Month: December 2020

First the bad news: The reboot of DuckTales was cancelled at the start of December. But its legacy lives on, not only in its-much loved episodes but also in an old interview with one of its voice stars, Danny Pudi, that went viral on Tuesday. Back in February, in much happier times, the Community alum appeared on Larry King Now, the longtime CNN host’s current chat show. But it took almost a year for one of its best bits to enrapture social media.

It started when a TikTok user posted a video, which began with the prompt, “What is your favorite celebrity interview moment?” It’s hard to nail one down, especially if you’re an avid watcher of old Johnny Carson episodes on Pluto.

But “@opposumfanpage” had a good one. In the brief clip, Pudi, who voiced Huey on the DuckTales revival, is grilled by King about which luxury he “can’t live without.” Pudi’s answers were too modest for King’s tastes: He likes “really good coffee.” And socks — comfortable socks, he’s right, are great. But King wasn’t having it, demanding he go far more upscale than that. Even more flummoxed than his host, Pudi asked for an example. King mentioned private planes. Pudi furrowed his brow, and responded with an instant classic retort: “Larry, I’m on DuckTales.”

Or maybe it wasn’t exactly an “instant classic.” Again, this interview aired so long ago the pandemic hadn’t really hit the United States in earnest. But sometimes it takes a while for great things to earn the appreciation they deserve. And so, a week-and-a-half before one of the most consistently and creatively crappy years in recorded history, Pudi’s response belatedly took off.

And so a catchphrase — on the level of “Sir, this is an Arby’s/Wendy’s” — was born.

And so were memes.

And tattoos.

Some compared it to other catchphrases.

And some wondered if this line from a nearly year-old interview is the thing that gets the new DuckTales un-cancelled.

At the same time, you know who deserves to be private plane-rich, certainly more than the greedy billionaires who’ve been raking in the dough during the pandemic while untold lives have been destroyed?

The Los Angeles Clippers will try to bounce back after a disappointing 2020-21 campaign. While the team looked really, really good at times, L.A. blew a 3-1 series lead to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Semifinals, leading to a head coaching change and some tinkering with the team’s roster heading into this year.

The good news for the Clippers is that they should be a really, really good team. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are still around, Tyronn Lue is a championship-winning coach, and there is enough talent on the roster that they should make a legitimate run for a championship. And if that doesn’t happen, at least they were able to get a PlayStation 5 before most of us did.

According to a picture of Nic Batum’s locker, Clippers players got hooked up with Sony’s next generation console and a new pair of headphones prior to the start of the season.

Now, the best guess is that Paul George — who has collaborated with Sony in the past and had a special PlayStation colorway on the PG 2.5s — decided to hook everyone up. All eyes now turn to former Microsoft executive and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer on whether he’s going to try and one-up this by giving the players personalized Xbox Series Xes.

After spending more than a year at Chicago’s downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center, R. Kelly has received a date for his trial, where he faces child pornography and obstruction of justice charges. According to the Chicago Sun Times, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber said the singer’s trial would begin on September 13, 2021. However, he stressed that the date is “not set in stone” given the unpredictable nature of the coronavirus pandemic and how it could affect court proceedings set to occur before Kelly’s.

Kelly was arrested on child pornography and obstruction of justice charges back in July 2019 and has stayed at the Chicago correction center ever since. He attempted multiple times to be freed from the correction center as he awaits trial, but a number of judges turned down his requests. Kelly is accused of avoiding a prosecution during his 2008 Cook County trial with threats, gifts, and six-figure payoffs.

The Chicago trial is not the only one Kelly will have to prepare for in 2021. He also has an April 7 date for racketeering charges in Brooklyn. U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly, who will oversee the trial, approved a motion for it to be held in front of an anonymous jury. “Empaneling an anonymous jury is appropriate given the seriousness of the charges, the defendant’s history of obstructing the judicial process, the potential for juror intimidation and the intensity of media attention given to this case,” Donnelly said.

(via the Chicago Sun Times)

Vaccines for COVID-19 may have started hitting America this week, but there’s still a bumpy road ahead. Cases around the world continue to explode, and they’ll almost certainly get worse over the coming holidays. So what we need now is jokes. We need gallows humor. And we got it when we learned the scary news that the virus had finally made its way to Antarctica, meaning it’s now on every continent on the planet.

