AMC Orders Geeking Out Late Night Talk Show With Hosts Kevin Smith & Greg Grunberg

Jill Pantozzi | February 11th, 2016

AMC has just dedicated themselves to more nerd content by ordering a pilot called Geeking Out, a late night show with Kevin Smith and Greg Grunberg. BUT WHAT ABOUT MEEEEEEEEEEEE?? *sob*

According to Variety:

With the working title of “Geeking Out,” the 30-minute show will feature talk, clips, celebrity interviews and out-of-the-studio segments. The series is expected to premiere with a special episode covering Comic-Con International: San Diego in late July, with eight more episodes to run weekly starting in late summer.

Smith is well-known to the geek crowd for being a creator in his own right and has familiarity with AMC thanks to his show Comic Book Men [Editor’s Note: Full disclosure, I tried out for that show before the concept was finalized. I was bummed to see how dude-centric it actually wound up being and received quite a bit of hate for that opinion.] He also recently hosted The CW Warner Bros movie special, DC Presents.

“AMC has been my TV family for five seasons of ‘Comic Book Men’ now, so I know that ‘Geeking Out’ is in the perfect, fan-friendly network hands,” said Smith. “I can’t wait to lose fluids on the airwaves of my favorite channel over the genre gems we’re gonna get insider access to due to gregarious Greg’s bonafides! And to make it even more of a family affair, ‘Geeking Out’ lets me work with the Weinsteins again – the two guys who started my career 22 years ago! I’m lucky to be working at all, let alone working with friends and family on a dream show where all we do is talk about all the media that makes us moist!”

Grunberg is an actor who you may remember from shows like Alias and Heroes but also his recent role as Temmin ‘Snap’ Wexley from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

“I get all my work from my friends. Now it’s time for me to take advantage of those relationships even more,” said Grunberg of the announcement. “I am going to get every single genre-based writer, director and actor I know to come on our show and geek out with us. And they’re going to thank me for it. I love how Kevin Smith smells and we fit together like two hibernating fan-bears. Thanks to AMC and the Weinsteins, the rest of the world is going to get to see what’s inside our dark, dank geek cave. It’s going to be a fun 30 minutes, if I can just get Kevin to stop talking and smoking.”

Coincidentally enough, I recently had a big Twitter discussion about the “nerd show” climate. We have tons online these days but I felt like an actual network/cable show was a no-brainer.

I would still make a face having to say Batman VEE Superman, don’t get me wrong, but I wish stuff like that happened more often too.

— The Nerdy Bird (@JillPantozzi) January 21, 2016

It just stinks in general that there isn’t anything on actual TV these days in terms of geek programming really.

— The Nerdy Bird (@JillPantozzi) January 21, 2016

All this is to say, I was the nerd reading daily news in the morning in our high school studio because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. :)

— The Nerdy Bird (@JillPantozzi) January 21, 2016

Smith and Grunberg are huge nerds so this has got to be super cool news for them but as we’re now almost constantly talking about diversity issues in Hollywood it makes sense to see some on Geeking Out. Nerds are diverse, just like the rest of the population (and the viewers watching your show). Putting two people on screen who basically represent the same outlook isn’t doing you any favors. We can’t keep pretending women and people of color don’t exist by showing the same thing over and over and over again. I could go on for a while but I won’t because…it’s frustrating. I’m sure there will be a plethora of rotating guests on the show but representation matters in all areas.

[UPDATE: Kevin Smith edited his Instagram post about the announcement to add, “UPDATE!!! For those asking about @marcbernardin & @ralphgarman, I’m hoping they’ll join us as correspondents, along with some female correspondents! Not to worry: this show is going to be an all-inclusive genre jam, folks!”]

But I also know that just getting to pitch a show like this is a lot of work and attaching names people are already familiar with is a selling point for executives who don’t understand the geek audience. I’ve been in two genre themed productions, Comic Store Heroes (which aired on the National Geographic Channel) and Legends of the Knight (Kickstarted documentary about Batman). I’ve also been involved with several really creative projects that never went anywhere because we didn’t have the right connections. As much as geeks consume, we’re still a hard sell.

I would like to take this time, much like I did in my failed (a.k.a. forgotten) campaign to be Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s nerdy announcer, to put myself forth to work on this show in some capacity (though hosting is my forte). AMC, what if…you hire me and Aisha Tyler to do this show?

I know, it’ll never happen. I can dream!

(Aisha Tyler image via Gage Skidmore on Flickr, top pic is my own lovely photoshop)