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While David McCormick and Mehmet Oz have been focused on attacking each other in what is sure to be a nail-biter of a GOP senatorial race in Pennsylvania, an unlikely third contender has entered the frame: Kathy Barnette.

As The Daily Beast reports, Barnette’s only political experience “is a landslide congressional defeat in 2020,” so she’s hardly a household name. But she’s quickly becoming one, as McCormick, Oz, and even Donald Trump have witnessed her seemingly-out-of-nowhere rise and are clearly afraid. On Thursday, the former president even issued a press release in an attempt to get the MAGAites he created back on his side, which is Team Oz, but left room for the possibility of befriending the political newcomer if she does indeed succeed in her senatorial campaign. According to Trump:

“Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats. She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted, but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party—and I will be behind her all the way. Dr. Oz is the only one who will be able to easily defeat the Crazed, Lunatic Democrat in Pennsylvania. A vote for anyone else in the Primary is a vote against Victory in the Fall!”

Similarly, Sean Hannity spent the bulk of his air time on Thursday going after Barnette, whom many describe as an “Ultra-MAGA,” and the many reasons why she would be bad for America. But as far as Barnette is concerned, the fact that her name is even coming out of their mouths is a good thing. “I think I see it as a badge of honor,” Barnette said. “They’re actually paying attention to me.”

Ironically, Barnette’s many bad takes echo the MAGAest of MAGA sentiments. Hannity criticized the 50-year-old author of Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain: Being Black and Conservative in America for her attacks on Muslims and her belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim, while Donald Trump has regularly made similar claims. As The Daily Beast wrote:

Barnette’s recent rise has been powered in the primary in part by a video in which she lays out her background as the product of her then 11-year-old mother’s rape to argue for sweeping restrictions on abortion, including in cases of rape. But Barnette’s story may have inspired Republican voters, her hardline stance against abortion even in the case of rape might not play so well in the general election. Other potential general-election weaknesses included her ties to Jan. 6, her attacks on Muslims and LGBT people, her campaign’s unwillingness to discuss her background, and her flirtations with QAnon.

While Barnette was in D.C. on January 6th, she claims that she did not infiltrate the Capitol, then later tweeted that the reports of riots on that day were a hoax—then denied calling it a hoax. When a local reporter reminded her that she had actually tweeted those words, she claimed she did not recall doing that. And added that, “No, January 6 was a day, and what happened, happened, on that particular day.”’

Are we sure Trump doesn’t want to change his endorsement?

(Via The Daily Beast)

The RX is Uproxx Music’s stamp of approval for the best albums, songs, and music stories throughout the year. Inclusion in this category is the highest distinction we can bestow, and signals the most important music being released throughout the year. The RX is the music you need, right now.

Kendrick Lamar albums are a little like Star Trek movies. Or maybe they’re like the movies made by high-profile Hollywood directors who sign on to do a big-budget blockbuster so the studios will greenlight their passion project. You know: One for them, one for me. Ever since releasing his first official album, Section.80, in 2011, Kendrick has always seemed to espouse this pattern. Good Kid, Maad City and DAMN. were very much “for them.”

Yes, they bore all the hallmarks of a K. Dot album – dense, thematically complex lyricism and potent, personal storytelling – but sonically they were rigid, with almost workmanlike structure, giving plenty of mainstream-friendly bops and radio hits to go along with the headier elements; the proverbial spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. Likewise, Section.80 and To Pimp A Butterfly were much more personal reflections, sprawling and musically adventurous.

In that spirit, his fifth and final album under the Top Dawg Entertainment banner very much follows the previously established pattern. It is very much for him. And yet, at the same time, because it’s a Kendrick Lamar album, it’s also very much for us – us, the listeners, us, the society, us, the culture. He’s got a lot on his mind – who doesn’t these days? – and he wrestles with these thoughts out loud, not just to wrangle some sense out of them for himself, but also perhaps to give us permission to do the same.

On Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, his overarching target appears to be “cancel culture.” You know, the pop culture pundit’s bogeyman du jour, the atmosphere of restrictive political correctness that makes it so you just can’t tell a joke anymore (or call people racial slurs or make sexist comments to or about women), dammit. He mentions it more than a few times, on songs such as “N95” and “Worldwide Steppers,” offering missives like, “N****s killed freedom of speech, everyone sensitive.” He also touches on hot-button topics like vaccines and their backlash on “Savior,” seeming to chastise both sides of the debate.

I once complained that it’s hard to pin down exactly what Kendrick’s position is on any given issue. He’s good at being vague. Anything he says can be taken as a metaphor or a projection. Maybe he’s speaking from someone else’s point of view. It’s always been his most frustrating habit – at least, for me – because you never really know what his politics are or what he wants you to take away from any given song, lyric, or project as a whole. Even more infuriating is that he does it on purpose (anyone who can write the way he does could easily make his points plain).

He does this here, as well, but this time there’s more going on beneath the surface. It feels like the sugar and the medicine are both in the lyrics. On projects like Good Kid and DAMN., Kendrick’s pop courting material would hide guidance or critique in radio-friendly production (see: “Swimming Pools” or “Humble”). But on Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kendrick appears to nearly agree with woke-phobic listeners, using their favorite buzz terms to lull them and lower their defenses before feeding them the same messages that the social justice warriors would have them hear – only from a more empathetic perspective.

