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The comedy world is littered with duos who couldn’t hang for the long term — so much so Lorne Michaels, who appears on this list of comedy partnerships that imploded, has another one that’s not even cited here: Susan Morrison’s new Michaels biography tells the story of how he parted ways with his comedy partner Hart Pomerantz a few years before creating Saturday Night Live. The feud between Golden Girls co-stars Beatrice Arthur and Betty White is also well-known, but the thing about a good piece of gossip is that there’s almost always something more to unpack. And some people who worked on the show behind the camera have been sitting on stories for a while.

The Golden Girls is in the midst of a 40th-anniversary celebration, including a live reading of two episodes that closed out the Atx TV Festival earlier this month, attended by several...

Creatives behind The Golden Girls shared funny and, at times, very candid behind-the-scenes stories — namely, among the long-rumored feud between stars Betty White and Bea Arthur — during a 40th-anniversary celebration of the long-running hit show on Wednesday night.

The sold-out event, held at NeueHouse Hollywood as part of the monthlong Pride Live! Hollywood festival, featured a panel of writers, producers and others who worked on the show, which ran for seven seasons on NBC, from 1985-92. The series, created by Susan Harris, starred Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, Betty White as Rose Nylund, Rue McClanahan as Blanche Devereaux and Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo. (The Hollywood Reporter is the presenting media sponsor of Pride Live! Hollywood.)

Co-producer Marsha Posner Williams brought up a topic that has been much-discussed and speculated on: whether Arthur and White got along in real life.

“When that red light was on [and the show was filming], there were no more professional people than those women,...

“When we cast Michael Fox, I didn’t want him.”

That’s what Family Ties creator Gary David Goldberg told the Television Academy in 2013, per Entertainment Weekly. What was Goldberg’s problem with Fox, the actor who earned three Emmy wins and five nominations over the run of his sitcom? Goldberg had his heart set on a different actor: Ferris Bueller star Matthew Broderick.

Casting director Judith Weiner “had found this young guy in New York, never acted before, Matthew Broderick,” Goldberg explained. “So Matthew was the first one to read for Family Ties for the part of Alex, and I said what any normal producer would say: ‘Yes, get him a pen, let's make a deal.’ And then that deal fell through.”

Note to Goldberg: Broderick was an accomplished stage actor in the early 1980s, so “never acted before” was a bit of hyperbole. Broderick’s Tony-winning run in...

Let us be more simple and less vain, Rousseau once wrote. But then, he never occupied a C-suite with cameras rolling everywhere.

This time of year, we talk about guest appearances by actors on television — Kaitlyn Dever on The Last of Us, Jamie Lee Curtis going full Donna on The Bear, Melissa McCarthy channeling John Cena opposite Meryl Streep in Only Murders in the Building.

What we talk about less is guest appearances by executives of television, and for good reason. Executives are supposed to stay far from a TV camera. Isn’t that the bargain — they have the power to fire everyone, and in return, we don’t have to see them?

Yet a different guest appearance is filling snack-room chatter across Hollywood and media companies these days — the one where Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos turns up (at a urinal at the Golden Globes) on Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg...

When Garry Marshall's "Happy Days" premiered on ABC in 1974, the sitcom caught a ride on a wave of Baby Boomer nostalgia generated by George Lucas' "American Graffiti" the previous year. That film was like a time machine for this generation, and they wanted to keep going back over and over again. Alas, this being the pre-vcr and pre-cable age, if they were looking to take that nostalgia trip at home, they were going to be waiting a couple of years for its network television premiere. So Marshall's series, which looked and sounded a good deal like "American Graffiti," was a more than suitable substitute.

Aside from sharing its theme song (Bill Haley and His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock") with Lucas' film, "Happy Days" also cast one of the stars of "American Graffiti," Ron Howard, as its protagonist. Unlike most of the show's young cast, Howard wasn't some...

Universal Pictures has set Joseph Kosinski to direct Miami Vice, a drama based on the iconic ’80s NBC series about undercover cops taking down drug dealers. Dan Gilroy is rewriting a first draft script by Eric Warren Singer. No cast yet. Dylan Clark is producing along with Kosinski.

They’ve been percolating this one for a bit, and Kosinski has one of the summer buzz titles in the Brad Pitt-starring Formula One movie F1 made by Apple and headed for theaters through Warner Bros. He’s expected next to reteam with F1 producer Jerry Bruckheimer for an untitled UFO project at Apple, and this will come after. Kosinski and Bruckheimer also teamed on Top Gun: Maverick.

Hatched by NBC topper Brandon Tartikoff, who sent a note essentially asking for a cop drama with the flash of MTV that was so popular at the time, the series was created by Anthony Yerkovich.

