News

Something Star Trek: Lower Decks does quite well is take characters and ideas from previous iterations of Star Trek and breathe new life into them with a new perspective. In "Of Gods and Angles," we see just that.

Episode summary (spoilers ahead)

This week on Lower Decks, the Cerritos is hosting peace talks between two photonic species, the Orbs and the Cubes. Amid the negotiations, Commander Ransom and Captain Freeman discuss their issues with Ensign Olly, who seems to cause constant problems. Of course, Beckett Mariner sees some of herself in Ensign Olly and volunteers to help her integrate with the crew.

Mariner also learns that Olly is the granddaughter of Zeus. This Zeus being an alien related to Apollo, who was introduced in the second season of the original Star Trek in the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Olly claims not to have powers, however, and she and Mariner are assigned to babysit Quadralon,...

Spoiler shields up! This article discusses plot details from the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

If "Star Trek: Lower Decks" must end with its fifth and final season (which /Film's Jacob Hall reviewed here), it might as well go out swinging for the fences. That seems to have been the approach from creator/showrunner Mike McMahan and the writing team as a whole so far in this series, in all fairness, but season 5, episode 6 takes this Mo to even greater heights. Titled "Of Gods and Angles," the story sees the crew of the USS Cerritos having to don their diplomacy hats in order to mediate between two disgruntled factions of photon-based lifeforms: alien races made up of cubes and spheres, hilariously enough. Yet, as ridiculous and silly as this gets, the main plot doesn't even take the title for the nerdiest moment of the episode. No, that honor...

As Saturday Night Live prepares for the comedy birthday party to end all comedy birthday parties, expect plenty of classic characters to get their encore flowers. Maybe Wayne and Garth will get in one last schwing! Stefon might reignite his love affair with Seth Meyers. Eddie Murphy could break out Mr. Robinson or Gumby.

But thanks to evolving cultural norms around comedy, these 10 SNL characters are virtually guaranteed not to get an invite to the festivities. Sorry, Merv the Perv, you’re not on the list.

1 Pat

Pat was Julia Sweeney’s signature SNL character, showing up 12 times to repeat the same tired joke: No one could tell if the androgynous character was a man or a woman. Playing gender identity for laughs isn’t cool — and it doesn’t help that whiny, whinging Pat was insufferable.

2 Ching Chang @sassollou

Dana Carvey often brings up his cringe Asian character as...

Jenny Slate is an acclaimed author, a hilarious stand-up comedian, a movie star, and she’s lent her voice to all-time great animated shows like Bob’s Burgers and Big Mouth, not to mention the Oscar-nominated Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. And oh, she was also briefly on some sketch series that airs on Saturday nights. Kind of like Mad TV, except live and based out of New York.

Even though her time at Saturday Night Live was fleeting, and she’s done so much great work since then, Slate seems to get asked about the show quite a bit. Most recently, she appeared on the podcast The Last Laugh with Matt Wilstein, and the host couldn’t help but point out that it’s been 15 years since Slate’s lone season of SNL began.

Given that so much time has passed, Wilstein asked whether or not Slate is able...

The early 1980s were a tough time for Saturday Night Live. After Lorne Michaels and the remaining members of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players left at the end of Season Five, an all-new cast starred in a truncated Season Six before they were all fired — save for two breakout stars: Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo.

With the departing cast members went new showrunner Jean Doumanian, who was replaced by Dick Ebersol for Seasons Seven through 10 (Michaels returned in Season 11). Ebersol was a controversial figure at SNL, as the show struggled to regain its cultural relevance during his reign and suffered from frequent cast turnover.

Smack-dab in the middle of Ebersol’s run came Brad Hall, who was a cast member for all of Seasons Eight and Nine. While he was in some sketches, he mostly helmed the Weekend Update desk for a season and a half before...

David Letterman is calling Teri Garr, who died Tuesday, one of his “all time favorite guests,” while Garr’s Mr. Mom costar Michael Keaton laments “a day I feared and knew was coming.” And Richard Dreyfuss, who costarred with Garr in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, remembers her as “vibrant, playful and so funny.”

The late, great Teri Garr, who brightened everything from sitcoms, variety shows, talk shows, some of the funniest movies ever made and even the occasional drama is being remembered by co-stars and colleagues today for the light she was.

“I adored Teri,” tweeted Dreyfuss. “She was vibrant, playful and so funny. Her essence created an ease in every scene we did together.

Norm Macdonald isn’t primarily known for his celebrity impressions, but during his time on Saturday Night Live, he imitated Bob Dole and Burt Reynolds as well as also managed to gift/curse us all with this scarily accurate take on Quentin Tarantino.

But the best Macdonald impression, many would argue, is his David Letterman.

Impressions of Letterman weren’t totally new to SNL. Back in 1983, Joe Piscopo played the host while he was still part of the NBC family. Piscopo’s Letterman was serviceable, but ultimately, uninspired.

