Category: Viral

While it’s been almost two years since Toro Y Moi delivered his last album with 2019’s Outer Peace, the South Carolina native has delivered a decent amount of guest appearances and remixes for his fans. Back with another one, Toro Y Moi brings his talents to Haim’s “3am” track with a new take. The Women In Music Pt. III song by the siblings was originally an airy effort backed by synths and a drowned-out bass. With Toro Y Moi’s remix, “3am” is now a lush effort filled with a heavy dose of life.

Toro Y Moi’s take of “3am” is his second remix of the month after he brought his talents to Deftones frontperson Chino Moreno for a remake of Caroline Polachek’s “Hit Me Where It Hurts.” Prior to that, him and The Mattson 2 connected for their groovy cover of Afro-Filipino artist Joe Bataan’s 1972 track “Ordinary Guy.”

As for Haim, the new remix comes after the siblings joined Taylor Swift on her Evermore album for their “No Body, No Crime” track. The collaboration capped off a year that saw the trio receive two Grammy nominations, one for Album of the Year and another for Best Rock Performance with their track, “The Steps.”

On a lighter note, the band recently got into the Christmas spirit with their holiday parody single, “Christmas Wrapping 2020.” You can listen to the “3am” cover in the video above.

It has been over two years now since Andrew Lincoln exited The Walking Dead TV series, and AMC announced that he would star in his own movie (or series of movies).

In the intervening 25 months, we’ve learned more about what to expect from the Rick Grimes movie. For instance, the second spin-off series, The World Beyond, has been exploring the CRM, the military organization that both abducted and rescued Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead. It also appears that Danai Gurira’s Michonne — who left The Walking Dead earlier in the 10th season — may also appear in the movie. Meanwhile, we’ve also learned that The Walking Dead will end its run after the 11th season in late 2022, and it seems very likely that the Rick Grimes movie will provide a cap to the series.

We have not heard much lately about the Rick Grimes movie since the onset of the pandemic, which obviously delayed production on the film. In an interview with the Associated Press, however, Andrew Lincoln revealed that (if all goes well) shooting should begin in the Spring of 2021.

“It does feel like there is a certain sense of positivity and the cavalry’s coming with the vaccines,” he told the AP. “And there’s a real sort of sense of a renewal, hopefully.”

If shooting begins when Lincoln expects it to start, the timing works such that it should be released around the end of 2022, which is precisely when The Walking Dead series will end. It’s also about four years since Lincoln left The Walking Dead. Moreover, through the partnership with Universal, fans will also get the opportunity to see the Rick Grimes film on the big screen. Presumably, if this is successful, Andrew Lincoln will make the other two planned movies and extend The Walking Dead on the big-screen even as the series winds down and spins-off into the Daryl and Carol series.

(Via Associated Press)

After last week’s rankings came out, the stage was pretty clearly set for how this year’s College Football Playoff will look, and even though most everyone could see what was going to happen coming, when the committee did what it effectively told us it would, folks were still extremely mad about it.

Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State all won their respective conference championship games, cementing themselves in the Playoff despite a few protests of the Buckeyes only playing six games this season. The only question was who would be fourth, but even with Notre Dame getting stomped out by Clemson in a 24-point loss in the ACC title game, when it came down to who would be in between the Irish, Texas A&M, and AAC champ Cincinnati, we all knew what was coming.

Sure enough, the College Football Playoff committee chose to ride the money train that is Notre Dame over setting up a rematch of A&M and Alabama (which the Tide won 52-24) or putting in Cincinnati, an undefeated conference champion that actually dropped a spot in the rankings after being leapt by a two-loss Oklahoma. As such, we get our fourth Ohio State-Clemson matchup of the last decade, with the Tigers a perfect 3-0 against the Buckeyes since 2013, and the first Alabama-Notre Dame game since the Tide kicked the Irish’s teeth in to win the 2012 BCS National Championship. As for how competitive this go around will be, well, the folks in Las Vegas don’t have high hopes for Notre Dame, as they hoped as 17.5 to 20.5-point underdogs to Alabama.

The table is now set for New Year’s Day, and while there were plenty of people upset that Cincinnati clearly didn’t get a fair shake and even a real look as a consideration, the Bearcats seem to be taking it in stride as something they basically expected. UCF, a rival of Cincy’s in the AAC who have previously been the undefeated Group of 5 team left out of the Playoff, posted a video to Twitter showing that they were ready to start a college football NWO with the Bearcats and fellow undefeated Coastal Carolina now that it’s clear none will ever get a crack at the Playoff.

It’s pretty clear that until expansion to an 8-team format with a guaranteed spot for a G5 team, they’re never getting in, and this might accelerate some conversations among those conferences to consider doing their own thing. However, even if they’re constantly disrespected, the money from the Playoff and the New Year’s Six game is hard to make up on your own and they might just stick around in the current system for it.

And as long as that’s happening, we’ll repeat this every year. Outrage over a system doing exactly what it’s designed to, which is put the teams that will draw the biggest ratings possible together and make just enough of a cast to do so.