Stanley R. Jaffe, a former Paramount Pictures president who became the youngest studio chief in history and later won a Best Picture Oscar for producing Kramer vs. Kramer and was nominated for Fatal Attraction, died today. He was 84.

CAA, which repped Jaffe, confirmed his death to Deadline.

Jaffe was a decade into his career when he produced Kramer vs. Kramer, the riveting 1979 child-custody drama starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep, both winning lead acting Oscars — Streep’s first of three. It also scored Best Director and Adapted Screenplay Oscars for director Robert Benton.

He followed that by producing Taps, about a mutiny at a soon-to-close military academy, starred Timothy Hutton and launched the careers of such future stars as Tom Cruise, Sean Penn and Giancarlo Esposito.

Those films came after Jaffe produced the 1969 Richard Benjamin-Ali MacGraw drama Goodbye, Columbus; I Start Counting (1970); the Jeff Bridges Civil War-era Bad Company (1972); and...

Stanley R. Jaffe, the producer and studio executive who won an Oscar in 1980 for Kramer vs. Kramer and shepherded other acclaimed films like Fatal Attraction, Goodbye, Columbus and The Bad News Bears, died Monday. He was 84.

Jaffe died peacefully at his home in Rancho Mirage, his daughter Betsy Jaffe announced.

A son of Leo Jaffe, an executive who spent more than a half-century at Columbia Pictures, Jaffe also received an Academy Award nomination for Fatal Attraction (1987), which he produced alongside Sherry Lansing during their fruitful eight-year partnership at Jaffe-Lansing Productions.

At age 29, Jaffe was named executive vp and COO of Paramount Pictures in October 1969, becoming the youngest head of a major studio in Hollywood history. Before he departed as president in August 1971 to return to independent producing, he greenlighted such films as Love Story (1970) and The Godfather (1972), projects also championed by chief of production Robert Evans.

Jaffe returned to the...

Carl Kurlander is a screenwriter (St. Elmo’s Fire) who served as a writer-producer for four of Peter Engel’s NBC series. He also teaches at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has made a series of documentaries including the birth of educational television and how AI is poised to transform the way young people learn. He was mentored by Peter Engel, the man behind the TV fixture Saved by the Bell, who died last week. Here, Kurlander contrasts the wildly different paths taken by Engel and Fred Rogers that led each to generate programming that helped kids cope.

Making Good Attractive: How Peter Engel and Fred Rogers Shaped Young Minds Through Television

I was stunned to hear Peter Engel passed away recently at 88, though he lived a long and interesting life. When I worked for Peter in the 1990s at NBC, he was introduced to crowds before Saved by the Bell...

Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos is following in a storied American showbiz tradition of top TV executives making cameos on shows set by predecessors like Brandon Tartikoff. Surprisingly, the series that marks his acting debut is not on Netflix but on rival Apple TV+.

Sarandos is popping up in Seth Rogen’s upcoming showbiz-themed comedy The Studio, in which the Neighbors star plays Matt Remick, the new head of a Hollywood movie studio. We won’t spoil Sarandos’ interaction with Remick beyond teasing that it involves a chance encounter at the Golden Globes.

“After 25 years in Hollywood, secretly what I was really hoping for was to be discovered for the silver screen,” Sarandos told Deadline. “Of course it was my friend Seth Rogen who saw my ‘certain something’ and cast me. He has also promised an FYC campaign for my guest appearance — so it was an offer that I could not refuse.

Peter Engel, who executive produced Saved by the Bell, its spinoffs and 2020 reboot, Last Comic Standing and many other series, died Tuesday at his Santa Monica home. He was 88. His family confirmed the news to Deadline but did not provide a cause of death.

Engel exec-produced more than 1,000 hours of TV during a 40-year career, mostly for NBC as part of a long-term partnership. His credits also include scores of episodes of City Guys and Malibu CA — both of which he also created — along with Hang Time, USA High, California Dreams, How to Survive a Marriage and others.

He also wrote more than 100 episodes of City Guys, nearly as many of USA High and 50-plus for Malibu CA.

Engel penned a dozen episodes of teen sitcom Saved by the Bell, which NBC aired mostly on Saturday mornings from 1989-93. The popular show helped launch the careers of such stars as Mark-Paul Gosselaar,...

Peter Engel, a producer known for his work on shows like “Saved by the Bell” and “Last Comic Standing,” died Tuesday in his Santa Monica home. He was 88.

Engel’s death was confirmed to Variety by his family. Throughout his career, Engel executive produced more than 1,000 episodes of television, including shows like “California Dreams,” “City Guys,” “USA High” and “Hang Time” that came along after the birth of the Tnbc Block. Most of his shows were for NBC as part of a long-term partnership.

