Saget was featured in the video alongside Snoop Dogg, Jay Pharoah, pornstar Kendra Sunderland, and the track’s artists Desiigner, DJ Whoo Kid, and Slushii. “Please believe me when I tell you this: Get Bob on the job,” Snoop Dogg says to Desiigner as the hilarious and raunchy video begins. Shot in the Hollywood Hills a few weeks before his death, Rolling Stone reports that Whoo Kid corralled Saget, whom he already knew, after Willie Nelson wasn’t available.
A minute of outtakes plays after the video clip (above) in remembrance of the late comedian and in them, he’s funny as hell. “I’m just here to have bacon,” he says, before noting that “Bakin”/bacon is “a supreme pun. It’s like the best Dad joke ever.”
“You don’t expect him to be sitting around here with all these bad models, and booties-a-clapping and racks being thrown and Desiigner being there doing his thing,” Pharaoh told Rolling Stone. “But it works because that’s what Bob’s whole spirit was. It was different. It was, ‘Put me in an odd place that you wouldn’t expect for me to be and watch me shine.’”
There was nary a room that Saget walked into that he didn’t light up. And he somehow manages to steal the show in a video featuring rappers, pornstars, money, and bacon. “Full House, Nick At Nite, Bob Saget used to rock me to sleep at night, man,” Desiigner added.
Every so often, a plucky indie will get nominated for Best Picture. Think: Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Lady Bird. This year’s contender is CODA, a charming coming-of-age film about a teenager (played by Emilia Jones) who is the sole hearing member of a deaf family (including Best Supporting Actor contender Troy Kotsur). Apple acquired the distribution rights to CODA (which stands for Children of Deaf Adults) for $25 million, and it was released in select theaters and on Apple TV+ last August.
Following the Oscar nominations, CODA is being re-released “for free in theaters from Friday, February 25 through Sunday, February 27,” Deadline reports. “All free screenings to feature open captions to be fully accessible to the deaf and hard-of-hearing.”
You can find out where the closest first-come, first-serve screening is to you here.
“I just wanted to make a film,” CODA writer and director Sian Heder told Uproxx‘s Mike Ryan after she was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. “I think I never want to make a film that’s messaging something to people. You just want to tell a great story about characters that people fall in love with and I think the subversive part of this film is that the reason it feels like a step forward in terms of representation is because these characters are relatable and funny.”
With the Peacemaker finale now available for streaming, fans of the John Cena series no doubt have lingering questions as the show wrapped up its Season 1 story with a bang and one heck of a surprise cameo. Fortunately, creator James Gunn has already started to explain some of the choices made in the finale, and for the other big moments, well, we’ll do our best to tackle what they might mean.
Why did Peacemaker turn down Goff’s offer?
While controlling the body of Officer Song (Annie Chang), Goff reveals the Butterflies’ plan in the hopes that Peacemaker — real name: Christopher Smith — will join them in their cause. Like him, the Butterflies want peace. Their goal is not invasion but instead, to steer humanity away from destroying the planet. However, that plan will involve killing some people and taking over the world’s government, but ultimately, it will be in humanity’s best interest.
Despite claiming to love peace so much that he’ll kill every man, woman, and child to get it, Peacemaker turns down the offer and destroys the Cow, the Butterflies’ sole source of food. At the end of the episode, he tells Adebayo (Danielle Brooks) that he couldn’t take Goff’s offer because he knew it would result in his friends being hurt. As Gunn explains in a new interview, this represents a significant change in Peacemaker’s development after previously murdering Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) in The Suicide Squad to complete his mission. Via Vulture:
She makes a lot of sense. But what’s more important for our story is that Chris has disconnected himself from other human beings by making every person an object to fulfill his goal. He did it in The Suicide Squad, and all through this story he had to fight the urge to do exactly the same thing. In that moment in the end, he takes a different path.
However, it’s clearly a difficult choice as Gunn himself admits he’s “not even sure if Chris is doing the right thing.”
