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Even if you haven’t seen the Star Wars Holiday Special, as it’s never been officially released on home video or streaming, you’re still likely aware of its reputation. Its terrible, terrible reputation. George Lucas famously once said that “if I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it,” which is rude to Itchy, Lumpy, Space Harvey Korman, Jefferson Starship, and all your other favorites in the special. I don’t expect the Star Wars Holiday Special to appear on Disney+ any time soon, if ever (much to writer Bruce Vilanch’s dismay, no doubt), but at least we’re getting the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special. Except instead of long, dialogue-free stretches of Wookiee moans, it appears that there’s an actual plot that mashes up the timeline so that Rey and Darth Vader meet Baby Yoda! You crazy for this one, Disney+.

Here’s more on the special:

The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special reunites Rey, Finn, Poe, Chewie, Rose and the droids for a joyous feast on Life Day. Rey sets off on a new adventure with BB-8 to gain a deeper knowledge of the Force. At a mysterious Jedi Temple, she is hurled into a cross-timeline adventure through beloved moments in Star Wars cinematic history, coming into contact with Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Yoda, Obi-Wan and other iconic heroes and villains from all nine Skywalker saga films. But will she make it back in time for the Life Day feast and learn the true meaning of holiday spirit?

The LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special premieres on Disney+ on November 17.

Ice Cube has been dealing with a fair amount of backlash in recent days after it was revealed he worked with the Trump administration on its “Platinum Plan.” It’s been weeks since that news has come out, and Ice Cube has spoken about it on a number of occasions since then. This morning, he has again addressed the situation, and he confused by the hate he has been getting.

Taking to Twitter this morning, he wrote, “Let me get this straight, I get the president of the United States to agree to put over half a trillion dollars of capital in the Black Community (without an endorsement) and N****s are mad at me? [crying laughing emojis] …have a nice life.”

Before that tweet, he shared a single-panel comic of a bunch of literal sheep voting between a wolf candidate and a lion candidate, suggesting that neither Trump nor Biden will do much good for people. Somebody then asked Ice Cube, “So did you endorse the Wolf or the Lion,” to which he responded, “Neither one…I’ve always endorsed the sheeple.”

Like he wrote in his tweet this morning, Ice Cube declared in an interview a couple weeks ago that he does not support Trump and said in regards to Trump’s and his administration’s alleged white supremacy, “White supremacy do turn me off, but it’s everywhere and it’s on both sides of the aisle. That’s just the reality that we live in, and I’m not naive to that. We’re engulfed in white supremacy, so that’s just something we’re going to have to fight our way out of, and we’re going to have to fight on all fronts.”

As vote-counting in battleground states continues, not everyone is thrilled to see Democracy in action as states flip to Biden. In Nevada an angry Trump supporters charged into a news conference to spout conspiracy theories. In Detroit, they’re doing strange flash mobs with pizza boxes, and in Arizona, these Trump die-hards are now turning their anger toward a target that no one would have seen coming a week ago.

MSNBC footage shot outside the Maricopa, Arizona vote-counting center showed a MAGA mob that was collectively furious that the state might not go to their guy. They seem to be blaming Trump’s (formerly-)favorite cable-news network, Fox News, which made the unanticipated move of calling Arizona for Biden on Tuesday night.

Yes, “they’re actually chanting Fox News Sucks.”

As the New York Times reported, the Trump campaign fired off a series of angry phone calls over Fox News’ Arizona determination, one that caused some on-air venting from Tucker Carlson while he spoke with Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, although Tucker also believes that Trump has no one to blame but himself for potentially losing this election. Now, Fox News finds them in the strange position of reporting the potential downfall of the candidate that they helped to elevate. Then again, when that candidate is acting like an unhinged authoritarian, one can certainly understand the need to distance.

Who knows what will happen, though? Even though Biden’s leading the electoral college at this moment, Arizona’s still counting votes, as are Nevada and Georgia, and yep, 2020 continues to be an unpredictable beast.

Ever since J. Cole released KOD in mid-2018, fans have been waiting for his next album. Checking out Twitter this morning, some may have thought he dropped a surprise effort overnight: As of press time, “J Cole” is the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter. That’s not because of any new material, though. Instead, it’s because the platform has been overtaken by people making puns out of Cole’s name.

The format starts with somebody describing something Cole could be doing and then presenting the newly punned version of his name based on that activity. For example, Questlove wrote, “J Cole starting a rap group with his aforementioned Foot Locker Coworkers: J La Sole.” Other plays on Cole’s name were sprinkled throughout the top 30 Twitter trending topics today, including “J Bowl,” “J Stroll,” and “J Poll.”

Some other famous people got involved as well, like Cozz, Desus Nice, and Big Pooh, among others.