Macdonald, on the other hand, was somehow able to tap into the core of Letterman’s comic persona, only slightly amplifying his mannerisms, and ultimately turning the Late Show star into a frenzied sketch comedy character without all that much exaggeration. And shout-out to Mark McKinney for his overly sycophantic Paul Shaffer.

Macdonald must have been doing something right, because even now,...

As the hype train picks up steam for the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary party, it’s worth remembering that even the show’s 15th birthday bash featured a star-studded audience. To open the big show, Lorne Michaels chose first-season darling Chevy Chase, who had not yet been banished for crimes against late-night comedy.

The bit is that Michaels is trying to talk Chase out of one of his trademark falls. “Chevy, you’re 58 years old,” he argues. (Chase was actually a month shy of his 46th birthday at the time.) Michaels finally relents when Chase agrees to sign several waivers releasing NBC from liability. The signing is interrupted by the ridiculous appearance of mulleted Joe Piscopo in a tuxedo with the sleeves cut off. The oiled, preening Piscopo flexes as he tries to talk Chase out of the fall, but the cameo simply makes us wonder why it wasn’t Eddie Murphy.

This article contains spoilers for "Saturday Night."

By the time the credits roll on the fantastic "Saturday Night" (read our review here), you've experienced a complete story that unfolds across the chaotic 90 minutes before the first episode of "Saturday Night Live" aired on NBC back in October 1975. 

After Lorne Michaels (Gabriel Labelle) has proven to the network brass that his chaotic sketch comedy show deserves to go live on NBC, the final sequence recreates the first sketch that debuted in the series premiere, featuring cast member John Belushi (Matt Wood) and writer Michael O'Donoghue (Tommy Dewey) engaging in an English lesson with the famous line, "I would like to feed your fingertips to the wolverines." When it ends with O'Donoghue's character having a heart attack and Belushi's character feigning the cardiac arrest in response, with the cast and crew looking on with pride and laughter, Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith...

When Bridesmaids director Paul Feig was an up-and-coming stand-up comic, getting a chance — any chance — to perform at the Improv was a big deal. But some nights were easier to get on stage than others. “I got sabotaged by Robin Williams a couple of times when I finally got to be a performer at The Improv,” he said.

Sabotaged by Robin Williams? What was he doing, throwing spitballs during Feig’s set? Nothing that nefarious, Feig told Jesse Tyler Ferguson on the Dinner’s on Me podcast. As a comedian early in his career, Feig rarely got stage time until later in the evening. “I remember once it was my time to get up, and there was a full audience,” he said. “I was so excited, and they come up like, ‘Oh, Robin just wants to get up and do a quick set first.’”

Uh-oh. “Robin Williams” and “quick set...

There likely wasn’t a path to a win for Jean Doumanian when she took the reins from Lorne Michaels at Saturday Night Live in 1980. The show not only lost Michaels but all of the original Not Ready for Primetime Players, several of whom had gone on to be major movie stars. The new cast would inevitably be compared unfavorably to the first, but it didn’t help that Joe Piscopo was the closest thing Doumanian had found to a star. She’d also cast young Eddie Murphy, but inexplicably kept him relegated to the bench for the first part of the show’s sixth season.

“I could never describe to you in words how painful those first 10 months really were,” Piscopo said in oral history Live From New York. “You just knew that this was America’s favorite television show, and yet here we were, taking it right into the toilet.

One of the best things to happen in Hollywood in recent years is that Michael Keaton’s career got a major second wind (but don’t call it a comeback) after a somewhat lower-key period. While the extent of Keaton’s career downturn pre-Birdman has indeed been overblown (let’s not forget he was still a big enough star to play the villain in the RoboCop reboot months before Birdman came out), it can’t be denied that Alejandro González Iñárritu’s movie gave him a major boost. Since then, he’s appeared In some amazing films, including Spotlight, The Founder, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and The Trial of the Chicago 7. He has also done great TV work, such as the exceptional limited series Dopesick.

However, Keaton’s pre- and post-Beetlejuice/Batman career tends to be overlooked when discussing his filmography, which is a shame as he was already a...

Brian De Palma, the director behind Carrie, Scarface and The Untouchables, was sometimes criticized for “borrowing” from more accomplished directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Jean-Luc Godard. But he was a favorite of Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael, a sought-after director whose visual style led to offers to helm huge Hollywood hits like Fatal Attraction, Flashdance and Taxi Driver, according to ScreenRant.

De Palma, though, told Business Insider he had no regrets about turning down those smashes. But there is one career move that he’d like to take back. “Now a movie I wish I hadn't done was Wise Guys,” he explained. “The studio changed their minds and didn’t want to make it. They just wanted us to go away. I should have just taken my money and walked instead of dealing with a studio that didn’t want to make the movie.”

The screwball plot of Wise Guys...