Previously the southern land was the only respite from the coronavirus pandemic — until 36 cases were suddenly reported at a Chilean research base. According to The Guardian, those infected were quickly escorted back to their native country, where they immediately went into isolation. It’s a reminder that nowhere is safe from COVID, not even remote research bases on the bottom of the planet, where conditions are not fit for man nor beast — nor, it was assumed, highly contagious viruses that have been spreading in congested cities and in places where masks and social distancing have been ignored.

But in these stressful times, it was also a time for dumb jokes. And a lot of people had the same one: An easily spreadable and fatal disease running amok amongst a tight-knit group of researchers in the Antarctic, causing widespread mistrust? That’s the plot of The Thing, John Carpenter’s 1982 remake of the ‘50s sci-fi/horror classic The Thing from Another World (which actually took place way up north, in the Arctic). And a lot of people immediately thought that even COVID is no match for Kurt Russell’s MacReady.

Or maybe this one has a happy ending.

(Via ComicBook.com)

The Brooklyn Nets and the Golden State Warriors took center stage in the first matchup of the 2020-21 NBA regular season on Tuesday evening. While there was significant anticipation on both sides, it was the Nets that exploded out of the gate, rewarding believers in their upside with a dynamic and explosive performance that showcased their arsenal in the first quarter.

The Warriors actually scored first but, in fitting fashion for a team built around two superstars, Brooklyn opened with jumpers from Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant.

Durant’s matchup against a former team was one of the top selling points of this particular contest and, in short order, the former MVP picked up where he left off in the preseason and looked like his old self after a year off.

The Nets used an early 13-3 run to take a 23-9 lead and, a few minutes later, back-to-back three-pointers from Caris LeVert and Irving gave Brooklyn a 36-17 advantage.

To be fair to the Warriors, there was one (very) impressive highlight for Golden State, as Kelly Oubre Jr. threw down a memorable dunk.

When the dust settled after 12 minutes, Irving (17 points) and Durant (10 points) actually outscored the entire Warriors roster (25 points), with the Nets leading by 15 points. Brooklyn shot 58 percent from the floor, converted 7-of-12 from three-point distance (including two long-range connections from Joe Harris), and held the Warriors to just 9-of-27 shooting in the opening period.

Obviously, the Nets won’t continue this blistering pace all the way through this matchup, much less the season, but Brooklyn certainly made quite a first impression on Tuesday. If nothing else, all signs point to the Nets being one of the most explosive offensive teams in the NBA and, with the star power and supporting cast they bring to the table, the team’s upside is quite lofty.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, Migos had planned to drop their third album, Culture III, at the start of 2020. However, that day came and went, as did the following months, and still there was no sign of Culture III. But now, almost a year after its initial planned release, we’re learning that the wait won’t last much longer.

Quavo, one third of the rap trio, joined The ETCs podcast, co-hosted by Kevin Durant and former Uproxx writer Eddie Gonzalez, with an update. “We done with the album, we just waiting on 2021, man so everything can crack up,” he said. “We want the commotion, we want to move, we want to be outside. We want to drop it and go on tour. We want to have an album listening [party] and have people in that thang and really hearing the album.”

Quavo’s reason for waiting until the pandemic is over? He wants people to not listen to it while cooped inside. “I just want to be with the people,” he said. “I want to touch the people and that’s what we gon’ do at the top of the year.”

Earlier this year, Offset told GQ that he considered naming the album something else. “Ever since ‘Bad and Boujee’ went No. 1 and then we dropped Culture and Culture II, I’ve heard the word ‘culture’ so much,” he said. “As artists you challenge yourself—you have to keep moving forward. So I’ve been thinking of a plan to make something as powerful or more powerful [than Culture].” Despite this, it appears he’s sticking with the original title.

You can listen to the full episode of The ETCs with Quavo here.

Tom Brady has aged about as well as any quarterback we’ve ever seen, and while he isn’t as consistent in Tampa as he was in his prime in New England, he still has the Bucs on a playoff trajectory with the knowledge that, once in the playoffs, he is as good as there’s ever been.

There are plenty of ways people measure the GOAT debate, but for most everyone Brady is extremely high on their list, in part due to what he did to other top contenders during his time with the Patriots. The Indianapolis Colts are among the teams that Brady’s Pats kept from getting to the Super Bowl more than twice in the Peyton Manning era, as they beat Indy twice in the postseason with Peyton and twice later with Andrew Luck.

