture.

Lenehan will play Laura, Bridget’s loving, passive-aggressive mother who feels like she no longer has a place in her family after her daughter renovates the childhood home she grew up in and raises her kids with a radically different parenting style. Once Bridget and Laura learn to communicate better and commiserate over the difficulties of raising a family, their complicated relationship improves — and Bridget realizes she’s not as different from her mother as she thought.

Hendrie portrays Rory, Bridget’s old-school, sometimes problematic father who spends his time trying to appease his wife Laura — even if that means meddling in the lives of his children. Rory’s adoration for his family is tested when he finds himself at odds with his daughter Bridget’s new “hippy dippy” parenting style.

O’Brien and Heigl executive produce with Nick Stoller, Conor Welch and Harris.

Lenehan’s recent credits include recurring on HBO’s Veep and a series-regular role on TBS’ People of Earth. In addition, she is shooting a recurring role on ABC’s Bless This Mess. Lenehan is repped by Pakula/King & Associates and Meghan Schumacher Management.

Hendrie’s on-camera credits include New Girl, Modern Family, Marin and most recently, a guest appearance on The Conners. A veteran voice actor, he can be heard on F Is for Family as well as in Rick & Morty, Futurama, King of the Hill and Team America: World Police. He also hosts syndication radio program The Phil Hendrie Show. Hendrie is repped by 90210 Talent and Sutton, Barth & Vennari.

Harris previously worked as an executive producer on long-running CBS comedy series How I Met Your Mother and as a writer on the network’s Late Show with David Letterman, sharing a combined five Emmy nominations with the teams of the two shows. He served as executive producer on The Great Indoors and consulted on The Millers, Angel from Hell and most recently Happy Together.

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From Vulture: How Phil Hendrie Transforms Stupidity Into Brilliant Comedy

You might not have heard of Phil Hendrie, but you’ve certainly heard of his fans. Die-hard Hendrie stans include Howard Stern, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean, Lost in Space’s June Lockhart, and Laurie Metcalf. Matt Groening has said Hendrie is in the upper echelons of what you can do with audio, even casting him as the entire freedom-fighting Waterfall clan on Futurama. “But Phil is in a league of his own, because Phil is working in the slimiest lower intestine of the medium,” Groening told LA Weekly in 2004. “He’s on with those yammering right-wing dimwits on KFI. And that his show completely deconstructs what the rest of them are doing every day just makes me laugh.”

Hendrie got his start in radio back in the ‘70s. Out of boredom, he started making up characters to bait people into calling in to voice their outrage. Hendrie’s fake talk show lived alongside Rush Limbaugh on KFI in Los Angeles. Hendrie has since quit terrestrial radio, making entire shows out of whole cloth for his podcast audience.

Jon Glaser came to Hendrie as so many other have: off the recommendation of comedy cognoscenti. He and the other Late Night With Conan O’Brien writers would gather around a conference table and listen to one of Hendrie’s best-of CDs like a bunch of little RCA dogs. Like Hendrie, Glaser isn’t scared of coming off unlikable. From Councilman Jamm on Parks and Recreation to his eponymous character on Jon Glaser Loves Gear — which returns to truTV tonight at 10:30 p.m. — Glaser lets himself come off as a nasty little id monster. But Glaser’s own cavalcade of dicks is nothing compared to the 30 years of monsters Phil Hendrie has lurking behind his paywall.

Tell me what you like about Phil Hendrie.
The first thing is that he is just so incredibly funny. The idea he has, the execution of it is impeccable. He’s a very subtle but very strong performer. It’s a very specific sensibility that just appeals to me. He can be equal parts subtle and big. The stuff that for me is very inspirational was from a long time ago. I got turned on to him back in ’97, when I lived in Los Angeles. I remember sitting in my car late at night and listening to one of his shows. This was before the internet. And it was just so funny. And then I bought a bunch of his CDs. They’re still on my computer. I counted — I have 99 clips from these old CDs, probably going back to ’97 or ’98. They are just so funny. Really hard laughs at some of this stuff. I’ve mentioned him to a bunch of people over the years. None of them have heard of him, which is always surprising to me. I think a lot of people in comedy know who he is.