Before each Saturday Night Live performance, Kristen Wiig would light a candle, she once told Kelly Clarkson. Amy Poehler shared her own pre-show ritual with Clarkson this week. “When Don Pardo would say my name,” Poehler explained, “I used to just take a moment and close my eyes for about a split second. Because that's about all the time you have at SNL. Molly Shannon used to do that — she told me about it so then I did it.”

Aww, sweet. But not as fun as another SNL tradition that Poehler revealed. It turns out the Parks and Rec star got Shannon’s office after she left the show, a fact evidenced by the scribbles Shannon left on the room’s walls. “Everyone would just kind of leave their name like summer camp,” Poehler said. “You'd write your name on the wall.”

Defacing SNL property is a long-standing tradition that...

Legendary daytime talk show host Phil Donahue passed away last night at the age of 88 after a long illness. Donahue practically invented many conventions that are now talk-show staples, such as walking into the audience and interacting with its members. As his show took off in the 1970s, he also tackled issues that no other talk show dared touch. “If there had been no Phil Donahue Show, there would be no Oprah Winfrey show,” Winfrey said in 2002. “He was the first to acknowledge that women are interested in more than mascara tips and cake recipes — that we’re intelligent, we’re concerned about the world around us and we want the best possible lives for ourselves.”

Donahue’s signature cadence, dramatic mannerisms and audience interactions not only made for engaging TV but a go-to impression for three generations of Saturday Night Live cast members.

Joe Piscopo’s version in 1982 was...

Ya know that feeling when you watch something dumb, and even though you know it’s stupid, you can’t help but laugh and enjoy yourself? The 1980s are full of comedies like that. Yeah, we know they’re dumb and not especially clever, but whatever, man, every now and then, you’re in a bad mood, and you want to turn your brain off. That’s why they made seven Police Academy movies. No one thought they were good, but we watched them anyway because they were stupid in a pleasing way.

This brings me to this rare comedy-focused episode of The Best Movie You Never Saw, about a movie I loved as a kid that doesn’t super hold up forty years later, but it is still kinda fun – Johnny Dangerously. A gangster comedy in the vein of Airplane, Johnny Dangerously is probably a movie many younger viewers...

Judith Belushi Pisano passed away on Friday night at the age of 73, survived by four children and six grandchildren, as well as three siblings, according to The Martha’s Vineyard Times. For comedy fans, Belushi Pisano is, of course, most famous for being the widow of John Belushi, her high school sweetheart, who died in 1982.

Belushi Pisano had a lot of engagement with her late husband’s legacy in the years following his death, penning multiple books on the subject, and even participating in the organization of a Blues Brothers-themed convention in the historic Old Joliet Prison. Not surprisingly, a whole lot of Crystal Head vodka was served.

Less well-known is the fact that Belushi Pisano briefly worked behind-the-scenes at Saturday Night Live. Very briefly, that is. Yeah, even the wife of one of the show’s most legendary cast members hated her experience writing for the long-running sketch show.

Other than acute behind-the-scenes anxiety, one of Saturday Night Live’s longest-running traditions is the “Five-Timers Club,” a prestigious clique for celebrities who have hosted the show at least five times.

But it turns out it’s all a lie. Wake up sheeple!

The Five-Timers Club obviously began as a joke, part of Tom Hanks’ opening monologue during his fifth SNL appearance in 1990. The mere suggestion that hosting SNL five times was a benchmark worthy of a membership card, a luxurious robe and access to “one of the most exclusive clubs in the world” was meant to be laughable. I mean, the first sketch literally finds Jon Lovitz taking lunch orders and throwing out Ralph Nader.

According to Robert Smigel, the inspiration for the sketch, which he co-wrote for Conan O’Brien, was Hanks’ impression of Lorne Michaels waxing poetically about what it’s like to host SNL each time. “I...

You think Pete Davidson was young when he started on Saturday Night Live? He was 20, practically a grizzled veteran. So was been-there-done-that Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Eddie Murphy was 19 years old, but that still made him an experienced pro compared to Anthony Michael Hall, who got a job on SNL in 1985 before he was old enough to vote. The show was on practically past his bedtime.

“How do you get on Saturday Night Live at 17?” wondered Dana Carvey this week on the Fly on the Wall podcast. “Beat Eddie Murphy by two years!”

As it turns out, Hall didn’t even have to audition. “Eddie was a hero of mine, and I was literally in my mother’s apartment two years before watching him every weekend. I loved it,” Hall told Carvey and David Spade. Then the young actor killed it in John Hughes' comedies Sixteen Candles and Breakfast Club. “After I had done those films,...

Lorne Michaels is an expert at celebrating the legacy of “Saturday Night Live.” The show’s creator has produced variety specials for the NBC program’s 15th anniversary, 25th anniversary and 40th anniversary, so the upcoming 50th season should have a highly entertaining spectacle. Nothing less than a three-hour event would be expected, but how else should “SNL” celebrate the golden anniversary season, which would begin in the autumn of 2024 and continue through May, 2025?