Carl Kurlander, co-writer of “St. Elmo’s Fire,” shared a tribute to Engel on Facebook, crediting him for getting his first staff TV job on “Saved by the Bell.”

“I was shocked to hear that Peter Engel had passed away,” Kurlander wrote. “He was a rarity in Hollywood — a kind man who treated so many who worked with him as family. We watched his sons Josh and...

Since 1975 nearly a thousand hosts have graced the stage at Studio 8H at Rockefeller Center for “Saturday Night Live.”

Actors, comedians, musicians and even politicians have taken the stage to make America laugh on Saturday night for 50 seasons. Twenty five of these hosts have been inducted into the “Five Timers Club.” The club was first introduced during Tom Hanks’ 1990 monologue, featuring Steve Martin, Elliott Gould and Paul Simon.

During Martin Short’s December 2024 appearance, several Five Timers Club members popped up on the show to welcome him into the club, including Emma Stone, Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig and more, to give him the ceremonial robe.

Alec Baldwin has hosted the show 17 times, the most in the series’ history, with Martin, Hanks, Buck Henry and John Goodman following close behind.

As the show celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, we have rounded up every person who has hosted the sketch show.

Quick LinksMark Wahlberg's Role and the Plot of 'The Substitute'Why Mark Wahlberg Avoided TV for the Movies

Mark Wahlberg is one of the few people who have successfully made the career jump from rapping to acting. The Hollywood A-lister has come a long way from his time as part of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Today, he's appeared in dozens of movies across a 30+ year acting career. He recently headlined the action-thriller flick Flight Risk. However, in that three-decade span, Wahlberg only had one role in a scripted television program. Believe it or not, it was his very first role.

Wahlberg's first credited appearance came with 1993's television film The Substitute. He played Ryan Westerberg, a student who encounters a substitute teacher with a dark side. While obscure today, the role was the launching pad for Wahlberg's eventual leading-man career status. But why has he never made a return to TV?...

For the last several decades, Saturday Night Live has been faced with questions of its future. While so many people claim not to watch or call it unfunny, everyone still talks about it and sketches still go viral. Some feel the show has run its course, the sketches need work, or members of the cast need to go. Nothing ever comes of it because Saturday Night Live is engrained as part of the fabric of late-night television that no one really ever expects to end. But there’s one point in time when Saturday Night Live almost did get canceled, and arguably should have been. The show was hanging by a thread, and instead of a complete cast shake-up saving the show, it led to a year that has become known as the “weird season.”

This was in 1985 during season 11, a bizarre season that the new Peacock docuseries SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night...

A still frame from a promotional video for the Maximum Effort Channel’s “Bedtime Stories with Ryan Reynolds.” (Courtesy image)

Fubo and comedian Ryan Reynolds have given up on the Maximum Effort Channel less than two years after the free, ad-supported streaming television (Fast) network launched, The Desk has learned.

The channel is no longer available on a handful of third party platforms, including Plex, LG Channels, Xumo Play and Amazon’s Freevee, after technology provider Wurl pulled the plug on the network earlier this week. A website that promoted the channel and its availability went offline on Tuesday. On Dish Network’s Fast platform, Sling Freevee, the Maximum Effort Channel continues to be listed, but its programming feed has been replaced with a “technical difficulties” graphic.

Neither Fubo nor Maximum Effort, the Reynolds-backed company that programmed the channel, have released public statements on the closure of the channel.

Irv Wilson, a former programming executive at NBC and producer of several high profile TV movies that starred Jerry Lewis, Martin Sheen, Telly Savalas, Bruce Dern and Morgan Freeman, died December 26 after a short illness. He was 93.

His death was confirmed by his longtime friend, Tom Nunan, who paid tribute to Wilson on Facebook by writing, “Wilson loved life, and anyone who became close to him knew that a good glass of red wine, a little weed, [his wife’s] cooking, and a Giants game came pretty close to heaven for the well-loved, culturally complex maven.”

Born in New York City, Wilson served in the Korean war before returning to the Big Apple to attend NYU via the G.I. Bill. He would go on to spend his career in the entertainment industry, first as a talent agent and producer, then as a TV programming executive for NBC where he oversaw the TV movie department and later,...

Irv Wilson, a former television producer and NBC executive, died on Thursday. He was 93 years old.

Beginning his career in New York City, Wilson was a talent agent before he moved into TV programming. Working largely on TV movies from 1970-1980 — including executive producing “The Missiles of October” — as the VP of the TV movie department, he eventually became NBC’s Senior VP of Day Time and Late Night Programming.

