Candace Parker has been in Nneka Ogwumike’s shoes before. The two-time MVP and champion was at the center of one of the most controversial Olympic team cuts ever in 2016, and hasn’t participated in any Team USA event since. Five years later, it’s her former teammate, Ogwumike, who was surprisingly not included on the roster heading to Tokyo.
“I know there’s a lot of deserving women, but how many times are we going to say it’s unfair, right?” Parker said after the Chicago Sky’s win on Tuesday. “How many times are we going to say that it’s not politics? I think we all know that.”
Ogwumike, currently in her 10th season with the Los Angeles Sparks, won MVP for Team USA in the 2020 FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournament. She was also the only one of eight players invited to Team USA’s college tour against top-10 programs in 2019 to not make the Olympic roster with the exception of Elena Delle Donne, who is not expected to recover from a back injury in time to play.
Connecticut Sun head coach Curt Miller, who is part of the USA Basketball selection committee, was asked about Ogwumike’s omission on Tuesday and deferred to national team director Carol Callan, according to The Hartford Courtant‘s Alexa Philippou.
“I hit Nneka,” Parker added. “I was like ‘Listen, it sucks. It’s unfair. All that. Blah, blah blah. You’re one of the greats. You’re the only MVP not to make the Olympic team.’ Which is bullsh*t. But that’s what it is, right? That’s why I’m commentating in Tokyo.”
“Of course I’ve reached out to Nneka,” Parker said. “I think that there’s a number of women that are deserving. That’s not taking away from anyone on the team. Shoutout to Chelsea Gray for being the point guard. I was so excited that they didn’t mess that up, and put her on the team because she’s one of the best guards in the entire world. There’s a number of players that are deserving. I mean, when you’re the United States, you could field a first, second and third team and probably win gold, silver, and bronze. At the same time, I know there’s a lot of deserving women, but how many times are we going to say it’s unfair, right? How many times are we going to say that it’s not politics? I think we all know that. I hit Nneka, I was like ‘Listen, it sucks. It’s unfair. All that. Blah, blah, blah. You’re one of the greats. You’re the only MVP not to make the Olympic team.’ Which is bullsh*t. But that’s what it is, right? That’s why I’m commentating in Tokyo.”
Young Nudy runs a funhouse of horror in his eerie ‘Dr Ev4l’ video which dropped today supporting his album of the same name. The Atlanta rapper performs his rapid-fire verses in a darkened warehouse featuring demonic-looking props and a creepy fortune teller machine which gives him a ticket with one directive, “Kill Or Be Killed.”
The theme is appropriate for the album, which is inspired by Nudy’s love of horror films — something he shares with his cousin 21 Savage, who appears on the album single “Child’s Play.” The “kill or be killed” directive can also be seen as a nod to the Saw series, which Savage helped soundtrack as executive producer of the companion album for Spiral: From The Book Of Saw, which dropped the same haunting night as Dr Ev4l. Nudy also appeared on the project on the song “You Ain’t Hard.”
The duo’s shared love for horror havoc recently jumped into the real world when their collaboration “EA” soundtracked a viral video in which a group of partying college students stomped their way right through the floor of an Airbnb. The collapse caused $15,000 of damage, which they started a GoFundMe to raise in order to pay back the owner.
Very few 12-year-olds get the chance to make history, but a pair of skateboarding phenoms may be headed to Tokyo this summer to do just that as two of the youngest-ever summer Olympians.
Kokona Hiraki and Sky Brown aren’t you’re typical skateboarders, nor are they your typical preteens. You don’t get to the Olympics at 12 by being ordinary. Both girls have qualified to compete in the first-ever Olympic skateboarding event, with Hiraki skating for Japan and Brown representing Great Britain. Both girls compete in the park skateboarding event, which involves doing tricks on skate park-style ramps and bowls. Street skateboarding, which involves tricks done on stairs, handrails, benches, walls and slopes, will also be making its debut as an Olympic sport.
Brown currently ranks as the third-best female park skateboarding competitor in the world at age 12 (though she’ll be 13 by the time she reaches Tokyo). Hiraki ranks sixth in the world. At age 12.