On “Auntie Diaries,” one of the most personal and revealing songs in a catalog stuffed nearly to bursting with them, Kendrick unpacks decades of ingrained homo- and transphobia. For years in hip-hop, the culture has struggled with its depictions and diction surrounding queer people. Kendrick’s fellow LA natives Tyler The Creator and Doja Cat were both censured earlier in their careers for letting a certain slur fly in their music or on social media, and both had a hard time articulating the dynamics behind their free use.

Kendrick, naturally, gets it right, expanding on how he thought as a child, constantly exposed to a stream of offensive jokes without having the context for their offense, even as he struggled to relate to an aunt and cousin coming out through the lens of his religious upbringing. It’s ambitious and thought-provoking; by showing the work, his face turn becomes genuine and earned. There are plenty of rappers in his peer group who could afford to do the same introspection.

Then, on “Mother I Sober,” he confronts one of the deepest, darkest open secrets of not just the rap world, but the larger Black culture it stems from. He admits and addresses sexual abuse – especially the kind that is most often committed, the kind by trusted family members against children too young to be aware that anything is even going on. He relates this to rappers, who he says bury “they pain in chains and tattoos,” whose cavalier, dismissive attitude toward sex, women, and yes, even their own misdeeds, can be directly connected to their own abuse.

This sympathy for the devil is highlighted by the extended presence of Kodak Black, someone to whom Kendrick is often contrasted by denizens of Rap Twitter, and who was convicted of sexual assault not too long ago. (It’s amusing to think that, with his official account lying dormant for months at a time, Kendrick is lurking the timeline with the rest of us, taking notes on exactly who to tap for a feature – or even secretly laying the groundwork for the impactful surprise appearances himself.) He seeks empathy for the troubled, younger rapper, even as he acknowledges the harm he’s caused. Maybe in doing so, he can open him up – along with the wider culture – to the possibility of redemption.

Again and again on the double album, Kendrick’s mission seems to be either to end the pervading sense of “cancel culture’s” harmful tendency to put its subjects on the defensive or to dismantle the very concept of “cancel culture” to begin with. It’s hard to be sure; after all, it is Kendrick Lamar. But what he’s doing here – baring his own faults and pointing to his own evolution as a means to demonstrate how true growth operates and should take place (out of the public spotlight, often with the help of a trained therapist) – is groundbreaking in hip-hop.

Sure, many artists have tackled the subjects of their own anxieties and insecurities, but rarely has that work been so closely tied to the zeitgeist. Kendrick can look both inward and externally and draw the connections between himself and his audience to offer the direction he sees as critical for the growth of the community – even if he denies his own role as a role model on “Savior” (along with peers like Drake and J. Cole). He never outright says “you should all do this,” but there’s the sense that he truly believes he can lead by example, even if he doesn’t always think anyone should follow him.

I’m not sure that this is an album I’ll run back a whole bunch. After all, with its quirky production – much of which performed by Kendrick himself under the name Oklama – it very much falls into K. Dot’s “one for me” category. But some of these poignant, powerful observations and self-reflections could well be conversation pieces decades from now as listeners recount how they shook them out of their complacency, changed their viewpoints, or gave them permission to accept their own flaws and begin the work of healing. With his final TDE album, Kendrick appears to have finally figured out how to make one for all of us.

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now via Top Dawg Entertainment, Aftermath, and Interscope Records. Get it here.

Nearly a year after Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood first teased The Smile, their side project with drummer Tom Skinner, the band’s album is finally here. Indiecast hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen dive into their album A Light For Attracting Attention, a title that can be taken ironically seeing as the side project garners far less attention than an official Radiohead release.

After a fair amount of banter, Steven and Ian get into some of the relevant indie news from this week. Music discourse this week was mainly dominated by two very different album announcements: Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale And The Big Steppers and the Jack Antonoff-produced Minions 2 soundtrack, which features groovy music by artists like Tame Impala and St. Vincent.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Steven plugs Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s zippy guitar pop-filled album Endless Rooms. Meanwhile, Ian shouts out power pop band Hey, ily!

New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 88 below, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [email protected], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-smile-plus-jack-antonoffs-indie-rock-minions/id1524940951?i=1000560983181

While Netflix has been quietly scrapping their children’s content, Apple TV+ is cranking up the kid’s shows, with a whole summer lineup involving the Peanuts gang, thanks to their deal with Apple.

Lucy’s School is a new series that will follow Lucy Van Pelt as she starts her own school that will likely feature some shenanigans. At least she has moved on from her psychiatry practice.

The streamer will also drop new episodes of The Snoopy Show, which is in its third season. The comedy series debuted last spring on the streaming service and follows the titular pup on his various adventures with Woodstock the bird. The show follows a strict set of rules: no adults are ever seen, the inside of Snoopy’s house is up for interpretation, and there is no 21st-century technology in the show (sorry to iPhones everywhere).

