A lot of people hated it when Steve Carell went on the insanely funny
“Between Two Ferns with Zack Galifianakis” to promote this year’s Date Night, but I thought it was brilliant. There are always commercials, trailers, and billboards everywhere; that’s pretty much a given for anything starring Carell. Actually, that’s the case for anyone who’s been on “Ferns.”

Yet, with guests like Ben Stiller and Michael Cera who are big name comedians right now and Charlize Theron and Natalie Portman who are just big names, period, it’s a different way to promote themselves. Maybe it’s not always used as advertising for a specific movie and that’s why Carell sparked some fire. But it wasn’t hard to figure out why Cera or Bradley Cooper were on either… “Ferns” is cheap and funny, so what’s it matter?

This time Galifianakis topped himself with none other than Sean Penn. Apparently Penn has nothing to promote but his charity work so the character for which he was being interviewed was “Spicoli” from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It appears out of the ordinary considering Penn hasn’t done a comedy since, well, Fast Times. Either way, I’m not complaining; good stuff. He plays the straight man really well to Zack’s “brother” Seth who does the interviewing…interesting choice, no?

Check out the video here. What do you think? Funny or better suited for a comedian?