Did I mention they are 12 years old? TWELVE. Unreal.
Hiraki will compete as the youngest Olympian ever from Japan. Five of the top ten ranking female park skaters, including the top two, are Japanese, so competition from the country is fierce. But Hiraki told The Japan Times she didn’t let nerves get the better of her at the qualifier.
“I was enjoying it just as usual,” she said. “I wasn’t as nervous as usual.”
Sky Brown would have been Britain’s youngest ever Olympian if the Olympics hadn’t been postponed by a year, but that year turned out to be a good thing for her chances to compete anyway. In June of 2020, Brown suffered horrifying injuries during a training fall in which she fractured her skull and broke her wrist and hand. The fact that she was able to recover, continue training, and then take home second place in the Olympic qualifier is truly something.
Brown doesn’t seem too fazed by any of her skating success or the pressures many athletes feel trying to get to the Olympics. “I’m always wonderfully surprised to see where it takes me,” she told ESPN. “So, I’m not too stressed about the Olympics. I just want to see what happens and enjoy the journey.”
Gracious, these babies and their cool-as-a-cucumber confidence.
Last year, skateboarding legend Tony Hawk told ESPN that Brown is “a unicorn” in the world of skating.
“She has incredible potential,” he said. “She could definitely be one of the best female skaters ever, if not one of the best, well-rounded skaters ever, regardless of gender. She has such confidence, such force, even at such a young age. The way she’s able to learn new tricks and the way she absorbs direction, it’s so rare.”
Whether they end up medaling or not, to qualify for the Olympics at 12 is extraordinary and their futures in the sport are incredibly bright. Go, girls, go.
In a world where the American justice system relies on artificial intelligence…
That’s the basic pitch for Class of ’09, a new limited suspense drama series starring Kate Mara (A Teacher, Pose) and Brian Tyree Henry (Atlanta, The Eternals) that will air exclusively on FX on Hulu. The official synopsis, according to a press release from FX, is as follows:
In Class of ’09, a group of FBI agents who graduated from Quantico in 2009 are reunited following the death of a mutual friend. Spanning three decades and told across three interweaving timelines, the series examines the nature of justice, humanity and the choices we make that ultimately define our lives and our legacy.
Henry and Mara will play FBI agents Tayo Miller and Amy Poet, respectively. Miller, according to FX, is “one of the most brilliant and unorthodox agents ever to join the Bureau, a man who seeks not merely to make his mark on the institution but to remake it entirely” while Mara’s Poet is “a woman who never imagined joining the world of law enforcement and finds herself at the center of its most pivotal moment of transformation.”
The series, which has received an eight-episode order, boasts an impressive array of talent—both in front of and behind the camera—who have worked on other FX series. Tom Rob Smith, who wrote and executive produced The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, which earned 20 Emmy Award nominations, will fill the same roles on Class of ’09. Meanwhile, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson will also serve as executive producers—the same role they’ve filled on American Crime Story and Pose.
In addition to busy film careers, both Mara and Henry are familiar faces on FX programs. In addition to the recent FX on Hulu hit A Teacher, Mara’s relationship with FX goes all the way back to Nip/Tuck; she has also appeared in Pose and American Horror Story. Henry, meanwhile, earned an Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy nomination in 2018 for his role as Alfred “Paper Boi” Miles in FX’s Atlanta, which is getting ready to launch its third season.
Amid an ongoing battle with business executive Scooter Braun to get the rights her masters back, news arrived that Taylor Swift’s entire music catalog had been sold for $300 million last November. Swift was publicly upset about Braun effectively owning her work, claiming that she faced “incessant, manipulative bullying” at his hands for years. But now Braun is saying that Swift’s reaction is “not based on anything factual.”
When the news of the masters controversy broke, Swift said she was denied the opportunity to buy back her masters without a clause that would keep her tied to her old label. But now, Braun discussed his side of the story in a lengthy interview with Variety. The executive claims he approached Swift and offered to sell her catalog back to her, but her team “refused” the deal:
“I regret and it makes me sad that Taylor had that reaction to the deal. […] All of what happened has been very confusing and not based on anything factual. I don’t know what story she was told. I asked for her to sit down with me several times, but she refused. I offered to sell her the catalog back and went under NDA, but her team refused. It all seems very unfortunate. Open communication is important and can lead to understanding. She and I only met briefly three or four times in the past, and all our interactions were really friendly and kind. I find her to be an incredibly talented artist and wish her nothing but the best.”