Several other Peanuts titles are hitting Apple TV this summer, including classic movies: You’re The Greatest, Charlie Brown, You’re In Love, Charlie Brown, and He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown which will all drop on August 5th.

In non-Peanuts news, several live-action shows will also debut this summer, including Bonnie Hunt’s Amber Brown, based on the book series, Surfside Girls based on the graphic novels, Best Foot Forward based on the real story of Paralympic athlete Josh Sundquist, and Life By Ella, the story of a spunky young girl who is determined to make her summer great.

All in all, it will be good summer to sit inside and watch TV.

Kendrick Lamar‘s new album, Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers is out now, and naturally, the soon-to-be independent rapper has planned a world tour to promote it. He’s also bringing along his PgLang artists Baby Keem and Tanna Leone as supporting acts. The tour kicks off in Oklahoma City on July 19 and runs through September 15 in Los Angeles, where he’ll conclude the US leg in his native Los Angeles at the Crypto.com Arena. (Now that cryptocurrency has cratered, can we go back to calling it the Staples Center again?)

The European leg launches on October 10 in Prague and then, after Manchester on November 16, will bounce down to Oceania, hitting Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Aukland. Tickets go on sale Friday, May 20 at noon local time. Check out oklama.com to for more details and purchase info. You can see the full tour dates below.

07/19 – Oklahoma City, OK @ Paycom Center
07/21 – Austin, TX @ Moody Center
07/22 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
07/23 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
07/24 – Miami, FL @ Rolling Loud
07/27 – Tampa, FL @ Amalie Arena
07/29 – New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
07/30 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
07/31 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
08/02 – Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
08/04 – Washington, DC @ Capital One Arena
08/05 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
08/06 – Brooklyn, NY @ Barclays Center
08/07 – Long Island, NY @ UBS Arena
08/09 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
08/10 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
08/12 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
08/13 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
08/14 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
08/16 – Columbus, OH @ Schottenstein Center
08/18 – Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
08/19 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
08/20 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
08/21 – Kansas City, MO @ T-Mobile Center
08/23 – Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
08/24 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena
08/26 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center
08/27 – Seattle, WA @ Climate Pledge Arena
08/28 – Vancouver, BC @ Rogers Arena
08/30 – Sacramento, CA @ Golden 1 Center
08/31 – Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
09/01 – Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
09/06 – San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena at San Diego State University
09/07 – Anaheim, CA @ Honda Center
09/09 – Las Vegas, NV –@T-Mobile Arena
09/10 – Phoenix, AZ @ Footprint Center
09/14 – Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
09/15 – Los Angeles, CA @ Crypto.com Arena
10/07 – Amsterdam, NL @ Ziggo Dome
10/10 – Prague, CZ @– O2 Arena
10/11 – Berlin, DE @ Mercedes-Benz Arena
10/13 – Hamburg, DE @ Barclays Arena
10/15 – Copenhagen, DK @ Royal Arena
10/17 – Stockholm, SE @ Avicii Arena
10/19 – Oslo, NO @ Telenor Arena
10/21 – Paris, FR @ Accor Arena
10/24 – Stuttgart, DE @ Scheleyerhalle
10/25 – Zurich, CH @ Hallenstadion
10/26 – Laussane, CH @ Vaudoise Aréna
10/28 – Antwerp, BE @ Sportpaleis
10/30 – Cologne, DE @ Lanxess Arena
10/31 – Frankfurt, DE @ Festhalle
11/02– Glasgow, UK @ OVO Hydro
11/03 – Leeds, UK @ First Direct Arena
11/04 – Newcastle, UK @– Utilita Arena
11/05 – Birmingham, UK @ Utilita Arena
11/07 – London, UK @ The O2
11/08 – London, UK @ The O2
11/13 – Dublin, IE @ 3Arena
11/16 – Manchester, UK @ AO Arena
12/01 – Perth, AUS @ RAC Arena
12/04 – Melbourne, AUS @ Rod Laver Arena
12/08 – Sydney, AUS @ Qudos Bank Arena
12/12 – Brisbane, AUS @– Entertainment Center
12/16 – Auckland, NZ @ Spark Arena

The Philadelphia 76ers have once again been bounced from the postseason in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. This time, around, Philly could not take down the Miami Heat, which picked up a Game 6 win in the City of Brotherly Love on Thursday night to secure a berth in the conference finals.

In the aftermath of their season coming to an end, much has been made about what the Sixers might have store this summer. The biggest question involves the future of James Harden, who has a player option for the 2022-23 season that would pay him more than $47 million dollars and looked like a shell of his former self for much of the postseason.

There’s also the matter of whether or not Doc Rivers is coaching the team next year. Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen, but if he does find himself on the job market, Brian Windhorst of ESPN reported on Get Up! that the Los Angeles Lakers would have him atop their list of potential head coaches for next year.

youtube.com/watch?v=l-E8FMy7dQE

“Doc Rivers is under contract for next year, however, there is a team in Los Angeles — the Lakers — who are watching the developments closely over the next couple of days if the Sixers elect to make a change there, and it’s a possibility,” Windhorst said. “It also depends on where the ownership is about potentially paying out Doc Rivers’ contract, where Daryl Morey is about wanting to replace him — remember, Daryl Morey didn’t hire Doc Rivers.

