The New Yorker

The success of ‘Glee’ depends on the energy and the obvious talent of its young (but way beyond high-school age) performers, and on Jane Lynch, who plays Sue Sylvester, the acid-tongued, sneaky, and completely loony cheerleading coach, whose every line of dialogue is quotable (and is duly quoted, minutes after being delivered, on Facebook pages and in Twitter feeds).

Even cooler than that very long sentence is the part where Jane Lynch and a few of the Glee cast members get the Robert Risko treatment, at right – his celebrity portraits are pretty iconic (back when we were in 5th grade and obsessed with I Love Lucy, his caricature of Lucille Ball was taped onto the cover of our Trapper Keeper.  Not kidding.).  For the most part, Ms. Franklin has her reservations about the show, but succumbs to it as everyone else does, eventually (in contrast, she can’t stand Jersey Shore, and neither should you).  It’s always nice to see The New Yorker climb a few flights down from its ivory tower and confess that, just like the pedestrians below, they are laughing with us laughing at Sue Sylvester (right?) (… right?).  Oh, how the show unites.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In our humble opinion, if you’re somewhat famous, there are three signs that you’ve not only Made It, but you’re a cultural touchstone: 1) you’ve hosted or played SNL; 2) you’ve sung an educational song or two with a Muppet or two on Sesame Street; and 3) Oprah made you cry. Heck, even Ms. Brockovich herself, Julia Roberts, hasn’t really made it by our standards. On the other hand, Tina Fey is three for three (uh, she was SNL for quite a while (here she is as Sarah Palin, followed by the actual Sarah Palin – it’s painfully funny to see how little scripting SNL had to do for that skit); here she is as a Bookaneer on Sesame Street (and the reverse – Muppets on 30 Rock!  That’s extra credit points right there); and there she was meeting Oprah on 30 Rock, which is close enough to actually being on the Oprah set of soft light and comfy couches.  Good job, Tina Fey.  You  made it.

Obviously, Jane Lynch should be part of the Tina Fey Club. Then, she should work her way up from Treasurer to President, then change the name of the club to the Jane Lynch Club. A little regime change never hurt anyone, hmmm Mr. Former President Bush, Jr.?

Regime change is hard from afar, but Jane’s tiptoeing closer: on April 7, she, along with the rest of the Glee cast, will be on Oprah. Yeah, that’s right, Oprah will devote her entire show to Glee. That’s one for three, Jane. Next up: SNL. We have a few evolving plans to organize a little drive (a la Betty White) to land her hosting duties on SNL. Muppets, we’ll be hitting up your street soon enough. Better hide your vowels.

Jane Lynch and Friends (potential future name of her variety show — email us so we can tell you where to send our royalty checks) showed up in Beverly Hills late last week at the Paley Center’s PaleyFest 2010 Glee panel. We weren’t there, but E! was, and we’re pretty sure the best part of the panel was when they threw out a few Sue Sylvester lines that didn’t make it – maybe these will be saved for the B-sides:

“Shut your mouth before I rape it.” “Rachel wears floor length denim skirts that make her look like she’s escaped from a polygamist compound.” “I will kick you square in the vagina.”

If you want to relive the experience and don’t mind spoilers (SPOILER, TWO WORDS, FOUR SYLLABLES: LA-DY GA-GA!!!) , then The Futon Critic live-blogged the panel here and, for those who like to GTD by topic rather than by chronology, Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly has a slightly more organized recap of the discussion. Apparently, the hot topics were Neil Patrick Harris and Molly Shannon. Between the two, we are way more excited for Molly. But, if you are so excited that you can’t, or won’t wade through that ocean of text, it seems as though Jane Lynch pretty much re-states the big talking points here in this arrival interview:

Finally, in a Zap2It interview separate from PaleyFest (we think), Jane explains how she will blackmail Principle Figgins. And by “blackmail,” we mean, “sexual blackmail.” Her words, not ours.

Meh, we’re not in love with Erin Brockovich; really, having Tina Fey reprising her Mean Girls role on Glee would be infinitely more awesome.  Oh well, can’t win them all.

Access Hollywood is not embed-friendly, so we’ll have to direct you to their site here for the interview.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As you can see from the cones, Jane Lynch will be singing “Vogue” in the all-Madge episode.  We cannot be more excited for this.  There also will be a Beatles episode that, though it looks good, probably cannot beat the Powerpuff Girls’s “Meet the Beat-Alls” episode.  While the Powerpuff Girls have absolutely nothing to do with Jane Lynch (or do they??), we miss Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup so much that we’ve linked to the episode below.  The going gets great at 1:30.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In other news, a new website called Whose Voice is That? does an enormous service to the Jane Lynch Project by culling together a grip of Jane’s voiceover roles.  They have her Frosted Flakes commercial (below) and a bevy – and we mean a bevy – of other videos and sounds.  We can’t articulate how amazingly awesome this is.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Glee: The Road to Sectionals

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