So, when former Colts coach Tony Dungy was asked what quarterbacks he felt were the toughest to coach against, it came as a rather large surprise that Brady wasn’t atop the list — or even in the top 5.

That clip made its way across Tom Brady’s desk and the future Hall of Famer had a pretty tremendous response, simply posting a picture of one of the Colts’ “AFC Finalist” banners.

That year they lost to Brady and the Pats, and while Dungy wasn’t the coach then it’s still a pretty hilarious clapback because, well, Brady sent Dungy home from a conference championship game (and a divisional round) in back-to-back years.

In a holiday season where we can’t gather the way we normally would, pretty much any family-oriented Christmas commercial is bound to evoke some emotion. But a German ad company has succeeded in taking it to another level.

People are calling it the “world’s best Christmas ad” and it has gone incredibly viral with more than 13 million views on YouTube alone—a bit of a surprise for a company few people outside of Northern Europe have ever heard of. But when you start with a mystery and lead viewers to a sweet conclusion that would make even the Grinchiest of hearts grow a few sizes, it’s hard not to gain a wide audience.

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According to TODAY, the German ad agency Jung von Matt created the 2-minute spot for Dutch pharma company DocMorris. The storyline itself doesn’t really have anything to do with pharmaceuticals, but that’s the beauty of it.

The ad opens with a scene of an elderly gentlemen looking at photos on his wall, then noticing someone hauling a Christmas tree. He appears to have an epiphany, then goes to pull a kettle bell out of his dusty garage. He can barely lift the kettle bell at first, but as the season changes from fall to winter, we see him get up each morning and engage in a newfound fitness routine. He seems fiercely determined as he lifts the heavy weight a bit higher each time before dropping it. He keeps putting a framed picture in front of him when he does his routine, giving viewers a clue that he’s doing all of this for someone, though we don’t know who.

Neighbors notice him grunting through his lifts and seem a bit concerned. Someone calls his daughter, who shows up, says the only word spoken throughout the commercial—”Papa?”— then turns around and leaves after seeing what he was doing.

Finally, we see the old man all dressed up and arriving at the same daughter’s house for Christmas…and get an answer to the question of what he’s been working up to.

DocMorris Weihnachtsfilm #Herzensangelegenheit

www.youtube.com

Aw dang, right? All of that to build a Christmas memory with his granddaughter—one she’ll probably remember long after he’s gone.

If you’re wondering what the words say at the end, they translate to “So that you can take care of what really matters in life” and “Discover your health.” Those phrases may have seemed cliche a year ago, but with the whole world reeling from a global pandemic—one that is particularly lethal to our elders—they are a good reminder that health enables us to fully engage in life. And now that our health is collectively intertwined, it’s also a good reminder of who and what we are protecting by practicing public health measures and working toward ending the pandemic.

Ads like this that resonate around the globe are the best, as they clearly touch on universal emotions and experiences. Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, the significance of creating a meaningful moment between multiple generations in a family is something we all can appreciate. And since millions of families will be missing out on such moments this year—with the hope that missing out on them now will ensure more of them in the future—seeing this story play out is just incredibly moving.

Danke schön, Jung von Matt.

By almost any measure, 2020 was a terrible year. A global pandemic. Economic downturn.Racial injustice. In a year like this, it’s easy to lose sight of the good. Because despite all the challenges and heartache this year, there was still good to be found. I count myself lucky to have had a front row seat to one of the year’s best good news stories: the massive outpouring of solidarity and support for the global COVID-19 response being led by the World Health Organization (WHO). People around the world stepped up to help people they’ve never met, in places they’ve never been — in a big way.

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More than 650,000 people from just about every country in the world — together with hundreds of companies and philanthropies — raised more than $238 million to support WHO’s pandemic response. To put that in perspective, that is the second largest source of financial resources for WHO’s COVID-19 response, behind only the government of Germany. The funds were raised through the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO, which the UN Foundation helped launch in March to offer individuals, companies, and private organizations away to directly support the WHO-led response. We at the UN Foundation have been completely blown away by the breadth of supporters and the depth of their generosity.

