The Long-Awaited Post Mr. Show Career Power Rankings: Part 2

Way back at the end of April, in a late spring power ranking frenzy, I started ranking the careers of the cast of Mr. Show since that show went off the air. (In case you've forgotten, you can revisit the top 3 here. Be warned, it looks a little odd, I think Typepad is having some formatting issues.) Anyway, now that we've all had what I consider to be sufficient time to muse and reflect on the so-called "winners," I feel it's time to revisit this issue and rank the remaining cast. I'm not going to get quite as in depth with these- we'll look at their career highlights and as always I'll offer my own very subjective assessment. For the record, unless I mention otherwise, virtually all of these people had roles in Mr. Show follow-up projects like Run Ronnie Run and Melvin Goes to Dinner, but since that hardly helped me rank them, I concentrated on work they probably actually auditioned for.

4. Brian Posehn
What Has He Been Up To? Although some of Posehn's character names would lead you to believe otherwise ("Orville the Scraggly Guy" and "Haggard Alum" are my favorites), his career is going just fine. After a stint on Just Shoot Me!, he pursued stand up for awhile, culminating in his own half hour special and the recent movie The Comedians of Comedy. Now, at least if some article I read in Wired (I get it free from Salon, okay?) is correct, he's got his own Comedy Central series in development. I would be really excited for that, except apparently the show has something to do with video games.
Most importantly, Soi Disantra ranked him in the top five funniest commentators on VH1's I Love the '90s franchise, an accolade you can be sure is featured prominently on his resume.
MZ Assessment: I find it hard to be objective when it comes to Posehn, because to me he's somehow just inherently funny. That one-second cut to him sitting at a table in The Wedding Singer? Hilarious. I'm hoping the video game show will fail quickly (because, um, aren't the people who would watch that probably playing video games?) and he can find a worthy venue for his talents.

5. Paul F. Tompkins
What Has He Been Up To? Appearing on every failed series ever? Okay, just DAG, Late Friday, and that Kelsey Grammer sketch show. Apart from his series killing, PFT has been keeping pretty busy- a part in Anchorman, a stand up special, and most recently ubiquity on VH1 thanks to his contributions to I Love the '90s Part Deux (he tied for seventh in the rankings, which sounds okay until you realize he tied with French Stewart) and Best Week Ever.
MZ Assessment: I used to really dislike PFT (mostly for being jarringly unfunny in the otherwise hilarious "lie detector" sketch), but he's grown on me ever so slightly as of late. I hereby give myself permission not to feel guilty for laughing at his bits on the aforementioned VH1 shows. What a breakthrough! (Get it? Anyone?)

6. Bob Odenkirk
What Has He Been Up To? Well, he directed Melvin Goes to Dinner (to which I must give a resounding "eh." It was one of those really talky indie movie about adult relationships that I sort of thought they stopped making around 1998 in order to allow comic book adaptations to completely take over the world.), wrote and did voices for that bizarre Cartoon Network series Tom Goes to the Mayor and adapted and directed the upcoming adaptation of Arthur Nersesian's The Fuck Up, starring this kid's brother. Oh, and he did those stupid beer commercials.
MZ Assessment: It pains me to rate Bob so low, because before he started looking so old, I kind of had a crush on him. Wow, I just made the low rating about a thousand times more painful if he ever were to see this. I guess I'll restrain myself from including a picture and asking, "See what I mean?"

7. Jerry Minor
What Has He Been Up To? Jerry Minor probably looks familiar to you, and that's because he's done a short stint on virtually every comedy show out there. After Mr. Show he appeared on Michael Moore's The Awful Truth, The Daily Show, and SNL. More recently he's played Jay Johnston's cop partner on Arrested Development.
MZ Assessment: Poor Jerry Minor. He's really funny, but all of these shows seem to hire him to fill a quota and then give him nothing to do. That was pretty much the case on Mr. Show too, come to think of it.

8. Scott Adsit
What Has He Been Up To? Only guest appearances on everything from Felicity to Curb Your Enthusiasm, not to mention roles in pretty much every commercial ever. His filmography has been somewhat more limited, and has tended recently towards comedies I have no interest in seeing: Without a Paddle anyone?
MZ Assessment: I think Adsit's one of those inherently funny looking guys (though certainly not to the extent of Posehn), and he has an everyman quality that seems to help with the commercial casting directors, if nothing else. He's very convincing as office schlub, stressed out dad, or envious neighbor- most of your major fast food/car commercial roles.

