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Tag: comedy

  • Stanislaus County official says comedian threatened him over the phone; arrest made

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    A Stanislaus County official confirmed Tuesday that a comedian had threatened him. County deputies have since arrested the comedian in connection with the threat.Anthony Krayenhagen faces a charge of making threats against an elected official, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office said. Deputies took him into custody on Nov. 20.Channce Condit, the District 5 representative for the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors, said Krayenhagen made the threat over the phone. He said the comedian reached out to his office and that he called Krayenhagen back on Nov. 12.Condit said that was when Krayenhagen threatened his life. The county supervisor called the sheriff’s office after the call, prompting an investigation.When asked if he attended one of Krayenhagen’s comedy shows a few months prior, Condit confirmed that he was with a group when someone from that group got into a back-and-forth with Krayenhagen.Condit said he was not part of the argument and that the comedy show is not connected with the threat made.See news happening? Send us your photos or videos if it’s safe to do so at kcra.com/upload.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    MODESTO, Calif. —

    A Stanislaus County official confirmed Tuesday that a comedian had threatened him. County deputies have since arrested the comedian in connection with the threat.

    Anthony Krayenhagen faces a charge of making threats against an elected official, the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office said. Deputies took him into custody on Nov. 20.

    Channce Condit, the District 5 representative for the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors, said Krayenhagen made the threat over the phone. He said the comedian reached out to his office and that he called Krayenhagen back on Nov. 12.

    Condit said that was when Krayenhagen threatened his life. The county supervisor called the sheriff’s office after the call, prompting an investigation.

    When asked if he attended one of Krayenhagen’s comedy shows a few months prior, Condit confirmed that he was with a group when someone from that group got into a back-and-forth with Krayenhagen.

    Condit said he was not part of the argument and that the comedy show is not connected with the threat made.

    See news happening? Send us your photos or videos if it’s safe to do so at kcra.com/upload.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • What Mikey Day Watches (and Reads) With His Son

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    Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan, Will Heath/NBC), Everett Collection (Geffen Pictures, Paramount, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros.), Toei Animation, Supercell, Roblox, MrBeast via YouTube

    Ask a kid who Mikey Day is and they won’t rattle off his SNL bona fides or call out his recent guest spot on Abbott Elementary. They won’t cite his work as the Dollar Rental Car spokesperson or the fact that he penned 2021’s Home Sweet Home Alone alongside longtime writing partner Streeter Seidell. Instead, they’ll point to just one thing: his role as the host of Netflix’s hit baking series Is It Cake?

    “If I meet a kid and they’re between the ages of 4 and 9,” Day says, “I know they’ll have watched Is It Cake? A lot of SNL hosts with kids that age have even come to me and said, ‘I’ve got to get a picture with you at some point, because my kids love your show.’ It’s crazy.”

    And it’s because of kids, Day thinks, that Is It Cake? has been able to soldier on. “I think that after season one, adults would have been like, I get the concept, I’m ready to move on. But when kids like something, they’re all in, so that’s great,” he says. “That means we get to keep doing it.”

    With new holiday-themed Is It Cake? episodes hitting Netflix today — just in time for family movie nights and Thanksgiving baking marathons — we asked Day what he’s watching, playing, and reading with his 13-year-old son, Abbott.

    Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection

    Everything’s so different now with the internet and streaming. I don’t know if my son has ever watched a regular TV show like how I used to. His mother and I have made a point of showing him classic movies. We’ll announce them, though, like “It’s movie night on Sunday and we’re all going to sit down for two hours and watch something,” because kids are so used to the internet and YouTube that the idea of committing to something for two hours can seem astronomical to them.

    We’ve shown Back to the Future, Gremlins, The Princess Bride, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Back to the Future went over the best and we ended up showing him the entire trilogy. It’s my favorite movie so I think he was a little biased going into the first one, but he really liked it. Weirdly, though, he did say the third one was the best — I think because he liked the flying train.

