Category: News

Kids and old people have a number of things in common: They both sh*t their pants on the regular, and they typically don’t censor themselves when telling you exactly what’s on their mind. Maybe that’s why when People asked former The Price Is Right host Bob Barker to share his favorite part about making the show, his answer was pretty forthright: “The first thing that pops to mind is… the money, of course!” Barker, of course, claimed to be joking (maybe). And went on to note that:

“All kidding aside, there was much to love. I had the pleasure of working with a dedicated and talented cast and crew for 35 great years. Particularly close to my heart was the ability our vast popularity gave me to remind our entire audience daily about the importance of spaying and neutering your pets.”

Barker is helping to celebrate the game show’s 50th season, which kicks off in September. As the show’s longtime and most iconic host, he helped contestants spin that aptly named “Big Wheel” from September 1972 to June 2007. But the 97-year-old is also one of the world’s best-known animal advocates, and began using his daily sign-off as a way to share the importance of animal population control all the way back in 1979—long before pet adoption via animals shelters became the norm. In fact, Barker is often credited as the person who helped normalize the practice of spaying and neutering our pets.

According to Rare Magazine, when Barker first uttered that iconic call to action, only about 10 percent of America’s pets were ever spayed or neutered. Today, those numbers have jumped to 73 percent of dogs and 86 percent of cats.

And you thought his greatest contribution was introducing the world to Plinko!

(Via People)

Dune isn’t the only iconic work of science fiction making its way on to our television screens (much to director Denis Villeneuve’s dismay) this year. In just over a month, the Apple TV adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy hits the streaming service and at long last, we now have the series’ first, and quite frankly stunning, official trailer.

If like me you’ve already been a bit blown away by the trailer’s visuals and are ready to hear a bit more about it, we’ve got you covered. According to the YouTube video’s descriptions, the upcoming series “chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire.” All this kicks off when a prophetic revolutionary, Dr. Hari Seldon (portrayed by Jared Harris in the series) predicts the impending fall of the Empire, thus solidifying himself as a heretic in the eyes of the galaxy’s rulers. Following him penning his research, a band of like-minded followers are quick to rise up and assist him in his work of establishing The Foundation, a final attempt at rebuilding and preserving civilization. However, not all goes well when your greatest enemy are the Cleons, a long line of emperor clones with unrivaled power and an intense fear of losing their legacy.

In addition to telling a pretty interesting story by arguably one of science fiction’s greatest writers, the series is packed with some serious talent. Showrunner and executive producer David S. Goyer, known for his work on Batman Begins and Man of Steel, is helming the series with Robyn Asimov, Josh Friedman, Cameron Welsh, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Bill Bost serving as executive producers. The cast is led by Emmy Award nominees Jared Harris and Lee Pace, along with fresh faces Lou Llobell and Leah Harvey, and actors Laura Birn (The Purge), Terrence Mann (Critters), Cassian Bilton (The Devil’s Harmony), and Alfred Enoch (How To Get Away With Murder, Harry Potter series).

The first season of Apple TV’s Foundation will exclusively hit the streaming service on September 24, 2021, with the first two episodes available that day and an additional episode available every Friday following the premiere. The series will run for ten episodes and as of right now a second season has yet to be confirmed.

Lieutenant Jim Dangle will not die! Thomas Lennon’s microscopic shorts-loving head of the Reno Sheriff’s Department and the rest of the Reno 911! gang have been part of the pop culture fabric for nearly 20 years—and they’re not going anywhere. As Variety reports, viewers will get the chance to continue witnessing the utter ineptitude of Dangle, Deputy Trudy Wiegel (Kerri Kenney-Silver, who co-created the series with Lennon and Robert Ben Garant) and the rest of the gang thanks to Roku which, after acquiring the series from the ill-fated Quibi, has ordered four more half-hour episodes of the long-running Cops parody.

As Michael Schneider writes:

Quibi shut down in December, less than a year after its much-heralded launch. The Jeffrey Katzenberg-Meg Whitman startup and its promise of delivering “quick bite” content to users exclusively on their phones became a bit of a punchline in the industry. But the programming itself was rather solid, attracting top Hollywood producers and stars. Clearly TV Academy voters found it Emmy-worthy: Last year, Quibi won two Emmys (for “#FreeRayshawn”).

While Quibi no longer exists, three of its shows (including Reno 911!) are currently in contention for a total of eight Emmy Awards. While Emmy voters still see “Quibi” as the responsible network, Roku—which acquired 75 Quibi titles back in early January, then quickly rebranded them as Roku Originals—is congratulating itself for its first batch of Emmy nominations.