Why did Peacemaker let Goff live and stay at his house?
This questions a trickier one because there isn’t a clear answer from Gunn yet. Although, going by what he’s said about Goff’s offer, it’s easy to see why Peacemaker would be reluctant to kill the Butterfly leader. There’s also the bond they formed when he previously kept her in a jar in his house, which led to her making the offer in the first place. She knew how to connect to Peacemaker and his mission to bring about peace no matter what the cost. However, it’s clearly shown that Peacemaker only has a very small amount of the alien goo left from the Cow, so there’s a good chance that Goff might not be around for long.
HBO Max
What does the Justice League cameo mean?
After Peacemaker and his ARGUS team basically did all the work and stopped the Butterfly invasion, the Justice League made a surprise appearance at the end. True to character, Peacemaker called them “d*ckheads” and made a joke to Aquaman’s face about him “f*cking fish” before walking off to take a wounded Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) to the hospital. As for the greater implications of the Justice League showing up, the cameo firmly plants Peacemaker in the DC Extended Universe that started being built in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Peacemaker is now officially part of that cinematic universe, and on the Justice League’s radar, which could have some interesting effects on Season 2.
What happens to Task Force X now that Adebayo revealed its existence?
After completing their mission, Adebayo goes public with the ARGUS team’s actions and reveals the existence of Task Force X (a.k.a. The Suicide Squad) in an effort to cement Peacemaker’s status as an American hero. With the covert group now exposed and Adebayo’s mother, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), none too pleased about it, Task Force X’s future is now in serious jeopardy. Considering Waller is not a person to be messed with, even by her own daughter, there is sure to be blowback from Adebayo’s press conference.
Is Peacemaker’s dad going to haunt him in Season 2?
In the final moments of the finale, Peacemaker is seen sitting on his porch after feeding Goff and watching Eagly fly off to hunt possums. However, Peacemaker’s deceased father (Robert Patrick) appears on the porch to haunt his son for what is now a second time. Judging by his silent laughter and Peacemaker’s visibly frightened face, it certainly seems like this will be a lingering issue going into Season 2. Particularly after Harcourt saw Peacemaker talking to the vision in his head earlier in the episode. If his teammates start to question his sanity, that can only spell trouble for Peacemaker down the road.
Peacemaker Season 1 is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Taco Bell does some weird shit. They’ve flattened a chicken patty and turned it into a taco shell — which absolutely no one asked for. They ditched the Mexican Pizza (disappointing Doja Cat, of all people), and they inexplicably started selling wings in a year where there was apparently a wing shortage. See what I mean? Weird. Taco Bell is the most chaotic fast food brand, Wendy’s Twitter account be damned.
But I have to admit, hearing that select Taco Bells in Milwaukee and Southern California would begin test selling Choco Tacos this week filled me with all sorts of questions. In this order: The Klondike Choco Taco? What does the Choco Taco have to do with Taco Bell? Why does it need to be tested? Why SoCal and Milwaukee? Aren’t Choco Tacos already available in the supermarket freezer aisle?
If you’re curious, the answers to these questions are as follows: Yes, nothing, it doesn’t, no idea, and apparently, no. It turns out, Choco Tacos aren’t readily available in grocery store freezer aisles right now. A quick search on Google leads to a variety of dead links, and even the official Klondike site, which says they are available, ultimately leads to a Walmart Error page.
Walmart
The only Choco Tacos I can find are this 24 pack from Amazon, which costs $64. I could probably go my whole life without eating 24 Choco Tacos, and I like Choco Tacos!
So, if for some reason you have an insatiable craving for a Choco Taco, your best bet is, for some reason, the Taco Bell drive-thru (so long as you live in SoCal or Milwaukee). Since we’re lucky (is that the word?) enough to be in the test market zone, we went out and ordered one and gave it the full fast food review treatment, in an effort to see if they’re as good as we remember and worth a trip to Taco Bell this weekend.