    I’ve also shown him clips from movies like Spaceballs, just because I mentioned it, and then he wanted to watch that.

    Photo: Universal Pictures/Everett Collection

    My son is really into the Jurassic Park franchise now, too, mostly because he saw Rebirth after getting into the commercials this past summer. He wants to watch all of them, but I’m trying to show them to him in the order of how good I think they are, so we started with the original after we saw the most recent one, then we went over to Jurassic World. But slowly, I think we’re going to watch them all.

    Photo: Toei Animation

    My son really likes this anime called One Piece, which he found independent of me. I try to sit with him to watch stuff like that, but it’s intense. It’s just very loud. Like all the people he watches playing video games online, they just scream all the time.

    I kind of missed the whole anime thing as a kid. I’m sure if I’d done it, I’d be more into it now, but he loves it.

    He’s been One Piece characters for Halloween a few years in a row, too, which I love because that’s how I was with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I did try to show him the ’90s TMNT movie, which changed my life as a kid because I was so enraptured by it, but I think I tried to do it a little too young because he was pretty unimpressed. Maybe if we came back to it now he’d like it.

    Photo: MrBeast via YouTube

    My son is super into YouTube. So much so that he’ll ask, like, “When is Josh Plays Minecraft X1 or whatever going to host SNL?” One time, MrBeast was backstage at SNL and so I briefly introduced myself to him when I walked by. When I came home, I was like, “You know who I met? MrBeast.” On SNL you meet a lot of famous people, but for my son, when I said I met and talked to MrBeast for 30 seconds, that’s what he thought was super exciting.

    Photo: Supercell

    We play games together sometimes, but I play a lot of console games and he’s more into mobile games. I’ve played some Roblox with him and there are certain games that I like more on there than others, but I try. We used to play Lego Ninjago together, but now he plays mobile stuff like Brawl Stars, and I’m not as into that. I feel like I’m constantly like, “Want to play this game I found?” Like there’s this one called Split Fiction, and he’ll be nice about it, but he’s also like, “I’m good.” Like, “Yeah, maybe this weekend!” He just politely puts me off.

    I guess it’s understandable. He’s 13. I don’t know if I was watching a lot of stuff with my dad when I was in eighth grade.

    Photo: Golden Books

    There’s this Sesame Street book called There’s a Monster at the End of this Book that I loved as a kid that we’d read to my son all the time when he was little. I loved that.

    We also had a storybook version of Back to the Future that I read him long before he saw the movie.

    I tried to get him into Harry Potter, even though I never really read that as a kid, but I think we did it too early because it was just too dense. It was like “Dad, I’m 4. I’m checking out.” Maybe if we’d done it when he was a little older we might have captured his imagination, but we missed the sweet spot.

    He does love to read, though. He just finished all the Hunger Games books, so that’s cool.

    Photo: Paramount/Everett Collection

    I used to show my son clips from Airplane! all the time, so eventually I got to the point where it was like, “All right, I’ve got to just show him the whole movie,” which he loved. He thinks it’s so funny.

    There’s this other Albert Brooks movie, Defending Your Life, which I think is criminally underrated. We showed him that, which was fun, because he really liked it and it’s one of my favorite films of all time.

    I think when he gets old enough, I’ll show him the British Office, which is my favorite piece of media of all time, but I don’t want to hit it too early. Maybe when he’s in high school.

    Photo: Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images

    Because of where I work, he’s been exposed to some sketches from SNL, but he doesn’t actively seek it out. Sometimes he’ll sit down and watch stuff, but it’s not appointment viewing. I’ll make a point of showing him stuff sometimes, like years ago we did a Mario Kart sketch with Pedro Pascal that he thought was pretty funny, and during election years he’ll watch a little more because his mom gets really into it and talks about the election a lot so he’ll know all the players involved, but I think it just hits different for him.