Braun continued that he disagrees with being labeled a “bully” by Swift, who claimed both Braun and Big Machine Records’ Scott Borchetta were “controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them.” “The thing that struck me the worst is the word ‘bully,’” Braun said. “I’m firmly against anyone ever being bullied. I always try to lead with appreciation and understanding. The one thing I’m proudest of in that moment was that my artists and team stood by me. They know my character and my truth. That meant a lot to me. In the long run, I’m happy for my life’s work to be the legacy I leave behind.”
Swift is currently undergoing a massive campaign to re-record each of the six albums owned by Big Machine Records. So far, she’s released “Taylor’s version” of her Fearless album and has announced plans to re-release her Red album next.
The wheels keep turning in the surreal visual for Chattanooga rapper Isaiah Rashad‘s latest The House Is Burning single, “Headshots (4r Da Locals).” Opening with Isaiah participating in a support group called Agony Anonymous, the video — which is directed by Jack Begert and Mez Heirs — uses moody lighting and symbolic imagery to depict the cycles of depression and anxiety in which the rapper feels trapped. It’s also a not-so-subtle reference to his own recent stay at a rehab clinic earlier this year, which TDE’s Top Dawg got him into when he couldn’t finish the album.
Isaiah revealed the depths of his depression and struggle with substance abuse in a recent cover story for The Fader, telling Jeff Weiss about the time he wrecked Top Dawg’s car and had to get it fixed without his label boss knowing and how he spent most of his rap money buying “really expensive sandwiches.” A stay at Dana Point Rehab got him back on track, leading to him finishing The House Is Burning and restarting the hype train with his Duke Deuce-featuring single “Lay Wit Ya.” He was apparently so productive he wound up with more songs than he wanted, sharing “200/Warning” on social media, telling fans it didn’t make the cut. The album is set to release sometime soon.
Watch the “Headshots” video above.
Isaiah Rashad is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
While “Lamentis,” the third episode of Loki, had the shortest runtime yet, it was definitely not short on critical reveals. In the final moments of the episode that forced Tom Hiddleston’s Loki variant and Sophia Di Martino’s Sylvie (a maybe, maybe-not Loki variant herself) to work together to escape a doomed planet, Sylvie shares some very information about the Time Variance Authority that changes everything that Loki and the audience knew about the mysterious, all-powerful organization.
According to Sylvie, the employees of the TVA are also variants. This information flies in the face of what Loki was told during his orientation with Miss Minutes in Episode 2. The cartoon clock told him that all of the employees were created by the Time Keepers to protect the Sacred Timeline, but that is apparently not the case. As with all things Marvel, the “TVA employees secretly being variants theory” was bouncing around Reddit after last week’s episode thanks to Owen Wilson’s Agent Mobius sharing his seemingly random obsession with jet skis.
While Mobius love of the aquatic machine’s “beautiful union of form and function” sparked a tsunami of memes, it also had Marvel fans theorizing that Mobius was not willed into existence by the Time Keepers, but instead, was plucked from a timeline in the ’90s sometime near the birth of the jet ski. With Sylvie “confirming” that the TVA employees are variants (don’t forget she’s still considered a Loki variant, which includes his gift for lying), social media erupted with Mobius jet ski theories, and man, do people really want to see Owen Wilson crushing waves before Loki comes to an end.
#LOKI SPOILERS episode 3. . . . . . . . Sylvie confirming that all TVA employees were just normal people on Earth before they became variants.
Loki Spoiler: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What if it turns out that Mobuis is the Variant that didn’t buy the jet ski when he should have, that’s why he loves them so much/ or skipped work to go jet skiing #loki#Mobius#TVA#marvel
If you’re still associating Rebecca Black with 2011’s “Friday” single, it’s time for a new lesson. Sure, it was an infamous viral moment in pop culture. But the new era of the singer’s career signals a need to move on. She commemorated the 10th anniversary of “Friday” in February with an explosive remix featuring Dorian Electra, Big Freedia, and 3OH!3, doubling as the kickoff to an overall artist reinvention. And with the release of her new project Rebecca Black Was Here, she reclaimed her own narrative.