“But if Doc Rivers becomes free, the Los Angeles Lakers will definitely have interest,” Windhorst continued. “Now, they have a process, they have numerous candidates, but he will immediately become a leading contender to get that Laker job.”

Rivers, of course, spent seven years in L.A. as the head coach of the Clippers.

Despite securing an endorsement from Donald Trump himself in the GOP primary for an open senate seat in Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz is somehow staring down a potential upset from GOP rival Kathy Barnette, who’s being attacked by the likes of Sean Hannity for being “Ultra MAGA.” Apparently, there’s such a thing as being too Trump-like. Who knew?

With less than a week to go until GOP voters cast their decision, Oz is hoping to woo the Second Amendment crowd by letting everyone know that he has the full backing of noted gun lover Ted Nugent.

On top of making media appearances touting his gun-loving bonafides, Oz’s official Twitter account is getting in on the action by, again, touting his Nugent endorsement as well as fellow gun lovers Rick Perry and, of course, former president Trump. (Serious question: Has anyone actually seen Trump fire a gun? You’d think that’d be an easy image/video to find.) Oz also vowed to always “defend our #SecondAmendment rights.”

Of course, the big question is whether Oz’s big second amendment push can overcome Barnette’s “Ultra MAGA” rhetoric, which has oddly earned her a rebuke from the top MAGA King. After endorsing Oz, Trump has lashed out at Barnette’s recent surge in the polls. However, he also promised to back her should she win the primary. It’s all very weird.

“Kathy Barnette will never be able to win the General Election against the Radical Left Democrats,” Trump wrote in statement. “She has many things in her past which have not been properly explained or vetted, but if she is able to do so, she will have a wonderful future in the Republican Party-and I will be behind her all the way.”

(Via Ron Filipkowski on Twitter, Dr. Oz on Twitter)

It’s been twenty-seven years since the last episode of The Kids In The Hall‘s eponymous TV show and twenty-six since the release of Brain Candy, the movie that almost broke the iconic sketch comedy group up. Since then, there have been lawsuits, an easing of tensions, numerous tours, health scares, and onscreen reunions (Death Comes To Town). Now, the Kids are back with a new season (which drops on Amazon May 13) and a new documentary (Comedy Punks, out on Amazon May 20).

If you loved what the group did before, you’re going to love all of this, but if you’ve never heard of the Kids and you rejoice at the news that I Think You Should Leave got a new season, this might be a new old thing that blows your mind because the Kids are foundational to everything sketch comedy over the last 30+ years. To recycle a line I used when ranking the group as the 3rd best since 1990 (after mainlining a bunch of old and new Kids episodes over the last couple of weeks, I might want to reorder those rankings to put Kids In The Hall on top), they were “silly, rowdy, lawless, smart, absurd, and occasionally surreal.” And in this new iteration, Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson are still bringing the same relatable charm, cutting wit, and bend toward dark comedic absurdity. They’re also creating new characters that stand level with some of their classics (who occasionally pop up in the series).

How did they pull it off? When we spoke with Foley recently about this new season, he explained, tossing cold water on the idea that the group had matured while giving credit to the Kids’ past tours for their embrace of new characters. He also detailed the power of exhaustion in keeping egos in check, the group’s continued aversion to topical comedy and parody, and a reliance on the same creative dynamics and focuses that have served them so well for more than three decades. Including the general idea that, if you think about the audience too much, they might get in the way.

This was tremendous. I laughed pretty much nonstop.

That’s good. That’s the goal.

[Laughs] It is the goal. This didn’t throw me into pensive thoughts about the state of life. It actually made me laugh, which was such a throwback.

[Laughs] Yeah. We’re old school that way.

Yeah, exactly. So, were all the old dynamics still at play [behind the scenes]? You teaming with Kevin [McDonald], etc?

They’re all still pretty much in place. Kevin and I are a very tight team and Mark and Bruce [as well], because we are the two original groups that merged. And Scott’s kind of a floater and Kevin too. Kevin writes with everybody. But pretty much the dynamics of the writing are very similar and mostly in the good ways. Most of the bad ways are faded.

I’m assuming the bad ways were driven by ego and differences of opinion as far as the overall idea of the show. How have those things changed over time?

Well, there isn’t the sort of ruthless scorched earth policy towards getting your own material in. [Laughs] You know, where I will, if necessary, destroy your entire sense of self in order to get my sketch in instead of yours. That’s gone by the wayside.

Is that a symptom of time?

Age! Age, I think. I would like to say maturity, but no, I think it’s just the energy to destroy other people just isn’t there anymore.

Is it a conscious effort to keep that stuff at bay or is it just natural at this point?

