I’m not exactly sure what part of my brain the idea for this comic escaped from. I just started thinking about Forgetting Sarah Marshall and how it’s a Judd Apatow production, ALL of the Judd Apatow productions lined up for release in 2008 and the rest just kind of leaked out of my ear.

I’m sure the working environment on an Apatow film is much less contentious as I’ve depicted here. But you can’t help but notice the low-grade nepotism involved with these movies anymore.

At first I thought it was pretty cool to have the same stable of actors on call for any given movie. Now I can’t imagine a comedy that DOESN’T feature Jason Segel, Seth Rogen, or Jonah Hill in some capacity. Do they even make comedies without their involvement anymore? It’s hard to tell.

Then again, maybe that was the point.

At this stage, Apatow productions have become like the Laff-O-Lympics for my favorite comedy actors. I just watched Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story on DVD last week and there are tons of small cameos from the likes of Jack McBrayer and Ed Helms. Complete throwaway roles that could have been played by anyone. But then they show up on screen and that wave of recognition hits you. “Hey! That’s so-and-so from [insert popular comedy television show here]!” In a weird way, it’s like it adds some kind of credibility to the affair.

As far as Forgetting Sarah Marshall is concerned, it’s a movie I’ve been looking forward to for a while. It looks like it’s got the same mix of crudeness and sweetness and they’re mixing things up a little bit by adding Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis to things. Also, those two actresses are very attractive and I’ll take any advantage I can get in terms of muting the amount of wang that is supposedly in this movie. Reportedly, Segel shows the goods 3 times in this picture. At what point did the wiener become a standard visual gag? I know it looks weird, and everything, but…

Peter Segel is an actor I kind of like, but not really – and mostly for the roles he’s chosen. Specifically, the stalker boyfriend from Undeclared and the dirtbag MILF-chaser in Knocked Up. I don’t watch How I Met Your Mother, but I understand he plays a much more squeaky clean version of himself on that show. So maybe it’s been the wrong exposure for me.

That said, I’m impressed that he wrote the screenplay for this one and somehow managed to wring A NEW MUPPETS MOVIE out of his involvement with Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Apparently there is a sequence with puppets at the end and people from The Henson Company were doing the puppeteering. Segel floated the idea past them and the rest is (soon to be filmed) history.

Cami and I are trying to line up a babysitter this weekend so we can get out of the house and see this. I know I say that a lot, but this is the first movie in a long while that I feel extremely motivated to see. Motivated enough to inconvenience another family member and deep-six their Saturday night to hang out at our house and make sure my baby doesn’t drink a case of Colt 45 while we’re away.

Wow. That’s a visual for you.

One last thing — If you missed it on Wednesday, be sure to download the first recorded broadcast of Boxcar Comics Hobo Jamboree. Myself, Joe Dunn from Joe Loves Crappy Movies, Phil Chan from Martriculated and Clay Yount from Rob & Elliot were all in attendance and we laid down the ground work for what you can expect from our monthly podcast. We had a good time recording it and I’m already looking forward to the next one.

A couple of people wrote to tell me that we didn’t give you guys enough notice to listen to the show live. Sorry about that. It all came together kind of quickly and we just ran to press with it. Next time, we’ll try to talk it up a week or so in advance.

I’m really excited about the progress that Boxcar Comics has been making lately. So far we have one jam comic and this podcast under our belt. We’re working on our second jam comic as we speak. Boxcar has been around since 2005. I think we’ve gotten more done in the last few months than we have in the last few years. I feel good about it. We’ve justified ourselves beyond just sharing traffic. Good times.

That’s all from me! Have a great weekend everybody!