Louie Louie Louie Louieeeeeee. Sing it. You know you want to.
Tonight stand-up comedian Louis C.K. returns to your television screen in his highly lauded comedy Louie. The season three premiere is called “Something is Wrong” and the log line goes like this: “Louie has a challenging day.” This has got to be good. As you should be used to by now, C.K. wrote, directed, and edited the episode; you will see his name plastered all over the opening credits throughout the 13-episode season. He hit a high point in last year’s war-themed “Duckling,” and he’s still red hot following the massive success that was Live at the Beacon Theatre. Expect a bunch of guest stars to pop up throughout the season including Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) and fellow comedians Robin Williams and Jerry Seinfeld (the latter will help carry a three episode arc towards the end of the season).
Louie airs Thursday nights at 10:30PM on FX. Also premiering tonight on the cable network is the return of Charlie Sheen in Anger Management (9PM) and Wilfred season 2 (10PM).
In related news, C.K. is going on tour again soon. It starts on October 3 in Cleveland, OH and comes to a close on February 1 in Washington, DC. He’s following his previous means of success (read: Live at the Beacon Theatre) by directly selling tickets to his fans through his website. Tickets go for $45, no fees, no annoying emails.
In a blog post he explained, “Making my shows affordable has always been my goal but two things have always worked against that. High ticket charges and ticket re-sellers marking up the prices. Some ticketing services charge more than 40% over the ticket price and, ironically, the lower I’ve made my ticket prices, the more scalpers have bought them up, so the more fans have paid for a lot of my tickets.” He continued, “By selling the tickets exclusively on my site, I’ve cut the ticket charges way down and absorbed them into the ticket price. To buy a ticket, you join NOTHING. Just use your credit card and buy the damn thing.” And he means business. “Also, you’ll see that if you try to sell the ticket anywhere for anything above the original price, we have the right to cancel your ticket (and refund your money). this is something I intend to enforce. There are some other rules you may find annoying but they are meant to prevent someone who has no intention of seeing the show from buying the ticket and just flipping it for twice the price from a thousand miles away.”
That’s the C.K. way, and it rules. Click here to read the rest of his blog post and here to view the tour dates.
Update: He did it again, only this time he did it faster. According to the AP, Louis sold 100,000 tickets and raked in $4.5 million in sales in 45 hours. He shared his excitement in a tweet: “I guess it was a good idea.”