the comic's comic

Writing Movies For (Fun And) Profit: Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon share their insights

You may know Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon from Reno 911! or their earlier collaboration with The State, but did you know that they also have co-written screenplays that have earned more than a billion dollars in global box-office receipts?

They not only want you to know this, but they've also decided to share their insights with you in their new book, Writing Movies For Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too!

Here's an ad they produced with Funny or Die (also featuring Rob Huebel and Brett Gelman) to promote the book's launch this week. Roll it!

 

Garant and Lennon have screenwriting credits for Night At the Museum and its sequel, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, as well as for Balls of Fury, Reno 911! Miami, Let's Go to Prison, Herbie Fully Loaded, The Pacifier, and Taxi (aka the Jimmy Fallon cab movie). Of course, it's the two Night at the Museum movies that brought in almost a billion dollars combined.

Rare audio, video from the 1990s: Watch The State sing "The Boner Song" and buy their 1996 CD

Here's something you didn't see almost 20 years ago. It's rare footage of The State in their first MTV office in the early 1990s, singing a version of "The Boner Song." See how young they all look! Also, they're college kids singing about boners.

Roll it.

 

If you think it's unusual for footage from The State to linger in archives for more than 14 years, then you probably also didn't know that it took that long for their January 1996 recording to become public. But that's exactly what happened with their CD, "Comedy For Gracious Living." It captures all of them at their youthful indiscretioniest. Is that a word? Who knows. This is an actual CD, though.

Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant provide a review of the porn parody of their "Reno 911"

If you've been following trends in pornography, and who hasn't, am I right, ladies? Hold on, that sounds too smug. Let's try this again. The biggest fad in porn over the past couple of years has been making full-on parodies of popular TV shows. Instead of just using a funny title, which porn had been doing for decades (think: When Harry Ate Sally; White Men Can't Hump), the adult film community has tried to get our collective attention by getting more into comedy character and impersonating the shows they're parodying with the sex and the sex and the more sex.

It certainly got the attention of Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant, who sat in the Funny or Die "balcony" to provide a review of the XXX porn parody of their long-running Comedy Central comedy series, Reno 911. It's almost Safe For Work, but the language is definitely NSFW. Roll it.

Four new HBO Funny or Die teasers! Drunk Jen Kirkman; Tim & Eric & Zach; and two more!

I'm very excited about the new HBO series collaborating with Funny or Die, who in turn is unleashing lots of great comedians to do their things on cable TV. Here are four new teaser trailers for sketches from the series Funny or Die Presents, which debuts at midnight Friday, Feb. 19.

The first features the latest installment of "Drunk History," which won an award at the Sundance Film Festival and cast Will Ferrell and Don Cheadle to re-enact the drunken ramblings of Jen Kirkman. She really does look drunk, you guys! Roll it.

And the second clip shows us a reunion of sorts, as Zach Galifianakis joins Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim in a bit called "Just 3 Boyz." Looks like someone really could use a horse massage?

But wait. There's more!

Here's a clip from the short film, "Designated Driver: Office Prank," that includes Rob Riggle, Paul Scheer and Rob Huebel.

And there's a fourth clip. This is called "Hold Up," starring Ed Helms, Thomas Lennon, Malin Akerman, Rachael Harris, Huebel again, and Creed from The Office acting like Creed from The Office. "C'mon. It's open season on jive turkey." Perfect? From what I gathered from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, this one is his handiwork, and also includes Jerry Minor, Brandon Johnson, Ian Roberts, Rich Fulcher and Kate Walsh. Roll it and see:

Megan Mullally in her hardest role ever: That's what she said. No, really. "That's What She Said."

If you think the sexually loaded innuendo of a catchphrase, "That's what she said," started with NBC's popular sitcom, The Office, then you would be wrong.

As this exclusive report from Entertainia Now discovered in tracking down Kim Marlowe, a woman who had sex with lots of guys in junior college in Long Beach, Calif., and tended to say things that could be taken out of context. Wait. Entertainia Now is not a real program. Thomas Lennon plays the investigative reporter. And Megan Mullally plays Marlowe, the woman who had her words turned turned against her and got royally screwed. That's what she said! Yes. That is what she said. Roll it!

Thanks to Seth Morris for writing this expose and producing it for Funny or Die.

Leaving Reno. Don't call 911! Next stop: MullerCize!

Do you feel bad that you might not get to see any more episodes of Reno 911! I'm sensing a theme today. It's all about moving forward with our lives, and Reno's Thomas Lennon and R. Ben Garant have shown us that you can dingle your Dangle all you want, but without proper diet and nutrition, you aren't going to be fully Muller-Cized. Now with more bear testosterone. Co-starring Irina Voronina, who appeared on the Reno TV series as well as the movie. Roll the clip!

Guntram Müller's MüllerCize It! (part 1) from Thomas Lennon