He seems like one those people who gets cast by their fans. I first encountered him through Futurama, but then I think the only other thing I’ve seen him in was Drunk History. He seems like someone who industry people know, but has never made that mainstream transition. Why do you think that is?
I really don’t know. Maybe because it’s a specific thing he’s doing, with radio? But I really don’t know, because it’s genius comedy. The execution is good, the ideas are good, but they’re such simple ideas. The ones that appeal to me are so simple, and he hits them so hard and so perfectly in these ways that are nuanced. God, they just kill me. He has this character, Jeff Dowder. He’s kind of almost like a surfer guy. I don’t know if this stuff is available online.

He keeps it pretty tight behind the paywall. There’s some stuff on YouTube. But there’s such a huge body of work, and that’s behind the paywall.
Well it is worth buying all of it, in my opinion. He’s playing a dumb guy and he does it so well. And you obviously have to be very smart to play dumb and have it succeed. It’s brilliant.

It’s crazy, because in scenes like that, he’s not just playing a dumb guy. He’s playing up to four people of varying intelligences.
It’s so impressive and so seamless. I’ve seen a couple of the clips online, and watching him do it is amazing. I can’t even imagine having the capacity to switch back and forth between multiple characters like that and not only sound seamless, but be so funny. It’s so dry sometimes, but the comedy is just massively strong.

The other thing that appeals to me is that he’s such an effortless performer. He’s not a sweaty performer. He really takes his time. You don’t feel like you’re listening to someone that’s panicked at all.

Have you watched many of the clips of him on YouTube?
I’ve seen a couple of clips. I remember when I was on Conan, he did a performance at the Museum of Television and Radio, and I did not go see him, and I regret it to this day.

I love the way that when he plays each character, he moves slightly around the room so that his voice resonates differently in the microphone for each person.
Oh yeah! Even that is so great. To watch it is something else. He knows how far to hold the microphone or the phone from his mouth so that it sounds perfectly off-mic for someone who’s farther away in the room. All that stuff is so incredible. It’s incredible to watch; it’s brilliant to listen to. More people need to know who he is. Have you heard his drive-time morning zoo thing, Skippy and Frank?

I believe so.
The one where he blows half his face off?

Okay, no, I don’t think I got that far.
Ho-ly shit. First of all, he’s doing an absolute dead-on parody of these guys. And at this point, that’s almost been done to death. It’s almost not funny anymore to do a morning-zoo guy. But again, this was from the late ‘90s. Where he goes with it … I just gave the joke away. Basically, they do this stunt, after all this stupid bullshitty morning-zoo chitchat. He’s playing two guys, both of the [hosts], as well as some other characters on the show. And they’re very, very different. They do this prank where one of them is going to put a shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger with his toes. He blows half his face off. And the next segment is their show, and they’re still trying to do the morning-zoo stuff but the guy can barely talk. [Imitates sound of a person with half his face missing talking] Goddammit! I had these when I got hired to write on Conan in ‘98, and we would just sit and listen to these things.

There is a through line between Phil Hendrie, your work, and Conan, of seeing the bit through to its dark conclusion.
Not everything he does goes to this dark place. Certainly some of them do. There’s one where the character Margaret, she’s talking about advocating for people donating the tissue of aborted fetuses to make skin grafts for Christopher Reeve so he could walk again. This was after he was paralyzed after falling off his horse.

Right.
Part of the joy is hearing these callers losing it. Just rage. Depending on the premise, getting frustrated or annoyed. Or in this case, losing her mind at the idea of it. And he just keeps pushing the simplest things. She keeps saying, “Have you seen a Christopher Reeve movie? Have you seen Superman?” And people are screaming “I DON’T CARE!” And that character, Margaret, whenever she does her little “mmhmm,” it’s so good.

