Neil Patrick Harris

Thrilling Adventure Hour and Night Vale Save the, Well, Everything

by S.J. BorgerAugust 22, 2014

Thrilling Adventure Hour & Night Vale Cross Over Marquee at SDCC. Photos by Bigwhitebazooka courtesy of Ladykiller — Thrilling Adventure Hour & Night Vale Cross Over Marquee at SDCC.
Photos by Bigwhitebazooka courtesy of Ladykiller

Thrilling Adventure Hour returned to Comic Con last month in a cross over show with Welcome to Night Vale, an event of such magnitude that they last time they tried it (in Seattle, in March), the recording equipment literally could. not. even.

Performing to a packed house at the Spreckles Theatre in San Diego, the show followed Sparks Nevada, Marshal of Mars (Marc Even Jackson), Crouch (Mark Gagliardi) and the usual Sparks Nevada: Marshall of Mars crew as they travel through space and time to save the moon–allowing for the “Marshal of Mars” and the Night Vale worlds to collide.

Done in three acts (with an intermission!) the first act opens with Wil Wheaton–as the omniscient narrator/god-like being–and quickly segues into “Marshal on Mars”, with Sparks Nevada (Marc Evan Jackson) and Croach (Mark Gagliardi) dealing with the subversively silly criminal element (this time it’s James Urbaniak as a good-guy shoe salesman turned bad and his two robot outlaws). Things go from bad to worse when Pemily Stallwark (Molly Quinn), now Marshal of the Moon, shows up needing help to save Earth’s lunar satellite. An introduction of a timey-wimey-super-duper-don’t-think-about-it-too-hard device allows people to travel across space, time, and apparently dimensions, and Croach is zapped to Night Vale.

Thrilling Adventure Hour and Night vale cast and guest stars at SDCC 2014. Photos by Bigwhitebazooka courtesy of Ladykiller — Thrilling Adventure Hour and Night Vale cast and guest stars at SDCC 2014. Photos by Bigwhitebazooka courtesy of Ladykiller

Act II begins like a typical Night Vale episode. Cecil (Cecil Baldwin) begins with the news that there is a new Destroy-the-Moon initiative. The citizens of Night Vale, Cecil tells us, have tried throwing objects at the Moon and will shortly escalate to yelling insults at it. Also, a strange, overly literal being has been going around town demanding that people cease their plans to destroy the moon. Cecil, the Mayor Dana Cardinal (Jasika Nicole), Carlos the Scientist (Dylan Marron) and Steve Carlsberg (Hal Lublin) end up getting zapped back to Mars with Croach. And thus ends Act II.

Act III (after a fairly interminable intermission) has the combined casts banding together to save the moon with some (extremely convenient) time-zapping, a few deaths (!!!), a few more resurrections, and heartfelt professions of love, friendships and respect between various pairs. There’s also some discussion about paradoxes and the general head-ache-inducing vagaries of time (and dimension!) travel.

While maybe not the most coherently plotted Sparks Nevada episode (Night Vale tends to eschew plots completely, so it wins by comparison), the combined cast elevated the show; and the audience, eager and ecstatic at the combining of the two fan-favorite shows, did not let a joke slip by them. The verbal sparring between Baldwin, Sparks and Gagliardi is quite possibly some of the best comedic repartee we’ve heard in awhile, and the 30-second half written/half-improv’d competing cries-of-alarm between Carlsberg and Felton (Craig Cackowski) brought the house down.

All in all, the cross over was extremely successful in bringing together the two worlds; it was funny, irreverent, touching and, well, everything we’ve come to expect from both shows.

The episode won’t be aired for awhile, but you can catch up on all the most recent episodes of Thrilling Adventure Hour here and Night Vale here while you wait!

Thrilling Adventure Hour and Night Vale, Back Together Again

by S.J. BorgerJune 24, 2014

They’re back!

Everyone’s favorite new-time podcast in the style of old-time radio is joining forces with the eerie alt-world radio dj this year at San Diego Comic-Con. That’s right…it’s the Thrilling Night Vale Hour. No. Wait. The Night Vale Adventure Hour! No, that’s not right either. The Thrilling Nightventure—you know what, we’re gonna stop with that now and get to the details.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Night Vale are teaming up for a cross over show on Saturday, July 26th at 8 p.m. at the Spreckles Theatre in downtown San Diego. Tickets went on sale today–you can purchase them here–and for a little bit (well, a lot) more (and legal proof that you’re 21+) you can attend the VIP after-party with the cast of both shows. The best part–you don’t need a Comic Con badge! That’s right, all you need to do to see the show is buy a ticket and then bravely face the hordes of Cosplayers exiting the Convention Center, frantically in search of alcohol (attractiveness +2) and food (stamina +3).

For those of you who haven’t experienced the comic-genius that is Thrilling Adventure Hour or the spooky surrealism of Welcome to Night Vale, we recommend buying a ticket (they’ll be gone soon) and then catching up with the shows on their websites, here and here, or find them on your favorite podcast listening app.

TAHWTNVPressRelease_SDCC062414 — Thrilling Adventure Hour live performance with special guests Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk & Molly Quinn.

Created by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker, The Thrilling Adventure Hour is a staged show and podcast on the Nerdist network, where actors you know, like Nathan Fillion, Patton Oswalt, Alan Tudyk, Neil Patrick Harris, and Patrick Warburton dress nicely and join the WorkJuice Players (including Marc Evan Jackson, Craig Cackowski, Hal Lublin, Marc Gagliardi and Annie Savage Cross) on stage in non-serialized thrilling adventures (of course!) like Sparks Nevada, Marshal of Mars or Beyond Belief. It’s recorded live, with limited rehearsal time–meaning anything can, and often does, happen.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour is currently launching a brand new web series on the Nerdist Network, and the graphic novel, released last year, was nominated for an Eisner award.

