If you came to the party late, Comedy Centric and many other blogs in the b5media Entertainment Channel participated in a Blog Off last Friday, June 20, to benefit The Actors Fund. Our goal at each participating blog was to publish one post per hour over the 24 hours of June 20, and I’ll be damned if that’s not exactly what I did.

The following is a summary of the posts I published during this important, fun, and draining event. Those who are interested can still make donations to The Actors Fund at the Donate Now page; it’s never too late to support such charitable causes.

Comedy Centric Blog Off Roll

1. ‘The Factory’ Is Coming to Spike TV
2. Weeds: ‘Lady’s A Charm’ Preview (6-23-08)
3. New Life for ‘Life’ When DVD Set Arrives This Fall
4. Secret Diary of a Call Girl: Episode 2 Preview (6-23-08)
5. Get Ready for a Summer ‘Burn’
6. ‘Psych’ Spreads Its Wings with Steven Weber
7. Comedy Talk: Steve Carell Gets Smart with Jon Stewart
8. ‘The New Adventures of Old Christine’ Season Two at Amazon Exclusively
9. Matthew Perry Not So Friendly in ‘The End of Steve’
10. Comedy Talk: Chevy Chase Visits ‘The View’
11. Under One Roof: Worst Sitcom Ever?
12. The Bill Engvall Show: ‘No Gifts, Please’ Spoilers (6-26-08)
13. My Boys: ‘The Shirt Contest’ Spoilers (6-26-08)
14. Comedy Talk: Mike Myers Kills the Crowd on Conan
15. In Plain Sight: ‘Trojan Horst’ (6-22-08)
16. Ayda Field Cast in New Sitcom Pilot
17. Craig Ferguson Trumps Conan O’Brien Any Night [Guest Post]
18. ‘Psych’ Takes Over ‘Fear Itself’ Next Week
19. Is ‘Get Smart’ A Smart Movie Choice?
20. ‘Cupid’ Lead Cast Nearly Complete
21. Get ‘Life’ Now
22. Comedy Talk: Jack Black Hangs Out with Regis and Kelly
23. Comedy Talk: Adam Sandler Messes with Jon Stewart
24. Blog Off Sign Off: Standup with Lewis Black

Well, I can’t think of a better way to end this Blog Off than with a little standup from Lewis Black. The comedian stopped by Late Night with Conan O’Brien on June 5 to promote his new book Me of Little Faith. But before he took to the couch, he treated the audience and viewers to a hysterical comedy routine that was relatively clean.

Take a look at the following clip of Black’s appearance to learn things like why it’s not so good for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama to be so full of hope and the high cost of using corn for fuel. No wonder Comedy Central hurried up and renewed his series Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil for a second season last month — Black is the real deal when it comes to funny.

NOTE: If you require closed captions, you can enable that feature on the video player by clicking the CC symbol in the top right-hand corner.

Really. The host of The Daily Show, decked out in a sharp suit as usual, was none too thrilled when comedian-actor Adam Sandler showed up wearing ratty shorts and an even rattier T-Shirt to promote his then-recent release You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. After what seems like ten minutes of rebuking and then admissions about stealing jeans off the movie set, the conversation finally moves on to the movie.

Stewart has no problem telling Sandler to his face that he usually doesn’t care for his flicks — can’t fault him for that, can we? — but he happened to enjoy Zohan. Sandler’s mother is a different story, however. Check out the interview clip below to see why.

NOTE: If you require closed captions, you can enable that feature on the video player by clicking the CC symbol in the top right-hand corner.

I know, I know — Kung Fu Panda opened a couple of weeks ago, but that doesn’t mean the interviews star Jack Black went on aren’t still entertaining.

That was definitely the case when he dropped by the New York City studio of Live with Regis and Kelly earlier this month, where he started the conversation by describing his second son, born just days before, as looking like an alien. The discussion only got more offbeat from there, with Black even taking the time to demonstrate a so-called Spinning Panda Barrel Roll.

Check out the two-part chat below.

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Earlier I wrote about the September release of the Season One DVD set for NBC’s underappreciated crime dramedy Life. What I didn’t realize at the time is that the show’s rookie season is already available online in its entirety, and thanks to NBC and Hulu, the video quality is excellent.

If you’ve never wathced the show, now is a great time to start. The pilot episode I’ve included after the jump sets up the plot clearly enough that I don’t even really need to give a description. But I’ll provide a few details anyway.

Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers) stars as LAPD Detective Charlie Crews, who was set up and convicted for a triple murder he didn’t commit and subsequently spent twelve years in prison, before DNA evidence exonerated him.

After Crews is freed, he and his lawyer successfully sue Los Angeles and the LAPD for an undisclosed amount of money that’s rumored to total millions, as well as his old job back. Crews immediately acquires a high-class lifestyle to go with his windfall, but he always remains intent on reestablishing his career and figuring out who almost destroyed his life by framing him.