    I used to tape Saturday Night Live off Comedy Central as a kid, when they’d show the episodes edited down to an hour and I’d be confused because at good nights people would be dressed as things that I hadn’t seen in the episodes. My son has been to the studio and everything, but I think for him, the show is just Dad’s job, and that’s fine with me.


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    Mikey Day,Marah Eakin

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  • What to Stream: ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Mickey 17,’ Kevin Hart and ‘A Grand Ole Opry Christmas’

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    Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17,” a new batch of “Stranger Things’” final season and Kevin Hart debuting a new comedy special on Netflix are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: “Everybody Loves Raymond” gets a 30th anniversary special on CBS, the Hallmark’s special “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas” with Brad Paisley and Mickey Guyton, and a new Beatles documentary series hits Disney+.

    New movies to stream from Nov. 24-30

    —Taiwanese filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou, known for collaborating with and producing several Sean Baker films including “Tangerine” and “The Florida Project,” makes her solo directorial debut with “Left-Handed Girl,” about a single mother and her two daughters who return to Taipei to open a stand at a night market. Netflix acquired the film after it was warmly received during the Cannes Film Festival and Taiwan has already selected the film as its Oscar submission. It begins streaming on Netflix on Nov. 28.

    —Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” arrives on Prime Video on Thursday, Nov. 26, for some dystopian holiday viewing. In her review for The Associated Press, Jocelyn Noveck praised Robert Pattinson’s performance (or, rather, performances) as an expendable who is constantly being reprinted anew. She writes, “It’s his movie, and he saves it from Bong’s tendencies to overstuff the proceedings. In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pattinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable.”

    Recording artist Brad Paisley perform the national anthem prior to Game 3 of baseball's World Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Dodgers, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

    —OK, “The Last Duel,” streaming on Hulu on Sunday, Nov. 30 might be four years old but it’s a far better option than, say, “Flight Risk” (on HBO Max on Wednesday). Ridley Scott’s medieval tale, written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, is a brilliant spin on the historical epic told from three different perspectives, Damon’s Jean de Carrouges, Adam Driver’s Jacques Le Gris and Jodie Comer’s Marguerite. In his review for the AP, film writer Jake Coyle wrote that it “is more like a medieval tale deconstructed, piece by piece, until its heavily armored male characters and the genre’s mythologized nobility are unmasked.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    New music to stream on Nov. 24-30

    — In 2021, over Thanksgiving, Disney+ released Peter Jackson’s six-hour “The Beatles: Get Back” to its streaming platform. The gargantuan project provided fans with a deep-dive into the band’s “Let It Be” sessions – including footage of their entire rooftop concert, shared in full for the first time. It was an ideal release date, to say the least. After all that delicious food, who doesn’t want to settle in for a lengthy journey into one of the greatest musical acts of all time? Well, in 2025, there’s yet another reason to be grateful: Starting Wednesday, “The Beatles Anthology” documentary series hits Disney+. That’s nine episodes tracing their journey. Lock in.

    — ’Tis the season for Hallmark holiday films. And for the country music fanatic, that means “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas.” The film follows a woman forced to confront her musical past and heritage in the esteemed venue – and there may or may not be some time travel and Christmas magic involved. Stay tuned for the all-star cameos: Brad Paisley, Megan Moroney, Mickey Guyton, Rhett Akins, Tigirlily Gold and more make an appearance. It starts streaming on Hallmark+ Sunday.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    New series to stream from Nov. 24-30

    — It’s hard to believe that “Everybody Loves Raymond” has been off the air for two decades. The multicamera sitcom starred Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton as Ray and Debra Barone, a young married couple whose daily lives are interrupted regularly by Ray’s meddling parents, played by Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts, who live across the street. CBS recently taped a 30th anniversary special to air Monday which will also stream on Paramount+. Hosted by Romano and creator, Phil Rosenthal, it recreates the set of the Barone living room and features interviews with cast members including Romano, Heaton, Brad Garrett and Monica Horan. There will also be a tribute to Boyle and Roberts who died in 2006 and 2016, respectively. It’s fitting for the special to come out around the holidays because its Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes were top-notch. All nine seasons stream on both Paramount+ and Peacock.