Prior to that, he held the post of VP of the TV Movie department at NBC (’79-’80.) He worked alongside network legends such as Fred Silverman and Brandon Tartikoff. Wilson helped discover future filmmakers such as Ron Howard while supporting gifted playwrights like Stanley Greenberg, ushering in high quality, issue-oriented content to the burgeoning art form.

Wilson eventually returned to producing, with deals at Fries Entertainment and Viacom, where he made films starring Jerry Lewis, Martin Sheen, Telly Savalas, Bruce Dern,...

"Seinfeld" wasn't always a sensation. Over its first few seasons (beginning in 1989), the sitcom about nothing felt like too much to do about nothing in the eyes of NBC executives. Did people really want to watch whole episodes of unpleasant people either bickering around a diner table or getting into deeply embarrassing trouble, while, say, making out during a screening of the Steven Spielberg masterpiece "Schindler's List?"

They did, but they didn't know it initially, which, again, caused series creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David some trouble with the leadership at the network.

It's a little bizarre that there was any consternation at all. The series wasn't a breakout hit, but it was routinely ranking somewhere in the 40s in the Nielsen ratings and garnering enthusiastic reviews from critics. The ensemble finally clicked once Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Elaine was made a regular member of the cast, and the writing was consistently...

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Though there are only three seasons of "Gilligan's Island," the CBS sitcom became hugely popular thanks in part to its frequent showings in syndication. The show debuted in 1964 and ran until '67, but it was shown widely throughout the '70s and '80s, helping establish it as one of TV's most familiar sitcoms.

But it wasn't just the show itself that gave "Gilligan's Island" its cultural recognition. Once the series wrapped up, it lived on in the form of two animated spin-offs: "Gilligan's Planet" and "The New Adventures of Gilligan." Most of the castaways from the S.S. Minnow — named as such for a hilarious reason — also returned in three live-action TV movies: "Rescue From Gilligan's Island" (1978), "The Castaways on Gilligan's Island" (1979), and "The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island" (1981).

In the latter, the original castaway characters returned to the...

Now this is the story all about how Will Smith’s life got flip-turned upside-down…

The origin story of Will Smith the fictionalized sitcom character is world-famous and needs no explanation. After all, he raps the full tale of his transformation from West Philadelphia hoop-shooter to Southern California royalty in the first few minutes of every The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air episode. “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (theme)” is arguably the most iconic opening number of the 1990s, so it’s only fitting that it should play before a show that the late music giant Quincy Jones assembled and produced.

However, the story behind the actual Smith’s ascension from broke rapper to sitcom superstar is even more incredible, poetic and perfectly absurd than the sitcom version of events, and it’s all thanks to an invitation Smith received to a party hosted by the legendary TV and music producer...

Jerry Seinfeld was proud of his bad report card. During a 1997 appearance on 60 Minutes, he showed Steve Kroft a framed copy of the test audience reaction to The Seinfeld Chronicles, the sitcom title that was eventually shortened to Seinfeld. “This is the audience test on the pilot back in 1989,” Seinfeld said. “‘Pilot performance weak.’”

Kroft read another choice assessment: “No segment of the audience was eager to watch the show again.”

“Here’s another great line,” said Seinfeld. “‘Viewers felt that Jerry needed a better backup ensemble.’ Can you imagine a better backup ensemble in the world than those three people?”

TV Guide got hold of the report as well, noting other highlights from the thumbs-down review:

“The more typical sitcom scenes of Jerry and his friends at common day locations were negatively received — as one viewer put it, ‘You can’t get too excited about going to the Laundromat.

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.

If you’ve watched the second season of Netflix anthology series Monster, titled The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, then you must have noticed that Erik Menendez mentions this movie called Billionaire Boys Club, and brings up taking inspiration from it when it comes to killing his parents, Jose and Kitty. The movie gets mentioned in the first episode itself when Erik goes to his psychiatrist, Dr. Oziel, to talk about what he and his brother did. Dr. Oziel gets understandably surprised at someone deciding to kill their parents after watching a movie. Quite naturally, it’s bound to make y’all curious, so I did a little digging, and in this article I am going to share my findings with you.

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens in the “Billionaire Boys Club” Movie?

Before going into that, here’s an interesting piece of trivia for you. There’s a 2018 movie called Billionaire Boys Club,...

Rob Reiner got very rich thanks to Jerry Seinfeld’s titular sitcom — but only because the comedian wasn’t as good as Howie Mandel.

“We did another show called Past Imperfect,” Reiner told Howard Stern in 2016. “Jerry came in to audition for that. We hired Howie Mandel, and the show went on for 13 weeks.”

“My life was going well at that point – regular spots on The Tonight Show, 300 club dates a year, I was doing big concerts, I’d bought an apartment on Central Park West,” Seinfeld told New York Magazine in 1998. “I don’t even know why I was reading for Past Imperfect. I definitely did not want to be in a sitcom.”