Johnny Knoxville is in the news this week after Bam Margera reported that Knoxville and Steve-O were hospitalized on the second day of filming the next Jackass movie after injuring themselves during a stunt. For the record, the stunt — jumping on a full-speed treadmill while carrying a tuba — sounds both hilarious and incredibly painful. Knoxville’s return to headlines, however, inspired me to revisit his appearance on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast.

On the podcast, in addition to getting into the details behind when Shepard “broke his penis,” Shepard also brought up the stunt that would eventually lead to the Jackass movies. Recall that Knoxville was originally a writer, who pitched an article idea for Jeff Tremaine’s skateboarding magazine, Big Brother (Tremaine would ultimately become the director of the Jackass movies). The first pitch involved a stunt that Knoxville filmed (and would eventually go viral) in which he was “supposed to get shot” while wearing a bulletproof vest.

The stunt, however, didn’t go exactly as planned. “When we got out there,” Knoxville told Shepard, “my friend refused to shoot me, so I had to shoot myself.” This was particularly concerning for Knoxville because he was “broke at the time, and I bought the cheapest vest they had.”

As Knoxville tells it, when he asked for a vest, the sales clerk insisted that it was “the best vest, top of the line,” etc., until Knoxville said, “Good, because I’m going to shoot myself while wearing it.” The sales clerk called someone, however, and a few minutes later, they asked Knoxville not to do it. “Too late,” he said, “I’ve already said I would.”

For those who haven’t seen it, all these years later, the stunt involves a young Johnny Knoxville shooting himself in the chest while wearing a bulletproof vest. It’s the stunt that went viral and would eventually lead to three Jackass movies and counting. In addition to shooting himself, Knoxville also allows himself to be pepper sprayed and tased. Warning: It’s brutal (but funny), and you can watch it right here.

Filming will presumably continue on Jackass 4 in the coming days. The movie is tentatively scheduled for release in the Spring of 2021.

Source: Armchair Expert

Pharrell almost had a shot at working with Michael Jackson in the early 2000s. The Virginia producer reflected on that moment during a recent interview on N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN’s Drink Champs podcast. Jackson came up after Pharrell revealed that Prince rejected one of the songs he sent to the legendary singer. It was here that Pharrell shared that almost all of Justin Timberlake’s debut solo album, Justified, was originally written for the King Of Pop.

“John McClain was his manager at the time,” Pharrell said. “We sent him pretty much all the stuff y’all are hearing on the Justified album. That’s all the Michael stuff.” He added, “All but one song, they were all written for Michael.”

Unfortunately for Pharrell, Michael Jackson and his team were not too fond of the music that was sent to him. “John McClain was like, ‘Man Michael don’t want that sh*t,’” Pharrell recalled. “‘He want that sh*t you’re giving Noreaga….he want that ‘Superthug,’” referencing Pharrell and N.O.R.E.’s iconic 1998 track from the latter’s self-titled debut album.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Pharrell shared his feelings on Drake and Pusha T’s beef. “It still breaks my heart to this day, because I would’ve loved to have heard those guys on a song together or heard a joint project together. I would’ve loved to twist that,” he said.

You can watch the full Drink Champs interview with Pharrell in the video above.

Last week during The Walking Dead holiday special (available on AMC+), Scott Gimple (the architect of The Walking Dead universe) revealed that he was developing a The Walking Dead comedy spin-off. Assuming it gets the greenlight, it would join The Walking Dead universe along with the two existing spin-offs, Fear the Walking Dead and The World Beyond, in addition to the Carol and Daryl spin-off that’s expected to launch at the end of The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead anthology series.

“We are working on a straight Walking Dead comedy right now,” Gimple said on the holiday special. “We’re not making fun of our world,” he assures, “but it’s just more of a comedic take on the world.”

This could absolutely work! As a lifelong fan of the zombie genre, a good zomcom is exactly what The Walking Dead universe needs. They could go in a number of directions. If it’s a roving band of characters, they could go with a Zombieland style comedy led by Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Negan. If they want to return again to the initial outbreak, they could use Shaun of the Dead as inspiration and use, perhaps, Jerry and Ezekiel as the anchors for a buddy comedy.

What might be most interesting, however, is to set a half-hour sitcom in the world of The Walking Dead along the lines of what WandaVision is doing for Disney+ and the MCU. The TWD world has already established civilizations that operate similarly to our modern world, so there’s no reason AMC could not situate a comedy inside one of those civilizations.

Obviously, a zombie comedy would not be unique to television. Santa Clarita Diet did it best, but that’s not a route that The Walking Dead could take (the undead can operate fairly normally in that world, as long as they are well fed). More likely, Scott Gimple would go the Z Nation route, which is to say: The Walking Dead as a dark, low-key comedy. It’d basically be The Walking Dead but with more one-liners, a lot more elated celebrations after zombie kills, and instead of one Negan, it’d be an entire cast of Negan types.

Now that is a show fans would love to see.