A lot of Phil Hendrie characters, and a lot of Jon Glaser characters, are unlikable. We were just talking about taking premises to dark places, but part of that is starting with an unpleasant character. How do you approach characters that start from an unlikable place?
You have to start off good. Certainly the writing has to be good. It can certainly ride that line. The Christopher Reeve thing is a pretty rough subject matter, but he handles it so well. You just have to make yourself look like the idiot, so the comedy is coming at your expense if you’re doing something so rough and dark. Because otherwise it could be potentially mean, and pranky. I don’t necessarily view what he’s doing as pranky. Even though it’s really making people so mad, it’s never at their expense — at least it doesn’t seem that way to me. To me he’s putting the onus on his characters being so ridiculous, and just clueless.

Well, on the podcast it’s just him. There aren’t … laypeople? Normies don’t call in anymore. And the comedy is still there.
That whole Skippy and Frank thing, no one calls in for real. It’s all this conceptual piece, and it’s so funny. There’s another one I have where no one calls in. It’s just this one old woman character, calls in to complain. She says some funny things, but then she gets mad and tries to hang up her phone, and she just can’t hang her phone up. This is an old landline phone, and you hear the noise of her trying to put the phone back in the cradle, the noise of plastic on plastic. And he just keeps going with it and going with it.

The way that the conversations on the show get derailed by one small thing — “Have you seen a Christopher Reeve movie?” for example — how entire segments spin out of control, feels similar to what you’re doing with Jon Glaser Loves Gear.
Nice segue!

Well, I try.
Actually, can you say that again? I derailed my own train of thought by saying that to you.

Gear is a show about a person who has a passion, and will cling to that passion in the sea of chaos in his life, the same way a Margaret clings to the cinematic excellence of Christopher Reeve.
Certainly with the Gear show, one of the things I like about it is that no matter what is happening, no matter how things have fallen off the rails or strayed from the original premise or topic of the show, that the show is still trying to cling to what it is. Sometimes we’ll use a graphic, [and] it will come in at a moment that feels comedic. There might be a really awkward moment that’s happening on screen, and an ID comes in and fills that awkward quiet. Those moments really make me laugh. People will think, Oh, they’re still trying to present this as this gear show.

How many of those lifestyle-magazine shows have you watched, to get the vibe down?
Probably zero. I really watch so little TV. I was not looking to parody something specifically. I just wanted to make the show however it was. It really evolved from the pitch to the pilot to the series. Originally I didn’t even see it as a comedy show. When I first had the idea, it was very loose, and it was a much more reality-based show where I would just go to companies and check out new gear — get to test stuff, and kind of nerd out on gear and have the comedy component be more of an afterthought. And then it just became more and more scripted and much more comedic. Now it’s a predominantly scripted comedy show. It still has reality elements of course, but it’s really become a show I didn’t envision at first.

What motivated that change?
The idea was fairly loose when I pitched it. Once the pilot got approved and we started writing the script, it felt like the stronger and better way to go was in the direction of making it more comedic. It sort of defined itself as it unfolded. Because it was so vague, as we kept working on it, it took more shape.

Last question: Who holds the megaphone when you shout “Gear!” and do they have ear protection? Because it’s pointed right at their face.
There are multiple people who hold the megaphone. Originally it was one guy, Tim, who was an actual crew guy. He did the bulk of it in the first season. This season, there are more people holding it. But there is an episode where we do a story line about Tim. I always thought it would be a funny thing, where the megaphone comes in a little low, not with its usual authority. I can tell something’s wrong, and I start talking to Tim about it. That’s the photography episode. We do get to see a whole episode about the megaphone guy. And no, they’re not wearing headphones. Because we do all the megaphone effect in post. I’m still screaming, and it’s annoying, but it’s not amplified.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/jon-glaser-phil-hendrie-comedy-interview.html

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MEDIA BISTRO: SO WHAT DO YOU DO PHIL HENDRIE, SYNDICATED RADIO SHOW HOST? ‘[My] radio show is a billboard for the digital business.’

Having just celebrated his 61st birthday at the beginning of September, Phil Hendrie is acting more like a 20-something entrepreneur these days. He’s knee-deep in relaunching The Phil Hendrie Show as a “cartoon” and growing the subscriber base for his recently fully upgraded website philhendrieshow.com.

