Ricky Gervais: Top 5 Reasons to Love Ricky Gervais

Ricky Gervais is hosting the 67th Golden Globe awards tonight and he plans to use his hosting gig as a way to shamelessly promote himself.  Gervais plans to promote the Jan. 19 release of the DVD of The Invention of Lying and the February debut of HBO’s animated series The Ricky Gervais Show.

The fact that Ricky Gervais admits he is promoting his work is just one of the many reasons I love this British funny man.

Here are the five more reasons you should love Ricky Gervais.

1. Ricky Gervais brought The Office to America.  The British version of The Office that Gervais created is even better than NBC’s version but we’re grateful to have the dry wit of the series in the mainstream media.

2. Gervais created one of the best shows ever made for TV, HBO’s Extras. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, shame on you! Go immediately to HBO.com and check it out.

3. Because there is no telling what will come out of Ricky’s mouth. Gervais gave a hilarious interview to USA Today earlier this week that is a shining example of why we heart Ricky.  A few quotes from his USA Today interview:

If they were giving me a go at brain surgery, I’d panic, but no one’s going to die, so who cares?
Maybe my standards are too low. ‘How’d it go?’ ‘Fine, no one died.’ ‘Well done, Ricky.’

4. Because he knows hosting an awards show isn’t brain surgery. Gervais told USA Today that he’s spent a total of eight minutes prepping for the show:

Including this phone call, about eight minutes so far.
How hard can it be? I’ll go out there and hopefully say some funny things. If I can’t do that, I’m in trouble.

5. Ricky Gervais symbolizes why British humor is so much better than American humor. The Brits are just cooler than Americans. Period. Even though it’s been a few hundred years, Americans still haven’t caught up. You know I’m right.

Watch 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards tonight! (NBC, 8 p.m. ET/5 PT).