9) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt –Â Peeno Noir
There is no Top 10 TV Moments List of 2015 without Titus Andromedon’s Ode to Black Penis. There’s a lot of pitch perfect weirdness in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s freshman season, but the instantly-famous moment in the show’s sixth episode feels like a microcosm of Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s zany creation – madcap and just-dumb-enough with the perfect sprinkle of self-aware satire.
The song builds from Titus’ (Tituss Burgess) need to create a music video as a possible addition to his acting oeuvre, so he enlists stoop lady Lillian (Carol Kane) and gets access to the house of Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski as Kimmy’s boss) to make the over-the-top, heavily rhyming earworm. It’s hard to pinpoint what makes Peeno Noir such a stand-out comedic high-point in a show that is essentially one giant stand-out comedic high-point, but Burgess’ commitment to his similarly-named counterpart is high up there.
“Peeno noir, leather bar, oh so close and yet so far,” he croons from behind the banisters of Jacqueline’s luxurious Upper East Side McMansion. Including locations such as an abandoned chandelier warehouse and an uber-classy local strip club, subsequent rhymes rope in everything from Tom Berenger and Roseanne Barr to Myanmar and a mid-sized car. It’s a sequence that’s impossible to successfully praise in a vacuum (so watch it for yourself), but one that’s totally earned within the context of the show’s bizzaro world. Peeno noir, caviar, this show can be spec-tac-ular.