All on the heels of six years with a syndication service that, by Hendrie’s own admission, did a terrible job of marketing his program. Now, together with a small crew and group of fictitious on-air cohorts, he’s intent on reclaiming his place in terrestrial radio.

 

As a result, Hendrie has tabled for the moment his pursuit of on-camera acting and voice-over work that had him popping up in 2012 in everything from New Girl to the animated version of Napoleon Dynamite. He’s now on the producer side, getting ready to pitch an animated project developed with a TV series veteran.

 


Name: Phil Hendrie
Position: Radio personality, actor, voice-over artist, entrepreneur
Resume: Like so many popular radio personalities, Hendrie has had an itinerant career. He began his radio odyssey as a disc jockey at WBJW 1440 AM in Winter Park, Fla., a suburb of Orlando. Fifteen years and a number of stations later, he decided he didn’t want to spin records anymore. Beginning with a weekend show on L.A.’s KFI 640 AM, he made his way eventually to introducing his first fictional character on air at KVEN-AM in Ventura, Calif., during the Gulf War. Raj Feenan’s vociferous defense of Saddam Hussein inflamed callers and the rest was radio history. Hendrie went national with Premiere Networks in 1999, retired briefly from radio in 2006 to pursue acting full-time and is now back at it. His acting credits include King of the Hill, Team America: World Police and This Is 40.
Birthdate: September 1
Hometown: Arcadia, Calif.
Education: One year at Pasadena City College to earn an English degree
Marital status: Single
Media mentor(s) : None
Best career advice received: “Always prep your show as if you’re not going to get one call.” 
Guilty pleasure: Reese’s Miniatures
Last book read: Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier, by Joseph Plumb Martin
Twitter handle: @realphilhendrie

 


Where do you tape your new radio show? 
I’m in a place called Channel Islands Beach, which is close to Ventura [California]. We’re about 40 miles north along the coast from Los Angeles. What I call the land of fog and sea lions, because that’s what we get a whole lot of — fog and sea lions. I have a studio on the beach, about three blocks from my home, in a leased office. That’s my radio base. We have our studios there, my radio company is headquartered there. It’s a great set up, the new reality, you know?

How big is your crew? 
On the air, it’s just me, our technical director and our maintenance engineers. Our technical director, C.J. Wheeler, is at our remote studio, which is in Washington, D.C. We don’t have the capability to automate our commercials yet. I’m working on digitizing our studio, so we can do that, but in the meantime, we use the remote studio in D.C. and then the show is up-linked to the satellite.

There’s also the person who will someday be my partner; right now he’s kind of our operations manager: Alex Cohen. He’s also my stepson. Alex is one of those guys who’s kind of a genius in every area, he’s technical and he knows marketing. He’s my closest adviser on how to move the business forward on all fronts.

 

 

“If I get any sense that these are people playing along, they’re gone. As well-meaning as some of those people may be, it always makes for a bad call.”

What is the current format of your show? 
The show has changed dramatically, out of necessity. It has evolved from phone callers calling in to talk to a created person that they think is real to what I call a cartoon. The reason for that is that over the years, for a number of reasons, we’ve lost the churn necessary for these callers.

The caller base has dried up, but that’s not because the show concept has dried up. I did a year on weekends on KFI AM 640 in Los Angeles and we were getting phone calls every weekend. There were no warm bodies out there for the national show because the affiliates that we had basically had no listeners. Basically, the quality of affiliate dropped in the last six years. So that’s one thing that we’re having to build back up. We just got back on in Sacramento, which is huge. We got back on in New York. We need to be on in other markets like Miami and San Diego and Chicago, but we need to be on stations that have good listener bases.

[Now] we’re doing characters interacting with me in a radio play that’s improv-ed, that is a full-on satire of talk radio. I have a panel — Margaret Grey, Bud Dickman and Robert Leonard — all characters I’m doing interchangeably, and they’re all on the air with me and we’re discussing things… And we never get to what we want to discuss, because they’re taking things personally, and people are farting in the studio, and somebody’s got to go to the bathroom. We’re turning the whole thing into one giant clusterf*ck.