Hey, if Taco Bell wants to give us a reason to eat a Choco Taco, we’ll take it!
Klondike Choco Taco
Dane Rivera
Price: $2.99
I have to say, even though I knew going in that this was just a Klondike Choco Taco, I expected a little more effort on Taco Bell’s part. Foolishly perhaps, I did not expect to receive a regular-old, pre-packaged Klondike bar. At least wrap it in a Taco Bell-branded cardboard taco shell holder or something. Engrave a big bell on the waffle shell, throw Taco Bell on the label, do something to make me feel like this thing has a purpose! Because ordering a Klondike Choco Taco for $2.99 at a Taco Bell feels a little stupid, and the employees probably feel the same, judging by my experience ordering one.
“Hi, could I get the Choco Taco, please?”
“The what?”
“The Klondike Choco Taco… do you have those here?”
*long pause*
“It’s a promo-“
“Is that going to be all today?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of hot sauce— oh, right. Uh… please pull up to the second window.”
Dane Rivera
I’d love to listen in on the conversation between employees after some weirdo queued up in the drive-thru during lunch hours to order a single Choco Taco. Anyway, on to presentation. We give it a failing grade. But presentation isn’t everything, all that really matters when it comes to food is how good it tastes, and if you’ve never had a Choco Taco before, I can tell you, they’re pretty fucking good.
True, it’s far from the best ice cream you’ll ever have. There are no bells and whistles, and no attention to detail or craft. This is straight-up ice cream truck quality snackage, so get your expectations in order. But basic ice cream truck snackage isn’t a bad thing.
Here is what makes the Choco Taco good: Unlike an ice cream sandwich, the Choco Taco has a crunchy waffle cone shell, which gives it a superior mouthfeel. It’s crispy on the outside, but still chewy on the inside, and the cone is lined with chocolate, so it’s sugary-sweet with every bite. The vanilla ice cream — if you want to call it that — is a bit basic. It’s watery and muted, but it comes sandwiched inside an undeniably enjoyable snack that combines the best features of the ice cream sandwich, the Nestlé Drumstick, and a chocolate-dipped soft-serve ice cream. It’s creamy, chocolatey, refreshing, and very satisfying. Especially if you’re stoned. …Uh, or so I imagine.
Dane Rivera
The Bottom Line:
The Choco Taco is good. Having said that, you shouldn’t bother ordering this. I mean, do what you want, but if you feel like trekking to a specific Taco Bell just to remind yourself of what a Choco Taco tastes like maybe… don’t do that? If you’re in LA, go eat actual tacos, or do something fun, dumb, and touristy. If you’re in Milwaukee, visit one of these great bars instead. Go touch grass. Do anything, but don’t eat a Taco Bell Choco Taco.
The test they’re conducting isn’t whether or not Choco Tacos should be sold at Taco Bell nationwide. They shouldn’t, Taco Bell fans deserve a better dessert. Rather, the test is to see just how much bullshit we’ll take before Taco Bell has to cave in and bring back the Mexican Pizza.
Don’t settle for less, people.
If you’re in LA or Milwaukee and still want a Choco Taco, the following is a list of all the participating locations. If you’re not in LA or Milwaukee, you’re not missing anything!
Following the release of 2021’s 1176,the !llmind collaborative album that was among Uproxx’s Best Hip-Hop Albums of the Year and featured P-Lo and Rick Ross, Guapdad 4000 has been getting busy at the top of 2022. The ridiculous and hilarious callback to LL Cool J on “I Need Bands” came out last month and now, Guap is pure flow on “Ruthless.”
Produced by James Delgado, “Ruthless” sees the Oakland rapper keeping it cool among a steady drip of heaters. “Big ass arms on me, I ain’t tryna flex tho. Wipe a n*gga off like an expo,” he raps on the hook. The half-Filipino-half-Black rapper is pretty damn likable and always flashes a balance of poise with wit. Lines like “All these dubs in my pocket like lint,” are par for the course for the man with the 10-foot durag that’ll live forever in Grammy red carpet infamy.
