Though he’s remained prolific as a filmmaker ("Queen Of The Desert" will hit next year, and he’s already gearing up on "Vernon God Little"), Werner Herzog has become strangely in demand as an actor as well in recent years. The filmmaker cropped up occasionally in German cinema, but from the late 1990s, with "What Dreams May Come" and more notably Harmony Korine‘s "Julien Donkey-Boy," he has appeared increasingly in American film and TV.
The German directing legend has lent his voice to "The Simpsons," "Metalocalpyse," the upcoming "Penguins Of Madagascar," Miyazaki’s "The Wind Rises" and even played the villain in Tom Cruise actioner "Jack Reacher." But it sounds like we’ll be seeing him on a small screen in one of the unlikelier possible venues, in a cameo on NBC‘s long-running, sweet-natured sitcom "Parks & Recreation."
According to Flavorwire (via the AV Club), Herzog revealed in a talked at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that he recently taped a cameo on the series, which stars Amy Poehler and freshly-minted superstar Chris Pratt, despite being unfamiliar with it. "I play an elderly guy who sells his decrepit house to the young couple who are the leading characters in this, and directly to the camera, I address the audience and I saw ‘You know, I lived in this home for 47 years. And I decided to move out now and sell this because I’m moving to Orland, Florida, to be close to Disney World.’ I’ve never seen the show, but I hope they kept some of it." Amazing. That’s one more reason to tune in when "Parks & Recreation" returns for its final season.
In other TV news, "The Walking Dead" continues to be one of the most popular shows on all television, despite airing on basic cable (something that would be unthinkable only a few years ago, and speaks to the rise of cable and the fall of network TV), and despite being INCREDIBLY BORING. With "Breaking Bad" done, "Mad Men" finishing next year, and none of their new shows catching fire, AMC is looking to piggyback on the success of their zombie drama by developing a spin-off, and they’ve now officially given it the green light.
Actually, spin-off may not be the right word. According to EW, the network has greenlit a pilot, to be written and show-run by "Sons Of Anarchy" scribe Dave Erickson, that is more of a companion show, with a new cast of characters, and set in a different location. The network’s president Charlie Collier says "Almost from the beginning of ‘The Walking Dead’ on AMC, fans have been curious about what is going on in the zombie apocalypse in other parts of the world In fact… we are all proceeding with extreme care in order to ensure that we are offering fans something truly compelling, engaging and distinct."
We certainly hope so, because we were already feeling pretty zombie-d out, and that was before "The Walking Dead" came along and did the same thing as other undead dramas, just slower and less interestingly. The show will definitely need an approach other than "here’s another bunch of survivors" to make us tune in. Should the series move forward, it’ll likely air in 2015. In the meantime, its parent show begins a new season on October 12th.