Month: September 2021

Social media on Tuesday was flooded with tributes to Norm Macdonald, who passed away after a decade-long battle with cancer that he kept private. People honored the comedian by sharing clips. They remembered how he (probably) got fired from SNL for doing too many O.J. Simpson jokes. Seth Rogen admitted that he “essentially ripped off” his deadpan delivery when he was starting out. But one of the most moving tributes came from an unexpected place: You guessed it, Frank Stallone.

During his stint as host of Weekend Update, Macdonald would regularly set up an elaborate joke, usually about some calamity, but sometimes for a real accomplishment. And he would blame it on the actor, musician, and brother to Sylvester Stallone. The punchline was always the same: “You guessed it: Frank Stallone.” Macdonald blamed Sly’s brother for toxic waste in Los Angeles, the mass killing of fish in Maryland, and unemployment downturns in the mid-’90s. He also, for the record, once claimed he was the second most powerful person in show business (behind Rupert Murdoch). He did this over and over again, until he left SNL.

Sometimes the jokes would get big laughs. Sometimes they’d get confused shrugs. But there was one person who seemed to enjoy it: You guessed it, Frank Stallone.

“I was saddened to hear that Norm MacDonald passed away today at 61,” Frank wrote on Instagram. “He had a lot of fun with me on weekend update with, You Guessed It Frank Stallone. I thought it was funny. My only regret was that I never got to do the show with him. I thought he was an original and very funny. My condolences go out to the MacDonald family.”

Meanwhile, as of this writing, O.J. Simpson has yet to weigh in. But you can watch a half-hour of Macdonald O.J. jokes below.

And you can watch Frank Stallone jokes, plus him discussing them after the fact, above.

Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt caused a stir last week when he canceled performances in Florida and Utah because the venues wouldn’t comply with his COVID-19 protocols. Oswalt requested that venues only allow audience members that are vaccinated or recently tested negative for COVID-19.

However, in Florida, vaccine mandates are illegal and the venue in Salt Lake City refused.

“This difficult decision was made due to the rising number of COVID cases,” Oswalt said. “And also because I have an ego but my ego is not big enough to think that people should die to hear my stupid comedy.”

His decision was completely rational. Unvaccinated people are three times more likely to spread COVID-19 and 11 times more likely to die of it, so why not make the venues safe for attendees and staff? Also, should we really put people at risk just to see a comedy show?

Oswalt’s decision was the complete opposite of fellow comedian Jim Breuer who refuses to play venues with a vaccine mandate. Bruer is best known for his appearance in “Half Baked” and “Saturday Night Live” from 1995 to 1998.

“Due to the segregation of them forcing people to show up with vaccination — to prove you’re vaccinated, to prove you’ve had a shot — I’m absolutely not doing those shows,” Breuer said in a recent Facebook Live post.

Announcing he was canceling scheduled performances in Michigan and New Jersey, Breuer said, “What these establishments are doing are wrong. What this dictatorship is doing is wrong.”

Some of the reactions to the cancellations on social media surprised Oswalt who thought he was being pretty reasonable about the whole thing.

@pattonoswalt sounds like a Nazi. Freedom baby! Try it sometime https://t.co/FCfyBv8rOD

— Two Party Illusion (@johnnyr40821566)
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@pattonoswalt Stay out of Florida! We don’t want you here!!!! Vax Nazi!!!!

— surv-ance (@AnceSurv)
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Oswalt had some fun with the extreme reactions to his show cancellations on Monday night on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”

“I was like, ‘When did everyone become Thanos where it’s just like, whoever dies, dies?'” asked Oswalt.

“And by the way, if that is your philosophy, don’t die for me, go die seeing Lizzo. That’s a good last concert to see,” he cracked. “You shouldn’t die for any entertainer. But if you are, make it count. Don’t be in the hospital, (saying) ‘I’m so glad I got to see that fat nerd whine about ‘The Mandalorian.'”

“That shouldn’t be your last thing. Don’t roll the dice for that stuff,” he added.

Patton Oswalt Says His Show Isn’t Worth Catching COVID | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

www.youtube.com

Oswalt’s rationale make a lot of sense. We’re at an odd place in the pandemic where large events are happening because people who are vaccinated can go out with a certain amount of confidence and unvaccinated people probably aren’t very concerned about the virus (even though they should be).

There are still risks involved with going out but we have to live our lives, so where do we draw the line? Oswalt’s decision to keep things as safe as possible at this point in the pandemic makes a lot of sense. Nobody should die just to have a laugh.

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It seems like every year someone makes a splash at the Met Gala with their fashion choices. In 2018 it was Lena Waithe’s “queer cape” that enthralled the press and public alike, with its simple but powerful message about inclusivity and LGBTQ rights. In 2016, Emma Watson used that year’s technology theme to send a more subtle but equally powerful message about the environment with a dress made entirely from sustainable products.