Listen to “Ruthless” above and check out Guapdad 4000’s tour dates in support of Wale below.
02/20 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues Houston*
02/24 – New Orleans, LA @ Fillmore New Orleans*
03/01 – Little Rock, AR @ The Hall*
03/04 – Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz*
03/09 – Nashville, TN @ Marathon Music Works*
03/10 – Chattanooga, TN @ The Signal*
03/11 – Silver Spring, MD @ The Fillmore Silver Spring*
Guapdad 4000 is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
At the top of the conversation, Crosby was asked about the Spotify situation and he starting by saying he was “stunned” that his label was cool with taking his and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s music off the platform. He also spoke about his general disdain for Spotify, and streaming services in general, due to how they pay artists (not much). He also suspects karma will come to bite them at some point, saying, “They’re not doing the right thing, and in the long run it will get them. In some kind of karmic thing, it’s going to come around and crush them. I don’t know what it’ll be, but I hope it’s soon.”
Then he got to Rogan, saying:
“I think Joe Rogan is… eh, not real impressive. But I think he has a right to spew his garbage. He has a right to do it. I think Spotify has a right to put him up there. I absolutely will fight for their right to do that. I have a right to not be associated with it. I told a friend this morning, ‘Listen man, if I was selling my records in a marketplace, I don’t want to be selling them next to some spoiled meat.’
That’s why I don’t want to be on the same platform as Joe Rogan. He’s calling people the n word all the time. He’s talking about women as if they’re a mouth and a pair of tits. He doesn’t really represent me at all, so I don’t want to be there with him. That’s all I said. I said I’m removing me. I’m not trying censor him or you. That’s of course the first thing that all his fans said: ‘This is censorship! You used to be a hippie!’ I still am. I still have the exact same set of values. I just don’t want to be associated with that guy.”
He also noted that even if Spotify got rid of Rogen, he does not “envision going back,” saying, “No, I don’t want to be in there. I don’t like ’em and their quality’s lousy and their payscale’s lousy and I don’t want anything to do with them.”
Crosby spoke a lot more about the topic, including how he feels about only a small number of artists leaving the platform, so check out the full interview here.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
J. Cole well-documented love for basketball and his understated, ultra-comfy style have come together in his latest collaboration with throwback sportswear designer Mitchell & Ness. He revealed his new Dreamer X Mitchell & Ness throwback jersey collection after teasing it with the help of viral hoop phenom Hansel Enmanuel, who appeared in a video narrated by J. Cole praising the young, one-armed baller’s audacity to dream of a pro hoops career.
The jerseys are designed to look like ’90s-era NBA team jerseys, with the name Dreamer taking the place of the original team names on each. Included in the initial run are looks referencing the old-school aesthetics of the Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Charlotte Hornets, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Washington Wizards (formerly the Baltimore Bullets), Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons, Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, Phoenix Suns, Philadelphia 76ers, Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic, and New Jersey Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets). Alas, my beloved Clippers are nowhere to be found, nor are the Cleveland Cavaliers, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Seattle Supersonics, or any iteration of the Grizzlies (Vancouver or Memphis). I’m not sure if anyone even cares about the Utah Jazz (they can’t read this; they don’t have internet). Cole also posted several throwback jersey photos on Instagram to remind fans of their cultural impact (including the “bootleg” throwback he wore as a kid — an authentic NBA jersey, but not a Mitchell & Ness one, which was the THING back then).
The jerseys retail for $375 and are available on mitchellandness.com (for now, expect them to sell out quick).
Could Donald Trump take a page out of former BFF Rudy Giuliani’s book and become the first former President of the United States to shoot happy birthday videos for your gun-toting grandma on Cameo? Never say never!
