Ben Stiller's Parents Become Talking Heads

Some of Ben Stiller's younger fans may not know that his parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, were a formidable comedy duo in the '60s and '70s. As "Stiller & Meara," they appeared on variety shows and worked with the Compass Players, a revue that would evolve into the famed improv collective Second City. In recent years, Jerry Stiller has kept busy with roles on The King of Queens and Seinfeld (as George Costanza's irascible father), while Anne Meara has also starred on The King of Queens, Sex and the City, and All My Children. But Stiller & Meara are about to embark on a new phase of their joint career: Web pundits.

According to Mark Sweney of The Guardian:

Yahoo has signed up Ben Stiller, star of films including Zoolander and Dodgeball, to create an online current affairs show starring his parents.

Stiller, who is appearing at several events at the Cannes International Advertising Festival with Yahoo, will create an as yet undetermined number of "webisodes" of probably less than 10 minutes in length. The series will run exclusively online on Yahoo.

"Ben is directing and producing a web-only show with his parents commenting on current news items," said the Yahoo chief marketing officer, Elisa Steele, speaking to MediaGuardian.co.uk.

Will the new series be successful? Hard to say. To the Wire, it sounds like a conceptual marriage between Bloggingheads and Old Jews Telling Jokes--in other words, a match made in heaven. We only hope Jerry Stiller makes use of his demonstrated ability to convey reams of information in concise, eight-second blasts.