Reno 911! debuted on Comedy Central in 2003, where it ran for six seasons. In 2020, Quibi trotted it back out for 25 more (shorter) episodes. Where the series goes beyond the four new already-ordered episodes is yet to be decided. “We continue to evaluate things that make sense for us,” Colin Davis, Roku’s head of scripted content (who previously worked for Quibi) told Variety.

(Via Variety)

Mike Lindell told attendees of his blunder-filled cyber symposium last week that he was “attacked” by an unknown assailant.

“He put his arm around and stuck his finger, it was so much pressure, I just knew if I did anything something more was coming,” the MyPillow founder told the conservative blab-fest FlashPoint about the alleged incident at his Sioux Falls hotel. “He jammed it in where it was just piercing pain.” Lindell was “worried that Antifa — an umbrella term for militant anti-fascist groups — had somehow infiltrated the symposium,” according to Insider, but it “turned out to be a fan of Lindell who wanted a picture with the MyPillow CEO.” Like every Facebook user in the late-2000s, he was “aggressively poked”:

The incident took place over Mr Lindell’s multi-day event last week in South Dakota, where he vowed to present evidence showing that Mr Trump had indeed been the rightful victor of the 2020 election. That proof never came, and when asked about it, the CEO responded that his team had data that it did not want reporters to fact-check.

Also, a tangerine may have been involved.

Of course, as with all things relating to the pillow magnate/conspiracy theorist (there are literally dozens of them), it’s never that simple. Eyewitness Jeff Buongiorno believes that the incident is a “nothing burger.” He told the Associated Press that “the elevators are glass, and witnesses saw Lindell go up to the 6th floor. There was no attack.”

A police report was filed, however, so the authorities are asking for the public’s help in finding a man in a light blue shirt who is “suspected in committing an assault at a hotel near Russell St and West Ave last Wednesday night, Aug 11.”

“What are you doing time for?”
“Insurance fraud. You?”
“I’m serving life for murder. How about you?”
“I aggressively poked Mike Lindell with a tangerine.”

No one’s going to mess with him in prison.

(Via Insider and via the Independent)

Oddly, rappers Lil Pump and Swae Lee both had some criminal misfortune in Miami over the summer, but unfortunately for these two artists, it looks like they won’t be seeing justice anytime soon. While Lil Pump had his car’s windows broken in, Swae Lee lost $300,000 worth of jewelry in a hotel room burglary, but according to TMZ, Miami police have been stymied by a lack of evidence in both cases, prompting them to close both until further leads come up. The Miami Beach Police Department told TMZ through a spokesperson that they’ve exhausted all investigative leads for the time being and no suspects were arrested in either case.

Swae Lee and Lil Pump are far from the only two rappers who’ve had legal issues in Miami this year. The city’s been something of a hotbed for hip-hop, bringing a steady stream of headlines pertaining to arrests and run-ins rappers have experienced there. In June, breakout 1017 Records artist Pooh Shiesty was arrested and charged for an armed robbery in Miami for jacking sneakers and weed and shooting the victim, Chicago rising star Polo G was arrested for battery against a police officer and resisting arrest, and DaBaby was detained and questioned by police about a shooting for which his Billion Dollar Baby artist Wisdom was eventually arrested and charged. I’m not sure what’s going on down there, but at this point, the Miami police have interviewed or arrested enough artists to start a label of their own.

Coming in hot off of her mean-girl turn on HBO’s The White Lotus, Sydney Sweeney stars in the steamy new trailer for the Amazon original movie The Voyeurs. The thriller features Sydney acting alongside Justice Smith as a couple who became obsessed with watching their extremely photogenic and consistently frisky neighbors, who are played by Ben Hardy and Katharine King So.

However, that obsession starts to go too far as Sweeney’s character begins interacting with the seemingly picture-perfect neighbors, who are clearly hiding some dark secrets. And, yet, judging by the trailer, that doesn’t stop Sweeney from getting pulled in even deeper by Hardy’s hunky good looks and suave demeanor.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“The Voyeurs” follows a young couple (Sydney Sweeney and Justice Smith) who move into their dream apartment, only to find their windows look directly into a unit across the street — a volatile and attractive couple who captivate the pair. When they attempt to anonymously intercede in their lives, they unwittingly set in motion a chain of events that will lead to disaster.

According to Variety, The Voyeurs will be the first film in a planned series of “sexy date night” thrillers coming to Amazon subscribers.

The Voyeurs starts streaming September 10 on Amazon Prime Video.