As Raw Story reports, at least one reporter with deep knowledge of the financial predicament Trump could find himself in following his very public parting of the ways with Mazars USA, his longtime personal and business accounting firm, predicts that the former president is going to need to start offloading some assets—and fast. Susanne Craig, an investigative reporter with The New York Times who has been covering Trump’s financial dealings for several years now, appeared on MSNBC on Thursday night to talk about what the fallout from being dumped by Mazars for a decade worth of suspicious financial statements could mean in the short-term. And what Craig sees is: Everything must go!
Trump’s biggest issue, according to Craig, are the hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of loans that are about to come due—and how/whether he’ll be able to renegotiate the terms on them. “If this was a public company, you’d be like, ‘Wow!,’” Craig said. “It would just be so much trouble for them. I think their stock would tank. There would be so many ramifications.”
Though a $100 million loan on Trump Tower will be the first to come due, Craig believes that Trump is in a good position there, as the lender is Donald-friendly. From there, however, “there are other loans that are going to be more difficult,” she said, pointing to his Doral golf club, which he borrowed from Deutsche Bank on, as one example.
“Deutsche Bank has been signaling that they may not want to do new business with him,” Craig said. “None of this is good news. And when you think about how he’s going to have to handle this immediate debt, there’s going to be potentially higher rates, and in some cases I wonder who the lender is going to end up being.”
According to Craig, Trump’s recent decision to sell his Washington, D.C. hotel was a surprise—and indicative of an immediate need to raise cash by selling assets. “He must need cash, or he wouldn’t be selling it,” she said. “And I think we’re going to potentially see other asset sales here. Very few of the main assets, golf courses that he has, are making money. He’s got golf courses overseas, none of them are making money. It’s the exception when he has a business that is making money.”
Paul McCartney is about to hit the road this spring and summer with a just-announced US run dubbed the Got Back tour, his first tour since before the pandemic.
The former Beatle released McCartney III Imagined last year after deciding to continue his classic solo series. It featured collaborations with musicians like Beck, Phoebe Bridgers, and Euphoria star Dominic Fike.
“I was living lockdown life on my farm with my family and I would go to my studio every day,” he said in 2020. “I had to do a little bit of work on some film music and that turned into the opening track, and then when it was done I thought, ‘What will I do next?’ I had some stuff I’d worked on over the years, but sometimes time would run out and it would be left half-finished, so I started thinking about what I had.”
Check out the tour dates below.
04/28 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Arena
05/02 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
05/03 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
05/06 – Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
05/13 – Los Angeles, CA @ SoFi Stadium
05/17 – Fort Worth, TX @ Dickies Arena
05/21 – Winston Salem, NC @ Truist Field
05/25 – Hollywood, FL @ Hard Rock Live
05/28 – Orlando, FL @ Camping World Stadium
05/31 – Knoxville, TN @ Thompson-Boling Arena
06/04 – Syracuse, NY @ Carrier Dome
06/07 – Boston, MA @ Fenway Park
06/12 – Baltimore, MD @ Oriole Park
06/16 – East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE — I am still not over this and won’t be for a while
The cool thing about the Super Bowl is that it’s one of the only events we have where everyone decides to just go as massive as possible with everything. We put out more salty/fatty snacks than any reasonably sized group of people could ever eat, we turn the whole event into a week-long party that celebrates… something, and we watch a halftime show that costs as much to produce as most mid-budget Hollywood movies. Sometimes the halftime show features Prince performing “Purple Rain” in the driving actual rain as though he and the heavens had worked out an agreement about it all. You wouldn’t want to do it every weekend, but once a year, it’s pretty cool.
There are also the commercials. The commercials are often kind of dumb and lowest-common-denominator-y garbage because there’s so much money involved that it lowers people’s tolerance for risk. There were a lot about crypto this year, which was… weird. But there was also this one.
I’ve said this before, many times, but I’ll say it again now just to drive it home: It’s fun to pretend that Flavortown is a real place. Like that when Guy Fieri says things like “they teach that at Flavortown University” and he shoves an entire handful of nachos in his mouth, that he is being serious. That there is actually a Flavortown University. And a Flavortown Hospital. And a Flavortown Parks Department that is responsible for filling the local fountains with queso every spring. Let your mind wander a bit on that one. It makes for a fun 10-90 minutes.