Here is our exciting, fun suggestion for a way to go above and beyond for the live special. Over the course of a 20-22 episode season, NBC would certainly have almost every episode featuring the current cast along with hot guest hosts and musical guests. However, for the other five episodes spread out over several months, devote an entire 90 minutes to each previous decade. Invite back the biggest cast members from a decade along with well-known guest hosts and music stars.

Things were going badly on Saturday Night Live‘s 1980-1981 season, even before producer Jean Doumanian realized than the January 10, 1981 episode was headed towards disaster.

The previous season had seen the departure of Lorne Michaels and the entire cast, including founders Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris, and Laraine Newman, as well as Bill Murray and Harry Shearer. Doumanian had tried to pitch her incoming group of comedians as the next generation for the hit series, but the performers quickly gained reputations as also-rans. Charlie Rocket was a less funny Chevy Chase, Gail Matthius an off-brand Jane Curtin, and so on.

But on that Jan. 10, 1981 episode, hosted by actor Ray Sharkey, things were going particularly badly. The skits went faster than anticipated and the show had five extra minutes to fill. So in an act of desperation, Doumanian followed the advice of writer Neil Levy and pushed 19-year-old featured player...

Zombies often take the horror-comedy to a new level. In their shambling quest to mine humor from the most horrific circumstances, zombie comedies invert the apocalyptic nihilism that an outbreak of the undead tends to elicit. They also subvert the expectations of zombie horror, frequently going meta to poke fun at some of the most time honored tropes.

Because it’s Monday, we could all use a laugh or three. So, this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to zombie comedies that aim not for the jugular (or brain) but your funny bone.

These five zombie comedies find unique ways to play with the genre and get silly with it, messing with form and era in the process. Here’s where you can stream them this week.

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

Dead Heat – The Roku Channel, Tubi

Dead Heat takes the buddy cop formula popularized...

If anyone should be able to engineer a reunion of “Saturday Night Live” alumni, it should be Dan Aykroyd.

A member of the show’s first cast of “Not Ready for Prime-Time Players,” Aykroyd was also among the first to jump from “SNL” to Hollywood and continues to tour with a band based on The Blues Brothers group he and John Belushi originated on the NBC mainstay.

But Aykroyd’s new project takes “SNL” formers to decidedly new terrain.

Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon and “Cheers” alumni George Wendt (who made a name on “SNL” as the character Bob Swerski of the Chicago Superfans), have teamed up to lead subscribers of the streaming outlet Fox Nation through a history of drinking. In “A History of the World in Six Glasses,”which debuted this week, the comic sextuplet examines some of the political and cultural ramifications in the rise of beer,...

Comedian and actress Tina Fey cut her teeth at "Saturday Night Live" as both a cast member and eventually a head writer, where she also occupied the Weekend Update desk alongside Jimmy Fallon. If a new rumor is to be believed, there's a chance she might be returning to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, and it won't be for a revival of her "SNL"-inspired comedy series "30 Rock."

The New York Post is citing an unknown source who claims that Tina Fey is currently being courted to take over as the executive producer of "SNL" whenever series creator and longtime showrunner Lorne Michaels chooses to retire. Considering the source, we should take this with a grain of salt right now, because plenty of worthless rumors have come out of the New York Post over the years -- especially since another source in the same story says the rumors are untrue.

There are a few films that successfully derived the formula of The Karate Kid while making a name for itself with its own identity. One of those movies is the quaint 1992 Chuck Norris film, Sidekicks, a movie recently featured on our list of the Best Chuck Norris Films. This movie would feature an added plot element where the young protagonist finds himself often daydreaming of having adventures alongside his biggest influence, Chuck Norris, that playfully parodies the different films that Chuck has made throughout his career. It would all culminate in getting to meet the Texas Ranger himself as dream becomes reality, and the two team up in a karate tournament.

According to ComicBook.com — the man, the myth, the legend — Chuck Norris recently appeared at Nashville Comic-Con. During his panel, Norris was asked by ComicBook.com’s Chris Killian, “What do you feel is your most underappreciated film? For me,...

Treat Williams, a long-time character actor and star of the well-loved cult movies Deep Rising and Dead Heat, has died at 71. According to a report via People Magazine, the actor died in a tragic motorcycle accident. His agent, Barry McPherson, told the magazine, “He was killed this afternoon. He was making a left or a right and a car cut him off,” McPherson said, adding, “I’m just devastated. He was the nicest guy. He was so talented.”

Williams had a long, legendary career on the silver screen. He first broke out in the late seventies in movies like The Eagle Has Landed before earning a Golden Globe nomination for the film adaptation of Hair. He had perhaps his best role in 1981, playing the lead in Sidney Lumet’s Prince of the City (a favorite of ours here at JoBlo), earning a Golden Globe nomination. In the film, he played...

