Category: News

As legend has it, The Watcher letters (and harassment) stopped after the terrorized family left the building. Ryan Murphy recently adapted the based-on-real-life story for Netflix, and although some vocal viewers were disappointed at the lack of a concrete ending, that aspect of the show matches up to what happened in real life. Or rather, it matches what didn’t happen, given that even though the show toys with hypotheticals, no one actually determined the identity of The Watcher.

The show is remains worth a watch, but there’s a new wrinkle because the real-life mystery has actually been fueled by how the harassment simply evaporated. The Broadusses/Brannocks relocated and apparently went back to a peaceful life, and the newest owners of 657 Boulevard (as detailed by The Cut’s followup reporting to their original article) seemed to have no further issues. And barring “a confession or a DNA match,” it looked like this story would fade into the pop cultural annals of history.

Not so fast, though? The New York Post reports (while claiming to have viewed new police records) that the house’s current owners have called police dozens of times, including for unknown reasons. It’s very mysterious:

The current owners of 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey — the property otherwise known as the real-life home from “The Watcher” series — have made 58 calls to police since they moved in back in July 2019, The Post can report.

The Post notes that the Westfield Police relayed a lack of developments (or “threatening communications”) for the new owners as of October 2021. However, if the new report is to be believed, there have been calls made for several reasons, including a medical call but also the owners feeling “spooked by something” along with concerns of possible burglary-related activity and tripped alarms in the basement. However, the police reports remain under wraps, and no new activity has been confirmed by other sources. So, take this with a grain of salt, but it sure makes the O.G. story seem spookier.

(Via New York Post)

WandaVision‘s Agatha spinoff just added an up and coming Netflix star. Heartstopper‘s Joe Locke has reportedly joined the cast of Agatha: Coven of Chaos, which will focus on Kathryn Hahn’s character following her first encounter with Elizabeth Olsen’s now fully-powered Scarlet Witch.

As always, details around Locke’s character are being closely guarded, but that hasn’t stopped fan theories from running rampant with a stab at his identity. Via The Wrap:

Online speculation has suggested he could be playing an older version of Billy, one of the kids that Wanda had in Westview (she also spent much of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” trying to get back to them). Besides Locke and Hahn, Emma Caulfield Ford has also been confirmed to return to the series, playing her “WandaVision” character Dottie.

Locke playing Billy Maximoff (or Wiccan as he’s more commonly known in the comics) would track as the collection of Disney+ originals have been slowly building a Young Avengers team in the background. However, how Billy could even exist in the current MCU will be an interesting mystery considering he was revealed to be a manifestation of Wanda’s magic and imagination in the WandaVision series finale. (In other words, not real.)

That said, alternate versions of Billy and his brother Tommy were shown in the Doctor Strange sequel, and the MCU is currently embroiled in what’s known as “The Multiverse Saga.” There’s also another option: Online reports are saying that Sacha Baron Cohen has been cast as Mephisto and will appear in the Agatha spinoff. His dark magic could also provide an avenue to bring Wanda’s children into the current MCU’s reality.

Or the kid could just… show up. Sometimes it’s best not to overthink it.

(Via The Wrap)

Legend has it that Kurt Cobain knew Nirvana had “made it” when “Weird Al” Yankovic turned “Smells Like Teen Spirit” into “Smells Like Nirvana.” The lead single from 1992’s Off the Deep End album was Yankovic’s first hit since 1988’s “Bad” (Nirvana knocked Michael Jackson off the top of the charts, but “Weird Al” connected them), but he didn’t actually interact with Cobain in person until months after the song was released.

“I met Kurt Cobain in person a few months after my parody came out. We were both eating in the same restaurant in L.A., and I noticed him at a nearby table with some friends,” Yankovic wrote during a Reddit Ask Me Anything to promote the Oscar worthy (but not Oscar eligible) Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. He continued:

“I timidly went over and thanked him profusely for letting me do ‘Smells Like Nirvana,’ and told him I was now obligated to do any favor that he wished. He turned his head and extended his hand, and said, ‘Polish my nails.’ I loved that guy.”

And we love you, “Weird Al.”

Also, watch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which comes to the Roku Channel on November 4.

(Via Reddit)

Megan Thee Stallion’s love for three things — anime, dressing up, and Halloween — is well-documented (in fact, my first post about her for Uproxx was inspired by a viral trend that spun off from one of her cosplay pics on Twitter). She was probably the first star to post a Halloween-themed photo this year (way back on October 1), and her cosplay not only generates viral headlines but also led to her being one of the faces of a video game’s promo campaign when she dressed as one if its most popular characters.