Even with America and much of the world still reeling from COVID-19, this year is no different.

In fact, two dresses, in particular, have gone viral with very different but very powerful messages about life in 2021. This year, the honor of showcasing the most talked about outfit is being shared between singer Billie Eilish and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). And much like Waithe and Watson before them, one dress wore its heart on its sleeve (or tails to be exact), while the other was subtle in its vital message about animal rights.

First was Eilish. Everyone is talking about her stunning homage to Marilyn Monroe and we get it. Eilish has been getting increasingly comfortable stepping out publicly in more adult, form-fitting attire, such as her appearance on the June cover of Vogue. During the Met Gala, Eilish talked about finding new confidence in having her figure on public display and the personal empowerment she’s gained while staying true to her past comments about body positivity. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” she said during her red carpet appearance when asked about the Monroe comparison.

However, it wasn’t just about a killer gown. There was a catch and we love Eilish all the more for it: She only agreed to wear the Oscar de la Renta dress on the condition that the acclaimed fashion designer agrees to stop using animal fur.

“It is an honor to wear this dress knowing that going forward Oscar de la Renta will be completely fur free!!!” Eilish, who is vegan, wrote to her 91 million Instagram followers. “I’m honored to have been a catalyst and to have been heard on this matter.”

At the same time that Eilish was going viral, AOC was making waves of her on the political front. The New York Democrat showed up to the Met Gala in a white dress with red lettering on the back that read “Tax the Rich.” Ocasio-Cortez said she was proud that her dress was drawing attention to what she called the nation’s unfair taxation system which enables seemingly endless loopholes for wealthy Americans and corporations.

The medium is the message. https://t.co/b4Ssr6HkYR

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC)
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“When Aurora and I were first kind of partnered, we really started having a conversation about what it means to be working-class women of color at the Met, and we said, ‘We can’t just play along, but we need to break the fourth wall and challenge some of the institutions,'” AOC said during a red carpet interview about her collaboration with designer Aurora James. “While the Met is known for its spectacle, we should have a conversation about it.”

Ocasio-Cortez did receive some criticism from both the political Right and Left for her appearance, with some saying it was hypocritical for a public servant so critical of economic privilege to appear at an event with a $30,000 ticket price and attendees paying an estimated $250,000 per table. However, others praised the lawmaker for bringing her message of equal taxation directly to those who would be most affected by it.

Regardless of your politics, it was refreshing to see both Eilish and AOC using their respective perches and power to make bold statements for the causes they care about. And let’s be honest, it doesn’t hurt when those more serious topics are conveyed with some top-level fashion sensibility.

Last month Kevin Morby announced a follow-up/companion release to his excellent 2020 record, Sundowner. The collection of demos, dubbed A Night At The Little Los Angeles, and it was named for the back shed of Morby’s Kansas home. Early sessions recorded on a 4-track in 2017 and 2018 were what eventually made up Sundowner, and by sharing the bare bones versions he hoped to let fans hear exactly what he was going for on the finished album.

“My goal was to capture the essence of these initial recordings, and here you will now have access to the very essence I was chasing,” he explained. “Many of my favorite recordings have been made inside of an artist’s home with little to no regard of the outside world, but instead deep in their own that they are building in real time. And with that — I’d like to invite you into my own little world here and now and ask you to please step inside and spend A Night At The Little Los Angeles.”

Today, Morby shared the 4-track version of the title track, “Sundowner (4-Track Demo),” noting that close listeners will definitely locate differences between this demo and the final version. “In this demo of ‘Sundowner’ you’ll notice a few differences from the album version,” he said. “Wait for it!” Listen to the very end for one glaring difference, but check in above for other changes. The full demo album will be out in early October, and he also previously released the 4-Track Demo version of “Campfire.” Check out his “Sundowner” version above and pre-order the entire demo album here.

The Daily Show returned on Monday night, and right out of the gate, host Trevor Noah went to town on Rudy Giuliani’s bizarre speech at a 9/11 memorial event where the disgraced Trump attorney launched into a gooffy aside about Prince Andrew. Noah personally found the speech captivating because it showed how much things have changed since the 9/11 attacks.

“Twenty years ago, Rudy Giuliani was ‘America’s Mayor’ projecting calm and sobriety when the country needed it most,” Noah said while setting up a clip of the speech. “But at Saturday’s commemoration, Giuliani was… not that.”