Released on June 16, the six-track follow-up to 2017’s RE / BL is a thrilling mix of sharp-edged hyperpop, glossy vintage-inspired melodies, and vulnerable lyrics detailing the heartache and self-reflection that comes with a fresh breakup. There’s a heightened self-assurance and confidence in Black’s tone, which is attributed to taking all creative reigns of her sound as well as stepping into her queer identity, which she revealed last April.
“Gosh, it’s been a really intense year and a half for all of us,” Black tells Uproxx over Zoom in her Los Angeles home. “I feel now, especially in hindsight, just really fortunate to have been able to take the time to really focus on what was important for me to prioritize in my life and in my world. Coming out definitely had a lot to do with the direction that my project has taken. I feel really good and proud of the progress that I’ve made.”
“I worked with such an incredible group of people who only encouraged that,” the 24-year-old continues. “They never shut my ideas down in a harsh way or got on me for anything that was too intense. They just really helped me grow and learn and listen and allowed me to take control in a lot of healthy ways. That I think hopefully lent to the project in the best way.”
That growth will soon be showcased on stage, as Black will embark on her first headlining tour beginning January 2022 alongside supporting act Alice Longyu Gao. Below, Uproxx catches up with Black about her love for pop experimentation and why it’s time for people to let go of past perceptions of her.
When we first spoke a few years ago, there were glimpses of you yearning for control. With this project, it sounds like you’ve nailed it.
Thank you. I mean, as a younger female in this industry, it’s very easy to have that control taken away from you. And in my case, I think being so young and having such an intense reaction to “Friday” to deal with as a kid really hindered that ability to take control of my own life and the things that I believed in. I just tried to never give up on that. And I’ve fallen so many times, so ungracefully. Now I just have a group of people who again, allow me to still move as I want to and follow whatever choices I want to make, especially creatively. I finally feel like that’s mine. I don’t feel like it’s anybody else’s anymore, which I struggled with for a long time.
I remember asking about your sound, and you said you’re not afraid to get moody or weird. With previous songs like “Do You?” and “Sweetheart”, there’s this trajectory where we’re like, “Okay, she’s slowly getting more experimental.” Then BAM, the weirdness has jumped all the way out on this project.
I definitely hear you. And listening back to some of the songs that I released a few years ago, I still have a lot of love for them. They were just a different part of my process. I think it was probably two and a half years ago that I really started to understand what I wanted to do. It was just learning how to express that and find people to bring the best parts out and really encouraged that. Even though the hyperpop world is as big as it is and we live in a time where niche is it, just go for it because that is what people want.
There’s so much in this overly saturated market of music and all people want is something that will spark some new thing for them or feel unique. But still, there are a lot of people that are afraid of that. I think a big part of finding my own sound that I have now was learning to not listen to some of the voices, even though you think you should trust them. You have to take a chance on yourself and on what you make. And I definitely did that with a lot of the songs on this project. One of the biggest silver linings of this last year was I got to shut out the peanut gallery in terms of making music. That allowed for just a lot more creativity. And I finally found joy in what I do in a new way.
And you could see that too, like with the “Personal” video. You go from being a B-movie housewife to going full Patrick Bateman on us. I know you love the ‘80s, so did you source from that?
I think it’s just an amalgamation of the things that I’ve grown up with and what I’ve always felt drawn towards. I am a huge — there’s gotta be a term for it — somebody who’s just obsessed with the ‘80s. That definitely comes through in “Girlfriend” and some of the other tracks of this project. I really had so much fun exploring some darker concepts. And I’m really into playing, especially in this era, with the perception of what people might have of what I’m going to do next. It’s fun to kind of break the expectation and go with whatever feels really exciting.
I also have to credit Weston Allen, who has been directing some of these videos for me. He takes my idea and says, “How do we make this as insane as it can be? Don’t think of a budget limit or anything like that. We’ll deal with that.” As an independent artist, I’m very familiar with the budget. [Laughs] But at the same time, I’m really milking every opportunity when we have to make anything a moment. I think I’ve just stopped underestimating what could be done with people who really care about and believe in a project.