Norman Steinberg, screenwriter of the classic Mel Brooks comedy “Blazing Saddles,” has died at the age of 83, his family said through a statement by the Writers Guild of America East.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, and a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh law school, Steinberg sought to be a comedy writer after he felt dissatisfied with life as an attorney. That dream was something that he would regularly tell Brooks when he encountered him at the Chock Full ‘O Nuts cafe in Manhattan, which led the famed comedian and producer to tell Steinberg to write a script for the sitcom “Get Smart.”

Though “Get Smart” was canceled by the time Steinberg finished the script, Brooks enjoyed it and told him to pursue writing. He quit his job as a lawyer and got his start as a writer for the music magazine Cash Box. Like countless others, he moved to...

Robert Blake, who played the crazed real-life killer Perry Smith in Truman Copote’s In Cold Blood and the popular TV cop Tony Baretta before a sensational Hollywood murder trial destroyed his career, has died. He was 89.

Blake, who got his start as a child star in the 1940s in the Our Gang comedy shorts at MGM, died Thursday at his Los Angeles home after a long battle with heart disease, his niece, Noreen Austin, told The Hollywood Reporter.

On the night of May 4, 2001, Bonny Lee Bakley, Blake’s wife of six months and the mother of his young daughter, was fatally shot twice at point-blank range while she sat in their car after they had dined at Vitello’s, an Italian restaurant in Studio City. (The actor said he had gone back into the restaurant to retrieve a revolver he had left behind.)

Nearly four years later, including a year spent in jail,...

(Welcome to Best Actor Ever, an ongoing series where we explore the careers and performances of the greatest performers to ever grace the screen.)

We're only six articles into this series, and I've already violated my critic's creed by furthering one of the most egregious filmmaking fallacies in existence. While I stand wholeheartedly behind my selections of Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Cate Blanchett, Robert De Niro, and Viola Davis, these artists are venerated for capital-a acting. They play serious, complicated people beset by demons both personal and societal. Critics expect them to dazzle us, to shed inspiring or unsettling light on the human condition. For too many years, they did not expect them to make us laugh.

When Streep, after a decade-plus of electrifying dramatic performances, appeared in the 1989 dark comedy "She-Devil" opposite TV superstar Roseanne Barr, many critics felt she was slumming. Ditto De Niro in Martin Brest's 1988 buddy-comedy "Midnight Run.

Rick Newman, the founder of New York City’s hugely influential Catch a Rising Star comedy club that provided a training ground for the stand-up comics who would change the landscape of entertainment in the 1970s, died Feb. 20 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 81.

His wife Krysi Newman told The Washington Post that he died of pancreatic cancer.

Among the comics who began or developed their careers on the Rising Star’s Upper East Side stage are Jerry Seineld, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Richard Lewis, Andy Kaufman, Freddie Prinze, Robert Klein, Chris Rock, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler. Larry David, Elayne Boosler, Rodney Dangerfield, Jay Leno, Joy Behar and Ray Romano.

One of the performers most associated with Catch a Rising Star was Richard Belzer, the longtime host of the club who died Feb. 19, just a day before Newman.

Newman, tweeted Billy Crystal, “gave me and so many our starts as stand ups.

Many celebrities got their start on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Some may not remember, but both Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfuss were once cast members on the late-night comedy skit show. The two now star together in the Netflix movie You People.

The last time Murphy and Louis-Dreyfuss were seen on-screen together was in 1984, during Murphy’s final season on SNL.

What is ‘You People’?

You People is a romantic comedy released on Netflix January 27, 2023.

The film is directed by Kenya Barris (creator of Black-ish), who is also a co-writer along with Jonah Hill.

Hill also stars as Ezra Cohen, a Jewish guy who falls in love with the woman of his dreams, Amira Mohammad (played by Lauren London), who happens to be black. The couple become engaged, and cultures clash when they meet each other’s families.

Amira’s parents are played by Eddie Murphy and Nia Long,...

When comedians hit the gym, the first thing they seem to shed is their sense of humor. At least, this was the case with Joe Piscopo, who went from being the second-funniest-man on "Saturday Night Live" during the Eddie Murphy era to, well, whatever it is he's doing today. Then again, there was ample evidence pre-bulk that Piscopo might've been little more than an above-average mimic who frequently shared a television screen with the greatest comedic talent of his generation.

In any event, when Kumail Nanjiani bulked up for the McU's "Eternals," I felt a strange mix of emotions. On one hand, it was nifty, if not downright aspirational, to see the once-lithe actor pack on some muscle and play a superhero. On the other, I was worried about the Piscopo syndrome. Could Nanjiani still be funny if he looked more like Dave Bautista than Dave Chappelle? Most disconcerting of...

Budd Friedman, the comedy club pioneer who founded the original Improv in New York in 1963 and gave early career breaks to the likes of Jay Leno, Robert Klein, Bette Midler, Richard Pryor and Andy Kaufman, has died. He was 90.