So, of course, she wasn’t going to let Halloween go by without taking the opportunity to once again show her appreciation for anime with a hyper-accurate costume based on one of her favorite shows, My Hero Academia (as well as some flashy photoshop to complete the look). The photos, which she posted on Instagram, capture her costume perfect in dynamic action poses straight out of the show itself. The character, Mirko, is called the Rabbit Hero, one of the many superhero personalities around which the show’s narrative revolves. Mirko is considered the “number five hero” in Japan as well as being its numer one female hero (anime are really big on ranking stuff). Her powers give her incredible jumping strength and massive gams — which makes Meg’s cosplay perfect in more ways than one (shout-out to the adamantium knees!).

Megan’s love for anime hasn’t gone unreciprocated either. Last year, one of her favorite show’s voice actors shouted her out in a fan-favorite line.

It’s rare a member of the Republican Party speaks sense when interviewed by the press but Representative Adam Kinzinger broke that mold a bit this week when he dragged his fellow GOP buddies for being a bunch of conspiracy-peddling cowards.

Kinzinger went on MSNBC to talk about the recent attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, that took place in the couple’s California home. The attacker broke into the Pelosi’s residence in the middle of the night and beat Mr. Pelosi with a hammer, causing serious injury. The man was reportedly looking for the Speaker of the House during the attack and has a history of promoting bizarre conspiracy theories and racism online. While chatting with MSNBC, Kinzinger called out his fellow Republicans who have failed to condemn these far-right groups.

“Liz [Cheney] and I are not courageous. There’s no strength in this. We’re just surrounded by cowards,” Kinzinger said while name-checking one of the only other Republican reps who have spoken out against Pelosi’s attacker. “In complete contrast to cowardism, it looks like courage when it’s just your bare duty.”

Kinzinger also took to social media to air his grievances with members of the GOP who have been more than happy to promote division amongst voters with their whacko conspiracies — looking at you Marjorie Taylor Greene.

It sounds like there might be one Republican in Congress who actually has a moral compass. Who would’ve guessed?

The original Game of Thrones pilot was famously a “complete piece of shit.” It was so bad, in fact, that showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff threatened to release it on YouTube if Jon Snow actor Kit Harington ever said anything to piss them off. So, how did Thrones go from blackmail material to one of the most popular and award-winning TV shows of all-time? It’s partially thanks to the efforts of Tim Van Patten.

You might not know the name, but you know his work. Van Patten has directed episodes of Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, Sex and the City, The Wire, and The Sopranos, including many of the show’s best episodes, like “Long Term Parking” and “Soprano Home Movies.” He was also behind the camera for the first (and second) episode of Game of Thrones after the original pilot was deemed unwatchable, as revealed in the new book, It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO.

Michael Lombardo, a top programming executive at [HBO], insisted [Van Patten] read [Game of Thrones]. Van Patten got through ten pages of it. “My head exploded,” he says. “This was way too much to digest.” Then Lombardo showed him the pilot. “This isn’t going to make it,” Van Patten thought to himself.

Eventually, Van Patten agreed to direct the pilot after more persuasion from HBO (and presumably a lot of money). “Shooting a pilot is really hard, and getting into a series is really hard,” Thrones executive producer Carolyn Strauss told authors Felix Gillette and John Koblin. “If you haven’t done it before, it can overwhelm. Timmy had so much series experience, and so much series experience at HBO, they had a lot of trust and faith in him.”

That trust and faith paid off, many times over.

It’s Not TV: The Spectacular Rise, Revolution, and Future of HBO is on sale now.

(Via Vulture)

The residue that has likely accumulated from Steve Bannon’s lack of bathing and several layers of shirts may be finally seeping into his brain, like Rudy Giuliani’s hair goo. Despite being recently sentenced to four months in prison for failing to comply with a subpoena to appear before the January 6th committee, Bannon — the former chief strategist to Donald Trump — is still shouting his bizarre political takes and conspiracy theories from anyplace that will let him. And, as Mediaite reports, his latest accusation is a real head-scratcher: Bannon is convinced that John Fetterman, lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania and Democratic nominee for U.S. senator, is a cyborg!

On Monday, a clip began making the rounds on Twitter of Bannon appearing as a guest on Diamond and Silk Chit Chat Live, a program on Mike Lindell TV (yes, it pains us to type all of those words), where talked turned to the heated senatorial race in Pennsylvania between Fetterman and New Jersey’s finest TV quack Dr. Mehmet Oz. And Bannon shared his honest (and honestly bizarre) thoughts on the upcoming midterms and why he thinks people should fear Fetterman:

What you see in Fetterman, and why Fetterman is so dangerous — and Fetterman as a concept is dangerous — is… he had a stroke. Now, could he have taken care of himself better? Let’s just leave that aside. He can’t help the fact that he had a stroke. But what we know, and the doctor said last night on CNN, he had a major stroke. In fact, Fetterman’s admitted that. He won’t release his medical records. But what you saw the other night is… he has a machine in front of him. It’s not a closed caption, like you would watch TV and want it to be quiet while you were working on something else and wanted it to be quiet. No, this is a machine that actually helps his brain think through. Without the machine, he can’t understand human conversations. He can’t engage with people. So we actually had what we call a ‘cyborg.’ You actually had man-machine merger on that stage the other night.

