Want a Celebrity to Play Himself in Your TV Show? Give Him an Enormous ... Member

 

Matt LeBlanc, James Van Der Beek

Celebrities playing fictionalized versions of themselves in movies and TV shows like Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, The Hangover, and even I Love Lucy have long been comedy gold.

But there's a recent trend that seems especially likely to attract male celebrities to roles like these:

Give the fictionalized version of the real-life celebrity an enormous penis. What celebrity wouldn't bite on a role like that?

It helped attract Matt LeBlanc to the role of "Matt LeBlanc" in Showtime's droll Hollywood comedy Episodes (and brought him some of the best reviews of his career, and a recent Emmy nomination).

The TV version of "Matt LeBlanc"? After the main character gets a glimpse of Matt's member, he tells his wife, “It’s enormous, like a sea creature, like something out of Jules Verne.” 

And in the upcoming sitcom Apartment 23 (which will have a late-fall or mid-season debut), Dawson's Creek's James Van Der Beek plays a fictionalized version of himself: an aging actor named "James Van Der Beek" who once starred in a show called Dawson's Creek, and now uses his lingering fame (and flannel shirt) to attract and bed women. And once again, it's a reoccurring joke that he has an enormous penis.

Like LeBlanc on Episodes, it's also the best thing Van Der Beek has done in years.

Then there's David Hasselhoff, playing the former porn star Dondo in an upcoming story arc on Sons of Anarchy ... who is, of course, extremely well-endowed. It's not exactly the same thing as what Van Der Beek and LeBlanc are doing, although the part is said to be something of a riff on Hasselhoff's campy, free-wheeling, frequently Speedo-clad, and sometimes drunken public image.

In fairness to both LeBlanc and Van Der Beek, these roles definitely aren't mere appeals to vanity. Their "characters" are both self-centered jerks, and neither is very bright. As for Hasselhoff, we haven't seen the episodes yet, but we'd like to think it also is a far cry from the actual actor.

But it probably doesn't hurt if you're a male actor, and at least somewhat sex symbol-ish, to have the entire viewing audience imagining you with an enormous wang.