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It’s no secret which fast food chain dishes out the best chicken sandwich, but who makes the spiciest? There are a lot of contenders fighting over that top spot. Popeyes’ sandwich, while delicious, is more sweet than spicy, even in its “spicy” variant. McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr’s chicken sandwiches are trash. Burger King, Shake Shack, and Raising Cane’s all make decent sandwiches, but a majority of them aren’t even trying to be spicy. If you like your chicken sandwiches so hot that they make your brow sweat as you salivate between bites and leave your mouth feeling like you’re breathing fire, all you’ve got is Chick-fil-A’s Spicy Deluxe and Wendy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich.

Both bring some heat, but for fans of hot chicken with a high tolerance for spice, they both kind of miss the mark. It baffles me that we’re living in a time where the fast food space is obsessed with chicken sandwiches to an almost ridiculous degree, and yet we don’t have a single sandwich that is spicy enough to satiate true lovers of hot food. Until now.

Today, master of meats, Arby’s, is launching the Diablo Sandwich line which consists of your choice of a smoked brisket or fried chicken topped sandwich that provides what Arby’s promises will be the “ultimate spicy experience.” I sampled the fried chicken topped version of the sandwich ahead of launch to see if Arby’s can truly deliver what they’ve promised.

Is the Diablo Chicken the spicy sandwich we pepper heads have been waiting for? Let’s find out.

Arby’s Diablo Chicken Sandwich

Retail Price: $5.99

The Sandwich:

Beginning today until February 6th, Arby’s nationwide will be selling the Diablo sandwich, which is so spicy that Arby’s felt fit to provide each customer with a free vanilla shake with every order. This sandwich is a monument to spice! It’s built with multiple layers of peppers; ghost pepper jack cheese, a few shakes of what Arby’s is calling “Fiery Hot Seasoning,” which to me tastes like mostly paprika with a bit of cayenne pepper, diced jalapeños embedded into the cheese, a swirl of spicy barbecue sauce (I’m getting a hint of citrusy habanero here) on the top bun, mayonnaise on the bottom, lettuce and pickles and your choice of a fried chicken filet or 13-hour smoked brisket served on a toasted chipotle bun.

As decadent and delicious as the smoked brisket version looks, Arby’s brisket is a bit on the sweet side, and if I wanted the ultimate spicy experience I knew I needed the more neutral flavor of fried chicken to accompany all of those sources of heat. The result? Well, for starters, this is a sandwich so spicy that you can smell the heat before you bite into it.

The layers of heat hit you in waves, the spicy barbecue sauce eases you into things with the slightest hint of sweetness and spice before that ghost pepper jack cheese meets your palate and provides the fire. The liberal use of cayenne seasoning ensures each bite is as spicy as the next and builds as you go. As you chew through the sandwich the diced and roasted jalapeños offer the occasional burst of extra heat that pleasantly lingers as an aftertaste between bites, counterbalanced by some tangy pickles, which keep your breath from turning to literal flames.

Throughout the meal my mouth felt like it was on fire in the most delicious way. But rather than luxuriating in the heat, I found myself eating this sandwich quicker than I’d usually eat. The heat has this way of pulling you through the experience. I couldn’t take a break, lest I be engulfed.

The sandwich is a legit sweat-inducer but it suffers from a few minor problems that can be easily remedied on Arby’s part. First up is that toasted chipotle bun. Arby’s tried to shoehorn in another layer of spice but this bread comes off as more of a gimmick than an enjoyable part of the sandwich. It’s very dry and I find the orange color of the bread straight up unappetizing. The pickles, while a welcome inclusion, are just a little too thin to really impact the flavor as much as I’d like them to. I’m not sure why this sandwich has mayo (couldn’t taste it, which is great if you hate mayo), and the lettuce is little more than a texture that kind of makes the sandwich taste wet.

And then we have the chicken.

It’s not the best chicken filet in fast food, it’s thin and dry to the point of being stringy. Even though I haven’t had it, I’m willing to bet the better move is to grab the brisket instead. Still, I went looking for the spiciest chicken sandwich in the fast food universe and the Diablo Chicken Sandwich is definitely the spiciest sandwich I’ve had in all of fast food. Ever.

My favorite feature of this sandwich is the vanilla shake pairing. It’s not that the sandwich is so hot that you need the shake to offer relief (some will, my tolerance for spicy food is very high), but the flavors really play off one another in an interesting way, creating a harmonious eating experience that bounces between two extremes.