After playing Giuliani’s speech where the former mayor did a terrible British accent while impersonating the Queen, Noah couldn’t over the fact that Giuliani swore up and down that never met Prince Andrew, and then a second later, reveals that they partied in his office:

Only Rudy can spend the 9/11 anniversary talking about the time he hung out with Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged pedophile friend. You know your speech went off the rails when people watching it are like, “I wish this guy would talk more about 9/11. What is he doing?”

I mean, my favorite part of this whole thing is how Rudy Giuliani can’t even get his story straight while he’s telling it. “I never once meet Prince Andrew. Never! I mean, yeah, one time we hung out in my office, and we had that party that time. Bernie remembers that, don’t you? Don’t you, Bernie?”

Noah ended the segment by joking, “I mean, I don’t know who Bernie is, but I bet he and his wife had a very long car ride home.” But here’s the thing: Bernie is former NYPD police commissioner Bernie Kerik who was forced to resign after a series of scandals, one of which involved having an affair in an apartment that was reserved for clean-up workers in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

So, somehow, Giuliani’s speech manages to get even worse as more details emerge. But don’t say he was drunk! “America’s Mayor” has been very adamant in follow-up interviews that he only had one Scotch before taking the stage. Just like the time he said never met Prince Andrew, you can trust him.

(Via The Daily Show with Trevor Noah)

A Twins sequel is not new. As early as 2012 Universal announced they were hoping to reunite Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. It was to be called Triplets, and the two mismatched brothers would discover there was a third one all along. He would be played by Eddie Murphy. That never happened. But the project is back in the works, and while Murphy, despite his semi-recent comeback, is not in it. But Murphy’s Coming 2 America colleague, Tracy Morgan, is.

As per Deadline, the 30 Rock alum will join the former California mayor and the longtime Frank Reynolds in the very belated follow-up, which will join the characters over three decades after their last misadventure. The 1988 film, the fifth highest grossing movie of the year, told the story of a brainy muscleman and a much shorter small time crook who learn they were separated at birth after a bizarre medical experiment. (It was the ‘80s, so there had to be a convoluted reason why Conan the Barbarian and Louie from Taxi were related.) Twins was the Austrian strongman’s first big comedy after a string of action hits, if you don’t count 1970’s Hercules in New York, and it paved the way for the more family-friendly likes of Kindergarten Cop and Jingle All the Way.

Murphy was actually almost in Triplets, but returning director Ivan Reitman — whose son Jason recently rebooted another of his father’s ‘80s smashes, Ghostbusters — said that after hits like My Name is Dolemite and Coming 2 America, he simply “got himself booked up heavily.” They didn’t want to wait, so they got Morgan, who Reitman describes “as one of the funniest men in the world.” Maybe Reitman, Schwarzenegger, and DeVito can get Murphy to join them, should they revive Junior.

(Via Deadline)

Australian pop star Banoffee has been slowly but surely been unfurling the songs on her second album, Teartracks, the follow-up to her 2020 debut full-length, Look At Us Now Dad. She initially teased a return with the shimmering “Tapioca Cheeks,” and then announced her new album with the campy “Idiot” video. Today, she’s followed up those two initial songs with “Never Get To F*ck Any1,” a song with a very straightforward title but a deeper meaning. “I wanted the record to track a couple of different emotions,” Banoffee said of the track. “It goes from like, ‘You don’t love me enough’ to like, ‘Sh*t, I’m never gonna have sex like this again’, which is really materialistic and quite funny.”

Teartracks is a fairly straightforward breakup album, jumping from the fear of falling in love on “Tapioca Cheeks” to the sense of loss of not just sex but intimacy that this new track details, and the regret on “Idiot.” Slated for release on October 22, the album also features contributions from artists like PC Music’s Planet 1999, Perto and Ceci G. Never one to do anything by halves, Banoffee imagined this second record as a “companion” for a breakup, not necessarily the salve. Check out the new single above and look for her full album out this fall.

One of the funniest people to ever live died on Tuesday. After a lengthy (and reportedly private) battle with cancer, Norm Macdonald passed away at age 61, with seemingly everyone in the world of comedy taking some time to celebrate a man who managed to take just about anything and somehow make it hilarious.

There may not be a better example of this than Macdonald’s tenure as the host of Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update. Macdonald hosted the segment on his own in the midst of the OJ Simpson trial, and he never exactly held back his belief that Simpson was guilty of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. In classic Norm style, he took this remarkably serious topic — one that, as ESPN’s acclaimed documentary series on the trial showed, was far more than just a trial involving a football player — and ripped joke after joke about it. Famously, on the first episode of SNL after Simpson’s acquittal, Macdonald welcomed viewers by saying, “Well, it is finally official: Murder is legal in the state of California.”

One enterprising YouTuber put up a compilation of Macdonald’s work during the trial. They combine to be more than half an hour long. Both videos are painfully uncomfortable, occasionally gasp-inducing, and also, some of the funniest things you will ever see.