Friedman died Saturday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his wife, Alix, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Three years after Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show departed Manhattan for Burbank, Friedman opened a Hollywood outpost of the Improv on Melrose Avenue in 1975 in his first expansion of the brand.

There were 22 Improvs across 12 states in February 2018 when Friedman and partner Mark Lonow sold the company to Levity Entertainment Group, whose investors included Irving Azoff.

At his flagship New York hotspot, located at West 44th Street and Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, Friedman also employed Rodney Dangerfield as an Mc, Elayne Boosler...

“The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play.” – Captain Kirk, “Shore Leave”

Star Trek can be a complicated fandom, with a history of hundreds of storylines, philosophies and canonical quandaries for fans to endlessly puzzle over. It can be a challenge to keep all of it together, but sometimes making light of it can allow fans—new and old—to experience a greater comfort with the franchise and simply have fun with it. The talented Lower Decks cast gets the humor behind this show and they understand its impact on the franchise. That’s the secret behind Star Trek: Lower Decks: being bold and knowing how much the subject can take. Laughter begets play. The more laughter Lower Decks can inspire, the greater fans get to play with the franchise, extend its longevity, but most importantly, have fun.

Den of Geek had some...

Ralph Schuckett, a keyboard player best known as a member of Todd Rundgren’s Utopia as well as an in-demand session player and producer and, later, composer for “Pokemon” and other animation projects, died Sunday at 73.

No cause of death was immediately given, although he was known to have been ill. When a Utopia reunion tour was announced in early 2018, Schuckett was announced as part of the lineup and even met with other members for a publicity photo, but he was forced to withdraw shortly before rehearsals began.

Among his early studio credits prior to joining Utopia were Carole King’s first three albums, including the landmark “Tapestry.”

“Ralph Schuckett was a sweet guy, a great friend, and a very talented cat,” King said in a statement Wednesday morning. “That’s his sparkling piano on ‘Smackwater Jack.’ Rest In Peace and love.”

#RalphSchuckett was a sweet guy, a great friend,...

Hello, dear readers! Today, we’re kicking off our 2021 Indie Horror Month celebration right here on Daily Dead, and I figured the best way to get things going was to put together a list featuring a bunch of my favorite independent genre movies that you can currently stream on a variety of platforms. As someone who was fortunate to grow up enjoying all sorts of films that were released outside of the studio system, and as someone who also continues to enjoy all the indie horror contributions that come along these days, there is definitely something for every kind of horror fan included here.

Check out this streaming list I’ve compiled here (in alphabetical order to make things easier), and we hope you’ll not only continue to check back throughout the entire month of April for all of our ongoing Indie Horror Month coverage, but that you’ll...

All but one of the tracks on Bob Dylan’s new album Together Through Life are co-written with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. It’s the most help he’s ever had on a single album, but hardly the first time Dylan has written with a partner. Over the past 45 years he’s shared credit with Tom Petty, Rick Danko, Sam Shepard, Carole Bayer Sager and even Gene Simmons and Michael Bolton. Here are the stories behind five of those collaborations.

“Hurricane” (with Jacques Levy)

Dylan teamed up with New...

Joseph Baxter Aug 26, 2019

One of SNL’s most distinguished alumni, Eddie Murphy, will return this season to host, marking the first time since 1984.

Eddie Murphy is, at long last, coming back to Saturday Night Live!

The return of Eddie Murphy – who had one of the show’s most successful runs, off which he became one of the biggest film stars in the world – was revealed as part of the first round of host announcements for SNL Season 45. Murphy’s returning hosting gig – his first since 1984 – will be for the Christmas-break-sendoff December 21 episode, in which he’ll be paired with a yet-to-be-announced musical guest. He will most likely be there to promote his Netflix movie, Dolemite is My Name, which has yet to announce a release date.

Murphy’s SNL run, besides being hilarious on an organic level, was existentially crucial in the show’s history. He came into the cast...

TV contributor Kevin Jackson, who was given the boot by Fox News last Thursday after calling Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual-assault accusers “lying skanks,” is lashing out at his former employer for allowing other hosts and contributors to stay, despite their extramarital transgressions.

“Fox is dumb,” the pro-Trump host told Joe Piscopo on his Monday morning radio show, adding that Fox News tried to have him say “something” in order to save his job, though he would not say exactly what.

“I’ll just give you some inside baseball,” Jackson said in the radio interview first reported by Mediaite. “I could have said something to save my job. Fox was like ‘Yeah, you want to say this or do that’?” He added, “I could still have a job at Fox, if I wanted to say the right thing.”

Also Read: Fox News Fires Contributor Kevin Jackson for Calling...