No, I think it’s just natural. It’s just a lessening of the intensity. It’s still there. We still are very vehement in our opinions about everything and there’s still a lot of passion in the group, but it’s just not quite as nasty as it used to be. I think it’s also that sense that when we were young and making the show the first go-round, our attitude was everything was life and death. Everything was about creating who we are and what we are and everything was definitive and now we’re old enough to know that almost nothing is. We’re not concerned about creating a legacy anymore. We’re just interested in doing some work that pleases us. But as I said, when you’re young and you’re trying to create something new, then there’s all this, “No, if we do this, it will be the ruination of us! This will destroy us! Your sketch will destroy everything we fought for!” So, you’ve got to battle it out. And also just the jockeying for [position], because there’s only limited turf in a half-hour show. So, there’s always a lot of jockeying for control of the space.

Are there any sketches going back that you remember being strongly against that, through the passage of time, you realized, “Okay? I was really a schmuck then?”

Oh my God! “Love And Sausages” is probably the one that leaps to mind the most because I was so against it. I thought it was pretentious and didn’t think it had any laughs in it. And more than anything, it took up two days of shooting, which was unheard of. We’d never done anything that took two days to shoot. It was taking resources away from other things. So, I was really against it. And then when it was finished, I was very down on it. Although, even then I had to admit that Scott’s performance was pretty fantastic.

When we finished making the show, I didn’t watch the show for a long time. I watched it a little bit when my kids were old enough. I watched a little bit of it with my 19-year-old daughter, but I don’t think any of us have gone through and watched all the old shows since we made them. But having seen “Love And Sausages” in recent years I go, “Oh yeah. You know what? It’s pretty great.”

Were there any sketches you had to champion that the rest of the crew was against?

“Girl Drink Drunk” took two seasons to get in. I wrote it in the first season and I couldn’t get it in the show until the second season. Mostly, because no one else in the troop understood what a montage was. Except for Kevin, they couldn’t because it had this old Lost Weekend montage in the middle of it and it was a reference that no one else liked or got into.

Who is this new version for? I know first and foremost, it’s for you guys and it should be. But is it for classic fans? Is it in courtship of new fans, a mix? What’s the target audience here?

To be honest with you, the target audience is always the other four guys and nobody else. And it’s been that way since our shows at the Rivoli and on Queen Street (in Toronto). We used to title our Rivoli shows every week and one of the posters that we put out said, “Don’t come, you’ll only get in the way.” And that was kind of the attitude of the group from the start.
Were there any specific anxieties going into this?

The anxiety of just when we show up in the writer’s room, is anything going to happen? I think that was the main thing because it’s a product of a very dysfunctional and unusual chemistry between us. So, it’s like, “Is something going to get done?” And it was a real relief when we all got in a room and started pitching ideas to each other. We had some sense that we could still do it because we’d done a lot of touring over the years and we’d always write a little bit of new stuff for each tour. And then at one point, we decided we didn’t want to do any best of sketches. And we did one entire tour that was all-new sketches. And then the next tour we did was about half and half. So, when we are writing those new sketches, we realized, “Oh, we actually still like writing together and we still are coming up with ideas that are interesting to us and that we thought compared favorably with the best stuff we wrote in the old show.”

What are some of the new sketches that you’re most excited for people to see?

I do love the Shakespeare sketch. There’s a sketch called The Professor that I don’t think you would’ve seen yet I think the Money Mart sketch is pretty damn funny.

I would put at least three or four of the things that I’ve seen so far with the classics that you guys have done. Shakespeare, the Slippery Baby sketch. What is the ambition beyond these episodes?

Well, the ambition is entirely predicated on what people think of these eight. And if enough people seem to like them, and if Amazon is pleased with how they perform for them. Whatever their algorithm says. I’m not sure what an algorithm is by the way.

Black magic.

I see it as some sort of semi-simian beast in a cage. So if it’s pleased, then it’s a possibility that we’ll be back in studio this summer producing another eight.

This isn’t so different [from the classic series] that I would say, “Well, this is definitely written by guys who are in their 50s and 60s now.” This doesn’t feel like that. Is that just a lack of maturity? [Laughs]

It is a lack of maturity and certainly a lack of complacency. [Laughs] And also arrogance, we still have more than our fair share of the arrogance that we started with. And within the group, just a supremely unfounded confidence that whatever decisions we make are going to be the right ones in terms of comedy. I think we all doubt ourselves individually a lot of the time, but I don’t think any of us doubt what the Kids In The Hall is as a collective.

Is it overblown this notion that we change over time when it comes to our tastes? I still like this stuff that I thought was funny when I was 15, 20, 25. Obviously, there are changes, but it’s not that significant.

I’ve never actually, in my lifetime, met a person who has changed unless it was the result of severe head trauma. That’s the only time I’ve ever heard of any human being ever changing significantly. And that’s true. You give a good blow, a really good blow to the head. Your entire personality can be replaced by a new one.

No, I tried. It still doesn’t work. I may have to try harder.

I had a pretty good head trauma myself about seven years ago that actually was quite beneficial. But it’s true, other than severe damage to the brain, I’ve never met any who has ever changed. Change only happens in novels and in movies. People don’t have a journey and they don’t have realizations and growth. It’s always like the question of fiction is, “Well, how does this character grow? What does this character learn?” And the truth about life is nothing. Nothing of significance is ever learned; no growth is ever made. It’s tiny changes in opinions and skills in moderating behavior. That’s all anyone ever does. People learn to moderate their behavior, but they don’t fundamentally change in any real way.