But that’s not the point here. It’s a pretty big step toward the point, and I like saying it all a lot, so it’s not, like, nothing, but it’s not the point. The point is this:
There is so much going on here. Starting with Martha Stewart at the Super Bowl. Do you think Martha watches football? Do you think she knows anyone on the Bengals? (Editor’s note: she does.) Do you think she was just there to support her dear friend Snoop Dogg? I could go on. Especially about the thing where Martha is in a luxury box and Guy is down in the concourse with the people and how this one fact sums up their personalities better than any collection of words I could type.
But look closely. Look at what Guy is wearing at the Super Bowl. And then go back and watch his Super Bowl commercial again. Look at this.
Bud Light
LOOK AT THIS.
INSTAGRAM
Guy Fieri wore the exact same outfit to the Super Bowl that he wore during the commercial he was in that aired during the Super Bowl. That is… it’s incredible. I froze at my computer when I realized it. You know those scenes in a movie where a detective notices something on a computer screen and then shouts “ENHANCE” and then stares at the screen for a second before mumbling “My God…”? It was like that. I literally shouted at someone and made them come look at it. They were not as impressed as I was. This deflated my excitement about all of it exactly zero percent. As you can tell, seeing as I’m still talking about it today, almost a full week later. I feel great about it.
Anyway, as far as I can tell, there are about three possibilities here, which I will rank from most to least likely:
Guy Fieri did this on purpose because he is committed to his brand and is a good corporate partner who gives the people what they want
Guy Fieri has a walk-in closet in his house that is just stuffed with like 50 of these exact jackets and he grabs one and puts it on every day like it’s his uniform or something
Guy Fieri filmed the Super Bowl commercial live at halftime in a special studio they built just for him in the bowels of the stadium
I can’t decide which option I like more. No one tell me how it actually happened. I’m having too much fun over here.
ITEM NUMBER TWO — Television is honestly so good right now
HBO
I don’t know if you are watchingThe Righteous Gemstones. I hope you are. It is silly and deranged and just about perfect. I love it very much. One of the reasons I love it very much is pictured above: Walton Goggins as Baby Billy Freeman, a singing and dancing charlatan televangelist who, when we pick him up here in the story, has run out on his second wife and unborn child and is selling something called a “health elixir” via infomercial. It’s really just a fantastic piece of business all around. And it gets better.
How much better?
This much better.
HBO
So, spoilers, I guess, but let’s be clear about what is happening here: In yet another attempt to flee his wife and unborn child, Baby Billy hauls off through a parking lot and tips over the entire trailer of health elixirs that he is towing behind a BMW convertible.
This is… perfect. It’s perfect. It’s one of those little character details that tells you everything you need to know about a character without adding a single line of dialogue. This whole show is operating at such a preposterously high level right now. Please watch it if you’re not already. For you, mostly, but also for me. I need more people to talk about it with.
Hey, speaking of deranged shows operating on a high level, let’s check in with Pam & Tommy, the Hulu series in which Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman steal the infamous Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape and release it on the internet, and which we last discussed after the thing where Jason Mantzoukas voiced Tommy Lee’s talking animatronic penis. I do not take for granted that I get to type sentences like that for work. Anyway…
HULUHULUHULUHULU
I could provide context here. I could. It wouldn’t even be hard. But I’m not going to. This is too good on its own as a little slice of art. Just accept it as is if you’re not watching the show. And come over to my place this weekend to talk about it if you are watching the show. We’ll have fun.
ITEM NUMBER THREE — This is … cool
ABC
The fact of the matter is that I will not shut up about Abbott Elementary and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. It’s great, sweet and fun and silly and everything a network sitcom should be. And it’s set in Philadelphia, which is important to me because, among other reasons, Go Birds. Really just a Perfect Brian Show.