The sweetness acts as a sort of palate cleanser that washes away the lingering heat so that you can experience it all over again during your next bite. Once your palate is inundated with heat to the point of numbness, a swig of vanilla will put you right back to where you were on your first bite.

The Bottom Line:

Arby’s really has something here. It’s not the best chicken sandwich you’ll ever eat. Hell, I wouldn’t even say it’s top five, but when it comes to delivering on a spicy experience no sandwich in the fast food universe can even compete with this. It is hands down the spiciest fast food sandwich currently on the market. If you can’t handle spicy food, don’t even attempt to eat this sandwich, you’ll need more than a vanilla shake to help you through it.

Find your nearest Arby’s here.

In his third season, Memphis Grizzies guard Ja Morant has risen to full-fledged stardom. Averaging 24.7 points, 6.7 assists, 5.8 rebounds and 1.4 steals on 57.5 percent true shooting, he seems en route to his first career All-Star berth. He’s been awesome and is vital to the Grizzlies’ 28-14 record that sees them just a game back of the three seed out West.

Last week, when initial returns on All-Star votes were released, Morant sat third among West guards, about 118,000 votes behind Luka Doncic for a starting spot. So, on Tuesday, Grizzlies minority owner Justin Timberlake ended his self-imposed social media hiatus to advocate for the high-flying playmaker’s All-Star campaign.

Fan votes compose just half of the criteria for selecting All-Star starters, but Timberlake’s efforts surely won’t hurt. Stephen Curry has nearly two million more votes than Doncic and Morant, while Klay Thompson is fourth, more than 300,00 votes behind Morant. Among fans, it seems like a two-man race between Doncic and Morant to join Curry as a starter.

Morant and the Grizzlies are riding an eight-game winning streak and have the NBA’s fifth-best record this season. They’ll have a chance to make it nine in a row and add another layer to Morant’s All-Star hopes when they welcome Curry’s Golden State Warriors to town Tuesday evening.

Before rewatching Dirty Work, the only thing I fully remembered about it was I saw it twice in theaters. To the point that, when the person I was about to watch it with asked if it was good, I responded, “When I was in college I thought it was funny enough to see twice in theaters. Other than that, I don’t remember.”

First, to get this part out of the way, it is still very funny. I laughed many, many times. But it’s also, strangely, a movie that’s kind of sad to watch under these circumstances. The obvious one being that both the star of the movie, Norm Macdonald, and the director of the movie, Bob Saget, would die within just a little over three months from each other. The other being the whole “what could have been” from both of their movie-making careers. Obviously, both had success in the years following Dirty Work, but Saget would never again direct another movie given a wide theatrical release and Macdonald would never again star in a movie this good. (I haven’t seen his follow-up film, Screwed, in many, many years, but I remember it being unpleasant. Watching Dirty Work today, it’s just sad we didn’t have more collaborations between Saget and Macdonald because they seemed to bring the best out in each other.

After the news of Saget’s death broke on Sunday night, social media was filled with tributes from people who knew Saget and truly seem to love the guy, then people like us who admired him – usually mentioning how different his raunchy standup could be from the character he was most known for playing, Danny Tanner on Full House. (Though he doesn’t get enough praise for his work on America’s Funniest Home Videos, a show that, maybe more than any other, predicted our cultural future.) But Saget’s tendency to be raunchy is what’s so surprising about Dirty Work. Especially in the heyday of Full House, Saget seemed to relish in his raunchiness, often pointing out to unsuspecting audience members at his shows that maybe this isn’t what they were expecting from the star of one of the most popular family situation comedies of all time. Which is why, given the keys to directing a Norm Macdonald movie, it would kind of be expected for him to lean onto that here, too. But instead, Dirty Work is almost surprisingly sweet. (Yes, it’s true, Dirty Work was supposed to be rated R and a lot was cut out. But that still wouldn’t change the basic premise of the story and the genial sweetness of Macdonald’s Mitch Weaver.)

The plot of Dirty Work kind of fits in perfectly with the comedies that were popular at the time, which always seem to start with meeting the two main characters when they were children, for no reason in particular other than to prove, look, they were losers then and, today, guess what? Still losers. Mitch (Macdonald) and Sam (Artie Lange) can’t hold down a job, so, after a series of events, they go into the revenge-for-hire business. Basically, did someone do you wrong? Well, hire us and we will make sure that person gets what’s coming to them. This all culminates when Travis Cole (Christopher McDonald, because of course he’s in this movie) hires Mitch and Sam to get a building condemned, which turns out to be a trick and innocent people are about to be evicted, so the boys learn a hard lesson and set out to make things right. (It’s funny, like in Happy Gilmore, Christopher McDonald’s character’s evil plan relies on evicting someone from their residence.)