9. John Ennis
What Has He Been Up To? A half season as an Alaskan logger on Malcolm in the Middle. His filmography consists of David Arquette vehicles (seriously! Eight Legged Freaks AND Ready to Rumble- do you think he got to meet Goldberg?) and Jack Frost. Jack Frost (yes, that's the Michael Keaton as talking snowman movie) has a totally bizarre cast: along with Ennis, there are two other Mr. Show alums- Johnston and Tompkins, plus Ahmet Zappa, Henry Rollins, crazed Scientologist Kelly Preston and Mr. Chips as "Chester the Dog."
MZ Assessment: Well, he's been working. That's good.

10. Jay Johnston
What Has He Been Up To? I've enjoyed his recurring cop role on Arrested Development. He had many law enforcement roles on Mr. Show too, come to think of it. Those plus his also frequent newscaster roles (thank god they didn't overlook him for "Anchorman"- he earned that role) have comprised most of his work to date. Also: getting busy (or at least getting busy taking wacky pictures).
MZ Assessment: I don't know, I figure a recurring gig on AD isn't the worst thing that could happen to a comedian, even if it's sort of a one note role.

11. Jill Talley
What Has She Been Up To? Like her husband (Tom Kenny, see part 1), mostly voice work for cartoons. She also had what looks to have been a significant role in The Ladies Man. (Did anyone else know that Julianne Moore was actually in that? Not just the SNL sketch, but the movie? Right after Magnolia, even.)
MZ Assessment: Well, I can't claim to have seen either The Ladies Man or The Spongebob Squarepants Movie so I can't really evaluate her performances. I'll bet she was great as "Mom" in Dumb and Dumberer, though.

12. Karen Kilgariff
What Has She Been Up To? Apart from the hilarious "Girls Guitar Club" (yes I am linking to it again), it looks like she's mostly been writing for The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
MZ Assessment: I'm jealous of her friendship with Mary Lynn. The Ellen thing not so much.

13. Brett Paesel
What Has She Been Up To? Apart from guest spots on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Gilmore Girls, and Six Feet Under, not a lot of acting. It seems Brett's been focusing more on her writing, specifically parenting stuff (read a particularly, um, intimate example here. Warning, by "intimate" I mean "gross.")
MZ Assessment: I'm just not a huge fan of the ultra-descriptive miscarriage story as a literary motif. I realize this is a failure on my part, not Brett's.

14. Scott Aukerman
What Has He Been Up To? Not much, at least not by Internet Movie Database standards. Although apparently he played the young Michael Caine in the third Austin Powers movie.
MZ Assessment: Let's face it, to Mr. Show fans Aukerman will only ever be the star of "Taint Misbehavin'!"

15. BJ Porter
What Has He Been Up To? Played the whitest guy named "Jamal" in the history of the world on Touched By An Angel. (I didn't realize the miracles on that show were so high concept.)
MZ Assessment: Let's face it, to Mr. Show fans Porter will always be Josh Fenderman.

16. Becky Thyre
What Has She Been Up To? She married this guy.
MZ Assessment: Her defining role will always be "Moonbeam" in PCU. I leave it for you to decide how pathetic that is.

Please bare in mind these ranking reflect only the performers' careers after Mr. Show went off the air- maybe one day we'll rank them based on the show itself, which in virtually every case (excepting Paul F. Tompkins) was their funniest work to date. That would probably be a lot more fun to compile, in that it would involve actually watching comedy, rather than countless hours at IMDB. Maybe that's what I should have done in the first place.

--MZ--

Comments

[DM]

I definitely feel bad for Jerry Minor, because he's infinitely funnier than Keenan Thompson and Finesse Mitchell combined.

Brian Posehn is the best. I would like to hang out him more than any other cast member, B&D included.

[MZ]

um.... what about Mary Lynn? Ideally both, but I'd take MLR over Posehn.

[DM]

Oh yeah, MLR. Well, if I hung out w/her I might fall in love and have to run off with her. There's at least a 35% less chance of that happening w/Posehn.

[____ ________]

Uh, what about Sarah Silverman? And wouldn't Jack Black count since he was on the first (or was it 2nd) season.

[MZ]

I only counted people who the Mr. Show book listed as full time cast members on any of the four seasons, not occasional guest stars like JB and SS. If they were included, I guess JB at his peak would be #1, inasmuch as he's got an actual starring movie career. SS would be a lot lower, because I haven't seen her in anything lately and she's dating Jimmy Kimmel.