While this may have been a false alarm in terms of new music, that doesn’t mean that some isn’t coming. In fact, a month ago, Cole may have covertly promised new material coming this year through his Kill Edward alter ego. On a Kill Edward Instagram Story, Cole wrote, “Damn been off for awhile but ima make sure we end 2020 something special.”

Check out some other Cole pun examples below.

After delaying the project for a little under three months, Black Thought finally shared his Streams of Thought, Vol. 3: Cane & Abel effort in the middle of October. The project arrived as a 13-track effort with guest appearances from Pusha T, Killer Mike, Swizz Beatz, Schoolboy Q, and more. Nearly a month after Black Thought shared the effort, the rapper brought “State Prisoner” to the popular performance series, A Colors Show.

Black Thought delivered his performance of “State Prisoner” with a vibrant blue backdrop that laid behind him. Standing tall with the mic in front of him, the Philly-based rapper dropped off the piercing lyrics over the raucous production and effortlessly weaved his rhyme schemes and metaphors together for the A Colors Show set.

The performance on the popular online series came a couple of weeks after he stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to play a pair of tracks from the Streams of Thought, Vol. 3. Getting help from The Last Artful, Dodgr, and Portugal. The Man, Black Thought gave a powerful medley of his “Quiet Trip” and “Nature Of The Beast” tracks. He also delivered a cozy NPR Tiny Desk performance from the comfort of his home office earlier this year.

On a more recent note, Black Thought joined Common for his “Say Peace” single, one that the Chicago native used to announce his A Beautiful Revolution Pt 1 album.

You can watch his performance in the video above.

A decade ago the #FreeBritney movement was born, with fans hoping to see the beleaguered pop singer freed from the clutches of her domineering father, Jamie Spears. Over the summer a second wave was born, with people worried after seeing the numerous videos Britney has shared, including one in which she explained why she burned down her home gym. Since then, Britney has tried to assure concerned parties that she was fine and happy. Soon thereafter court documents revealed that she asked a court to end her father’s role as the sole conservator. Now, she has officially filed to do just that.

According to a report from Billboard, a motion that was filed on November 3 by Spears’ court-appointed lawyer Samuel Ingham said that if Jamie is allowed to continue his conservator position, it would cause “Britney to suffer loss and injury.” Ingham requested that the court remove James as soon as her new conservator, Bessemer Trust, is appointed.

The motion was filed after Britney’s longtime business manager, Lou Taylor of Tri-Star Sports and Entertainment Group, resigned without any notice. Rather than inform Britney of Taylor’s resignation, Jamie hired Michael Kane of the accounting firm Miller Kaplan to serve as her new business manager. Once Britney and her lawyer were made aware of the new hire, Ingham informed a judge that they no longer wanted her father to be a co-conservator to her estate.

Britney was also unhappy that her father’s legal team asked in a letter that her estate account remain at City National Bank until Bessemer took over. Ingham called the letter a “blatant attempt by James to try to retain full functional control of her assets, books and records in the face of Britney’s objections, TriStar’s resignation and the appointment of Bessemer Trust.”

(via Billboard

The 2020 presidential election has been one for the history books — a long and winding road that hasn’t even reached a final destination yet. It’s certainly the first presidential election in which one candidate took it upon themselves to declare victory in states they haven’t won, in the same manner with which Michael Scott once declared bankruptcy. Even with Joe Biden the likely champion, it’s looking likely that Trump won’t go quietly — and nor will his legions of hopped-up supporters.

On Wednesday, with absentee ballots being belatedly counted — and revealing a massive surge of support for Barack Obama’s former vice president — one of them interrupted a press conference held in Nebraska, one of a handful of states that have yet to count all their votes, was interrupted. He did it in style, too, wearing a t-shirt bearing the words “BBQ BEER FREEDOM.” His attire amusingly clashed with his fiery — and baseless — message. And luckily it was caught on video and shared on social media.

The video finds the unidentified man crashing the podium during the relatively staid presser to repeatedly shout his conspiracy theories. “The Biden crime family is stealing the election! The media’s covering it up,” he screamed. “We want our freedom for the world!”

Perhaps this gentleman wanted his message amplified. It was — but not in the way he may have wished. The clip spread like wildfire across social media, where exhausted Biden voters, happy to have something amusing to relieve the tension of the last year (or years), seized upon it with glee.

Some praised the other star of the video.

Here’s another angle, if you’d like.

Some saw him as a reminder of what we may one day lose, perhaps soon.

On the other hand, maybe not.