Burbank, CA – Batman: The Animated Series, the most acclaimed animated super hero television series in history, arrives this fall in an all-encompassing package befitting its revered place in the annals of fan-favorite entertainment. Remastered for the first time since its broadcast airing from 1992-1995, Batman: The Complete Animated Series Deluxe Limited Edition will be available from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on Digital and in a stunning Blu-ray box set ($112.99 Srp) on October 16, 2018.

Produced by Warner Bros. Animation, the Emmy Award-winning series captured the imaginations of generations, setting the standard for super hero storytelling for the past quarter-century with its innovative designs, near-perfect voice cast and landmark approach to DC’s iconic characters and stories. Batman: The Complete Animated Series Deluxe Limited Edition box set includes all 109 thrilling episodes, plus two bonus disks containing the recently-remastered, fan favorite animated films Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero.

The...

Fans of the Starz series Power may recognize a familiar — though not necessarily trustworthy — face in this week’s Law & Order: Svu.

Rotimi, who plays the power-hungry and morally shifty Dre in the cable crime drama, shows up in tonight’s episode of the NBC procedural (9/8c) as man who claims that his sister was gang-raped. But in the exclusive sneak peek of “Guardian” above, Fin doesn’t really seem sympathetic to the guy’s plight. (Maybe it’s because the victim’s brother admits to giving vodka to a 15-year-old high school student to “celebrate” a good grade?)

The...

Alec Baldwin offered tongue-in-cheek advice to “Saturday Night Live” alumni Joe Piscopo, who wasn’t thrilled with Stormy Daniels’ recent cameo on the show, as he said he’d have a tough time explaining the porn star’s appearance to his kids.

“What do I tell my kids? Dad, how do I get on ‘Saturday Night Live’? Well you be an adult film star. I mean, really?” said Piscopo, calling into the Fox Business program “Mornings With Maria” on Monday.

“My old alma matter, I love them, I’m so loyal to ‘SNL.’ But Stormy Daniels on ‘SNL’?” Piscopo said. “Lorne Michaels doesn’t even ask me to go on ‘SNL.’ Stormy Daniels? I thought it was way, way, over the line and totally unnecessary.”

Also Read: Rudy Giuliani Issues Statement 'to Clarify' Past Remarks About Stormy Daniels

The NBC program, known for regularly mocking President Trump, reached for next level trolling last weekend after inviting the real live porn star on set for a scripted one-on-one phone call with Alec Baldwin’s Trump. In the rendition, Daniels warned the faux-president that a “storm” was coming and that she would not stop until she received a “resignation.”

It’s unclear what the real Trump — who is known to despise Baldwin’s performance – thought of the sketch, but Baldwin took to Twitter to offer the SNL star-turned-conservative-radio-host an education on the matter.

“Joe Piscopo asks, ‘What will I tell my children?'” tweeted Baldwin. “You tell them Trump is a compulsive adulterer who pays off porn stars w $ from dubious sources. What else?”

Also Read: 'SNL': Baldwin's Trump Tries and Fails to Work Things out With the Real Stormy Daniels (Video)

Joe Piscopo asks, “What will I tell my children?”

You tell them Trump is a compulsive adulterer who pays off porn stars w $ from dubious sources. What else?

SNL's Stormy Daniels Trump sketch went 'over the line': Joe Piscopo – Fox News#https://t.co/OfVYI1W1fA

— ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) May 7, 2018

Watch above

Read original story Alec Baldwin Advises ‘SNL’ Alum What to Say When His Kids Ask About Stormy Daniels’ Cameo At TheWrap...

Alec Baldwin came to the rescue of Joe Piscopo after the Saturday Night Live alum got the vapors when porn star Stormy Daniels appeared on the NBC show.

“My old alma mater, I love them, I’m so loyal to SNL. But Stormy Daniels on SNL? Lorne Michaels doesn’t even ask me to go on SNL. Stormy Daniels? I thought it was way, way, over the line and totally unnecessary, Maria.” Piscopo hyperventilated Monday morning to Fox Business Network star Maria Bartiromo. He praised Ben Stiller, Jimmy Fallon and Scarlett Johansson in the all-star sketch, adding, “but you know what? Don’t put Stormy Daniels in there. What do I tell my kids? Dad, how do I get on Saturday Night Live? ‘Well you be an adult film star.’ I mean, really?”

Baldwin to the rescue, via Twitter:

“You tell them Trump is a compulsive adulterer who pays...

Alec Baldwin on Monday morning responded to criticism from Joe Piscopo about the most recent cold open on <em>Saturday Night Live</em>.

The <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/stormy-daniels-plays-guest-star-heavy-snl-cold-open-1108983" target="_blank">star-studded moment</a>, which included adult film star Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels), skewered Trump and his associates, all of whom are immersed in controversy. Baldwin once again played the president.

Piscopo, an <em>SNL</em> veteran, blasted a portion of the sketch on Fox News.