On January 8, 2021—two days after the Capitol insurrection—then-sitting-President Donald Trump was finally (and eventually permanently) banned from Twitter, and he’s still talking about it. More than seven months after the fact, Trump still seems stuck in the third stage of grief: Bargaining. Knowing that this is a sore spot for #45, Raw Story reports that Newsmax slimeball Greg Kelly initiated a conversation on that very topic while interviewing Trump on Wednesday night. Trump’s response was as infantile as you’d expect.

“You know what’s wild, Mr. President,” Kelly began. “Right now, you are off social media; the Taliban is on social media. We have a valid, active Twitter account [for the Taliban]. These horrible, hateful people who gave solace and refuge to Al-Quaeda and you are not on social media.”

Ever the narcissist, and unwilling to admit that he violated Twitter’s policies in any ways that merited a permanent ban, Trump responded that:

“It’s disgraceful whenever you think that have killers and muggers and dictators and horrible … some horrible dictators and countries, and they’re all on. But the president of the United States, who had hundreds of millions of people, by the way, and he gets taken off.”

Killers and muggers and dictators. Yes, all are equally terrible people.

It is, of course, worth noting that just the other day, Trump was praising the Taliban for their superior fighting skills, saying: “The Taliban, good fighters I will tell, you, good fighters. You have to give them credit for that.”

Do we have to though?!

(Via Raw Story)

It’s been a few years since we’ve heard from Destiny’s Child, who most recently reunited to perform a medley of a few songs during Beyonce’s 2018 Coachella set. But fans of the iconic girl group are convinced that’s about to change. Thanks to a small update on social media, diehard fans of the “Say My Name” singers think a possible reunion could be in the works.

Destiny’s Child had their fans buzzing this week after making a slight change to their social media pages. The group changed the official header on their Twitter and Facebook pages, leading fans to believe that they are gearing up for something. Fans aren’t sure whether or not this means new music or a possible slew of reunion tour dates, but either way, they’re hoping their speculations are correct.

As soon as news of the profile change hit Twitter, fans began instantly trying to manifest a reunion.

Besides the new social media header, the other clue fans have about a potential Destiny’s Child reunion comes from Michelle Williams. Back in May, Williams shared an audio clip on social media of a conversation between herself, Beyonce, and third Destiny’s Child bandmate Kelly Rowland. The three were spending time together and Beyonce said she was “cooking some music.” The fact that the girl group were hanging out fueled rumors of something in the works, but members of the group have yet to officially confirm the rumors.

In case it wasn’t clear that Marvel is back in full force, the studio has fired up the marketing machine for Eternals, which will be the next major Phase 4 blockbuster to follow September’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. On Wednesday, Entertainment Weekly laid out a massive deep dive into the new group of superheroes that director Chloé Zhao will introduce to the MCU for the first time.

One of those immortal heroes is Salma Hayak‘s Ajak, and according to the actor, she actually wasn’t champing at the bit to take Marvel’s call because she just assumed they wanted her to play the “grandmother” or some sort of elderly character that guides the actual heroes. To her surprise, that wasn’t the case, and she’s right there in the action. Via EW:

Hayek, for example, plays the group’s leader Ajak, but when she initially heard Marvel wanted to meet with her, she assumed it would be for a small supporting role, not a starring hero.

“I said, ‘Forget it,’” she recalls, laughing. “I said, ‘God knows what kind of grandmother they want me to play.’ I’m used to being [told] I’m going to be the extra or the old prostitute. And then they said the director was Chloé Zhao, and I said, ‘Okay! Let’s have the meeting!’”

Following EW‘s guide to the Eternals, Marvel surprised fans by dropping a brand new trailer on Thursday that offered the best look yet at the new heroes and explained what the heck they were doing while Thanos was ripping apart the universe.

Marvel’s Eternals hits theaters on November 5.

(Via Entertainment Weekly)

Nothing can match the catharsis of thrashing to your favorite band in a crowd of equally-gleeful fans, and by the time music festivals across the US announced their anticipated lineups for 2021, live music had been sorely missed. When the return of large-scale music events finally arrived, festival organizers seemingly rushed to beef up their bills with today’s top stars in order to make up for a year of lost revenue. But amid the excitement over the return of massive music events, one glaring critique surfaced: Where were all the women?

Between Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Rolling Loud, Governors Ball, and Austin City Limits this year, only a meager 18 percent of the headliners are women-led projects. Prior to the pandemic, gender equality in festival lineups had been a much talked about priority. Programs like Europe’s Keychange initiative strive to even the playing field by holding festival organizers accountable for their male-dominated lineups. The organization’s goal is to get festivals’ commitment to work towards 50/50 gender equality, but this year’s live music landscape proves there’s still much work to be done. The push for equality in lineups seemingly fell far down on the list of priorities as organizers juggled a million things from COVID safety guidelines to schedule conflicts.