Oh really? Because soon after the failed audition, Seinfeld’s manager, George Shapiro, who also happened to be Reiner’s cousin, approached Reiner and his Castle Rock Entertainment about another idea for a sitcom. “He and Larry David,...

“I feel like I’m at the adult table at Thanksgiving when I’m supposed to still be at the kids’ table,” announces Francesca Sloane, moments into THR‘s TV Producer Roundtable. “It’s surreal.”

The Mr. & Mrs. Smith showrunner may have the shortest résumé among her peers gathered at the Fairmont Century Plaza for the live event, but she is by no means out of place. That became crystal clear when the conversation turned to show envy. “I was envious watching Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” says The Crown creator Peter Morgan. “Dealing with repressed British people for so long, I was peering over the fence thinking, ‘Look how much fun they’re having!’ “

That was not the end of the love fest. Ripley writer-director Steven Zaillian picked Issa López’s True Detective: Night Country, and vice versa. “In Mexico, there’s bad envy and good envy,” explains López.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s The X Files is widely regarded as one of the best-ever shows created and aired on Fox. Even today, after around half a decade since its eleventh and final season aired in 2018, the 218-episode-long mystery/thriller drama series doesn’t cease to amuse its viewers with all the incredible storylines the writers and showrunners curated.

The X Files. | Credit: Fox.

But not many know that there was once a time when all of that drama, mystery, and sci-fi thrills almost didn’t happen. This was because the media broadcasting company wasn’t originally looking for such genre projects at the time, and thus, it almost ended up making a disastrous call for this masterpiece series that has been loved by 93% of Google users to date.

Fox Was Originally ‘Reluctant’ to Greenlight The X Files

Back in the 1990s, before The X Files even went into production,...

I love Star Trek. It’s one of the most unique fandoms since it features multiple different properties in the same universe. Don’t get me wrong, I love Star Wars, but something about Star Trek that raises it to another level. There are so many shows that are unique in their own way. You have Star Trek T.O.S, Star Trek The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Star Trek: Picard.

The point is that there is something for everyone. Fans are a little bit less toxic than other fandoms. My theory is that because there are so many shows there is at least one show that everyone can agree is good. So if someone were to, let’s say, hate Prodigy,...

"The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour" is likely not remembered by many people, except for Billy Crystal himself. The variety/talk show ran from January 30 through February 27 in 1982, lasting a grand total of five episodes. Crystal was already a successful comedian and beloved figure in the industry thanks to the popularity of his 1970s stand-up work and his role in the 1977 sitcom "Soap," so he had connections. He was able to secure guest appearances from many of his famous comedian friends, including Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, Robin Williams, and John Candy for the debut episode. Subsequent guests included Morgan Fairchild, the Manhattan Transfer, Nell Carter, Shelley Duvall, Cindy Williams, Al Jarreau, and Smokey Robinson. 

"The Billy Crystal Comedy Hour" fell right in between "Soap" and "Saturday Night Live" on Crystal's professional timeline, and it might be considered something of a dip in his career. The show was canceled after only two episodes aired,...

"Cheers" was the third highest-rated show on television when Shelley Long opted to quit the series at the end of its fifth season and pursue movie stardom. Though the show had long since settled into its ensemble groove, the on-again/off-again Sam Malone and Diane Chambers romance was the primary generator of water-cooler chatter. Moreover, the chemistry between Long and Ted Danson was the stuff of a series showrunner's dream. Their banter was worthy of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. You don't just go out and find another Katharine Hepburn. Could "Cheers," brilliant and popular as it was, survive Long's departure, especially when fans had so much invested in Diane?

This was the conundrum faced by casting director Jeff Greenberg, who'd joined "Cheers" during Long's last season. He knew chasing the next Long was courting disaster, so he looked for an actor who could hold her own with Danson and...

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" isn't quite like any other "Star Trek" show, and when it debuted in 1993, it was quite the departure from both the original series and "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Instead of following intrepid explorers on starships trekking across the galaxy, "Deep Space Nine" followed the stories of the people who lived on board the space station Deep Space Nine (DS9) — civilians, Bajoran militia, and Starfleet officers alike. Showrunner Rick Berman was in charge of taking the "Star Trek" universe in a new direction following the success of "The Next Generation," but he ended up looking to a rather old television series for inspiration.

In an interview with StarTrek.com, Berman explained the inspiration behind "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and revealed that he and writer/producer Michael Piller got their biggest idea from a classic 1950s Western. That's pretty great given the fact that "Star Trek...

