Amy's Robot

Patton Oswalt is everywhere

You've probably seen him a couple of times on Conan and maybe a stand-up set on Comedy Central at one in the morning. Hopefully you were lucky enough not to see him in bit parts in unfunny comedies that nobody saw like Taxi and Failure to Launch. But all of a sudden, it seems like Patton Oswalt is everywhere.

His breakthrough from late-night comedy to the big time is his starring role as the voice of Remy the rat in Ratatouille, one of the best animated children's movies that grown-ups also think is funny that I've ever seen. He's hilarious and great.

(I realize he was also on The King of Queens for 9 seasons, but I cannot figure out who watched that show. Families, I guess, judging from his blog post about the end of the show this spring.)

He also had a live CD/DVD come out yesterday called Werewolves and Lollipops. And he's going to be at Brooklyn's Sound Fix Records venue tomorrow night doing a free performance to promote it. If you can't make it to Brooklyn, he's going to be back on Conan tomorrow night, too.

Go Patton Oswalt!

A few notable TV appearances from the last year or so:

• On Conan talking about old people having babies [video] (very funny, not really safe for work)
• On Conan talking about the "Physics for Poets" class he took at William & Mary [video]
• On Jimmy Kimmel talking about getting engaged and comics [video]
• and there are about a thousand recent promotional appearances for Ratatouille on YouTube.

Next, he's going to be appear in goofy sports-comedy Balls of Fury (looks like Dodgeball) later this summer, and then takes a surprising detour into pre-teen drama in something called All Roads Lead Home which according to IMDb is about a young girl who befriends a puppy after her mom dies in a car accident. Hmm.

It looks like Patton Oswalt might be developing a split career, sort of like Bob Saget did, where he does a lot of mainstream family-friendly stuff that wins the hearts of America's 10 year-olds, and simultaneously keeps going with adult-themed stand-up comedy where he got his start. The thing is, he's really good at both, and Ratatouille is a great movie. As long as the comedy for grown-ups keeps coming and he can pay the bills with the kids' stuff, he should be unstoppable.

categories: Movies, TV
posted by amy at 10:24 AM | #