It’s got a great story, too. Creator and star Quinta Brunson named the fictional school where the show takes place after a real-life teacher she had in elementary school, Joyce Abbott, who is still working in the Philadelphia school system today. Did the local newspaper catch up with Abbott? Did she deliver a slew of heartwarming quotes and stories? Did I eat it up like a Wawa hoagie and maybe get a little watery-eyed about it?
Though they talked and texted regularly, they haven’t met up in person — yet. But they had a virtual meetup on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday, with Abbott in Philadelphia surprising her former student in Los Angeles. Brunson wiped tears from her eyes when she saw Abbott on the screen.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m so proud of you,” Abbott told Brunson. Kimmel later surprised Abbott, who has plans to retire soon, with a five-day vacation. (Abbott and Brunson plan to meet in person the next time Brunson is in Philadelphia, Abbott said.)
This is sweet. It gets better. This is really just a wonderful way to phrase the next point.
It’s been overwhelming but lovely. And she’s still trying to wrap her mind around inspiring a pupil who went on to write and star in a TV show about Philadelphia schools that she named for her.
“It means a lot,” Abbott said. “It’s not that I do the work to be recognized — I’ve never done the work to be recognized. The kids know, the students know, and that’s all that matters.”
And then there’s this, which is somehow cool and powerful and fun in about six different ways and which I fully expect to see happen in an episode of the show in the near future.
When Brunson was a sixth grader, students held pretzel sales and assembled hoagies to earn enough money for a stretch limo ride and gourmet dinner at the swanky Chart House at the end of the school year. Abbott coached them on what a salad fork looked like and how to talk to and tip the limo driver with class funds set aside for that purpose.
Abbott rejected suggestions that they aim a little lower, take a school bus to the Olive Garden or TGI Friday’s.
“When you work hard, you get the best,” Abbott said. “When you see the best, you’re going to strive.”
A good teacher is really something. It is amazing what kind of impact they can have on your entire life. Not all of us will turn that into a beloved sitcom that people like me keep yammering about, but that’s fine. There’s still a legacy there, even if it’s just in your head. Take a minute today and think of a teacher who had an impact like this on you. There’s probably at least one. I can think of about four off the top of my head. Shoutout to Mrs. O’Connor.
ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Let’s check in with Michael Bay
Getty Image
Michael Bay sat down with Empire for a profile about making action movies for about four decades now and also about blowing things up. Mostly that second thing. The man rarely if ever disappoints, provided you are expecting him to do and/or say some Extremely Michael Bay stuff.
Stuff, for example, like this.
There’s one explosion Bay is particularly proud of – an especially ferocious fireball during the attack sequence in Pearl Harbor. “Jerry Bruckheimer showed Ridley Scott the movie,” recalls Bay. “And the quote [from Scott] was, ‘Fuck me.’ No-one knows how hard that is. We had so much big stuff out there. Real boats, 20 real planes. We had 350 events going off. Three months of rigging on seven boats, stopping a freeway that’s three miles away.” While Guinness World Records has the destruction of Blofeld’s base in Spectre down as the current record holder, Bay’s having none of it. “James Bond tried to take the ‘largest explosion in the world’,” he says. “Bullshit. Ours is.”
I could not possibly love it more. Everything about it, starting with the amount of pride he takes in blowing stuff up and continuing to the fact where he keeps tabs on things other people are blowing up. And also the thing where he made a huge epic movie about an important moment in American history that resulted in tons of deaths and launched us into a war with Hitler and his biggest takeaway from it was “we blew up stuff real good.” He is a uniquely American figure. I would read an entire book about him.
Until that gets written, though, I will settle for profiles like this one, and the one in GQ from a few years ago where he delivered a quote that still lives in a nice little duplex inside my brain a decade later.
