
Lisa Kudrow is in Poland, filming a new documentary show for NBC called Who Do You Think You Are?, which traces the ancestry of celebrities. Apparently this sort of navel-gazing, historical People Magazine of a show is really popular on the BBC, where it started. But... do we care? Particularly since PBS and Henry Louis Gates already did an excellent, incredibly moving series called African American Lives that traced the geneology of black celebrities like Oprah, Morgan Freeman, and Tina Turner. How excellent was it? Um, how about "Chris Rock fucking cried" excellent. Click through for the video.
See, this is great, because it deals directly with our attitude toward both race and celebrity, and this country's history of slavery and discrimination. But do we care where, say, Chandler's great-great-grandfather came from? Granted, if Kidrow's in Poland, she could easily be looking up someone's relatives that wound up in the camps. Which is also incredibly historically valid and interesting. And also makes us ask: why is Phoebe hosting? Maybe if it gets a little dull, she can at least break into "Smelly Cat".
-- Jake Kalish is the author of Santa vs. Satan: The Official Compendium of Imaginary Fights