What’s so interesting about this project is that each song has its own vision. There’s “NGL”, which gives me this PC Music vibe. It’s super off-the-wall, which had to be fun recording.
It was so fun, oh my gosh. I wrote it with Marshall Vore, who is a part of Phoebe Bridgers’ [2020 Punisher album], which is probably not what you’d expect and one of my favorite things about it. [Laughs] When Marshall and I first worked together, I was so almost confused as to why. I mean, I’m a huge fan of his work, but I just didn’t know how we were going to come together. He’s a huge fan of this glitch core music movement and is in contact with so many incredible young producers and artists and gives them a platform. So bringing in [producer] Glitch Gum to do the track was just so fun. The whole time writing this project, I never really felt like I had to live within any sort of constraint. And the way it turned out with every song being so different reminds me of some of my favorite things about pop, which is that it can be anything. That is how I would like pop, as a fan of it, to continue to be: something that pushes and isn’t afraid to break boundaries. I think that’s what’s made some of the most iconic pop artists of our time. If I can just try that for myself in my own little bubble, that is exciting for me.
I think you’re getting there, because “Girlfriend” has that ‘80s nostalgia. But then it’s juxtaposed by “Blue”, which lives up to its title with its very cold, chill-inducing feeling.
I wrote the song with an artist and writer who I work with a lot. She’s all over this project as well. Her name is Paris Carney and the track was produced by Cody Tarpley. This song was written in a really awful moment in my world, but it was really an important song for my own understanding of the situation and helping me process some really intense emotions. This project as a whole is essentially about one relationship and all of the extreme ups and downs of it. So that’s one of my favorite things about the project, as well as how each song represents an entirely different moment. Not one song is necessarily about the same thing, even though it’s all kind of about one broader experience.
Do you listen to FLETCHER by chance? Her last project did something similar where she worked with her ex-girlfriend and showed the different facets of relationships.
I love Carrie. And I think coming out before the project really allowed me to feel so much more free writing about that and actually speaking up.
I also wanted to mention “Worth It For The Feeling” because there are a few lines that really hit me: “I’ve been asking for everyone’s opinion, never learned to trust my own intuition. Don’t care if it’s a bad decision” and also “Gotta be honest, I’m scared to lose myself. After all the drama I feel like someone else.” It’s about really looking at yourself in the mirror and owning up to the mistakes that you’ve made.
Definitely, and almost all of the songs on this project are. The way that I experienced this relationship was I tried to be as cognizant of what I was doing and not putting everything on one person, which I think is really easy to do. But it’s when you really have built something with a person that means so much to you and that the other person isn’t necessarily a bad person at all. In fact, they’re just another person who it didn’t work out with. I didn’t want to make this about painting into somebody else’s words. In a lot of ways it was my imperfections and my fault, honestly, that that made things the way that they were.
So I try to always look at both sides as best as I can, even if I’m directly involved. There’s so much to learn about yourself through the mistakes that you make and the things that you try, but maybe don’t really work out. Maybe you think back to a few weeks or months or years later and go, “I don’t know if I would say or do that again.” I think that that’s an important part of healing and moving on.
Unlike the last pair of videos promoting his new album, “Wusyaname” and “Lumberjack,” Tyler The Creator’s “Brown Sugar Salmon” is less of a music video and more a comedic sketch. In it, Tyler’s famished alter ego Tyler Baudelaire takes a train ride and goes through a frustrating experience as he tries to order dinner, only to discover that the service on this particular trip leaves a lot to be desired.
After ordering the titular dish, Tyler is told that the kitchen is all out and offered the “braised Bohemian beef,” which is also out of stock. A manager isn’t any help either, merely providing the same two choices — both of which are, as previously noted, unavailable. Poor Tyler.
The sketch is just the latest of Tyler’s unusual efforts to promote his next album, Call Me If You Get Lost, which drops this Friday, June 25. While videos like “Brown Sugar Salmon” and “Side Street” build out the world and narrative of Tyler Baudelaire and his adventures in love and travel, in the real world, Tyler has been using a mysterious phone number advertised by massive billboards to share cryptic snippets of the album’s new music, which he’s periodically updated over the past two weeks.