It’s just an effort to not get stabbed.

You learn to avoid being kicked out of the community. That’s all. Certainly, myself, I don’t detect any fundamental growth since puberty.

‘Kids In The Hall’ and the documentary ‘Kids In The Hall: Comedy Punks’ hit Amazon on May 13

Emmy Rossum sure does distance herself from nine seasons as Fiona Gallagher on Shameless with her followup, Angelyne. However, it’s probably a good thing that this labor of love is only a limited series (on Peacock) because, boy, Emmy went through some hell when it came to transforming into a buxom and bewigged billboard babe. That’s not too surprising, considering that Lily James also went through a lot for her Pam & Tommy role, but man, that’s a lot of time (and discomfort) spent in the pursuit of looking unrecognizable for art.

While speaking with The Hollywood Reporter (which also received an intriguing anecdote about an Axl Rose-bathtub from Rossum), Emmy described how difficult it was to wear a heavy breastplate, which weighed three pounds and gave her, uh, blisters. Yikes. And that was only the beginning:

Skepticism for the project, or at least Rossum’s ability to capture its subject, dissipated as soon as the first set photos leaked. Her temporary alterations were not without sacrifice. Rossum got blisters from the fake breasts and suffered tear duct issues from wearing two pairs of contact lenses and from the oppressive eye makeup during the shoot. She often spent four or five hours in the makeup chair every morning before most of her colleagues even arrived on set.

Rossum’s husband, Sam Esmail, chimed in to say that there were moments when he didn’t even “recognize her” during the shoot, which is wild as well as “eerie,” according to him. And Rossum goes on to explain how she felt “heavy” in her new Angelyne body (due mostly to the breastplate, no doubt) but needed to exude a lightness about the way she moved and operated. Soon enough, the world will see the billboard queen in action.

Peacock’s Angelyne streams on May 19.

(Via Hollywood Reporter)

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 — This is cool to me

There’s this thing that happens sometimes when you watch a lot of television. It happens to me, at least. Maybe it happens to you, too. Maybe I just watch too much television. Either way, it goes something like this: You’ll be watching a show and you’ll notice someone give a good performance or do something interesting and you’ll file it away, and then a week or two later they’ll pop up in another show you watch and you’ll be like “hey, that’s cool, it that person,” and then a little bit later they’ll pop up in another show you watch and you’ll be like “OKAY WAIT A MINUTE.” Again, maybe this is just me. Maybe I’m projecting. Or maybe you’ve noticed Jessie Ennis popping up in all the good shows lately, too.

It started, for me, with Mythic Quest, a very good show I like a lot that had easily the best take on the pandemic and quarantine that I saw while we were still in it. She plays a character named Jo who started as an assistant for one executive in the show’s fictional video game company and then ended up working for another because she is a power-mad maniac. Fully unhinged, madness in the eyes, relentlessly eager to please whoever displays dominance. A fun character played well. Good stuff. A part of my brain filed it away.

Then she showed up in this season of The Flight Attendant, a good and objectively bonkers show that is now in its second season on HBO Max. She plays a member of the main character’s Alcoholic Anonymous group who also has a true-crime podcast and would very much like the main character to come on the aforementioned true-crime podcast to discuss the objectively bonkers things that happened in the first season. Here, look.

I’m sure part of it was my experience watching her on Mythic Quest, and a bigger part was the same manic energy she’s so good at playing for the camera, but as soon as she appeared, after I did the “hey, it’s her!” thing, I said to myself “I bet she’s up to something.” I can’t take too much credit for this because everyone on The Flight Attendant is up to something, but still. I called it. That’s the important thing. Unless she turns out not to be up to something. In which case… uh, never mind.

But that all brings us to this week’s episode of Better Call Saul. She popped up there, too. Here, look again.

What’s wild about this is that this character, Erin, has been on the show before. Kind of a lot. She has her own page on the Breaking Bad fandom site and everything. Here’s a summary of some stuff she did in season three.

Erin demands to speak with Jimmy as he leads a group of seniors through a chair yoga at Sandpiper Crossing. Going outside, she confronts Jimmy about his ploy of lying to the seniors to get his settlement quicker. Jimmy not only affirms her accusation, but abruptly states his disdain for his clients, seemingly unknowing that he is still patched into the microphone set. As such, the seniors quickly abandon Jimmy upon hearing his admission when he goes back inside. He meets Erin in the parking lot out-front Sandpiper Crossing and tells her the plan worked and the seniors will likely continue their class action, having set up the argument with Erin to do the right thing by his clients. Erin tells Jimmy she was serious about everything she said and departs.