    — ” Stranger Things” is finally back with its fifth and final season. Netflix is releasing the sci-fi series in three parts and the first four episodes drop Wednesday. Millie Bobby Brown says fans will “lose their damn minds” with how it ends.

    — Also Monday, Kevin Hart debuts a new comedy special on Netflix. It’s called “Kevin Hart: Acting My Age.” The jokes center around, you guessed it, aging.

    — A new “Family Guy” special on Hulu pokes fun at those holiday movies we all know, love and watch. It’s called “Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie” and pokes fun at the commonly-used trope of a big city gal who ends up in a small town at Christmas and falls in love. It drops Friday, Nov. 28 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    New video games to play from Nov. 24-30

    — Artificial intelligence: friend to all humanity or existential threat to the planet? In A.I.L.A, Brazilian studio Pulsatrix leans toward the latter. You play as a game tester who’s asked to try out an AI-created horror story. But while you’re busy fighting off ghosts, zombies and ax murderers, the AI may be up to something more nefarious in the background — which could be bad news if you own a smart refrigerator. It all has the potential to be very meta, whether or not you welcome our new robot overlords. It arrives Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • What to Stream: ‘Stranger Things,’ ‘Mickey 17,’ Kevin Hart and ‘A Grand Ole Opry Christmas’

    [ad_1]

    Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17,” a new batch of “Stranger Things’” final season and Kevin Hart debuting a new comedy special on Netflix are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: “Everybody Loves Raymond” gets a 30th anniversary special on CBS, the Hallmark’s special “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas” with Brad Paisley and Mickey Guyton, and a new Beatles documentary series hits Disney+.

    —Taiwanese filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou, known for collaborating with and producing several Sean Baker films including “Tangerine” and “The Florida Project,” makes her solo directorial debut with “Left-Handed Girl,” about a single mother and her two daughters who return to Taipei to open a stand at a night market. Netflix acquired the film after it was warmly received during the Cannes Film Festival and Taiwan has already selected the film as its Oscar submission. It begins streaming on Netflix on Nov. 28.

    —Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” arrives on Prime Video on Thursday, Nov. 26, for some dystopian holiday viewing. In her review for The Associated Press, Jocelyn Noveck praised Robert Pattinson’s performance (or, rather, performances) as an expendable who is constantly being reprinted anew. She writes, “It’s his movie, and he saves it from Bong’s tendencies to overstuff the proceedings. In an extremely physical, committed, even exhausting performance, Pattinson takes what could have been an unwieldy mess and makes it much less, well, expendable.”

    —OK, “The Last Duel,” streaming on Hulu on Sunday, Nov. 30 might be four years old but it’s a far better option than, say, “Flight Risk” (on HBO Max on Wednesday). Ridley Scott’s medieval tale, written by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, is a brilliant spin on the historical epic told from three different perspectives, Damon’s Jean de Carrouges, Adam Driver’s Jacques Le Gris and Jodie Comer’s Marguerite. In his review for the AP, film writer Jake Coyle wrote that it “is more like a medieval tale deconstructed, piece by piece, until its heavily armored male characters and the genre’s mythologized nobility are unmasked.”

    — AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr

    — In 2021, over Thanksgiving, Disney+ released Peter Jackson’s six-hour “The Beatles: Get Back” to its streaming platform. The gargantuan project provided fans with a deep-dive into the band’s “Let It Be” sessions – including footage of their entire rooftop concert, shared in full for the first time. It was an ideal release date, to say the least. After all that delicious food, who doesn’t want to settle in for a lengthy journey into one of the greatest musical acts of all time? Well, in 2025, there’s yet another reason to be grateful: Starting Wednesday, “The Beatles Anthology” documentary series hits Disney+. That’s nine episodes tracing their journey. Lock in.