Somebody call Cyberdyne Systems! Or James Cameron. If this whole senator thing doesn’t work out, Fetterman could be in line to

(Via Mediaite)

While lots of stars tend to go all-out on their Halloween costumes (you can check out some examples here and here), others tend to be more low-key. But while those more simple costumes usually involve a lot fewer moving parts, that doesn’t exactly make them foolproof. JT, who went with common barnyard animal, was miffed to learn that her costume wasn’t what she thought it was — but only after she’d already done her makeup.

The City Girls rapper seemed to take things in stride, though, posting a photo of the faux pas on Instagram and explaining what happened in the caption, turning the mixup into a bit of a Jeff Goldblum in The Fly situation. “I got this thinking it was a bunny,” she explained. “whole time Im a lamb, face paint all wrong, smh. happy Halloween from the lambunny.” You can see in the pic below that she’s certainly got the facepaint of an adorable rabbit, but unfortunately for JT, most sheep don’t have whiskers. However, as one commenter pointed out, her error could simply be the start of a trend; “finna be mad lambunnies next year now watch,” they wrote.

Meanwhile, her City Girl partner-in-rhyme Yung Miami didn’t post a costume pic this year, but did share her fans’ costumes with her infamous “Go Papi” sign from the BET Awards earlier this year, which she held up to support rumored beau Diddy.

In a rare move, Republican Senator Ted Cruz has called out Donald Trump for not dipping into his millions to help out Republican candidates heading into the midterm elections. While opining on a senate race in Colorado where Republican challenger Joe O’Dea is looking to unseat Democratic incumbent Michael Bennett, Cruz put Trump on blast for not helping to turn the tide. (Cruz also called out Mitch McConnell for being cagey about where he donates his PAC funds.)

Via Mediaite:

“I will say by the way — I wish Trump was spending some of his money — Trump’s got a hundred million dollars and he’s spending almost none of it to support these candidates,” Cruz said.

“That is not ideal when Mitch McConnell only spends for the moderates of the anti-Trump candidates. It would be nice if Trump would spend some of that a hundred million dollars to help some of these candidates who Mitch is abandoning because they’re pro-Trump,” he added.

Of course, as has been widely reported, Trump is spending his PAC money on his mounting legal bills instead of helping the party. However, Cruz also brings up another issue. Trump is extremely temperamental. After O’Dea went on a Sunday talk show and said that Trump shouldn’t run in 2024, the former president immediately went to work telling his supporters not to vote for O’Shea.

“You’re just sitting there going, ‘Okay, great. So we’re gonna elect the Democrat who votes pretty much a hundred percent of the time with (Chuck) Schumer and (Joe) Biden,’” Cruz said before chiding O’Dea for “poking the bear” and Trump for, well, being the bear. “Do I wish Trump would exercise the restraint not to take a bat to him? Yes, but he’s not going to.”

(Via Mediaite)

Jimmy Fallon has teamed up with country music legend Dolly Parton to pose a difficult question — is it ever “too early” for Christmas music?

The Tonight Show host announced Monday night (October 31) that he is releasing a holiday song with Parton, “Almost Too Early For Christmas,” to help answer that question. He also played a significant portion of the track. The song would be his second Christmas single after last year’s “It Was A… (Masked Christmas),” which featured Ariana Grande and Megan Thee Stallion.

Fallon noted how we wonder how best to maneuver our playlists after Thanksgiving.

“People have that debate after Thanksgiving, they have that debate where they go, ‘Oh, can we listen to holiday music? Can we listen to Christmas music? Is it too early,” he said. “Can we put on Mariah Carey now?’ I say, ‘Yeah, if it’s good, you should.’”

During the rest of the broadcast, the talk show host shared he thought it would be fun to put the song out around Halloween. Later, he shared a brief song clip, giving viewers an extraordinary sneak peek of his duet with Parton.

“It’s almost too early for Christmas / but why don’t we see how this goes,” the host and country singer croon as the chorus begins.

Fallon visited Parton this past summer while collaborating on NBC’s upcoming holiday special, “Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas.”

“Almost Too Early For Christmas” drops this Friday, November 4. In the meantime, check out the preview clip above.