ronperlman

The FX panels on Tuesday were pretty uneventful, aside from the news from network president John Landgraf. There was supposed to be a panel for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but that was mysteriously dropped from the schedule. I'm guessing that the boys figured they'd get too hammered at the FOX party the night before to handle questions from the reporters. Indeed, I witnessed Rob McElhenny and Glenn Howerton try to ride the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Santa Monica pier right after they pounded a couple of beers. Maybe canceling the panel was a smart idea.

Anyway, the three shows that paneled were Damages, Sons of Anarchy, and The Shield. More on what transpired after the jump.

Well now, if you were having trouble deciding between the competing biker shows in development, perhaps this news will tip your TV watching scales. FX has signed up Ron Perlman (Beauty And The Beast) to take over the role of Clay, president of the motorcycle club, and step-father to the main character Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), in Kurt Sutter's Sons Of Anarchy.

The part was played by Scott Glenn in the pilot, but the powers that be chose to recast it after deciding to make the series more of a dark comedy. I'm not exactly sure what that means, because I could go for Glenn in a dark comedy, but adding Perlman does heighten my interest in the show, to be sure. If you just can't wait for the show to premiere to get your Perlman fix, he'll be showing up at your local multiplex with Hellboy II: The Golden Army in July.

When I was looking at the promos for the new ABC movie Stephen King's Desperation, I noticed that the evil Tak was being played by a familiar face: Ron Perlman. You remember Perlman, right? He's done a number of roles as the big lumbering thug on various TV shows, but he's probably best known as playing Vincent on the early-Nineties tearjerker series Beauty and the Beast. But, since some guest starring roles in the early 2000's, we haven't seen his face on TV. What has been doing? Well, he starred as the title character in the movie Hellboy and he's done small parts in various sci-fi movies. But mostly he's been doing voice work for cartoons and video games. Makes sense, since Perlman's got a fairly authoritative set of pipes on him. His IMDb profile goes over what has been a fairly busy period for Perlman.

Good to see him back on TV, though, in a significant role. I always liked him on Beast, except when he was furrily making out with Linda Hamilton. That was just wrong.