On its opening weekend Dirty Work would finish eighth, in a time when, maybe, this kind of movie had run its course. At the time, there wasn’t anything particularly unique about Dirty Work (though, keep in mind, I saw it twice) but, in retrospect, it benefits today that no movies are like this anymore. There are no low-stakes comedies in theaters. So, today, yeah, it kind of does feel unique. Especially considering it brought together both Macdonald and Saget. And, like I said, there’s something here. These two worked well together and it feels like they could have gone on making comedies together for the foreseeable future. That’s the thing about Saget, he was raunchy, but he was a warm human being that everyone truly seemed to love. No matter how raunchy his comedic sensibilities might have been, it worked for him because, deep down, he was a genuinely good person. And that comes through in Dirty Work because he gets the best out of Norm Macdonald.

(As an aside, last week I was listening to Marc Maron’s podcast when he was interviewing Tom and Dick Smothers. They are both in their 80s now and still sound great and are still legitimately funny. Maron asked them why they retired their act together. They responded that they didn’t want to die on the road. At first, I thought this was a joke, but they were serious. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot this past week, then especially Sunday night.)

The scene in Dirty Work that struck me the most involves an amusing setup as Mitch convinces Sam to moon a bunch of people, out of a passenger side window, waiting in line at a movie theater. Sam does this and Mitch immediately pulls the car over, parks it on the street right next to the movie theater, gets out and walks off, leaving Sam there with his ass still hanging out the window.

What got me about this scene is just how happy Macdonald looks. Like, he’s beaming right before the punchline of this scene. I wish these two had made ten more movies. They didn’t. And now they’re both gone. At least we have this one.

You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.

Sunday was quite the night at the Chase Center as Klay Thompson made his long awaited return after 941 days away from an NBA court, as Warriors fans welcomed him back with a rousing ovation during intros.

Thompson rewarded the fans with a 17-point outing in his return, taking 18 shots in 20 minutes of a Warriors win over the Cavs, complete with a poster dunk that nearly blew the roof off of the building. It was a pretty incredible scene and one of the best atmospheres you can get for a January regular season NBA game, and one of those Warriors fans who was in the building was Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider.

Schneider has amassed over $1 million over her winning streak on the trivia game show, becoming the fourth person to ever do so and the first woman to break the million dollar mark on the show. Schneider is not the first openly transgender champion in the show’s history, but as she has kept winning she has been able to use her platform to speak out on trans rights and offer her support to the LGBTQ+ community.

Schneider is also an Oakland resident, and after arriving in the Bay Area in 2009 became a big fan of the Warriors and Stephen Curry, so when she got the chance to be in the building for Klay’s return she couldn’t pass it up. As you can see in the video above, the Warriors announced her on the Jumbotron at the game and she got a strong cheer from the crowd as the Bay’s very own Jeopardy! super champ.

On last week’s Billboard Hot 100 chart, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and other vintage holiday tunes were still dominating the top ten spots. On the new chart dated January 15, though, we’re back to non-Christmas programming, as holiday tunes are out of the top ten and Adele’s “Easy On Me” is back to No. 1 for an eighth total week.

Perhaps the top-ten song that stands out most, though, is “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the new Disney movie Encanto. The track — which is credited to Carolina Gaitán, Mauro Castillo, Adassa, Rhenzy Feliz, Diane Guerrero, Stephanie Beatriz, and Encanto Cast — jumped from No. 50 last week up to No. 5 this week, making it the first top-five song from a Disney movie since Frozen‘s “Let It Go.” Aside from those two, other Disney songs to crack the top five include Vanessa Williams’ “Colors Of The Wind” from Pocahontas, Elton John’s “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” from Tarzan, and Peabo Bryson and Regina Bell’s “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.

Furthermore, “Bruno” is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first top-ten hit, as he wrote the song (and all the others from the movie). The song is also the first top-ten track for all of the credited artists. Also, speaking of Elton John, his and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” rose to No. 7 this week, making it his first top-ten hit in the US since “Candle In The Wind”/”Something About The Way You Look Tonight” in 1997.