A woman in Ireland, Karen Forde, launched a squats challenge to drive donations to the Fund.S he did about 2,000 squats herself — which is downright impressive — and personally matched donations up to €1,000. Joshua “DiMez” DiMezza, a cancer survivor and devoted video gamer, got the online gaming community involved. By live-streaming his games over Facebook Gaming, he raised tens of thousands of dollars from his followers. Even celebrities — from Matthew Perry, to Post Malone, to Queen and Adam Lambert — used their platforms to garner support for the Fund. And in April, the global One World: Together at Home broadcast raised millions, with Lady Gaga, Stevie Wonder, and the Rolling Stones among the musicians who performed. Jimmy Fallon and Lady Gaga even Face-timed Apple CEO TimCook live on-air to ask the company to donate — and it did. But Apple wasn’t the only company that stepped up — far from it. Facebook and Google offered matching donations and companies as diverse as TikTok, Adidas, GSK, and FIFA all contributed.

People around the world gave what they could despite the economic uncertainty. The average individual donation was about $60, and comments left by donors on the Facebook fundraiser show what solidarity looks like. People left heartwarming messages in multiple languages, thanking frontline workers and writing, “we are in this together” and “let’s help each other and save lives.” Everyone who donated made a difference, because every dollar counted. Solidarity drove this Fund. And quickly getting donated dollars to WHO and partners like theWorld Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency, and UNICEF mean that solidarity has delivered help to those most in need.And I do mean that literally. In the critical early days of the pandemic, WHO and the WorldFood Programme teamed up to ship millions of items of essential supplies like personal protective equipment (PPE) and diagnostic kits to some of the hardest hit areas. Carried by cargo planes, these became known as “Solidarity Flights” — the first of which delivered enough supplies to help frontline workers care for over 30,000 patients across Africa. By late spring, thanks to the Fund’s support, they were able to rebuild a sophisticated global supply chain effort that has since distributed hundreds of millions of units of PPE and other supplies to 170 countries.And in Lebanon, a Syrian refugee by the name of Midia Said Sido learned how to make soap in her kitchen at home. Through a training course offered by the UN Refugee Agency and made possible with support from the Fund, Sido has been making soap for her family and neighbors –helping her community stay healthy and slow the virus’ spread. In a refugee camp in Kenya, a pregnant woman named Eliana was able to continue receiving prenatal care throughout the pandemic thanks to the UN Refugee Agency. They were able to keep the local hospital open and ensure maternal health services continued uninterrupted with Fund support. In October, Eliana gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Christena. There are countless more stories like Sido and Eliana’s, countless more people who have received life-saving assistance thanks to the kindness and profound generosity of donors from190 different countries who have chipped in.The COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund represents humanity at its very best. And it’s a powerful reminder that even in the darkest of times, we can count on solidarity to see us through.

Kate Dodson is Vice President for Global Health at the UN Foundation.

Mike Pence has mostly kept quiet since Joe Biden’s win nearly two months back, clearly attempting to distance himself from his imploding former running mate while trying not to earn his ire. (The latter, some claim, hasn’t entirely worked.) But if he’s not quite a Trumpist, he’s still a Republican — a member of a party that tends to stick up for the rich while demonizing the poor. Sometimes Republican lawmakers say the quiet part loud. That’s what Pence did on Tuesday, when he tried to tarnish Democrats but only wound up making their policies seem humane.

The outgoing vice president was speaking at a rally in Florida for Turing Point USA, the campus conservative organization run by twentysomething — and recent object of derision for Geraldo Rivera — Charlie Kirk. During Pence’s speech, he tried to tear down Democrats, saying they “want to make rich people poorer, and poor people more comfortable.”

But to many, it wasn’t the sick burn Pence seemed to think. In fact, many found themselves agreeing with him, perhaps for the very first time.

If anything, some thought, Pence didn’t go far enough.

Some pointed out that many Democrats, sadly, do not believe in helping the poor more than the rich.

Some pointed out the obvious: that thinking that privileging the rich over the poor was bad is, to put it mildly, weird.

And Scrooge-ian.

And, perhaps most importantly, completely against the tenets of Pence’s faith, which he professes to hold dear.

In other news, Pence may not be going full Giuliani in trying to overturn the election, but he is suggesting that maybe there’s a chance.

But the reality is the sitting vice president will soon, like too much of the country under his watch, be out of a job.