Chris Carter's 1993 TV series "The X-Files" is an undeniable staple of sci-fi television. However, it's also incredibly dated. It came out in the early years of the Bill Clinton administration, a few years after the end of the Cold War, right when Gen-x was growing up and America was experiencing something of an identity crisis. Without a war or a Great Depression to unite us, the sociological arguments went, America was culturally adrift. Having no enemies abroad to rally against, Americans began to look inward for enemies, sussing out where our violent impulses went. We found our own government to be suspect, and grew increasingly paranoid that a lot of dark information was being hidden from us. 

In "The X-Files," '90s freeform paranoia manifested -- perhaps curiously -- as shadowy government conspiracies to cover up the existence of aliens, UFOs, and other unexplained paranormal phenomena. Only oddball FBI...

The 1980s were a junky era for film and television. Once the studios and networks figured out what kinds of formulas American audiences were keen on after Vietnam, Watergate, and the election of Ronald Reagan reshaped the country's psyche, they exploited them relentlessly. One particularly reliable genre of sorts was the gung-ho, men-on-a-mission actioner where outnumbered, yet armed-to-the-teeth heroes resourcefully defeated equally well-armed bad guys.

When these projects were made for the big screen, studios piled on the red meat. Scads of folks got shot, stabbed, and blown up, and the directors didn't skimp on the viscera. These were the hardest of the hard R-rated movies of the decade, and they made heaps of money.

At a network level, television was still cinema's less-appreciated little brother in the 1980s. Sitcoms were king, while hour-long dramas tended toward soapiness or murder-of-the-week mysteries. There were very fine shows that worked within these parameters,...

The '80s were a different time; shoulder pads were in, Reaganomics was taking over the country, and in 1984, a hyper-stylish show called "Miami Vice" was about to become all the rage. Before the Florida-set cop series ever premiered on NBC, though, it had already inspired another series, one that seemed to have very little in common with the Michael Mann-produced action show.

That series was "The Golden Girls," the popular and gut-bustingly funny sitcom about women of a certain age that has only become more beloved in the decades since it ended. "The Golden Girls" is remembered for its positive and honest conversations about aging and its characters' penchant for savage, hilarious quips. It also bolstered the fame of its already-famous stars, Bea Arthur ("Maude"), Betty White ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), Rue McClanahan (also "Maude"), and Estelle Getty ("Mask"). Put together around a kitchen table, the four...

Star Trek defied the odds with a successful reboot in The Next Generation, but Deep Space Nine made it a franchise. DS9 was unlike any show before it, and it pushed the possibilities of what a Star Trek series could be. There were problems, but in spite of them, Deep Space Nine is seen as a high-point for Star Trek storytelling.

When franchise creator Gene Roddenberry resurrected his spacefaring series 20 years after the initial pilot debuted, he defied the odds. However, it was Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the third series set in this universe, that made it a "real" franchise. The fourth series in the universe, DS9 didn't just prove The Next Generation wasn't a fluke -- it showed that Star Trek had a future beyond the starship Enterprise.

The show also continued a trend among the fanbase, whereby a new installment was heavily criticized and not appreciated until many years after its debut.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine challenged Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Starfleet by delving deeper into the consequences of Starfleet's actions, while still upholding its moral code. DS9 broke Gene Roddenberry's rule about no interpersonal conflicts between Starfleet officers by featuring a tense scene between Sisko and Picard, but ultimately reached a resolution that aligned with the core principles of Star Trek. Deep Space Nine put Starfleet on the back foot and presented a more complex version of the story by focusing on the Bajoran struggle, proving the merit of Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future in the 1990s.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine specifically set out to challenge Gene Roddenberry's original vision for Starfleet and the Federation in a number of ways that made it more relevant for the 1990s. Gene Roddenberry was aware of the early development of DS9, but passed away in 1991 before anything more tangible was conceptualized.

"Cheers" went off the air on May 20, 1993, with a series finale that was watched by 93 million people. That was about two and a half months before I was born, so I have gone my entire life knowing what a cultural behemoth the show was. However, it took me a good deal of time to actually sit down and watch "Cheers." Growing up, my sitcom of choice was the one that took over the spot vacated by "Cheers" to become NBC's comedy crown jewel, "Seinfeld."

My relationship with the place where everybody knows your name didn't start until five years ago when I moved to a new city where I didn't know anyone. I had no furniture outside of a couch because there was a delay with the movers who helped me move halfway across the country. So, I had my laptop, an upside down cardboard box, a couch, and...

The Emmys have been here before. In 1980, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists went on strike for three months. That year’s Emmy telecast happened to fall right in the middle of it.