It is speculated that Macdonald’s constant ragging on Simpson played a role in his departure from Weekend Update and, eventually, SNL. While he denied this was the case, former NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer was close to Simpson and expressed support for him during the trial, and there was a pretty widespread belief that Macdonald’s relentlessness led to him getting the hook.

That touched off a nasty feud that had Mr. Macdonald appearing on CBS’s late-night show with David Letterman (another former NBC star who has a feud going with Mr. Ohlmeyer) and on Howard Stern’s syndicated radio show. Mr. Macdonald berated Mr. Ohlmeyer for dismissing him, saying that Mr. Ohlmeyer objected to his often vicious barbs about O. J. Simpson.

Mr. Ohlmeyer, a friend of Mr. Simpson’s who stood by him during his trial and acquittal, has said that had nothing to do with the decision to remove Mr. Macdonald. He pointed to the innumerable monologue jokes that NBC’s biggest late-night star, Jay Leno, has delivered about Mr. Simpson, without drawing any reaction from Mr. Ohlmeyer.

While he originally expressed support for this belief, Macdonald eventually came to the conclusion this was not the case and expressed some doubts in recent years that Simpson committed the murders. Now, because it is Norm Macdonald, it is extremely plausible that this was a bit, but this is purely speculation on my part. Anyway, let’s remember one more time he told an OJ joke: during his legendary monologue as host of the ESPY Awards in 1998.

Nicki Minaj’s recent claims about a vaccine’s side effects on her cousin’s friend already brought her into conflict with conservative English pundit Piers Morgan and now, they’ve got her at odds with no less an authority than Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US authority on the COVID-19 virus and the government’s response strategy.

During a recent appearance on CNN covering Nicki’s tweet that she’s not vaccinated because she doesn’t trust any of the available vaccines, Fauci said that her anecdote about a friend who experienced some “sexual discomfort” after receiving a vaccine seems less than likely. As host Jake Tapper ticked off Nicki’s bonafides — nearly 180 million combined followers across social media platforms and an intensely loyal (and susceptible) fanbase — he pointed out how vaccinations opponents have already weaponized Nicki’s tweet.

“Is there any evidence that the Pfizer, Moderna, or the [Johnson & Johnson] vaccines cause any reproductive issues, in men or women?” he asked. Fauci didn’t hesitate. “The answer to that, Jake, is a resounding no,” he asserted. “There’s no evidence that it happens, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen.” Then, in response to Tapper’s follow-up wondering how authorities can combat misinformation from powerful stars such as Nicki Minaj, Fauci replied, “It’s very difficult. There is a lot of misinformation, mostly on social media. The only way we know to counter mis- and disinformation is to provide a lot of correct information… These claims may be innocent on her part — I’m not blaming her for anything — but she should be thinking twice about propagating information that really has no basis except a one-off anecdote. That’s not what science is all about.”

Comedian and SNL vet Norm Macdonald suddenly passed away on Tuesday after a long and private battle with cancer. For decades he was one of the most distinctive voices in comedy. His dry, don’t-give-a-f*ck style was polarizing, especially when he was a regular cast member (and Weekend Update host) on the most famous live sketch comedy show on television. Some hated it; a lot loved it. He changed comedy, and his influence can be felt everywhere.

One of the many who was inspired by Macdonald was Seth Rogen. In many ways, they’re different. Rogen is far more earnest than the mischievously detached Macdonald. But they share a deadpan style, which Rogen admitted he got from him. In fact, when he started out he wanted to be him.

“Oh f*ck. I was a huge fan of Norm Macdonald and I essentially ripped off his delivery when I first started acting,” Rogen wrote after news of his passing broke. “I would stay up specifically to watch him on talk shows. He was the funniest guest of all time. We lost a comedy giant today. One of the the all time greats. RIP.”

Indeed, if you watch Rogen’s early performances on Freaks and Geeks, where he got his start, you see a very different Rogen. He’s much more sarcastic and withering, with a flat, matter-of-fact delivery that’s clearly indebted to Macdonald. Over the course of the show’s one-and-done season, you can see Rogen’s style evolve. By the last episode, he’s found his voice. But perhaps he only got there by attempting a straight-up impersonation of Norm Macdonald.

The two did get to eventually appear in a movie together, in the same scene, but not face-to-face. Macdonald cameoed as himself in Judd Apatow’s Funny People, ribbing Adam Sandler’s comedy star George Simmons at a party celebrating him overcoming a major health scare. Rogen, as the up-and-comer and Simmons pal, winds up hanging with Ray Romano. You can watch the scene below.

In the meantime, feel free to drown your sorrows in the many, many, many amazing Macdonald clips being shared online. Rest in peace.