February 11, 2009 - Danny McBride, the breakout star from Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder, stars as the fallen and rage-fueled MLB pitcher Kenny Powers in HBO's new comedy series Eastbound & Down.

Produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, Eastbound follows Powers as he returns to his hometown in North Carolina and becomes the gym teacher at his old high school. Ferrell and McKay have been fans of McBride, and fellow Eastbound creator Ben Best, ever since viewing their low-budget martial arts comedy The Foot Fist Way.

IGN has two exclusive clips from Eastbound & Down, in anticipation of its premiere this Sunday, Feb. 15. Check them out here:

Click to watch our two exclusive clips
IGN TV had a chance to sit down and talk with Eastbound creators McBride and Best, who also stars in Eastbound as the scuzzy character Clegg, about their new show, their favorite old shows and McBride's time with Ferrell while shooting the upcoming Land of the Lost.




IGN TV: Danny, where are you from? Are you from North Carolina?

Danny McBride: You know I'm from Virginia, but I went to college in North Carolina. That's where I met up with Ben and Jody (Hill) and the other guys I created the show with.

IGN: Are you a Jerry Reed fan?

McBride: I love Jerry Reed, man.

IGN: What does it mean to be "Eastbound and Down?"

McBride: You know it's a state of mind, man. It's going back home, and probably not in the best place you could be in mentally to be going back home. Which I don't know if that's how Jerry Reed meant it to be in that song, but that's how we're using it. The title almost came about as a joke. You know, when we were going into production and HBO was like "you've gotta have a title for this show" and we didn't have one. We didn't know what we wanted to call it. We wanted something that was sort of reminiscent of those old southern comedies like Smokey and the Bandit, so we thought something like "Eastbound and Down" would be f**king dope. Adam McKay said, why don't you just use it? And I was wondering "can you actually name a TV show after the theme song to Smokey and the Bandit?" So we just put it on there because we needed a title going into production. When the time came back around to sit down and try to think about what the show could be called again, nothing stuck. It was like trying to pick a nickname for yourself.

- Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com
Danny McBride.
IGN: It just fit naturally.

McBride: Yeah, we were like "we've been calling it Eastbound and Down for so long that it works."

Ben Best: And you know we tried to give it so many other names. Everything referenced baseball. Pop Fly.

McBride: (laughing) Screwball!

Best: Yeah. Knuckle…Slider!

McBride: The Sinker. You know, and not to try and draw too much attention to what we're doing but growing up in the South and coming from there and seeing a lot of the ways that Hollywood portrays the south is just tired. It's just Hee-Haw s**t and this is kind of a throwback to those old Burt Reynolds movies, back when stories could just take place in the South but not just be geared towards people from the South.

More from McBride on page 2...