Since nobody wants to work with him, Crews is partnered with Sarah Shahi’s (The L Word) no-nonsense Dani Reese, a recovering drug addict from her days working undercover as a narcotics agent.

Now that you’ve got the basics, check out the episode of Life after the jump that got the series up and running.

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With the addition of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip alum Sarah Paulson just last week, it looks like the main cast of ABC’s remake of the Rob Thomas sitcom Cupid is almost complete.

Emmy-winning Will & Grace guest star Bobby Cannavale was previously cast in the lead role of Trevor Hale, a recent patient in a mental institution who believes he’s none other than the flesh-and-bone god of love.

Paulson will play a psychiatrist named Claire Allen who becomes responsible for overseeing Hale’s activities after he’s released from the mental institution.

I have no idea why anybody thinks this particular comedy needs to be repackaged, but at least there’s a great cast in place, so good luck!

If I wasn’t spending my entire day blogging for charity, I would be at a movie theater, or on my way to one, right about now to see Steve Carell in Get Smart. Since I’m stuck in front of my computer, though, I’ve had the chance to dawdle around at Metacritic to learn what the professional reviewers think, not that I usually care.

Surprisingly — or perhaps not if you think about it — they don’t seem generally enthusiastic about the big-screen adaptation. The movie’s average score among critics is currently an unimpressive 53, although users have given it a 7/10 thus far. That rating is based on just six votes, however.

I don’t get it; the trailers like the one below make the film seem a sure winner, especially as opposed to, say, Mike Myers’ The Love Guru, which just looks silly, okay, incredibly stupid to me (it has a metacritic pro-critic score of 23 and a user rating of 4.2, so it looks like I called it).

Maybe I’ll just wait until Get Smart comes out on DVD and pass over The Love Guru all together.

The June 19th episode of NBC’s new horror-suspense anthology Fear Itself was the best one thus far, largely thanks to the fantastic work of Eureka star Colin Ferguson. He was spot-on and so chilling when needed.

Next week, two more actors from a well-known dramedy will tackle the series when real-life couple James Roday and Maggie Lawson, Shawn Spencer and Juliet O’Hara on USA Network’s Psych, headline the suggestively titled episode “In Sickness and In Health.”

The installment is directed and written by a pair of the horror genre’s more well-known talents, John Landis (An American Werewolf in London) and Victor Salva (Jeepers Creepers), respectively.

Lawson plays an enthusiastic bride who’s wedding plans are ruined when she receives a mysterious note claiming that her soon-to-be-husband, Roday’s groom, is a serial killer. What in the world is a woman supposed to do under those circumstances?

Tune in to NBC next Thursday night at 10pm EST to see. In the meantime, enjoy the brief preview that aired after last night’s episode below. The couple seems perfectly attuned to the plot’s kitschy possibilities.

Anyone who’s not watching Craig Ferguson on the Late Late Show (CBS, 12:35 a.m., EDT) is missing out. You think just because you saw this guy on The Drew Carey Show for years you know him? Nonsense! A cranky Scottish man who invites us in by tapping on the camera every night and giving us a warm wave before announcing “it’s a great day for America”? That’s what you need at that time of night (or, if you’re like the rest of us, whenever TiVo makes it happen).

Does he do the same jokes every night? Yeah, well, pretty much. But here’s the really sick part: they’re still funny! Okay, so the Angela Lansbury/Paul McCartney thing is getting old, but I’d be happy with an hour of Craig reading emails and doing his dead-on Sean Connery impression. Some of the sketches need a little airing out (no more with the guy who pretends to be Craig Ferguson and insults him to death — it cracks up Craig, but we’re, um, the audience), but the monologue is always killer, and the man gets interesting guests and makes them laugh.

Conan O’Brien? Aside from truly freakish hair, what has he got over Craig? Nothing, I say! The day Craig Ferguson, after actually tearing up, took his oath as a citizen of the United States — THAT was a great day for America.

Guest author Jeffrey Cohen is the author of IT HAPPENED ONE KNIFE and SOME LIKE IT HOT-BUTTERED in the Double Feature Mystery series, which takes place in a movie theatre that shows only comedies. He’s a fan of the Marx Brothers, Monty Python, Jon Stewart, and 30 Rock, among a host of others. You can find him at www.jeffcohenbooks.com.

Many are still lamenting Fox’s hasty decision to ax the rookie newsroom sitcom Back to You, which starred TV-comedy heavyweights Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton. The situation isn’t all that bad for another former cast member who, like Grammer, has already lined up another comedy series.

Ayda Field, better known to Back to You fans as sexy but professionally challenged weather anchor Montana Diaz Herrera, has just been named as the female star of an upcoming, currently untitled sitcom pilot from David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, the creators of NBC’s long-running Will & Grace.

The series is about a pair of best friends and business partners, gay Drew and straight Derek, played by Alan Tudyk and Josh Cooke, respectively. Field replaces actress Sarah LaFleur for unspecified reasons in the role of Cooke’s girlfriend Audrey. Congratulations to her.