Beans and cornbread had a fight

TBS, which now calls itself “very funny” (formerly: “TV Haven for the Regular Guy”) because it runs about 7,000 episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond weekly and some original series from which they can’t even squeeze three seconds of mediocre comedy for the shows’ promo spots, does actually have some funny programming. Or did. I haven’t watched “Dinner and a Movie” in years, and didn’t even realize it was still running because now TBS is a cable channel.

Back in the day it was hosted by comedians Paul Gilmartin and Annabelle Gurwitch, and their chef friend Claud Mann. It’s still hosted by Paul Gilmartin, who is very funny (ARE YOU HAPPY, TBS?), Claud, and a blond chick.

Under Claud’s benevolent direction, Paul and Annabelle would cook a punny themed meal (“Dinner”) based on the movie (“and a Movie”) that TBS played on Friday nights at 8:05 (Turner Time!). Around the commercial breaks we would get to see how the meal was progressing, and P and A would cut up a little and Paul would read a poem he wrote and they would have crazy visitors.

It’s always nice to watch When Harry Met Sally on television, but the real fun was in Paul and Annabelle’s antics and banter. This seems to be the only clip from the days of Paul ‘n’ Annabelle, who had a seriously wonderful chemistry:

Sorry, that’s all they had. Dig out that box of VHS tapes with all the movies you taped off of TV in 1996 when you finally got a VCR Plus and see if you can find any episodes of “Dinner and a Movie” and do us all a favor and figure out how to upload them.

The show also had a segment called “Monkey-ed Movie” where monkeys would act out famous scenes from films. Remember, this was in the late 90s before LOLcats, so monkeys acting like people were like really really hilarious. Remember how revolutionary the dancing baby on Ally McBeal was? If you want to recall those simpler times, turdburglar27 has thoughtfully archived all of the “Monkey-ed Movies” on YouTube.

Annabelle went on to be hired and then fired by Woody Allen so she interviewed a bunch of other actors and comedians about their own personal firing experiences, and made a documentary about it called Fired!

See Paul Gilmartin’s alter-ego Rep. Richard Martin (R-Ohio) at askarepublican.com.

Tags: annabelle gurwitch, dinner and a movie, everybody loves raymond, paul gilmartin, tbs, turdburglar27