And then we bring on guests, which are also characters that I’m doing. Taking the whole thing and turning it into a radio party, with me playing all the characters. The callers will eventually return. We had one actual live caller on Friday — yaaay! — which beat the heck out of the five previous nights. As we get into the right markets, we’re going to pump in more of those calls.

 


NEXT >> So What Do You Do, Jay Mohr, Comedian and Fox Sports Radio Host?

 


Is there a danger of people eventually all cluing in to what you do? The secret being fully out, so to speak, and not being able to fool callers anymore with your characters? 
No. As I said, when I was on KFI for a year starting in 2011, we had phone calls. We had people who knew the act and tried to sneak in, like they do. The talk show caller today may have a little bit more savvy than they used to, but I believe that there is also a large portion of people that are media “un-savvy” because of the Internet that are coming into the game now.

In terms of people knowing my act, yes, more and more people know my act. But nowhere near the number that you would think. And you can become famous, internationally, and people can know your name. But it doesn’t necessarily mean they know exactly what you do.

The honest information here is that we were on the air for six years with a company that did a bad job of supporting our show. From affiliates to sales to everything. We were put on stations that had no listeners. And that station list was not maintained very well. And so on and so forth.

How do you handle callers that are in on the joke, when they call? 
If I get any sense that these are people playing along, they’re gone. As well-meaning as some of those people may be, it always makes for a bad call. You’re better off getting rid of those calls. I’ve had that sense ever since we started doing the show 20, 30 years ago. That there are people who want to call up and play along. And they always get hung up on.

What kind of person is signing up to your website at $9.99 per month? 
Those are fans. Those are people who totally get the show and love it and want to be a part of it, regardless of the generation. We have a generation of new fans who don’t know about the phone caller aspect as much as they just know that I do all these character voices. Those are stone-cold fans and that is stone-cold money. That’s about as direct as it gets in my business in terms of making revenue.

 

 

“There may be a day when radio revenue comes up to digital. But for now, it’s the digital money that’s wagging the dog. “

If you want to be real honest, the radio show is a billboard for the digital business. My subscription business makes really good money. The radio show right now, and for the last six years, has not. Radio just in general is in the sh*tter. So, what can I use my radio show for? Well, I can use it as a billboard for digital, which is exactly what we do. Now there may be a day when radio revenue comes up to digital. But for now, it’s the digital money that’s wagging the dog.

What about the TV-film side; do you have any projects you’re working on for those media? 
Yes, I’ve kind of gone in a new direction. I’ve partnered with Angela Frame, she’s an animator and a project manager in the animation world. We have developed an animation narrative show. We have partnered with Starburns Industries in Burbank. We have a fully developed show that we’ve attached a couple of huge names to. I’m not currently at liberty to say who. And we’re now going to go out and pitch it.

This is where I feel my theatrical efforts should be focused. It’s a really good product, a really funny show. One of our executive producers is Justin Roiland, who is a co-creator of Rick and Morty on the Cartoon Network. He’s a great guy. I worked for him on Rick and Morty, I asked him to executive produce for us. So he’s with us.

It’s based upon a world that you know, and it’s well written. And there [are] a lot of options and [opportunities] out there, even the large number of new platforms that are out there for video. Whether it’s Netflix or Hulu or all of these smaller places, there [are] tons of places for content. It’s such a wonderful world out there; anybody who has an idea, who’s creative, you’re in a pretty good place. It’s definitely a seller’s market in terms of creative stuff.

 

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Statement Regarding Phil Hendrie Ending His Association with Talk Radio Network

LOS ANGELES, May 8, 2013 – Phil Hendrie has elected not to pursue any further association with Talk Radio Network.  As he delves deeper into his successful digital platform and ongoing television and film work, Hendrie remains open to terrestrial radio opportunities, but only those with strong sales, marketing and programming support. 