    — ’Tis the season for Hallmark holiday films. And for the country music fanatic, that means “A Grand Ole Opry Christmas.” The film follows a woman forced to confront her musical past and heritage in the esteemed venue – and there may or may not be some time travel and Christmas magic involved. Stay tuned for the all-star cameos: Brad Paisley, Megan Moroney, Mickey Guyton, Rhett Akins, Tigirlily Gold and more make an appearance. It starts streaming on Hallmark+ Sunday.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — It’s hard to believe that “Everybody Loves Raymond” has been off the air for two decades. The multicamera sitcom starred Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton as Ray and Debra Barone, a young married couple whose daily lives are interrupted regularly by Ray’s meddling parents, played by Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts, who live across the street. CBS recently taped a 30th anniversary special to air Monday which will also stream on Paramount+. Hosted by Romano and creator, Phil Rosenthal, it recreates the set of the Barone living room and features interviews with cast members including Romano, Heaton, Brad Garrett and Monica Horan. There will also be a tribute to Boyle and Roberts who died in 2006 and 2016, respectively. It’s fitting for the special to come out around the holidays because its Thanksgiving and Christmas episodes were top-notch. All nine seasons stream on both Paramount+ and Peacock.

    — ” Stranger Things” is finally back with its fifth and final season. Netflix is releasing the sci-fi series in three parts and the first four episodes drop Wednesday. Millie Bobby Brown says fans will “lose their damn minds” with how it ends.

    — Also Monday, Kevin Hart debuts a new comedy special on Netflix. It’s called “Kevin Hart: Acting My Age.” The jokes center around, you guessed it, aging.

    — A new “Family Guy” special on Hulu pokes fun at those holiday movies we all know, love and watch. It’s called “Disney’s Hulu’s Family Guy’s Hallmark Channel’s Lifetime’s Familiar Holiday Movie” and pokes fun at the commonly-used trope of a big city gal who ends up in a small town at Christmas and falls in love. It drops Friday, Nov. 28 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — Artificial intelligence: friend to all humanity or existential threat to the planet? In A.I.L.A, Brazilian studio Pulsatrix leans toward the latter. You play as a game tester who’s asked to try out an AI-created horror story. But while you’re busy fighting off ghosts, zombies and ax murderers, the AI may be up to something more nefarious in the background — which could be bad news if you own a smart refrigerator. It all has the potential to be very meta, whether or not you welcome our new robot overlords. It arrives Tuesday on PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S and PC.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • Eddie Murphy to receive life achievement award from the American Film Institute

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    Eddie Murphy is being celebrated with a life achievement award from the American Film Institute, AFI’s board of trustees said Friday. The award will be handed out at a gala tribute in Los Angeles, at the Dolby Theatre, on April 18.

    “Eddie Murphy is an American icon,” said Kathleen Kennedy, who chairs the institute’s board of trustees. “A trailblazing force in the art forms of film, television and stand-up comedy, his versatility knows no bounds.”

    Murphy, 64, has been a force in entertainment for nearly 50 years, as a teenage stand-up phenomenon, on television as a part of the “Saturday Night Live” cast, and in film where he’s ruled the box office in multiple decades, with hits like “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coming to America,” “The Nutty Professor” and the “Shrek” movies. In 2007, he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for “Dreamgirls,” which had already earned him a Screen Actors Guild award and a Golden Globe, but he didn’t win the Academy Award.

    In a new documentary about his life and career, “Being Eddie,” which is currently streaming on Netflix, Murphy reflected that he was more annoyed about having to put on a tux and go to the event than he was about losing.

    “It’s always wonderful to win stuff, but if I don’t win, I don’t give a (expletive),” he said. “I’m still Eddie in the morning.”

    In 2023, Murphy got the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, where he kept his remarks to a speedy two minutes. He told The Associated Press in 2021 that he has a different perspective on things than he did during the height of his fame.