Welcome to Night Vale live performance: Cecil Baldwin

Welcome to Night Vale, created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor, and featuring Cecil Baldwin as the voice of Night Vale, the podcast styles itself as a series of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale–which exists in a Twilight Zone like world, filled with mysterious lights, hooded figures and secret police.

This is the second time Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Night Vale have joined forces for a live show. Last March they were live at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, to rave reviews.

Tickets are $15 for just the show, and $100 for the show and the VIP (21+ only) after party, and are available here.

For those of you who can’t wait, here’s a behind the scenes look at The Thrilling Adventure Hour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of8w7KwdyHc

Let us know how excited you are in the comments!

Watch A Hilarious New Trailer For ‘A Million Ways To Die In The West’

by Derek KraneveldtMay 7, 2014

Briefly: MTV has just debuted a new red band trailer for A Million Ways To Die In The West.

It’s probably one of the most NSFW trailers that I’ve ever seen, and it’s absolutely hilarious. Seriously.

A Million Ways To Die In The West stars Seth MacFarlane (who also directed, produced, and co-wrote the film), Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman and Neil Patrick Harris. Take a look at the trailer below, and let us know what you think! The film hits theatres on May 30th!

Seth MacFarlane directs, produces, co-writes and plays the role of the cowardly
sheep farmer Albert in A Million Ways to Die in the West. After Albert backs out
of a gunfight, his fickle girlfriend leaves him for another man. When a mysterious
and beautiful woman rides into town, she helps him find his courage and they begin
to fall in love. But when her husband, a notorious outlaw, arrives seeking revenge,
the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test.

Watch The First Trailer For Seth MacFarlane’s ‘Ted’ Follow-Up, ‘A Million Ways To Die In The West’!

by Derek KraneveldtJanuary 30, 2014

Briefly: Universal Pictures today debuted the very first trailer for Seth MacFarlane’s Ted follow-up, A Million Ways To Die In The West.

I’d actually not heard of the film until today, but as is usually the case with Seth MacFarlane (and was definitely the case with most of Ted), this one looks great, and I can’t wait to see more.

Seth MacFarlane directs, produces, co-writes and plays the role of the cowardly
sheep farmer Albert in A Million Ways to Die in the West. After Albert backs out
of a gunfight, his fickle girlfriend leaves him for another man. When a mysterious
and beautiful woman rides into town, she helps him find his courage and they begin
to fall in love. But when her husband, a notorious outlaw, arrives seeking revenge,
the farmer must put his newfound courage to the test.

‘Starship Troopers’ Reboot…Less Violent?!

by Shawn MaddenJune 27, 2012

Awhile back it was announced that ‘Starship Troopers’ would be joining many films and getting the reboot treatment. The 1997 Paul Verhoeven film starring Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards and Neil Patrick Harris is a fan favorite and spawned three sequels. Three god awful sequels that really didn’t hold up to the original. Toby Jaffe (who also produced the ‘Total Recall’ reboot) will handle the movie and has stated that it is too hard to produce a movie that is “too violent” when it is too expensive to produce.

“The more expensive a film is, the harder it is now to make it that violent,” explains Jaffe, also one of the team behind the Colin Farrell’s Total Recall. “With Recall in particular, we made a conscious choice to keep it tonally closer to something like Minority Report. It gives the studio, and us as producers, the opportunity to reintroduce it in a new way.

“Verhoeven made his movie a critique of fascism,” says Jaffe, “whereas Heinlein was writing from the perspective of someone who had served in World War II. Y’know, one man’s fascism is another man’s patriotism…”

“Working in a visual-efects renaissance as we are, we have the ability to do so much more now. We can do the Jump Suits [armoured exoskeletons from Heinlein’s novel], for example, which I don’t think they could have done before.”

Source: Empire

Nerdist YouTube Channel Lineup Announced

by Matt BlackwoodMarch 17, 2012

On a panel at WonderCon today, Chris Hardwick announced the premiere lineup of shows for the Nerdist YouTube Channel, launching April 2.

Featuring a plethora of personalities doing the shows they are truly interested in making, the Nerdist Channel will be taking full advantage of the freedom offered on the Internet. Hardwick himself will host “All-Star Bowling”, a celebrity charity bowling show. On “Face to Face”, comedy music legend Weird Al Yankovic will do hard-hitting interviews with celebrities. Presumably, “Neil Patrick Harris Dreaming In Puppets” will be roughly what it sounds like and “An Insane New Project from Rob Zombie” will be exactly that.

You’ll also see some familiar faces as Nerdist will be bringing back some incarnation of classic shows “Kids In The Hall” and “Farscape“. Popular podcasts “Indoor Kids”, “Comic Book Club Live”, and “Star Talk with Neil Degrasse Tyson” will get the TV show treatment, as will Internet staple “Ain’t It Cool News“.

The Nerdist Channel will be producing a lot of original content as well. Cosplay enthusiasts can look forward to “Just Cos” while “Tournament of Nerds” will feature hilarious debates over which classic pop culture characters would win in a fight. “Four Points” will tackle hot topics from multiple angles. A number of other originals featuring cartoons, puppets, and interns are set to launch, with more shows to be announced at a later date.

Hardwick pledges that the Nerdist network will make full use of its nascent format, catering to a variety of niche audiences rather than playing to the lowest common denominator and including viewer feedback in creative decisions. For more info and puppets, check out the video press conference here.