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Southwest Florida Online: Popular Radio Comedian Says Traditional Radio On Way Out

THURSDAY, JANUARY 03, 2013

Popular Radio Comedian Says Traditional Radio On Way Out – Blames Low Talent Pay

Phil Hendrie, Los Angeles syndicated talk radio show host ranted Wednesday night on his comedy radio program that radio is on it’s way out. Hendrie, who does comedy character voices on his long running show blames radio station management for cheapening radio programming.

Hendrie, a 40-year veteran of talk and entertainment radio, said radio station owners refuse to pay talent fairly and hints that online internet radio will eventually take over as traditional radio broadcasting is left behind.

Hendrie says he makes more money from his internet blog and online downloadable shows than he does from his live on air radio nightly broadcast.

Hendrie has been involved in television and movies for more than a decade and currently appears in the movie, “This Is 40.” Hendrie has also had a recurring role in the TV sitcom “New Girl,” and appeared in the movie “Last Call” Additionally he’s done voice work for the animated version of “Napoleon Dynamite.”

He also played the character “Boots” on the ABC-TV hit show “Modern Family”

His first broadcasting job was at WBJW 1440 AM in Winter Park, Fla., a suburb of Orlando from 1973–1975. From 1976 to 1988, Hendrie was a disc jockey (DJ) on AOR-format rock music stations in Utica, NY, New Orleans, Miami, San Diego, Los Angeles.

He says he’s now “totally divorced” from conventional talk radio and refuses to talk about traditional political topics any longer, calling it “garbage” entertainment, “a garbage can filled with meaningless” political talk. Hendrie says he’s never talked to anyone in radio who’s impressed him with their political opinions. In the coming year he states he’s going to talk about everything other than politics.

“That’s the leaf I’ve turned over,” he said Wednesday night. Hendrie claims he’s neither conservative nor liberal, but says current radio management tries to “squeeze blood out of a rock” by cutting salaries and programming the formulaic, tea party radio approach.

Radio is ‘no longer fun to do and there’s no money in it,” says Hendrie. “This is no way to run a business. People running the broadcasting business today don’t know what they’re doing. Either that or they are intentionally robbing talent blind. There’s no middle ground.”

He cites stations selling program time to high bidders who want to put on syndicated content with virtually no real content.

For the last 6 months portions of many of Hendrie’s comic radio shows have been available as free downloads at philhendrieradio.com and are among the most downloaded comedy podcasts at iTunes.

Hendrie’s comedy bits, including characters Jay Santos, Chris Norton, Bobbie Dooley, David G. Hall and Ted Bell are also available on Pandora

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08, Sep 09, 2012

 

HENDRIE NOT ON BOARD WITH TRN LAWSUIT

9-6-2012

You don’t often hear about a syndicated radio personality taking a shot at the company that syndicates him. However, this is Phil Hendrie. Hendrie’s been around awhile, always speaks his mind about the radio business, and isn’t one to go along with the crowd. 

Hendrie, who’s syndicated by Talk Radio Network, has issued a statement about the lawsuit the company recently filed against Dial Global. When asked last night why he was making a statement on the lawsuit, Hendrie told Radio Ink, “it’s my constitutional right to do so.”

In his statement, he said “I’d like to make it very clear that TRN does not represent my views and I certainly don’t need them ‘standing up’ for me in regard to this lawsuit, which I don’t support.  My livelihood is not dependent on TRN.”

Upon reviewing Talk Radio Networks’ recent lawsuit filed against several radio companies and individuals, Phil Hendrie took exception to section 60 which states, “Today, by bringing this Action, Plaintiffs stand not only for themselves, but also for every smaller independent syndicator, network or programming producer, and for the hosts, producers, technicians and other Americans whose livelihoods are dependent upon these independent syndicators.”

TRN CEO Mark Masters could not be reached for comment by the time we went to print with this story.

 

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From NTS MediaOnline: Phil makes tv news again…..doesn’t he do a radio show too?

“Talk Radio Network nationally syndicated host Phil Hendrie just wrapped up a stint as one of the voices of Rick & Morty, a new Cartoon Network “Adult Swim” animated show about a “genius inventor grandfather and his less-than-genius grandson.” Pictured at the new show’s “wrap party” above are (l-r): Producer Justin Roiland, Hendrie, and Producer Dan Harmon (creator of the hit TV sitcom ‘Community'”)

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From CNN.com: “‘Beyonce-colored, not darker, not lighter’ – at all times. That seemed to be the quote of the episode, according to Twitter.”

After Jess realizes she’s sort of living with Fancyman, er Russell, she decides that the two of them should spend the weekend at her place.

She asks the guys to be normal when Russell comes over, so naturally his stay was filled with awkward moments.

Winston landed an interview to be a research assistant for a sports radio host played by Phil Hendrie, who turns out to be a huge jerk. Former NBA player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar works at the radio station, and slides Winston a note that warns him to “get out” and that he “will die” there.

Of course, he gets the job and finds himself getting yelled at by his new boss … a lot. One of his boss’s demands: Keep his fridge stocked with six milkshakes – “Beyonce-colored, not darker, not lighter” – at all times. That seemed to be the quote of the episode, according to Twitter.

Winston wanted to quit being a research assistant and focus on being a nanny, but Elvin sabotaged him by telling his mom that Winston said he’s going to smoke weed when they go to the park. It was sweet that he wanted Winston to keep his grown-up job.

When Russell first arrived at the loft for the weekend, Nick didn’t hide his infatuation very well … or at all. He just stared at Russell with googly eyes and ate noodles from his bowl because they’re “bowl brothers.” Nick gets weirder and weirder every week. (I love it!)

After a plumbing fiasco, they decided to play “True American” which is a drinking game mixed with life-sized “Candy Land.” I didn’t really understand the game, but I do know the ground is lava and there’s a lot of random yelling involved.

Russell bonds with Winston and Nick after they’re all drunk.

However, Jess gets upset with Russell for spending time with the guys and not wanting to go apple-picking, but she was afraid to say anything because she didn’t want to fight with him.

But when one of Nick’s crazy creations ends up stabbing Russell, he heads home and finds Jess waiting for him at his house.

They have a cute little “argument,” during which Jess quotes the Spice Girls, and, in typical “New Girl” fashion, they live happily ever after.

So glad “New Girl” has been picked up for another season! What did you think of last night’s episode?

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From RAMP: Make A Living With Your Mouth

• Talk Radio Network (multiple) personality Phil Hendrie has extended his brand to Pandora by making a collection of his unique character-driven bits available on the user-created Phil Hendrie Radio station. Some of Hendrie’s most beloved alter egos, like Jay Santos of the Citizen’s Auxiliary Police; Bobbie Dooley, President of the Western Estates Homeowners Association; Hendrie’s “boss,” David G. Hall; and wealthy Beverly Hills steakhouse owner Ted Bell now reside on the channel, rotating with Premiere’s Bob & Tom, Steve Harvey’s Nephew Tommy and The Jerky Boys. Hendrie’s bits will also come up on user-created stations for morning radio artists, comics and political satirists. For more Phil more often, go to philhendrieshow.com.

RADIO INFO

Phil HendriePhil Hendrie is now on Pandora, featuring excerpts from his Talk Radio Network shows, as he inhabits characters such as Jay Santos, Chris Norton, Bobbie Dooley and David G. Hall (using the name of a former PD). Hendrie’s stuff comes up in the user-created “Phil Hendrie radio” station, along with content from Bob & Tom, Steve Harvey’s nephew Tommy and The Jerky Boys.

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From Radio Ink: PHIL HENDRIE ADDS PANDORA TO DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM

Some of Phil Hendrie’s character bits will now appear on Pandora. A collection of comedy bits featuring Jay Santos, Chris Norton, Bobbie Dooley, David G. Hall and Ted Bell that will be available on Pandora. He joins Premiere’s Bob & Tom, Steve Harvey’s Nephew Tommy and The Jerky Boys, all of whom rotate in the user-created “Phil Hendrie Radio” station. Hendrie’s tracks will also come up on user-created stations for morning radio artists, comics and political satirists.