Nary a “GRILL ME A CHEESE” was shouted during the “Archer Live! Tour” show at New York City’s Irving Plaza last night. But that’s only because the cast and crew — H. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Lucky Yates, Amber Nash, Jessica Walter, and Matt Thompson were all present; Judy Greer and Monday’s UPROXX live chat participant Adam Reed were unfortunately unable to attend — jumped into glorious fan service activities so quickly, no one even had a chance to obnoxiously butcher their favorite quotes. There were scene recreations, as seen above, and live readings, new clips from season four were screened, Sealab 2021 was mentioned, t-shirts were fired from cannons, and did I mention Jessica Walter was there? No one wants to offend or act rude around national treasure Jessica Walter.
UPROXX was also there (thanks for saying hi, guys!), and here are 10 things we learned about FX’s Archer and the cast during the show, with photos from Nadia Chaudhury.
Archer season three came out on DVD last week. This is important because one of the special features is Sterling’s homemade, low budget Gator 2 trailer, with you-know-who as Burt Reynolds and lovable ol’ Woodhouse as Guy Who Gets Dragged from High Speed Cars. The entirety of L’espoin Mal Fait from the season two DVD was screened, too, and if you haven’t seen Archer with H. Jon Benjamin’s face, do so now.
Lucky Yates, the voice of Dr. Krieger and former UPROXX live Q&A participant who totally looks like a skinny Jeremy Sisto, revealed that on the season four DVD, you’ll see some hot Krieger tentacle porn action. A clip was shown. I’ll never be the same again. Also, Yates isn’t a huge Rush fan in real life (unlike Aisha Tyler), but in high school, when he was trying to impress some friends, he went to a record store to buy something cool for his jacket, and he ended up purchasing a Rush pin. Also also, Krieger’s virtual girlfriend is voiced by Judy Greer.
H. Jon Benjamin was saved for last during the cast announcements, and instead of a balding, slouching comedian taking the stage when it was his turn, the real-life Sterling Archer you see above came out. Benjamin was backstage providing the man’s voice, though, and he appeared when it was time for “Archer” to kiss a lucky fan.
It took at least five minutes before she relented, before running off the stage as quickly as possible.
Jessica Walter had never fired a t-shirt cannon before — and now she loves it.
Speaking of the cannons, Matt Thompson had ordered special Archer shirts for the New York date, but instead of the distributors mailing them to Irving Plaza, where the event took place, they were sent to Irving, Texas, so the clothing fired into the crowd was blank. To make amends, Thompson said that anyone who caught one could come backstage after the show and have their prize signed by the entire cast.
Tyler and Benjamin recreated the scene fans quote to them most often — “Lana…Lana…Lana…LANNNNNNAAAAA,” etc. — in the hopes that no one will ever scream “danger zone” or “WHAT?” at them ever again.
Executive producer Matt Thompson (remember him?) hates future guest star Timothy Olyphant for being so goddamned attractive, funny, and charming. Compared to the man who has everything, we have nothing. (Before the show, someone commented that “after Archer, Wilfred is FX’s best show,” to which another fan responded, “Raylan Givens eats dogs like Wilfred.” That’s either a confused racist reference to his League appearance, or yes.)
As for the aforementioned Sealab 2021: without revealing too much, ISIS will visit a “sea lab” at some point.
Attendees could text questions for the cast to answer before the event began, and I was one of the lucky few who had their query picked. I asked, “Chris/Jessica, when you’re recognized on the street, do people reference Archer or 30 Rock/Arrested Development to you more often?” Parnell said that he gets “HEYYY DR. SPACEMAN” all the time, while Walter commented that she gets AD more often, and then recited her favorite Lucille Bluth quote.
“Oh, Michael, honey. I want to cry so bad, but I don’t think I can spare the moisture.” She’s the best.
Inevitably, the talk turned to masturbation at some point, which lead to the reveal, via Aisha Tyler, that Jessica Walter doesn’t masturbate; she has someone do it for her at her house, on satin sheets. ANYWAY. Walter is stoked that her real-life husband, Ron Leibman, is going to play Malory’s husband in an episode entitled “The Papal Chase,” and if you spend any time around her, it’s that much more amazing that she’s portrayed two of the most vile maternal figures ever in Lucille Bluth and Malory Archer. Dinosaurs Fran makes a lot more sense.
Amber Nash acknowledged that she and Yates are the ones running the Dr. Krieger and Pam Poovey Twitter accounts, and that she was asked to restrain the dirty talk a little. Along the same lines, it seems like everyone’s favorite line from the entire show is, “I swear to God, you could drown a toddler in my panties right now.” Except, despite the comments on the last page, Walter, WHO’S AN ANGEL AND DOESN’T ACKNOWLEDGE SUCH FILTH.