I knew that. I remembered it. And yet, I never put it together that it was all the same actress until Monday of this week. That’s kind of cool. She’s just been killing it on shows I love for like five years now, all added up. I hope she shows up on The Righteous Gemstones as a fiery new televangelist next. Or on Narcos as a loose-cannon DEA agent. Or on For All Mankind as an astronaut. Or anything, really. This ball is rolling now. Let’s get Jessie Ennis in all of my shows.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Thank you to Barry for the commitment to remaining silly

I know, I know. We just talked about Barry last week. And we just talked about the thing where it mixes the heavy and the goofy as well as any show on television now or ever. And a lot of the screencaps in that discussion featured Henry Winkler, which allowed me to link to the interview I did with him, which I just linked to again. But there are two very good reasons why it’s happening again today. One is because I really like doing it. The other is because Barry keeps being good at this stuff.

Let’s set the scene with as few spoilers as possible. Barry (Bill Hader) has gotten his acting coach, Gene Cousineau (Winkler), a speaking role on a show that is apparently called Laws of Humanity. There are nefarious motives at play here, many related to Barry being a hitman and killing someone close to Gene and attempting to make it up to him by landing him this role and forcing him to take it under threat of further violence against additional loved ones. It’s a lot. But you should be watching Barry and know this stuff already.

Anyway, the important part. We get to the day of the job, and we are on the set of the show everyone has been calling Laws of Humanity, and two things become clear almost immediately: One, the star of this show within the show is played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar; two…

HUGH MANITY

MARK- PAUL GOSSELAAR PLAYING AN ACTOR WHO PLAYS A CHARACTER NAMED HUGH MANITY

THE SHOW IS ACTUALLY CALLED LAWS OF HUGH MANITY

YESSSSSSS

I am so proud of everyone involved in this piece of business. It’s, like, both genius and massively stupid and it’s like they did it all just for me. Add in the thing where my beloved NoHo Hank sent the text in the screenshot at the top of this page in the same episode and… man. Barry is such a great show. There’s some serious stuff going down this year. Some of it is not a lot of fun. But cutting through that every now and then with the dumbest puns and jokes possible makes it go down much easier.

LAWS OF HUGH MANITY

This will never not be funny to me.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — Listen to me

Regular readers of this column probably know that I absolutely mangled my spinal cord about 15 years ago. Fell, broke my neck, use a power wheelchair now, the whole deal. I’m fine. I swear to God I’m fine. If any one of you says “awwww” while reading this I will puke. I only bring it up now because it leads me into this: Some very good/smart people are starting a very good/cool program to get more people like me with disabilities involved in the process of making television and movies. From Variety:

The campaign, formally known as Disability Is Diversity, comes from the Inevitable Foundation, a nonprofit created 16 months ago by Richie Siegel and Marisa Torelli-Pedevska that seeks to fund and mentor disabled mid-career screenwriters.

The PSAs feature open letters that read, “Dear Entertainment Industry, THERE IS NO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION WITHOUT DISABILITY.”

Disabled people make up more than 20% of the population, but only 2% of on-screen characters have disabilities. Less than 1% of writers in Hollywood are disabled.

I dig this for a few reasons, which I will hammer out via bullet point:

• It’s always tricky for people with disabilities to get people to treat them as capable and useful members of society and a big first step is just getting in the door
• The depiction of disability on television and in movies kind of sucks, with most of the examples being sappy inspirational characters or super-rich villains or brain geniuses who may or may not have superpowers that offset their disability
• This increases the odds that there will finally be just, like, one cool guy on television who uses a wheelchair, maybe like a private detective or a chill beach dude or a handsome blogger who writes a weekly column that rounds up various stories from the world of entertainment, to pick three examples completely at random

I love it. This is good. Look at it all. More stuff like this, please.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Finally, a movie for Brian

Reasonable arguments can be made that my two favorite things in the entire world are…

• Movies and/or television shows
• The freaking Philadelphia 76ers

… which is why it brings me so much pleasure to present the trailer for the Netflix original movie Hustle, starring Adam Sandler as a basketball scout for the aforementioned freaking Philadelphia 76ers. Here’s the summary::

After discovering a once-in-a-lifetime player with a rocky past abroad, a down on his luck basketball scout (Adam Sandler) takes it upon himself to bring the phenom to the States without his team’s approval. Against the odds, they have one final shot to prove they have what it takes to make it in the NBA.

And here’s my favorite part of it all: Within about the first 20 seconds, we have both a shot of Adam Sandler in a Sixers jacket…

… and a scene with former Sixer reserve center Boban Marjanovic, who is making some serious inroads in Hollywood between this and the thing in the third John Wick movie where he played an assassin named Ernest who tried to ambush John in a library.

At another point in the trailer, as if they worried we wouldn’t believe the character is really from and/or familiar with Philadelphia, Sandler is wearing a Federal Donuts t-shirt.

