YouTubing-To-Obscure-Shameless-Self-Promotion Wednesdays: Wherethefuckforth Spaced?

Sorry to YouTube two Britcoms in a row, but the imminent arrival of Hot Fuzz combined with the realization that even Shaun of the Dead couldn't get the BBC to spirit Simon Pegg's show Spaced to North American DVD shelves got the better of me. Pegg and Shaun director/co-writer Edgar Wright actually only make up only two-thirds of the brains behind the heavily referential show. The rest of the pie is taken up by Jessica Stevenson, a flaky on-and-off journalist with whom Pegg's aspiring cartoonist/slacker pretends to be a couple to score a two-bedroom flat, if only because no one likes to flat-hunt. (Don't worry -- the Three's Company-level set-up is essentially ignored starting about halfway through episode two.) Stevenson swung by for a cameo in Shaun, but I wish she could score her own thing; looking at her IMDb page, it appears she played a Bridget Jones pal in the scary looking sequel and has a role in Harry Potter 5, but otherwise we may have to wait for Pegg to find time for either a third series or wrap-up of Spaced -- both of which he's mentioned if just in passing -- to get some quality time with her. Till BBC gets off their asses re: this (and others -- where's series two of I'm Alan Partridge?), you'll have to catch it on BBC America or get it on sale from across the sea.

Anyway, the following clip is a more-than-fair representation of the show's uncanny ability to take what sounds noxious -- a show full of broad British stereotypes, self-depricating-but-not-wholly-so slickness and endless pop culture homages -- and make them fun, clever and funny. This one doesn't have Nick Frost, who's alarmingly thinner as Pegg's military-minded friend, but it does have the very amusing Michael Smiley, who pops up a couple times during the series as the endearingly ADD-addled bike messenger, Tyres.

Las Weekly!! I totally interviewed Melvin Van Peebles. Also, Rep. I also forgot to mention, but I also wrote a lengthy-in-the-ass piece on Inland Empire for local catch-all blog-thing, Phawker.