It’s a big week for Encanto, as it was revealed yesterday that the movie’s soundtrack is No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Black Monday in the NFL arrived and quickly saw a number of teams open up head coaching and general manager vacancies. Among them were the Chicago Bears, a team that had been expected to fire coach Matt Nagy for months, as fans chanted “Fire Nagy” at Bears games, Bulls games, and even his poor son’s high school games for much of the season.

On Monday, the team announced Nagy and general manager Ryan Pacer were both “relieved of their duties,” which is the cordial way of saying fired, and the search to replace them was announced on Monday afternoon.

Nagy went 34-31 in his four-year tenure in Chicago, but after a 12-4 season in his first year at the helm, the Bears progressively got worse, culminating in this season’s frustrating 6-11 record. The defense was always there in Chicago, but Nagy’s pedigree as an offensive coach never yielded the intended results and after Mitchell Trubisky failed to develop into the face of the franchise under Nagy, their struggles this year with Andy Dalton and Justin Fields seemed to put the nail in the coffin. The offense’s struggles went beyond the quarterback, as the roster simply didn’t have enough offensive talent, both up front on the line of scrimmage and at the skill positions, which is why Pace is likewise out.

The next GM will be in charge of finding a better roster balance between offense and defense, surrounding Fields with the talent needed to succeed, while the new head coach will be tasked with tapping his full potential.

Before his short-lived run as Batman, Ben Affleck almost had a crack at playing Superman thanks to a script from his old pal Kevin Smith. Now, to stave off any confusion, yes, Affleck technically played Superman in the 2006 film Hollywoodland, but only as part of his performance as TV actor George Reeves, who famously played the character in the 1950s. For the purpose of Smith’s latest tale, Affleck was going to be the actual Superman in an all-out blockbuster film that was hoping to trade off his white-hot career in the ’90s. Via Variety:

“I was writing it for Affleck,” Smith said. “Ben was heating up. Like he was there. I think he’d been hired for ‘Armageddon.’ Affleck, he’s a fucking giant, like he’s built like a superhero, built like a giant action figure, particularly with the height. And then he puts on the muscles there too. So in my head and heart, it was always Ben and Michael Rooker.”

However, things started going south when Superman producer Jon Peters began eyeing Sean Penn for the role because “he has the eyes of a killer.” That’s when Smith knew the project was doomed, which ultimately proved correct.

The Superman project that would’ve starred Affleck morphed into the infamous Superman Lives that was set to star Nicolas Cage under the direction of Tim Burton. That film never made it out of pre-production thanks to studio meddling and Burton ultimately abandoning the project after getting fed up with Peters. It would take almost a decade until Superman appeared on the big screen in 2006’s Superman Returns, which failed to connect with audiences, leading to Henry Cavill rebooting the character in 2011’s Man of Steel. It’s hard to make a Superman movie, folks.

(Via Variety)

In honor of the late Young Dolph, the Memphis rapper’s label Paper Route Empire has planned a compilation album featuring tributes from his proteges and friends. Titled Paper Route Empire Presents: Long Live Dolph, the compilation will feature Big Moochie Grape, Kenny Muney, Key Glock, Snupe Bandz, and more, and is planned for release on January 21.

Paper Route CEO Daddyo told Rolling Stone, “My best friend, brother, and loyal business partner Dolph was loved and admired by people all over the world. He led by example and influenced so many people both near and far. The world will never be the same without Dolph but I know he’d want me to continue his legacy by working hard to push all our artists to the next level and make PRE an international brand. I hope his fans love it as much as I do.”

The first single from the album is “LLD” by Jay Fizzle, Dolph’s cousin and one of his PRE artists. You can check it out below.

Dolph was killed in a shooting in front of a local bakery in his hometown. Police revealed one of the suspects was 23-year-old Justin Johnson, who was later seen wearing Dolph’s PRE chain but was not affiliated with the late rapper.

Paper Route Empire Presents: Long Live Dolph is due 1/21 via Empire and PRE.

Everyone knows just how big Grand Theft Auto is. Rockstar’s massive open-world franchise is one of the biggest names in all of gaming with Grand Theft Auto V becoming the most profitable video game ever made. However, while GTA dominates consoles there is one area that the franchise doesn’t quite have the same level of dominance: the mobile market.