I went to college in Philly and lived in the city for a grand total of about eight years on and off. I now live something like an hour outside the city limits. Please believe me when I tell you that watching this trailer is the closest I’ve come to hopping in my van and driving to Philly for a hoagie and some donuts in months. It’s a powerful draw. I can’t really explain it. Look up Federal Donuts if you’re not familiar. Bring me some if you are. I know this all started out about a basketball movie starring Adam Sandler but we have moved on to donuts now. The Sixers were eliminated from the playoffs last night. I’m not doing great. Donuts will help.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — I need to be very clear about what is happening on Holey Moley

We are going straight to the bullet points here:

• Holey Moley is back
• Holey Moley is America’s Finest Television program
• This season there is a running bit where co-host Rob Riggle recruits the Muppets to help get the show picked up for another season, but one of the Muppets — the sweet but misguided Pepe the Prawn — misinterprets his request and kidnaps NBA All-Star Steph Curry and holds him hostage in an attempt to get ABC to commit to the renewal

It is… awesome. And chaotic. Which is kind of awesome itself. This show is ostensibly a miniature golf competition that also features insane obstacles — some of which feature flames or Bigfoot, for… reasons — and it now also features the Muppets kidnapping future Hall of Fame basketball players. It’s just beautiful on all fronts and it makes me so happy and I hope it runs for 15 seasons.

Or, to quote… well, myself, from my own review…

I have no clue how people could watch this and not be charmed straight down to their soul. It’s nonsense. It’s chaos. There are Muppets now. It’s really just a perfect hour of very stupid television that you can watch with your brain switched into power-save mode. It’s important to have shows like that, or at least something like that, in your life somewhere. The world is big and scary and there are plenty of fancy prestige dramas on the 15 streaming services you’re subscribed to. Take a little time off and enjoy the Muppets and a bunch of goofballs whomping themselves into windmills. You’ve earned this. You deserve this. It’s too beautiful to ignore.

It dawns on me as I go through this that I have now mentioned both flaming obstacles and people getting whomped by windmills, but I did not make clear that this is actually the same obstacle. The windmills that whomp people are on fire. A visual will help. These GIFs are both from this week. They’re of the same woman. Look at network television greatness.

I am going to say this once again and I need you to know I am way more serious about it than you think I am: Holey Moley is America’s finest television program.

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 Josh:

Would you be thrilled or incredibly annoyed (I feel like this is a binary type of question) if Fast10 ended with Vin Diesel lying on a couch with an ice pack on his head, Michelle Rodriguez coming over and saying “you hit your head pretty good” them cutting to a totaled sports car from 2001 and Vin Diesel saying “I just had the craziest dream”

Ahahahahaha

AHAHAHAHAHA

YES

God, can you imagine this? Can you imagine this massive collective groan coming out of the theater when it happened? Can you imagine the annoyed faces of people who are sitting there trying to make sense of it while I am cackling like the Joker in the back row? I’m so torn now. One part of me desperately does not want this to happen, only to avoid the insufferable discourse that unfolds afterward. Another part of me wants to bathe in the chaos of it all for days.

Here’s the other thing about all of this, which is worth noting for the sake of both fairness and comedy: The surprise “it was all Dominic Toretto’s concussion dream” ending would not be the weirdest thing that has happened in this franchise. I don’t even know if it would be in the top three. It has a hell of a mountain to climb to get over. Consider:

• A team of street racing international fugitives now does secret missions for a government agency that has an unlimited budget and is run by Kurt Russell
• Jason Statham plays a character who full-on murdered their dear friend and yet still joins the Family a few movies later as a valued team member and, also, surprise, the friend who was murdered in the third movie and came back for the fourth through sixth thanks to a chronological lambada and then was killed again… yeah, he was actually alive the whole time and has rejoined the team, which, has been working with the man they thought murdered him
• Ludacris and Tyrese went to space in a NoS-powered Pontiac

It could happen. It really could. Please start preparing yourselves now, just in case.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

To India!

An Indian murder trial had to be halted on Wednesday under bizarre circumstances after a monkey stole several key pieces of evidence before the case reached court.

…

…

…

Excuse me?

According to the Times of India, the monkey was able to snatch an evidence packet that contained 15 pieces of evidence – including a knife, the alleged murder weapon.

So this appears to be yet another of those Two Things Can Be True At Once situations.

On one hand, there’s a real dead person here and a real alleged murderer who might go free, none of which is good.

On the other hand, please take a second and imagine some poor lawyer going in front of a judge with “a monkey stole my evidence” as his story and it actually being true.

During a pre-trial hearing, Jaipur police had to admit to the court that since the murder in 2016, a monkey snatched the evidence while it was being transported.

This sounds like a plot from Laws of Humanity, the fake show from Barry starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar, which, now that I think about it, I really want to exist and feature this exact plot in the first episode.

Key evidence in the case, including a knife that is believed to have been used by the suspects to murder Sharma, was collected and placed in an evidence packet, ready to be used in court when the case went to trial.

However, according to India’s NDTV, the evidence was temporarily being kept under a tree by the constable due to a lack of space in the audit facility in Malkhana.

It was then, the police said in their written response to the court, that the monkey snatched the 15 pieces of evidence and fled. It has not been recovered.

FIFTEEN PIECES OF EVIDENCE

THAT IS SO MUCH EVIDENCE

HOW DID HE CARRY IT ALL?

WITH HIS LITTLE HANDS?!

The public prosecutor has reportedly reacted angrily to the police’s incompetence, suggesting their excuse is unusual. The court also expressed its frustration.

I mean… yeah. Fair reactions all around. But it’s like they say in law school: sometimes things work out, sometimes a monkey steals your evidence. They don’t actually say that. They should probably start, though.