Amid the male-dominated mega-festivals, one deeply music-centric event proved they are far ahead of the curve when it comes to lineup gender equality. Pitchfork Music Festival unveiled their 2021 lineup in the spring, showing that over half of their artists were women-led projects. Their official headliners are all women (Phoebe Bridgers, St. Vincent, and Erykah Badu), and they’re highlighting up-and-coming talent by inviting artists like Bartees Strange, Cassandra Jenkins, and Dogleg to the stage. The festival made sure to also include indie favorites on the bill like Angel Olsen, Big Thief, Waxahatchee, Cat Power, Kim Gordon, Faye Webster, and Caroline Polachek.

According to Executive Director of Festivals & Activations at Pitchfork Adam Krefman, achieving gender equality was far from a difficult task, especially when the festival notes the kind of music fans are actually listening to. “Diversity is always a priority for us on the lineup, but we do not audit or tally it as we’re booking,” Krefman told Uproxx. “The truth is it’s easy to create diverse lineups without keeping a tally of it when you are really paying attention to what Pitchfork is covering — which is our north star in booking.” Krefman added that lineup diversity shouldn’t even be a question in this day and age. “We’re proud of our lineup, and to have an audience with a wide-ranging taste in music. It shouldn’t be noteworthy to have a diverse lineup in 2021, but if it is, we’re happy to help lead the way.”

For the past 15 years, Pitchfork Music Festival has been a safe haven for rising indie stars. It’s not like other music festivals; there are no Ferris wheels or camping sites, and Instagrammable moments are few and far between. Instead, the festival’s priorities are focused on one place: the music itself. The Chicago festival may not get as much media attention as Lollapalooza, the city’s four-day festival which reportedly drew over 380,000 people this year, and doesn’t attract a crowd as large as the dedicated metalheads who flock to the annual punk festival Riot Fest. But it is an unpretentious place for indie music lovers to gather on a grassy field and revel in their collective obsession with recently-discovered acts and respected legacy artists like The Isley Brothers, Ms. Lauryn Hill, and A Tribe Called Quest.

This year, after a global pandemic left music fanatics missing their favorite bands, Pitchfork is ensuring that bringing back live music also includes an emphasis on safety. From the beginning, Pitchfork promised they would require proof of vaccinations or a negative COVID test in the 24 hours prior to entry, choosing to “err on the side of caution with more protective measures,” according to Krefman. Healthcare company Curative is slated to offer rapid testing just one block away from Pitchfork’s entrance. The festival has also announced they will require attendees to don masks for the entirety of the outdoor event, an added safety measure most festivals aren’t adopting. Lollapalooza’s confirmed COVID numbers mark a promising sign for Pitchfork. The festival had less-strict safety guidelines, more people in attendance, and though there were 203 confirmed cases afterwards, there was still “no evidence” that it turned out to be a “super-spreader event,” according to Chicago’s top doctor Allison Arwady.

Even with the safety restrictions in place, this year’s Pitchfork Festival has a few exciting developments. Their canceled 2020 event was supposed to commemorate the festival’s 15th anniversary. While that didn’t quite go as planned, the 2021 event coincides with the website’s 25th anniversary. To celebrate, organizers are partnering with Chicago’s nearly 100-year-old art-house Music Box Theater for a film series that will be followed by interviews with Jamila Woods, Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche, and more. Krefman also teased a “big new feature” of the festival itself, which will apparently tie in editorial and interview content from Pitchfork’s website.

Amenities aside, organizers at this year’s festival are confident the event will leave fans feeling a sense of connection to their community. “When we announced this year, the outpouring of love and appreciation from the public was overwhelming,” Krefman said. “It seemed to act as a post-Covid beacon in a way that caught us off-guard. So I hope that, alongside venues, restaurants, independent retail, etc., it has helped bring home the importance for consumers to really support the things they love, that enrich their lives, and that prioritize community.”

Pitchfork Music Festival 2021 is sure to be a memorable one. Indie music lovers will once again be able to experience the euphoria that comes with seeing their favorite artist in person, and sharing that special moment with thousands of others. “I’m looking forward to people feeling every bit of the catharsis and emotion that communal live music brings,” Krefman said. “And I’m looking forward to seeing the artists back in their preferred element, creating art in the real world for real humans.”