Actors boycotted the ceremony, but for some reason, the TV Academy went ahead with the Emmy telecast anyway. Famously, only one out of 52 nominees attended: Powers Boothe, who said when accepting his trophy for playing cult leader Jim Jones: “This is either the most courageous moment of my career or the stupidest.”

Steve Allen and Dick Clark (both of whom donated their hosting fees to the SAG emergency fund) hosted that year’s ceremony after original hosts Michael Landon, Bob Newhart and Lee Remick bowed out due to the strike. Variety called that year’s show a “lackluster affair,” and noted that the TV Academy aimed to fill the...

“Inconvenient Truth” Oscar-winner Davis Guggenheim, like many creatives at the top of their game, always worries about staying there. When he read Michael J. Fox’s 2002 “Lucky Man: A Memoir” three years ago, he knew he wanted to produce a movie about the plucky star. But when he met with the actor, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease at age 29 and is now 61, Guggenheim began to see what he could do with this moving drama.

“I was like, ‘wow,'” said Guggenheim. “Because I’m 59. Well, he’s a few years older than me. My kids are getting out of the house. I feel older, more fragile. I spent a lot of time going ‘poor me, poor me. The glory days of my family are over. My best films are behind me.’ You get in a rut. You convince yourself that life is shit. And then I’m like,...

Far from being just another '90s sitcom, "The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air" not only dealt with serious themes, it helped take hip-hop culture mainstream. Its enduring appeal also led to the recent Peacock remake "Bel-Air" and an HBO reunion, proving it was much more than your average family show.

"The Fresh Prince" also catapulted Will Smith to heights he never reached as part of his hip-hop duo, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. Recent Oscar troubles aside, since starring in the show, Smith has conquered the entertainment industry, becoming one of the biggest leading men in the world and enjoying a successful music career. It seems strange, then, to think of him being completely down and out prior to "The Fresh Prince," but back in the late-'80s that's exactly what happened.

In 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince scored a hit with their single "Parents Just Don't Understand,...

On Nov. 2, 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that she’d secured a $30.5 million settlement from CBS and its former president and CEO Leslie Moonves for misleading the company’s investors about his misconduct, concealing sexual assault allegations against him and related insider trading by another top CBS executive. Her office also released a 37-page report detailing how members of Moonves’ C-suite and others unsuccessfully sought to neutralize the crisis before it knocked off the top boss, tanked the share price and gummed up a then-nascent merger with Viacom. It’s a damning case study in corporate complicity, control and cover-up.

The report centers on a yearlong sequence of events beginning in late 2017. Then-81-year-old Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb, who died in July 2022, filed a confidential police report with the Los Angeles Police Department. Golden-Gottlieb alleged that Moonves had attacked her on multiple occasions in the 1980s, when they were both executives at Lorimar-Telepictures.

I love the title of Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth documentarian Davis Guggenheim’s wonderful new docu on the life and times of Michael J. Fox. It is called Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie. The Sundance website has a colon where you might expect it to be, right after Still, but the press notes leave it out which is how I hope Apple Studios — which has the film for an unspecified future release date and is world premiering it Friday at the Sundance Film Festival — would officially call it. That’s because what Guggenheim, and importantly his editor MIchael Harte, have made is simply that, A Michael J. Fox Movie from start to finish and all that implies.

With the spirit of the kind of 1980s movies that helped make Fox a very big star on both big and small screens, this hybrid uses docu techniques — most notably a talking-head...

There wasn't a hotter author in the early 1990s than Tom Clancy. When the one-time insurance salesman took a crack at writing a Cold War military thriller in 1982, the resulting novel, "The Hunt for Red October," rocketed from niche page-turner to full-blown national bestseller (thanks in part to praise from then President Ronald Reagan). The book's hero, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, quickly became Clancy's James Bond through whom the author explored a shifting balance of global power as the Soviet Union gradually broke apart. By 1996, Clancy had authored seven Ryan adventures, promoting his protagonist nearly every step of the way until he inevitably became President of the United States in "Debt of Honor."

Though the books quickly became hopelessly convoluted and, finally, unreadably nonsensical, the character was immensely franchisable as a big-screen hero. With the box-office success of John McTiernan's "The Hunt for Red October" in 1990, it looked like...

Dick Ebersol is one of the seminal figures in the past 50 years of broadcast television. He helped create “Saturday Night Live.” He hired Brandon Tartikoff, genius programmer and innovator, to revive NBC’s primetime fortunes. As president of NBC Sports, he oversaw the network’s Olympic strategy for many years. “Sunday Night Football” was his idea.

Ebersol recounts the high (and sometimes low) points of his career in television in a new autobiography, “From Saturday Night to Sunday Night: My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears and Touchdowns in TV,” published this week by Simon & Schuster.

