Molly Shannon to Appear on Pushing Daisies

Saturday Night Live alumna Molly Shannon will be joining the new ABC supernatural series Pushing Daisies for a multi-episode story arc, according to reports posted to Sci Fi Wire and elsewhere.

Shannon will be joining the show during November sweeps. She'll be will be playing Dilly Balsam, who owns a saltwater taffy emporium across the street from the pie shop owned by Ned (Lee Pace).

That Shannon is being brought in for sweeps month is not surprising, since she seems to have a natural talent for combining the sympathetic and the offbeat. While she's made a number of sparkling one-off appearances in shows like Scrubs and 30 Rock (in between movie roles in films as far apart as Marie Antoinette and Little Man), her most memorable prime-time gig is still her string of Will & Grace episodes in which she played Val Bassett, a kooky neighbor competing with Grace for Will's attention.

Casting Shannon sounds like good news for Daisies, since the show's peculiar tone and setting should give Shannon an opportunity to fit in and mesh with her surroundings more than she is usually able to over in the banal suburbias of TV sitcomland. There are plenty of kooky neighbors out there; how about an interesting neighbor in a kooky show?