Watch Tyler The Creator’s “Brown Sugar Salmon” sketch above.
Call Me If You Get Lost is due 6/25 on Columbia Records. Pre-order it here.
A few weeks ago, writer/comic/director/producer/puppeteer Robert Smigel emailed me, trying to get some insight as to why no one was covering his new Fox comedy sketch show, Let’s Be Real. To which I quickly did a Google search for “Robert Smigel new show” before responding, to save myself the embarrassment of admitting I didn’t know what he was talking about.
Let’s back up a bit. I’ve known Smigel professionally since 2011 when I interviewed him for Vanity Fair about his scrapped script for a Green Lantern movie (if you can find this script floating around out there, it’s very funny; also, I’m doing exactly what Smigel hates: complementing him on work he did 15 years ago). One of the first two things I learned about Smigel is (a) he’s very passionate about his work and wears his heart on his sleeve and (b) Smigel does not have a publicist. So if there’s something he disagrees with in a piece you are doing on him, instead of a publicist, you might get a phone call from Smigel at 8 a.m. in the morning (which, yes, may have happened to me). And if you’ve ever seen Triumph the Insult Comic Dog in action, you do not want to have any kind of actual argument with Smigel because he’s too savvy and quick witted and you will definitely lose.
Let’s back up one more time. Back in 1996 Smigel – who had just come off writing for SNL and then as head writer for Late Night with Conan O‘Brien – was the co-creator and an executive producer of The Dana Carvey Show, a sketch comedy show that was absolutely stacked with future famous people like Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and Charlie Kaufman, just to name a few. (I will use this moment to point out that back in 2011 I wrote an oral history of The Dana Carvey Show for GQ and, to this day, is still one of my favorite things I’ve worked on. Oh, also, when this piece published, it had been 15 years since The Dana Carvey Show went off the air.)
The moment Smigel knew The Dana Carvey Show was in trouble was when ABC gave them a lead-in of Tim Allen’s Home Improvement – a wildly successful sitcom that was the definition of a “family show,” which ended its episode that evening and, the next thing viewers saw, was Dana Carvey dressed as Bill Clinton with eight nipples, breastfeeding babies and puppies. The audience from Home Improvement did not like what they saw. All of this is mentioned because, well, do you want to take one guess who Smigel’s lead in was for his current show, Let’s Be Real? If you guessed Tim Allen’s family comedy Last Man Standing, you would be correct. Smigel sighs, “When I heard that Tim Allen’s show was going to be in front of mine, again, I was like, ‘God is a funny guy.’”
Let’s make no bones about it, Let’s Get Real is a weird show. And very political. With a combination of puppets playing famous celebrities and politicians, who interact with human actors, it feels like something you’d stumble upon late at night in college, drunk or stoned or both, and then watch it for hours. It certainly has an Adult Swim vibe to the whole thing, but yet it airs on Fox. No no, not FX. It airs on Fox the actual broadcast network. In primetime. You remember networks right? Those places that air procedural television shows like NCIS, or reality shows? Not usually a show with with a puppet Donald Trump trying to sell all the stuff he stole from the White House on his way out on Antiques Roadshow.
Now, to understand why Smigel is, let’s say, a little disappointed, you have to understand why this show exists in the first place. And it’s a little complicated. So I’ll try to explain it the best I can and keep it as simple as possible: Disney bought Fox from NewsCorp. One of the few things Disney did not get was the Fox broadcast network, because there are laws preventing one corporation from owning more than one network and Disney already owns ABC. But Disney did buy Fox Studios, the production company that made most of the shows that air on the Fox network, which is why Disney now owns The Simpsons, yet it still airs, for the time being, on Fox. If Disney and Newscorp, the still owner of Fox the network, can’t come to an agreement on a deal to still keep airing these shows, Fox will have very little programming of their own. So, Fox the network approached Smigel to develop Let’s Be Real, a concept that was already in development before Smigel signed on.
