Tony Hale

Coproduced and cowritten by latenight host Conan O'Brien, Andy Barker PI was conceived as a vehicle for O'Brien's longtime cohort Andy Richter. The star was cast as doltish CPA Andy Barker, who after opening his own business is mistaken for Lew Staziak (Harve Presnell), a two-fisted private eye whose office Andy had inherited. Our hero also inherited Lew's clients and caseload, obliging him to carry on an exhausting double life, handling both expense accounts and baffling murder cases--doing rather better in the latter pursuit because of his uncanny math skills. Andy's partner was Simon (Tony Hale), a video store owner, while his chief contact man and confidant was Wally (Marshall Manesh), the neurotic manager of an Afghan restaurant. Packed with clever references to earlier detective movies and TV shows, Andy Barker PI joined NBC's powerhouse Thursday-night lineup on March 15, 2007. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A socially isolated IRS agent whose every move is documented by a disembodied female voice discovers that his life is the subject of a book currently being written by a best-selling author, whose creative block has stunted her repeated efforts to kill him off, in a quirky fantasy comedy written by Hollywood hot property Zach Helm and directed by Finding Neverland's Marc Forester. Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) lives a life of solitude. Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) can't seem to find a way to finish her latest book. Though Harold and Kay have never actually met, their fates are about to become intertwined in a most unusual manner. With her publishers growing increasingly impatient with her apparent inability to put the finishing touches on her latest novel, Kay is assigned a new assistant whose task it is to help provide the creative push needed to get her book finished and into the hands of her many eager fans. The subject of Kay's novel is a lonely and despairing IRS agent named Harold Crick, who believes that his life has lost any real meaning. As Kay continues to weave Harold's woeful tale without realizing that her protagonist is actually a living human being unable to concentrate on his life and career due to the constant interference of the narrator who inexplicably seems to anticipate his every move and read his every thought, her continued efforts to kill her perplexed subject finally provide him with the incentive needed to fully experience life by seeking out the source of the voice that plagues him. Penned by the screenwriter named by Variety magazine as one of the "Top Ten Writers to Watch" and who was also included in Esquire magazine's "Best and Brightest" list of 2004, Stranger Than Fiction features supporting performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Diane Keaton stars as a unconditionally loving, but meddling, mother whose vain attempt to prevent her insecure youngest daughter from repeating the same mistakes that she made leads to a series of comic misunderstandings in director Michael Lehmann's affectionate family comedy. When it comes to the topic of motherhood, Daphne Wilder (Keaton) has seen it all. Her eldest daughter, Maggie (Lauren Graham), is a highly respected psychologist and her middle daughter, Mae (Piper Perabo), is both sexy and smart, but youngest Milly (Mandy Moore) just can't seem to get things right no matter how hard she tries. Recognizing that the romantic exploits of her charming-but-struggling youngest always seem to end in tears, concerned mother Daphne vows to find Millie the perfect man. Though she always means well, Daphne's misguided attempt to set her daughter up by placing a carefully worded personal ad proves once and for all that even the most well-intending of mothers can sometimes overstep their boundaries. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A laid-back health inspector's comfortable routine receives an unwelcome shake up when he's assigned the task of training his new rookie partner and investigating the outbreak of a mysterious illness at one of the city's most posh restraints in this no-holds-barred comedy starring Blue Collar standup king Larry the Cable Guy. It's all greasy spoons and low-rent ethnic eateries in the world of seasoned big-city health inspector Larry (Larry the Cable Guy), and that's just the way he likes it. After begrudgingly accepting the task of training by-the-books trainee Amy (Iris Bahr), Larry lands the biggest case of his career when a group of high-class diners fall ill following a particularly pricey meal. Though the gruff but lovable health inspector soon loses his job as a direct result of his questionable manners, he soon wins the heart of a shy waitress while attempting to go undercover to crack the case and ensure that the conspirators who engineered the poisonous plan are brought to justice. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

As Arrested Development leaps into its first season, hard-working Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) is on the brink of starting a new life in Arizona with son George Michael (Michael Cera) when he is dragged kicking and screaming back to California, there to take charge of his family's business when his light-fingered father, George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor), is jailed for fraud and the company's assets frozen. Though he had fondly assumed he'd seen the last of his vituperrious mother, Lucille (Jessica Walter), and his lazy, self-indulgent siblings, he was forced to hunker down and teach them how to behave (and spend!) more responsibly. As Michael's airheaded would-be-activist twin sister, Lindsay (Portia de Rossi), her sexually confused ex-doctor hubby, Tobias (David Cross), and their out-of-control daughter, Maeby (Alia Shawkat), move in with Michael, older brother Gob (Will Arnett), a spectacularly unsuccessful and untalented magician, must face the prospect of actually getting a real job, while the "baby" of the family, Michael's feckless kid brother, Buster (Tony Hale), remains sequestered in his mommy's Balboa Bay condo. Michael's well-ordered world doesn't take very long to unravel; by the second episode, his darling son George Michael has set fire to the Bluths' frozen-banana stand in Newport Beach, and has developed a borderline-incestuous crush on cousin Maeby. A few weeks later, Lucille Bluth's neurotic social rival Lucille Austero (Liza Minnelli) has entered into an affair with the much, much, much younger Buster, an act that will eventually move Buster's mom to spitefully adopt a Korean orphan named Annyong (Justin Lee). Meanwhile, Michael finds it next to impossible to break up the doomed romance between brother Gob and his girlfriend, Marta (Patricia Velasquez), and to fire such millstones around the Bluths' necks as hopelessly inept family lawyer Barry Zuckerkorn (Henry Winkler) and blackmailing company secretary Kitty Sanchez (Judy Greer).

Among the supporting actors entering into the lunacy are Rocky co-star Carl Weathers, who makes the first of several self-deprecating appearances as himself in the episode wherein George Michael is forced to hire a public relations service to gain entrance to a private school; Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton as the warden in the prison where George Sr. is wasting away, so to speak; Seinfeld veteran Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the sight-challenged attorney Maggie Lizer, who plays up to Michael while trying to dig up more damaging dirt on his family's business practices; and series regular David Cross' longtime Mr. Show cohort Bob Odenkirk as a marriage counselor who tries to patch up the differences between Lindsay and Tobias (chief among them the fact that the "never-nude" Tobias will not undress in front of his spouse); and Amy Poehler, real-life wife of regular Will Arnett, as the "where the hell did she come from?" new wife of the gormless Gob. The season finale finds George Sr. staging a heart attack for the purpose of busting out jail, Maeby finally tumbling to George Michael's unspoken love for her, an unintentionally gay-themed book written years ago by Tobias embarrassingly hitting the best-seller charts, and the rivalry between Buster and Annyong coming to a head -- and threatening to bust both of their heads. Although season one of Arrested Development posted lukewarm ratings, the series earned a renewal from the Fox network largely on the strength of its five surprise Emmy Award wins (Outstanding Comedy Series, Outstanding Casting for a Comedy Series, Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing, and Outstanding Writing). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide