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| David Duchovny |
Top 10 reasons to love Californication
and David Duchovny
Jane Bussmann pays tribute to the show and its star for naming his testicles and wearing just pants on the school run
Jane Bussmann
Thursday 29 July 2010 12.19 BST
Thursday 29 July 2010 12.19 BST
1. The dressing gown scene from The Larry Sanders Show. Duchovny, playing himself, gays on Sanders in such a disturbingly funny fashion that you, like Sanders, back away. Duchovny says nothing, smiling blithely as the mouse, to misquote Gunther from Friends, is clearly out of the house.
2. Californication nails the madness of LA. Hank's doorbell rings. It's a pissy rock star trying to buy his car. Hank (Duchovny): "You watch it, Rick Springfield. I am not in the mood."
3. Duchovny is on our side. Look at his face. During the crappiest plotline of The X Files, you're thinking, "It's a bit silly, Dave." "I know," Duchnovy's face replies, "I know." And you carry on watching.
4. Californication got sued by the Red Hot Chili Peppers for using their album/song title. Explaining the moral and financial transgression, frontman Anthony Kiedis said: "For some TV show to come along and steal our identity is not right", suggesting that Kiedis, frankly, no longer had a use for it.
5. In season three it will be hard to take your eyes off new guest star Kathleen Turner, former spar of Michael Douglas and in many ways what an alternate universe Douglas might have become if he had spurned diets and the doubtless all-natural facial treatments that have stopped him ageing a day. Turner, with some relish, now looks and sounds like Phil Mitchell.
6. Hank addresses his testicles as "Guys".
7. Hank turns up drunk to collect his daughter from school.
8. Hank turns up to collect his daughter in his pants, with ankle boots.
9. In one episode Hank coins the phrase Skypus Interruptus, with the pithy offer, "I will totally unfurl for you, I'm not shy."
10. The show has style. During a flirting scene so cheesy a girl sucks an ice lolly and puts it in Duchovny's mouth, the writers added a hilarious random perv from The Sarah Silverman Program watching from a wheelchair at tit height. Meanwhile, Duchovny carries on being funny despite the comedy-killing prop literally stuffed in his gob. It ain't Cheers or Seinfeld, but with this simple gesture we see why Californication beats most of the rest of the shite on TV. We are talking 21st century television, where progress means Billie Piper matures from charging round after Doctor Who to charging old men for a wank. A warning: currently in Hollywood, studio executives are commissioning next year's TV. The zeitgeist? The networks are "not after characters and dialogue", but "want shows you can watch with the sound down". You better believe it'll happen. Watch him with the ice lolly. This is why the future belongs to David Duchovny, the last great silent film star.
Jane Bussmann is the author of The Worst Date Ever: How it Took a Comedy Writer to Expose Africa's Secret War (Pan Macmillan)
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