To say that Comedy Central’s infamous celebrity roasts have a type when it comes to the subject would be an understatement. Looking at the last six honorees – Roseanne Barr, Charlie Sheen, Donald Trump, David Hasselhoff, Joan Rivers and Larry the Cable Guy – they’re all north of 40, have been around in their respective genres for quite some time, and some of them had even suffered humiliating lows that would have ended most other celebrities for good. Amazing how Larry the Cable Guy is the most professionally stable of the bunch.
So it’s a bit of a surprise that Comedy Central not only went young for this year’s big event, but the network also went relevant, as 35-year old actor James Franco – the hardest working (and sometimes strangest) man in show business – will be the man of the hour when the roast films in August and airs over Labor Day weekend.
“If only James Franco was a more successful, multi-hyphenated, incessant creative risk taker in different media, he’d be the perfect person to roast. Oh well … I suppose we’ll just have to make do,” joked Kent Alterman, president of content development and original programming at the network.
Franco, who is shooting his latest film Good People in London this month with costar Kate Hudson, is also set to have his latest documentary, Francophrenia debut on Comedy Central’s digital and video on demand platforms after the roast airs.
“I’ve dreamed about this Roast for as long as I can remember,” he said. (Via People)
The first question is whether or not Franco’s A-list buddies like Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Danny McBride, among others, will take part in the actual event or if they’ll turn in videos, a la David Spade for the Pam Anderson roast. (By the way, when you can’t get Spade to show up… yikes.)
But it’s harder to tell if this is Franco just being a goofy fun sport, looking to let his celebrity buddies and random comedians bust his balls for his sometimes random behavior, or if this is one of his art-within-art “dicknose” soap opera moments. Either way, I made the mistake of checking the comments on that original People article, and I just had to share this thread that is my “Troll or No Troll” Internet comment of the day…