While GTA has a presence on phones and app stores, all of the games are ports of older titles like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and while it’s impressive that you can play a PlayStation 2 game on your phone, it’s not quite the same as many of the more original games that are all over app stores. Most major video game publishers have been attempting to see what it can make work on mobile with original titles of some kind. Games like Pokemon Go, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, and The Simpsons: Tapped Out have all seen decent success with different reasons to come in and play. If a major developer can get a good hook on the mobile market, it can make a significant amount of money very quickly.

All of this is to say that the recent news of Rockstar parent company Take-Two purchasing Farmville and mobile game developer Zynga makes a lot of sense. This not only gives Take-Two ownership of many extremely profitable mobile IPs, but it gives them a trusted developer that they already know is capable of making successful mobile games. The message is clear. Take-Two wants to make more original mobile games.

The cash-and-stock deal announced Monday is one of the video game industry’s bigger acquisitions to date. Take-Two Chief Executive Strauss Zelnick said a purchase of Zynga would give it a strong position in mobile, “the fastest-growing segment of the interactive entertainment industry.”

Let’s look back at Grand Theft Auto and Rockstar. Take-Two currently owns the most profitable IP in all of gaming, but it has a giant hole where there could be potential mobile games. We know for certain that people are interested enough in GTA to play an original mobile game and with the purchase of Zynga, it feels like a safe assumption that one could be in the works very soon. Not only that, but Take-Two also is the parent company of 2K and the NBA 2K franchise. We may see NBA 2K making a stronger effort in the mobile market as well.

All of this is speculation of course, but when looking at how impactful mobile games are and what Take-Two has just done it feels like a no-brainer prediction.

A few days ago, Julien Baker, Sharon Van Etten, and Angel Olsen teased some sort of joint venture. They didn’t offer much in terms of what that would entail, but they did promise that Monday (aka today) would bring more info on that front. Indeed, it has: The three artists are heading out on “The Wild Hearts Tour” together this July and August, along with Spencer opening on all but a couple of the dates. Tickets are set to go on sale on January 14 at 10 a.m. local time.

All three artists have shared statements about the trek. Here’s Baker’s:

“Sharon and Angel are artists that I have genuinely admired for many years and whose music has honestly informed much of my own writing and music making, and I’m thrilled to be sharing a stage with them every night. I think after interacting with their recorded work separately so much, it will be special to get to learn from them as we share the space of performance.”

This is what Van Etten had to say:

“Our aim is to strengthen our respective communities and promote camaraderie in the music world in a safe and enjoyable environment while supporting, A New Way Of Life, an organization that we feel is making genuine impact for the underserved. We have carefully chosen the venues we think will deliver the best experience for us and our fans. I look up to Angel and have the deepest admiration for Julien and Spencer. It is an honor, to say the least, to be able to share the stage with such talent on a tour across North America.”

And here’s Olsen’s statement:

“I’m so thrilled to be traveling and playing music alongside Spencer, Julien Baker and Sharon Van Etten. It’s truly a dream, something to hold and share collaboratively as we get out from under the last few years. I know for fans it’s something different and special too, and for me, it’s sort of like a caravan summer camp-a chance to get to know other artists in a deeper way and talk about music and life and how it affects us all as we move forward. Most of all, I am excited to sing live again, in an open and real way, both alone and together with my tourmates.”

Check out the full list of tour dates below and get tickets here.

07/21 — Vienna, VA @ Wolf Trap Center For The Performing Arts *
07/22 — Asheville, NC @ Rabbit Rabbit *
07/23 — Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
07/25 — Austin, TX @ Moody Amphitheater *
07/29 — Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre *
07/30 — Berkeley, Ca @ Greek Theatre *
08/02 — Troutdale, OR @ McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater *
08/03 — Redmond, WA @ Marymoor Amphitheater *
08/05 — Boise, ID @ Idaho Botanical Garden *
08/06 — Salt Lake City, UT @ TBA *
08/07 — Denver, CO @ Sculpture Park *
08/09 — Minneapolis, MN @ Surly Brewing Festival Field *
08/10 — Chicago, IL @ TBA *
08/11 — Kalamazoo, MI @ Bell’s Eccentric Cafe *
08/12 — Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
08/15 — Shelburne, VT @ The Green At Shelburne Museum *
08/16 — LaFayette, NY @ Beak & Skiff Apple Orchards *
08/18 — Boston, MA @ Leader Bank Pavilion *
08/19 — Philadelphia, PA @ Skyline Stage At The Mann *
08/21 — New York, NY @ Central Park Summerstage *

* with Spencer