Hodenfield: Michael was saying he was gonna go about the movie differently—he was gonna hold shots longer, he wasn’t gonna move the camera as much. This was gonna be like a classic movie. The first day we started shooting, he wasn’t using his fast-moving, fast cuts, low shots—his bag of tricks—and it was like watching an Italian speak without his hands. By lunchtime, we’re making a Michael Bay movie, in the Michael Bay style.
Bay: I don’t change my style for anybody. Pussies do that.
We should interview Michael Bay once a year. About anything. Put it on every channel of the television like it’s the State of the Union. Let him blow something up at the end. These are good ideas.
Two of my favorite things in the world, in no particular order:
People bring harmless rascals on the internet
The music of the Beastie Boys
That is why this video, which mashes together the song “Intergalactic” with the thing from the deeply troubled Death on the Nile movie where Gal Gadot says the phrase “enough champagne to fill the Nile,” is so great. For me. Maybe for you, too. I hope so, at least. But I’m the one with the weekly goofball roundup column here so it’s getting posted no matter how you feel about it. This is just how things work out sometimes. It’s fine.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me on Twitter or at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Justin:
BRIAN
WE’VE GOT A “NOT SO DIFFERENT” IN THE TRAILER OF THE ELVIS MOVIE
AND TOM HANKS SAYS IT
ARE YOU OKAY?
I need to be clear about something: So many people reached out to me about this. The trailer dropped on Thursday and within an hour I had received texts, emails, tweets, and direct messages alerting me to the fact that Tom Hanks — in layers of makeup and with a borderline indecipherable accent — delivers a variation of my beloved “not so different” line of dialogue. Look at this.
WB
To recap:
Baz Luhrmann is making a movie about Elvis Presley
This is all quite magnificent. As is the thing where a million people saw it happen and decided to reach out to me about it. We’re all doing great. Especially me and Tom Hanks. The rest of us, too, though.
An abandoned cargo ship packed with cars is adrift in the Atlantic Ocean, after a rapidly-spreading fire on board forced the crew to escape.
The 656 foot-long Felicity Ace roll-on/roll-off car-carrying ship caught fire in the North Atlantic on Wednesday as it carried cargo, including Porsches and Volkswagens, from Emden, Germany to Davisville, Rhode Island. At the time of the fire’s outbreak, the ship was sailing 90 nautical miles southwest of Portugal’s Azores, according to a statement on Wednesday by the Portuguese Navy.
A few notes here:
There is a flaming zombie boat floating around the ocean with millions of dollars worth of luxury cars on it
This is like the setup for a movie where a crew of thieves takes to the seas to steal the cars before the boat sinks
Felicity Ace would be a great name for one of the members of the crew, probably played by, like, Florence Pugh
Moving on.
Porsche confirmed to CNN Business that a number of its cars were among the cargo and that customers with cars on board the burning ship are being contacted by their dealers.
“While it remains too early to confirm what occurred and next steps, we are — along with our colleagues at Porsche AG — supporting our customers and our dealers as best we can to find solutions,” said Angus Fitton, Vice President of PR at Porsche Cars North America. “We are in contact with the shipping company and the details of the cars on board are now known.”
“Hey, is this Randy?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, Randy. I have some good news and bad news about the Porsche you ordered.”
“Okay…”
“The good news is that it departed from Europe on time and is currently on the boat.”
“Great. What’s the bad news?”
“The boat is currently engulfed in flames and floating through the ocean without a crew like a ghost ship from a movie Orlando Bloom plays a pirate.”
“Ah.”
There was also this tweet on the subject, which went viral as hell this week for reasons you will understand immediately.
BREAKING: A giant cargo ship “Felicity Ace” is on fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s carrying a cargo of Porsche and VW automobiles.
The crew safely abandoned ship in lifeboats. Under maritime law the ship is now “finders keepers.” pic.twitter.com/gHLqHncrOi
I don’t know if this last part is true. I kind of don’t want to look it up to check. All I know for certain is that you can say almost anything after the phrase “under maritime law” and I would probably believe it.
Please do not use this information to scam me. Thank you.
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