For what it’s worth, the person the “BBQ BEER FREEDOM” shirt guy interrupted, according to The Hill, Registrar of Voters official Joe Gloria, who at the time was busy telling people that he was not prepared to say how many ballots had yet to be counted. Nebraska is one of five states who, as of this writing, are still in contention, the others being Alaska, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Biden is currently ahead by about 93,000 votes, with 86% of the vote counted. Whatever the end result, this Trump guy probably isn’t going away quietly.

(Via The Hill)

College football sees its final conferences return to the field this week, as the Pac-12 and MAC both start their seasons, but as they begin there are ample cautionary tales around the sport for the need for vigilance and concern still about the COVID-19 pandemic that saw the United States cross 100,000 daily cases for the first time this week.

Among the biggest schools that won’t be playing this week is Wisconsin, canceling its second straight game due to an outbreak of 27 cases within the program, and a further reminder of the issues that will be present ahead of the Pac-12’s first game of the season. Arizona and USC are set to play on the “Big Noon Saturday” game on Fox, but the Fox “Big Noon Kickoff” show has also been significantly impacted by COVID-19. According to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, Urban Meyer, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn, and host Rob Stone are all quarantining due to virus protocol this week.

Fox did not tell the Post whether any of them had tested positive, but simply noted it was “out of an abundance of caution” that the crew wouldn’t be on set this week. As for the plans for Saturday’s broadcast, Marchand reports Fox will turn to its two most prominent NFL personalities.

In their place, Fox Sports will have Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Emmanuel Acho, with host Charissa Thompson. Bradshaw, Long and Thompson work on Fox’s NFL Sunday studio coverage, while the up-and-coming Acho is on the daily FS1 program, “Speak for Yourself.” This Saturday’s “Big Noon Kickoff” will be condensed from two hours to one.

Hopefully, everyone on the “Big Noon Kickoff” crew will be able to remain healthy and none will have serious symptoms if they tested positive — or will be able to stay negative, if not.

As of this writing, there is no clear winner of the 2020 presidential election. And though it looks like Joe Biden’s lead may hold, his opponent, incumbent Donald J. Trump, seems to think otherwise. Late on Wednesday afternoon, he took to Twitter, boldly and baselessly claiming claiming wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina — none of which have been officially called as his. (And in the case of Michigan, it’s been called for Biden.) The bizarre boast prompted John Legend to encourage everyone on Twitter to join him in mocking the oft-ridiculed president.

“Let’s all claim things we don’t have any right to. What y’all got,” Legend wrote on Twitter. He told people that to participate they must “say ‘hereby’ to make it legally binding.” People were quick to join in the fun.

One wrote, “I hereby claim Trump Tower will be renamed Obama Tower, and made into low income housing (keeping all existing amenities) with priority given to single parent families.” Another tried to save a cancelled show: “I hereby declare a new season of The OA shall start filming henceforth,” they said. “@netflix I proclaimth thee my property and ye shall maketh it so. With haste.” A third chose a more comical response: “Well if he’s claiming the State of Michigan, I hereby claim Trump Tower NYC. It’s a homeless shelter now.”

It’s been 22 years since Michael J. Fox revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, the cognitive disorder that mainly affects one’s motor skills. He’s been very frank about his struggles, and in a new interview with People (some of which isn’t yet online), he says it’s now affecting his memorization skills, which is to say one of the requirements of being an actor — and something at which Fox particularly felt he excelled.

“My short-term memory is shot,” Fox told People, by way of Entertainment Weekly. “I always had a real proficiency for lines and memorization. And I had some extreme situations where the last couple of jobs I did were actually really word-heavy parts. I struggled during both of them.”

At this point, the star of Back to the Future and Spin City isn’t sure how long he can even act, though he’s far from retired. His most recent credits are on two episodes of The Good Fight from this year, and he had a key role in the Spike Lee-produced time travel movie See You Yesterday last year. But right now he’s considering other avenues — including writing. In fact, his fourth memoir, No Time Like the Future, arrives on November 17.

“I’m down to this,” he says of writing becoming his primary creative outlet. “My guitar playing is no good. My sketching is no good anymore, my dancing never was good, and acting is getting tougher to do. So it’s down to writing. Luckily, I really enjoy it.”

In the profile, Fox also talks about trying to stay positive:

“Optimism is sustainable when you keep coming back to gratitude, and what follows from that is acceptance … Accepting that this thing has happened, and you accept it for what it is. It doesn’t mean that you can’t endeavor to change. It doesn’t mean you have to accept it as a punishment or a penance, but just put it in its proper place. Then see how much the rest of your life you have to thrive in, and then you can move on.”

And though the numerous rough patches he’s hit recently — and over his two decades-plus battle with the disease — it has taught him to find perspective. “So the last couple couple of years have been trickier than most,” Fox told People. “But I have things that I’ve been blessed with that are just incredible. Life is rich. Life is good.”

(Via EW and People)