“It was such a great, organized sketch,” he told Maria Bartiromo during <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/snls-stormy-daniels-trump-sketch-went-over-the-line-joe-piscopo" target="_blank">an interview</a> on <em>Mornings with Maria</em>. “But don’t put Stormy Daniels in there — what do I tell my kids?”

Baldwin shot back ...

Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance in Asbury Park, New Jersey on Sunday night (May 6) to induct Steve Van Zandt, E Street Band member, actor and producer, into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

From the stage at the Paramount Theatre, Springsteen remarked that “rock ‘n’ roll chose [Van Zandt] early. … One look at Steve, and I knew that we both drunk the same Kool-Aid.”

The Boss then talked about how the two used to argue as teens over their musical heroes, who had the better clothes, guitar, hair, and “thousands of hours of preparation for the day when folks could argue about us.” Springsteen continued: “Steve is one of the greatest living white soul performers we have. He is the sole creator of the male babushka — a man who, not unlike Hugh Hefner, had managed to spend his whole life in his pajamas.”

While Van Zandt is already in the Hall...

In today’s roundup, “Glow” Season 2 gets a premiere date and truTV renewed “At Home with Amy Sedaris” for a second season.

Casting

Anne Archer, Fionnula Flanagan, Hal Linden and Joe Piscopo will guest star in “Mama,” a new episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” airing May 16 at 9 p.m. Et/Pt on NBC. Flanagan plays Madeleine, an assisted living home patient suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease who claims to have been raped, while other characters question her mental fitness to remember. Linden plays an enigmatic man from Madeleine’s past, while Piscopo appears as a Frank Sinatra impersonator working at the facility. Rounding out the guest stars, Archer portrays a notorious actress connected to the case.

Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long and Michael Strahan will headline Fox Sports’ new “Thursday Night Football Pregame Show” live from New York City for the 2018 NFL season. The “Thursday Night Football Pregame...

Fionnula Flanagan, Hal Linden, Anne Archer and comedian Joe Piscopo are set to guest-star in an episode of NBC’s Law & Order: Svu that investigates a rape claim made by a woman living with Alzheimer’s Disease.

In the episode, titled “Mama” and airing Wednesday, May 16 at 9/8c, Flanagan (Defiance) plays Madeline, an assisted living home patient who lives with Alzheimer’s. When she claims to have been raped, her mental state brings her allegation into question.

Archer (Privileged) in turn plays a notorious actress connected to the case, while Linden (Barney Miller) guest-stars as a mysterious man from Madeline’s past.

Mike Cecchini Aug 24, 2017

The Punisher, starring Dolph Lundgren, was the first Marvel superhero movie. It's not as bad as you've heard...

1989's The Punisher is Marvel's first superhero movie.

When you see it written out this way, it is really weird, isn't it? But it's true. The Punisher, the 1989 movie starring Dolph Lundgren as Marvel's premiere vigilante, really is the first Marvel superhero movie. While other Marvel superheroes (most notably Hulk and Spider-Man) had shown up in TV movies and series, they weren't big screen concerns. The 1944 Captain America movie serial doesn't count, because it's a serial not a feature film.  The 1986 Howard the Duck movie is technically the first Marvel film, but he isn't a superhero. None of 'em tick all the appropriate boxes. The Punisher, for better or worse, does.

The Punisher was written by Boaz Yakin (who eventually went on to direct Remember The Titans and co-write...

Features: Gilbert Gottfried, Whoopi Goldberg, Artie Lange, Arsenio Hall, Bill Burr, Richard Kind, Howie Mandel, Jay Leno, Penn Jillette | Written by Neil Berkeley, James Leche | Directed by Neil Berkeley

If you don’t know his face, you’ll definitely know his voice. But what about his personality?

Gilbert Gottfried has seen the typical comedian’s rise to fame, from his small start working clubs as a teen to making big breaks like voicing Disney characters, and the grand kahuna of all, lending your voice to commercials. But there’s one question we all have about the mysterious man: is that really his voice?

Turns out that isn’t the only question we should have for him. Gilbert, a film directed, written, and produced by Neil Berkeley, follows the side of Gottfried that no one sees: his personal, non-decibel-provoking one. A personal life? Gilbert’s? Does he even have one? It...

Tim Curry has stolen my heart and he’s taking it into Communist space.

Full-Motion Video games were a mid- to late-1990s fad that were either semi-playable movies (where you shot at bad guys running on screen) or incorporated live-action cutscenes into otherwise animated games. Think Who Framed Roger Rabbit? but on your grandma’s PC. They’re usually all as silly as you’d imagine, either aimed at a younger audience delighted to watch some over-the-top fantasy or an older audience wowed by the possibilities of technology. It seems like the perfect home for character actors and infomercial escapees to camp it up with little career risk and some quick cash, right?

The weird thing is how many A-list actors — or at least people you’d never expect — appeared in these games. What’s even weirder is how crazy most of their roles were. Nobody’s a heartfelt dramatic lead, they...