While all of the great moments in his career were at NBC, Ebersol, now 75, started as a researcher at ABC Sports in 1967. Legendary ABC Sports chief Roone Arledge, Ebersol tells Variety, “was the most important figure in my life,” and the executive who eventually took on Ebersol as a trusted associate.

It was also...

Warren Littlefield is looking to make more Must-See TV with Disney’s 20th Television and ABC Signature. The network president-turned-producer, whose prolific output in recent years has included “Fargo,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Dopesick,” has sealed a multi-year overall deal with 20th and ABC Signature that will keep him exclusive with those studios through 2026.

Littlefield was most recently in a joint deal with 20th Television and Fox 21. His Littlefield Company has been based at the company since 2016 (prior to Disney’s acquisition of Fox production assets), when he first signed a pact with Fox 21.

“Despite the incredible Covid challenges of the past two years we’ve been fortunate to be able to continue to produce high quality and award winning television content,” Littlefield said in a statement. “I’m grateful to [Disney General Entertainment chairman] Dana Walden for her leadership and belief that we’ve only just begun our journey together. Both [20th Television president] Karey Burke...

NATPE has revealed the winners of its 18th annual Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Awards, which will take place in Los Angeles for the first time, on June 2 at the Beverly Wilshire hotel.

This year’s winners include actress and “The View” host Whoopi Goldberg, star and producer Amy Poehler, retiring talk show personality Maury Povich, writer-director Alex Kurtzman, Warner Bros. Television Group chairman Channing Dungey, producer and former network exec Jeff Sagansky and actor-producer-director William Shatner.

The Tartikoff awards are normally held in January at the NATPE convention in January, but this year’s event was scrapped due to the rising rate of Covid-19 cases at the start of the year. Award recipients are honored for their “extraordinary passion, leadership, independence and vision through their diverse work in being a part of the creation and distribution of content for the world’s traditional and digital marketplaces,” according to NATPE. The awards...

Whoopi Goldberg, William Shatner, Amy Poehler, Alex Kurtzman, Maury Povich, Warner Bros Television Group chairman Channing Dungey and producer and media investor Jeff Sagansky have been selected as the recipients of NATPE’s 2022 Tartikoff Legacy Awards. The awards, in their 18th year, are given to acknowledge a select group of television professionals who have demonstrated the highest degree of excellence in their field.

The honors will be bestowed June 2 at a gala at the Beverly Wilshire, the first year of the awards ceremony moving from the organization’s NATPE Miami Marketplace and Conference. It is now part of the NATPE Returns series of events taking place this year in New York, L.A. and Budapest.

One of these events, NATPE Hollywood, is taking place the day before the gala at W Hollywood, with the Hungary event to run June 27-30.

“Bringing the Brandon Tartikoff Legacy Award to Los Angeles for...

Stardate: 1991. Brandon Tartikoff, the newly-minted head of Paramount Pictures, was eager to capitalize on the runaway success of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." And so, producers Rick Berman and Michael Piller were tasked with developing a sister series with hardly any directives. Though Piller and Berman were "The Next Generation" veterans with a hardline commitment to "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry's vision for the franchise, it was Roddenberry's untimely passing that ultimately opened new doors for the Trek universe.

The result of Berman and Piller's efforts was "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," a seminal work of 20th century sci-fi television. In terms...

The post 13 Reasons Why Deep Space Nine Is the Best Star Trek Show appeared first on /Film.

David Letterman celebrates his 40th anniversary as a late night talk show host today. His first episode of “Late Night with David Letterman” aired on February 1, 1982, following “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” for the next decade (plus an 11th year after Jay Leno‘s show). Letterman returns to his former NBC home tonight to visit “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”

He departed NBC in 1993 for a 22-year run as host of “Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS. His combined 33+ years on both NBC and CBS make him the longest-running late night talk show host in American history.

That remarkable length of service and his influence on younger hosts like Conan O’Brien, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers and others should make him a lock for induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. But they’ve never asked him to join. Several of his...

Carl Kurlander, who went from being director Joel Schumacher’s assistant to writing St. Elmo’s fire with him, wrote a look back on that film for Deadline as well as a tribute when the director passed away., Kurlander today shares memories about Louie Anderson, the comic and actor who died last Friday in Las Vegas at age 68. Kurlander co-authored The F Word: How to Survive Your Family with Louie Anderson and was a consultant on his The Louie Show on CBS. His other credits include St Elmo’s Fire, he has been a senior lecturer at the U of Pittsburgh and producer of Chasing Covid and other titles. Here he discusses the empathy Anderson showed to most everyone around him, and many career breaks he provided, actions informed by the slights and hardships he faced in his own life.

Louie Anderson is being mourned by millions. He’s a widely beloved figure.