, which ran in summer 2007 on CBS’ quickly defunct online streaming portal. (You can now watch all 10 episodes on YouTube.) In Clark and Michael, Cera played “Michael,” per the sitcom-style opening sequence. His best friend Clark Duke (Greek) similarly played himself. The show—whose humor admittedly doesn’t always hold up to today’s more-PC sensibilities—follows douchey dumb-dumbs Michael and Clark as they try to sell a TV pilot, despite their lack of talent, general unlikability, and delusions of grandeur.
With Cera coming straight off of Arrested Development, where he played the inherently good George Michael Bluth, such a role seemed almost intentionally subversive. As Michael, Cera calls Jason Biggs a “cocksucker,” constantly shuts the apartment door in his neighbor’s (Eric Wareheim) face, and asks a woman if she breast feeds her baby. In hindsight, it is jarring; once you get past the shock of seeing the actor whine and commit horrible faux pas, it is hilarious. His humor here is the kind of searing, quick, loose stuff we hardly get to see him play with in his studio roles.
Watching it even now, the sense that Clark and Michael is the product of two bros goofing off is palpable; the jokes are at times so random as to feel like secret in-jokes between Cera and Duke. I’ve hardly seen Cera look so genuinely happy in anything else.
Warner Bros. Pictures
But Barbie is the first project of his to come close, I think. (Scott Pilgrim is neck-and-neck on the fun-Cera-meter.) Allan gets to steal the whole dang show in ways perfectly befitting of all versions of the actor. There’s a scene in which he announces to a shocked Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Gloria (America Ferrera) that living among the Kens is hell, that there are plenty of Allans in the real world (including the *NSYNC boys), and then knocks out a bunch of them with a shovel and his knee. It earns some of the movie’s biggest laughs. That Allan is the only male doll to join the Barbies in their patriarchy-smashing mission is similarly hilarious and telling.
For all the talk about how great Allan is in Barbie—and he is great!—I think it’s the context of Cera’s career that makes the character especially so for me. After nearly 20 years of this, it’s nice to see a character speak so fully to Cera’s many talents.
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