“This was a project that was presented to me. I didn’t go to them with this idea,” explains Smigel. “This was something that they were trying to develop on their own and they actually went as far as a pilot presentation that they made, and then they didn’t like it. My manager called me and said, ‘They’d love for you to consider developing this.’ And I watched it and I didn’t like it at all. I thought, well, this isn’t any fun. I’d rather watch Saturday Night Live. I didn’t even want to talk about it, but then I had a conversation with the production company and as we were having the conversation. I was just being very honest, telling them why I just had no desire to do this and I never really enjoyed Spitting Image for the same reason. It was just, it felt cold. As I’m talking to them, I’m saying, well, maybe if humans interacted with the puppets, then there might be some dynamic that’s interesting? I was talking about doing real life remotes. Instead of Triumph, you have Kanye West go to a Trump rally, kind of like that.”
But the thing is, now, he’s pretty proud of what he and his team have put together. He spends a good portion of our time talking about how funny his writers are and how good the voice-work has been. Reading into what he’s saying, it sounds more like, whether you like it or don’t like it, he’d be happy just for you to give it a chance. Barring that, I think he’d settle for you just knowing it exists.
“Even my mother didn’t watch the last show because they moved it to a different time and she had no idea,” says Smigel, who has a way of making even defeat a funny punchline. “But, no, no friends of mine knew about it. It was just one of those things. I tried. Like, Howard Stern had been asking for Triumph for a few months, so I timed it for this. And then Marc Maron is somebody who I met like eight years ago and asked me to be on his show, but that’s about all the publicity we got.”
More than anything he wanted to know why critics ignored it completely. Knowing something about that, and I know from the outside looking in, this might look like a job where writers and critics can just seek stuff out. But, for better or for worse, there are just so many shows right now. So, without a publicist emailing asking, “Hey, want to interview Robert Smigel about his new political comedy show?,” (to which I suspect quite a few people would have said yes), well, no one really has the time to go looking for it.
I did point out that a couple of weeks ago former president Barack Obama was on Conan O‘Brien’s podcast and, out of the blue, mentioned how much he loves Triumph. Smigel laughs, and make no mistake, he loved the compliment, but says, “That was not planned. I give Fox no credit. I give Fox PR no credit for that one. Then Obama screwed up because he was supposed to say, ‘And now he’s doing a show called Let’s Be Real.’”
Again, acting as his own publicist, he then asks me if an exclusive unseen sketch involving Marjorie Taylor Greene would help. I honestly don’t know the answer to that, but I told him it can’t hurt. Well, I guess unless it’s pro Marjorie Taylor Greene. (It is not.) So he sent me this:
So this is why all of this is a little strange, but also shows what a unique personality Smigel is: As mentioned, he has no publicist. And usually a person in Smigel’s position, with the help of a publicist, will do press before a series airs, not after it completes its run and got not great ratings.
“I wrote to you because I don’t want to have this conversation with you at The Bell House in Brooklyn, in front of 150 people in 15 years, where people tell me it was ahead of its time or some shit that I don’t even agree with,” Smigel laments. “I just wanted to try to nip the 15 year tribute in the bud.”
And when you look at Smigel’s career, he really does have a habit of that happening. “Yeah, I’m trying to avoid the whole: he only makes flops that we love years later. I was trying to avoid that for this one, just because I’m getting older, and I don’t know how many more flops I have in me. That I can keep playing that game. So I kind of like people to know about this because I tried to finish good.”
(I’m as guilty as anyone. When Smigel was on Marc Maron’s podcast he told a story of a never-aired SNL sketch called “Animal Pranks” and one of the pranks was “a turtle that thinks he’s going to meet Burt Reynolds, but the prank is, instead, it’s not Burt Reynolds but a Burt Reynolds impersonator.” Of course I told Smigel that, when I heard that, it made me laugh out loud on the street, to both Smigel’s delight and chagrin at the same time.)
I then ask Smigel, out of anything, what he wanted to accomplish by reaching out to me to talk about Let’s Be Real, a show that already aired and, in his words, nobody watched. What, more than anything, does he want people to take away from all of this. Smigel pauses, laughs a little bit, then says, “Well, it’s still on Hulu.”
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