Desperate Housewives just doesn’t do it for me. Maybe it’s because I live in the DC area, where psycho wives and dead husbands are pretty commonplace. Maybe it’s that Teri Hatcher isn’t as hot as when she was Lois Lane. Whatever the case, every Sunday at 9pm, I find myself in search of something decent to watch.

So while surfing channels last night I stumbled across Inside the Actors Studio. I’d seen the show maybe a dozen times, always to marvel at James Lipton’s endless ability to French kiss the ass of anyone with a SAG card. If you’ve never seen it, this guy gets some famous actor to come sit with him for an hour so that he can find every way possible to stroke said actor’s ego. If you count the number of times his lips touch hind quarters, it’s kinda like a game show.

The show always starts with Lipton’s introduction. Typically, he recounts the highlights of an actor’s career; their most pivotal and famous roles, each prestigious award they’ve won, and so on. The times I’ve tuned in to watch, he had guests like Anthony Hopkins, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, and Robin Williams, so the intro was a laundry list of important film roles, Academy Awards, and other impressive achievements.

Well, it would appear that Mr. Lipton is starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Last night’s intro…

James Lipton: “Tonight’s guest comes to us from the streets of Washington, DC. In 1995, he got his start as a recurring character on ‘What’s Happening Now?’ opposite Rerun and Rog. He then moved on to the famous FOX network, where he became the writer, executive producer, and star of Martin, a relatively short-lived sitcom that never broke the Nielsen Top 50. In 1998, he was nominated for a Blockbuster Award for Best Cop Sidekick for his impressive turn as a police officer in ‘Bad Boys,’ but lost to the dog from K-9 Part VI. In 2001, after a series of commercial disappointments, he once again charmed the world by dressing like an old, fat woman and hitting on Nia Long, which may have been in a film. The Actors Studio is proud to welcome…MARTIN LAWRENCE!”

Okay, so maybe I embellished a little.

Let me say up front that I’m a Martin Lawrence fan. He’s an extremely gifted comic actor. This isn’t to say that he’s a gifted comic, because he’s not. He’s also not a gifted actor. He’s a gifted comic actor, very much like Jerry Lewis. Put Martin Lawrence opposite a capable straight man, like Will Smith in the Bad Boys films and Tim Robbins in Nothing to Lose, and he’ll absolutely tear you apart. Left to his own devices to carry a film, however, he typically falls short.

My point is that Martin Lawrence is hardly the kind of actor you should be celebrating on a show touting quintessential thespians. He’s a funny guy, but he’s not going to provide a lot of insight into the life of an accomplished actor unless you ask him, “Hey, what’s it like to work with Will Smith and Tim Robbins? What do you think they’d have to say about acting?” Martin Lawrence is the poor man’s Eddie Murphy, much in the same way that Chris Tucker is the poor man’s Martin Lawrence.

Another interesting part of the show is when Lipton asks to speak to fictional characters. So he might ask Tom Hanks, “Tom, may I please speak with Forrest Gump?” The serious actors typically find a polite way to tell him to go fuck himself because they’re not about to sit there and play the dancing monkey for a glorified drama teacher. The comedians, on the other hand, because they thrive on live performance, will typically play along with Lipton’s disturbing fantasies. Some of the highlights that I’ve seen were when he got Robin Williams to improv and Mike Myers to do a series of characters.

But again, here we are at the bottom of the barrel. He asked to speak with Martin Lawrence’s characters. If you ever saw his sitcom, you know that Martin doesn’t really do characters. He does caricatures. What makes them funny is that they are all so obviously Martin Lawrence. So it isn’t like watching Richard Pryor do Mudbone or Eddie Murphy do spot-on impressions of James Brown or Stevie Wonder. It’s like watching a guy act kinda stupid, especially without the makeup because the visuals are what really sold Lawrence’s characters.

Yet after 15 minutes of “talking to” these years-old, half-assed sitcom caricatures, most of which have the same voice and inflections, Jimmy Lipton turns to his audience and calls Lawrence’s performance “a tour de force,” a statement that made Dr. Pepper come out of my nose (the soda, not an actual doctor). Even Martin found it funny. He found it even funnier when Lipton asked him to explain the origin and significance of “muhfucka.”

The last part of the show is the best. He asks each guest a series of questions he stole from Bernard Pivot. Pivot is a guy that Lipton calls his hero. He basically did the same kind of pandering nonsense Lipton does now, only he did it in France, where French kissing asses is slightly more appropriate. Whenever he utters Pivot’s name, he does it with a breathless reverence that one would only expect from a guy who’d just been freshly sexed up by Claudia Schiffer. So I’m pretty sure he’s hot for French Bernie.

Anyway, the questionnaire finale is the best part. Oh, how I long to one day be an extra in a failed sitcom pilot so that I may have the opportunity to answer Lipton’s wondrous questions. If they’re having Martin on this year, I figure they’ll get to obnoxious bloggers in a year or two, so I’m preparing my answers now…

Lipton: “Jags, what is your favorite word?”

Jags: “Panorama, cuz it’s fun to say. Panorama panorama panorama!”

Lipton: “What is your least favorite word?”

Jags: “Herpes.”

Lipton: “What turns you on?”

Jags: “Dude, are you hitting on me?”

Lipton: “Certainly not! It’s just the next question. What turns you on?”

Jags: “Bullshit. Let me see the card.”

Lipton: “Well, it’s not actually on the card. The card is a prop. I’ve given this interview so many times that I have the questions memorized.”

Jags: “Yeah, okay. You know there’s nothing wrong with being gay, right?”

Lipton: “Let’s just move on, shall we? The next question is ‘What turns you off?’”

Jags: “I don’t know, but getting hit on by an old, fat guy on national TV has to rank right up there.”

Lipton: “What sound or noise do you love?”

Jags: “You know that noise the wheel makes when Bob Barker makes contestants spin it? Boopboopboopboopboopboopboopboopboopboopboopboopboop… boop… boop … …boop? I love that sound. Everything’s okay with the world as long as Bob Barker’s still on the job.”

Lipton: “I see. What sound or noise do you hate?”

Jags: “Someone really puking. I mean really puking, though; not just those little blurps. Like when you grab the porcelain with both hands, your head is shaking, your face is red, you just can’t stop, and you’re convinced that if it keeps up that way, you’re going to barf up about 12 feet of intestines. You know what I mean? Big hurls. Hate that sound.”

Lipton: “What is your favorite curse word?”

Jags: “Man, you’ve got me up here talking about closet homosexuality, projectile vomit, and now you wanna talk curse words? You really are a filthy motherfucker, aren’t you? Whatever. I don’t have a favorite cuz I don’t cuss.”

Lipton: “What profession, other than yours, would you like to attempt?”

Jags: “I’d like to be the starting left defender for the Brazilian Womens’ National Hockey Team.”

Lipton: “What profession would you not like to participate in?”

Jags: “Personal security for the governor of Minnesota during the winter.”

Lipton: “Why is that?”

Jags: “You’re standing next to him as he gives a speech outdoors in front of 3,000 people that are all wearing ski masks? Has to be nerve-wracking.”

Lipton: “If Heaven exists, what would you like God to say when you arrive at the pearly gates?”

Jags: “Hrmmm. I guess I’d like Him to say, ‘I forgive you for hitting James Lipton with that chair…’”

Tags: james lipton, inside the actors studio, questionnaire, bernard pivot