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The beloved animated show Bob's Burgers first premiered in 2011, and since recording his lines for the series, voice actor H. Jon Benjamin has been voicing Bob for about 15 years. While he didn't have much in common with the animated character at the start of the show, Benjamin now says that he's basically become a real-life version of Bob Belcher.

Per Variety, Benjamin recently reflected on his casting as the titular character in Bob's Burgers. He said how he'd auditioned for an animated series called Dr. Katz, which future Bob's Burgers creator Loren Bouchard was working on as an editor at the time. As Bouchard was fond of the voiceover work Benjamin was able to bring to animated characters, the pair began to collaborate frequently. When Bob's Burgers was created, Benjamin was the first person who Bouchard had in mind to take on the role of Bob.

“I just kept working with him,...

When “Bob’s Burgers” was first released in 2011, few would have guessed it would evolve into a beloved animated mainstay, let alone one of the longest-running comedies on TV. But for H. Jon Benjamin– the voice behind Bob Belcher– it was just the latest step in a decades-long collaboration with creator Loren Bouchard and a continuation of his unconventional path through comedy.

“I was living in Boston doing comedy,” Benjamin recalls while speaking with Variety‘s Artisans presented by HBO. “This comedian, Jonathan Katz, started doing the show ‘Dr. Katz,’ and I auditioned for that.” It was a voiceover role that ended up changing everything. The show birthed a creative network that would eventually lead to “Home Movies,” “Lucy, the Daughter of the Devil,” and, finally, “Bob’s Burgers.” Bouchard, then an editor on “Dr. Katz,” began developing his own shows and continued calling on Benjamin to voice his characters. “I just kept working with him,...

Most people know Fred Stoller as Raymond’s annoying cousin Gerard on Everybody Loves Raymond or as the obnoxious, whiny guy outside the telephone booth in Dumb and Dumber. But you’ve probably also seen the actor, writer and comedian in at least one of his many guest spots on TV shows like Seinfeld, Friends, Mad About You and Dr. Katz

Stoller started as a stand-up in the 1980s — around the same time as his friend Norm Macdonald. Recently, Stoller released an audiobook about his friendship with Macdonald, who died in 2021, called My Friend Norm, in which he delves into his relationship with the late comedian and “Weekend Update” host.

Below you’ll find two excerpts from the book. In the first, Stoller gives a broad overview of his on-again-off-again, sometimes fraught friendship with Macdonald. The second kicks off the story’s main narrative when, in 2015, after getting a call...

Initially commenced as a dark comedy, as Breaking Bad progressed, Vince Gilligan’s creation would cement itself as one of the best crime dramas in the medium. But while at the core, Walter White’s story can easily be associated with a tragedy, given his fall from grace, even in the latter seasons, the show maintained its comedic chops, especially with the character of Saul Goodman.

Breaking Bad | Credit: AMC

But following the release of Better Call Saul, which is on par if not better than its predecessor, it’s easy to see Saul as a tragic hero, as his Saul Goodman facade only served as his way of coping with the events of Bcs. However, per Gilligan and Peter Gould’s original plans, the spin-off was originally pitched as a sitcom.

Better Call Saul Was Originally Intended To Be 70% Comedy Better Call Saul | Credit: AMC

While discussions regarding a...

Exclusive: On the heels of big box office success with Warner Bros’ Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, actress Winona Ryder has signed with with WME for representation in all areas.

In the long-awaited sequel to Tim Burton’s 1988 cult classic, Ryder reprises her role as Lydia Deetz, who as an adult, is still haunted by experiences earlier in life with the mischievous ghost, Betelgeuse. With rebellious teenage daughter Astrid in tow, Lydia finds that a portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened once again.

A muse of Burton’s, who in addition to Beetlejuice, starred in his prior films Frankenweenie and Edward Scissorhands, Ryder’s co-stars in the sequel include Michael Keaton, Jenna Ortega, and Catherine O’Hara. Following the film’s launch on opening night of the Venice Film Festival, it went on to the second-best September opening in history at $110 million, also registering as Burton’s second highest-grossing film ever, on the domestic front.

Typically, when I interview a famous person for the website Collider dot com, there's a touch of formality embedded within any attempt to be casual or vulnerable. Both parties know it's a one-sided conversation, both parties know the celebrity is there to provide information for the writer to write about, and both parties know it will be over once the interview is over. This was not the case when I interviewed TV comedy legend Jonathan Katz over the phone. You likely know him as the central figure of influential animated Comedy Central program Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, …...

PASADENA -- A&E Network has handed out its first animated pilot order to a project from the producers of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

In addition, the network is going into production on an unscripted series focusing on matchmaker Patti Novak and has ordered a pilot of a show about unexplained phenomena that it calls the "real" X-Files. The announcements were made Tuesday during A&E's portion of the Television Critics Assn. winter press tour at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel.

Like Dr. Katz, Hollywood DMV will combine a workplace comic narrative with stand-up comedy, A&E said. The project will focus on the characters working at the DMV as they work out their petty office dramas and their bizarre personality defects; it also will feature stand-up comedy from characters standing in line who are played by actual comedians.

Hollywood DMV, from Popular Arts Entertainment, is executive produced by Tim Braine and Kevin Meagher. Robert Sharenow is executive producer and Colleen Conway is supervising producer for A&E.

A&E executive vp and general manager Bob DeBitetto said in an interview that the network is interested in animation for several reasons, including the desire to "capitalize" on the fact that its median age dropped to 45 last year and on some nights falls in the early 30s.

PASADENA -- A&E Network has handed out its first animated pilot order to a project from the producers of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

In addition, the network is going into production on an unscripted series focusing on matchmaker Patti Novak and has ordered a pilot of a show about unexplained phenomena that it calls the "real" X-Files. The announcements were made Tuesday during A&E's portion of the Television Critics Assn. winter press tour at the Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel.

Like Dr. Katz, Hollywood DMV will combine a workplace comic narrative with stand-up comedy, A&E said. The project will focus on the characters working at the DMV as they work out their petty office dramas and their bizarre personality defects; it also will feature stand-up comedy from characters standing in line who are played by actual comedians.

Hollywood DMV, from Popular Arts Entertainment, is executive produced by Tim Braine and Kevin Meagher. Robert Sharenow is executive producer and Colleen Conway is supervising producer for A&E.

A&E executive vp and general manager Bob DeBitetto said in an interview that the network is interested in animation for several reasons, including the desire to "capitalize" on the fact that its median age dropped to 45 last year and on some nights falls in the early 30s.

Friends star Lisa Kudrow will lend her voice to an untitled animated pilot presentation under consideration at Fox. Kudrow will contribute to a project being created by Jonathan Katz and Tom Snyder (Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist) from Touchstone Television. She joins a cast of voice veterans of past Katz series, including H. Jon Benjamin, Laura Silverman and Tom Leopold, playing the mother of a family whose life is disrupted when their uncle moves in with them. Katz and Snyder will executive produce with Nina Wass and Gene Stein of Touchstone.

Comedy Central has acquired five off-network series, including sketch-comedy cult favorite The Ben Stiller Show, which aired for one season on Fox in 1992-93. Stiller is the only non-animated program in the group, which includes Dilbert, Gary & Mike (both from UPN), Clerks (ABC) and Undergrads (MTV). The cartoon quartet will rotate inside a new late-night programming block starting next month. "We want to rebuild the animation block we had before," said Bill Hilary, executive vp and general manager at Comedy Central, referring to the network's past pairing of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist and The Critic. "Our audience really loves this genre."...