Actor hopes to bring back the ’80s sitcom feel <\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Lie Shia Ong<\/em> Jerry Trainer may be known for his role on the Nickelodeon\n\u201ciCarly.\u201d Now the actor is starring in a new comedy on the network, \u201cWendell\n& Vinnie,\u201d which premieres Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. ET\/PT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MSN TV spoke with the actor about the new sitcom he says\nparents and their kids can watch together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MSN TV: What can\nyou tell your fans about your new show?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jerry Trainor: It premieres tomorrow night, Saturday night,\nat 8. I play this 30-something dude who can\u2019t be tied down in life, and all of\na sudden, he finds himself tied down with his nephew, who he\u2019s now the main\ncaretaker of, because he lost his parents. Now Vinnie\u2019s a dad. He never wanted\nto be a dad. He doesn\u2019t know how to be a dad. Not only that, but Wendell is his\nown person. He\u2019s already 12 years old and is kind of a nerdy guy, so it becomes\nan \u201cOdd Couple\u201d situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I read you\u2019re hoping\nto bring back the 1980s sitcom feel with this show.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeah, I feel like comedy, especially sitcom, has become really niche. You\u2019ve got this comedy for this narrow demographic and this comedy over here for this and then people make it very personal. It\u2019s like, ‘Why this type of humor and not this kind of humor?’ \u2026 When I was growing up in the \u201880s everybody watched \u201cThe Cosby Show.\u201d Everybody watched \u201cFamily Ties.\u201d You sat around. You ate and you watched sitcoms. And they were for grown-ups, but there was nothing inappropriate for a kid. We kinda want to take that back. It\u2019s got a similar aesthetic. The writing is very smart. It\u2019s very clever, but there\u2019s definitely stuff in it for a kid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You mentioned \u201cFamily\nTies\u201d and \u201cThe Cosby Show.\u201d Is there a show from the \u201880s or a character from\nthe show in the \u201880s that gives you inspiration for your role on \u201cWendell &\nVinnie\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Wow. That\u2019s a good question. Maybe not from the \u201880s,\nalthough, I mean, the way Michael J. Fox played Alex P. Keaton was just incredible.\nBut maybe Cliff Huxtable. Maybe Bill Cosby\u2019s character. I don\u2019t know it\u2019s kind\nof a household out of control and I want to be in control, but I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nicole Sullivan\nfrom \u201cMADtv\u201d is one of your co-stars. With both of you being so funny, I bet\nyou have the rest of the cast laughing off-camera.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n She is hysterical. As soon as she auditioned, I knew she\nwas the one. Our rapport was good from the get-go. She cracks me up. We just\nhave so much fun working together and it\u2019s a blast. I\u2019m lucky that she\u2019s there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She and I find each other hilarious to a probably\nirritating degree. We have what I\u2019ve termed to be a never-ending bit. We have\nan uncanny knack of finding a bit, like a comedic bit, that really could just\ngo on forever, indefinitely, that we will find funny but nobody else will.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We were just doing this thing the other day where one of us was dry heaving and that made the other one dry heave and we could just easily look away, but we don\u2019t. It just goes on and on. It gets worse and worse. And everybody else is like, “OK, we\u2019re real bored of this. Can we just get back to work?\u201d But we\u2019re cracking up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re also the\nproducer for this show. Do you find it hard working behind and also in front of\nthe camera?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n No, it\u2019s actually, I feel like it\u2019s a symbolic process. I like having the ability to speak up and say, \u2018Well, what about this?\u201d Or, ‘I think this.’ And people have to at least pretend to listen now. It\u2019s fun. It invests me more in the project. I really kind of enjoy that process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019ve been in the Nickelodeon family for 10 years. Fans may recognize you from \u201ciCarly\u201d and being the main voice for \u201cT.U.F.F. Puppy,\u201d but is there something they may not know about you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I think fans probably would be shocked to know that I am not an insane person. When I get home I\u2019m very low key. I like to sit with my dog by the fireplace and read a book, watch a movie, you know? That kind of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any message you want to send out to your fans about “Wendell & Vinnie?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Thanks for the support, because a lot of the fans, I don\u2019t know how they found out that we were taping already, but I\u2019ve had fans come to the show every week, and the fact that they would support, be there for me in this transition from one show to the next\u2026 It\u2019s very easy for people to go, \u201cOh, look he\u2019s doing something new.\u201d Or, \u201cForget it. I only like his old thing.\u201d But I feel when I got the part in \u201ciCarly,\u201d the plan was this would be a great thing to do because I can be on the show for a little bit and when I do something more grown-up, the fans they will be growing up as well, and I think that\u2019s really working out. I just really appreciate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The premiere of \u201cWendell\n& Vinnie\u201d airs Saturday, Feb. 16, at 8 p.m. ET\/PT on Nickelodeon.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Actor hopes to bring back the ’80s sitcom feel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-msn-entertainment","category-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lieshiaong-sintzel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
MSN TV<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n