(Via CBR)

When the NBA announced it was heading to the Disney Bubble this summer, Jrue Holiday saw an opportunity to do some good, and decided along with his wife Lauren to donate his entire remaining salary for the season — which was around $5 million — to various Black-owned businesses, charities, and initiatives to provide assistance during the pandemic.

Months later, the 2020-21 NBA season is getting set to begin and Holiday is now in Milwaukee after being traded to the Bucks by the Pelicans, but his move hasn’t changed his desire to do some good. On Saturday, Holiday announced he and Lauren had once again decided to donate the remainder of his salary he’ll receive this year to the same causes, noting that the pandemic continues to impact these businesses and entities.

It is a pretty tremendous gesture from the Holidays, as Jrue gets set to embark on what the Bucks hope will be a championship journey in his first season in Milwaukee alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton. His impact on the court will be what has people talking all season in regards to the Bucks’ chances to come out of the East, but it’s the work he and Lauren are doing and have done off of it that is most important and is what will likely endear him to the Milwaukee community even more than his spectacular abilities as a basketball player.

Making Colin Jost uncomfortable on Weekend Update is a Saturday Night Live tradition at this point, with Kate McKinnon making it her personal mission to force Jost to break at the Update desk in recent weeks. But the best way to get him uncomfortable, it seems, is to bring up his wife Scarlett Johansson.

But Michael Che may be the new king of making things weird in the Jost household after he made his Weekend Update co-host tell an extremely awkward joke during the final episode of 2020. The moment came during the last segment of the program, where Che and Jost wrote each other jokes to tell with no notice on the broadcast. Jost made Che tell a Jeffery Epstein joke, while he made Jost joke about race relations, as he often does in these sorts of situations.

But in a setup that involved Creed frontman Scott Stapp playing Frank Sinatra in an upcoming movie, Che managed to get Jost to take a shot at his own wife when it comes to awkward casting situations. Here’s the joke isolated, if you need it:

“Creed singer Scott Stapp will play Frank Sinatra in an upcoming movie,” Jost said. “But the good news is Sammy Davis Jr. will be played by Scarlett Johansson.”

It’s the second time Jost was doubled over on the desk during the sketch, and an extremely quick out on the segment that may have been the best of the season. It’s a particularly biting joke because Johansson has been criticized for casting that’s been described as whitewashing in the past, both with playing an asian character in Ghost In The Shell and has a history of comments defending similar casting decisions. It certainly got a good reaction from Jost and in the audience at Studio 8H, but hopefully for Jost’s sake Johansson can handle a joke that certainly hits very close to home.

The single-biggest question facing the Utah Jazz this offseason involved the future of Rudy Gobert. The All-NBA big man was eligible for a supermax extension, but no big man had ever received that sort of money, nor had a player with a profile like Gobert’s, who is the most imposing defensive big man in the league but is limited on the offensive end of the floor.

But despite that, and despite the long-standing rumblings of discontent involving Gobert and Jazz star Donovan Mitchell, Gobert isn’t going anywhere. He told Tim MacMahon of ESPN that he had agreed to an extension with the team, and while it is not a supermax, Gobert’s deal is for five years and will pay him $205 million.

“It means that they believe in me,” Gobert said. “They believe in what we’ve been building over the years with this whole organization, with coach [Quin Snyder] and all the guys. For me, it’s an incredible blessing. It’s a very motivating feeling to know that we all share the same vision and we all share this goal for this state and for this franchise.”

The deal includes a player option for the fifth year. Gobert, who is 28, was picked by Utah with the 27th selection of the 2013 Draft, and since joining the team has served as an indomitable defensive anchor, earning a first-team All-Defense nod four years in a row and being named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year twice. Last season, Gobert averaged 15.1 points, a career-high 13.5 rebounds, and two blocks in 34.3 minutes per game.

The Weekend Update segment on Saturday Night Live is extremely tied to American politics and the news of the week that was, which is why the final show of 2020 had to acknowledge the dying days of a Donald Trump presidency. Saturday’s episode is also apparently the last that will tape while Trump is in office, which is why the show choose to put together a montage of his weirdest moments over the last four years.

There were no tweets about phantom election fraud or any of the countless weird political moves or his impeachment or anything like that, just the weirdest visual moments of his time in office. And so while Semisonic’s once-seminal “Closing Time” played, scenes like Trump touching The Orb, screaming while pretending to drive a big truck, and cherishing the gentle touch of a slightly-unsettling Easter Bunny were some notable highlights.

It’s admittedly a bit overwhelming to see all those crazy moments lined up back-to-back, but it just goes to show how unorthodox a Trump presidency truly was. Many Americans longed for the days a tan Obama suit drew the ire of a nation, instead we were truly bombarded by Trump weirdness on a daily basis over the last four years.

Weekend Update will undoubtedly outlast a Trump presidency, just as it had already predated it, but it was pretty clear that the show doesn’t seem like it will miss Trump once he’s gone and Joe Biden is in the White House. The news segment made a point to test out some Biden jokes just to get its feet wet, but here’s hoping the four years that follow aren’t worthy of a montage once it’s over.