    “You take everything for granted when you’re young, how successful I was,” Murphy said. “Now I take nothing for granted and appreciate everything.”

    AFI’s gala tributes are often starry affairs. Last year at Francis Ford Coppola’s dinner, Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford were among those who turned out to toast Coppola.

    Murphy is the 51st recipient of the AFI life achievement award, which was first handed out in 1973 to John Ford. Other recent honorees include Nicole Kidman, Julie Andrews and Denzel Washington.

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  • Alicia Silverstone’s Mrs. Claus Really Parties in Kyle Mooney’s Music Video

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    Alicia Silverstone is Kyle Mooney’s video vixen in his new Christmas single, “Mrs. Claus Is Getting Down.” Not since her trilogy of Aerosmith videos has Silverstone been so nice about being naughty. In the music video, Silverstone’s Mrs. Claus throws a party when the Big Man is out delivering presents. All the wintertime buds are there. But do not get it twisted: this is not an “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”-style cuck fantasia. Mrs. Claus is just here to dance.

    Mooney is releasing an entire EP of holiday music under his “Kyle M” nom de rock, a follow up to The Real Kyle M which came out this March. Like The Real Kyle M, Winter’s Wish is being released on Stones Throw Records. Ignoring Thanksgiving and fully embracing the Christmas Creep, the album is already out digitally. But the ice blue vinyl is still only available for pre-order.

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    Bethy Squires

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  • Eddie Murphy to receive life achievement award from the American Film Institute

    [ad_1]

    Eddie Murphy is being celebrated with a life achievement award from the American Film Institute, AFI’s board of trustees said Friday. The award will be handed out at a gala tribute in Los Angeles, at the Dolby Theatre, on April 18.

    “Eddie Murphy is an American icon,” said Kathleen Kennedy, who chairs the institute’s board of trustees. “A trailblazing force in the art forms of film, television and stand-up comedy, his versatility knows no bounds.”

    Murphy, 64, has been a force in entertainment for nearly 50 years, as a teenage stand-up phenomenon, on television as a part of the “Saturday Night Live” cast, and in film where he’s ruled the box office in multiple decades, with hits like “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coming to America,” “The Nutty Professor” and the “Shrek” movies. In 2007, he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for “Dreamgirls,” which had already earned him a Screen Actors Guild award and a Golden Globe, but he didn’t win the Academy Award.

    In a new documentary about his life and career, “Being Eddie,” which is currently streaming on Netflix, Murphy reflected that he was more annoyed about having to put on a tux and go to the event than he was about losing.

    “It’s always wonderful to win stuff, but if I don’t win, I don’t give a (expletive),” he said. “I’m still Eddie in the morning.”

    In 2023, Murphy got the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes, where he kept his remarks to a speedy two minutes. He told The Associated Press in 2021 that he has a different perspective on things than he did during the height of his fame.

    “You take everything for granted when you’re young, how successful I was,” Murphy said. “Now I take nothing for granted and appreciate everything.”

    AFI’s gala tributes are often starry affairs. Last year at Francis Ford Coppola’s dinner, Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford were among those who turned out to toast Coppola.

    Murphy is the 51st recipient of the AFI life achievement award, which was first handed out in 1973 to John Ford. Other recent honorees include Nicole Kidman, Julie Andrews and Denzel Washington.

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  • New statue of Bridget Jones joins other film icons in London’s Leicester Square

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    LONDON (AP) — Bridget Jones has joined Harry Potter, Mary Poppins and Paddington as permanent residents of London’s famed Leicester Square.

    A new bronze statue of the romantic comedy heroine was unveiled Monday to mark 25 years since the release of the first “Bridget Jones” film.

    Actor Renée Zellweger, who has played the titular character four times since the first “Bridget Jones’ Diary” was released on big screens in 2001, attended the unveiling along with author Helen Fielding, whose books inspired the films.

    The statue, which depicts Zellweger dressed in a mini skirt and clutching a diary and a pen, is the newest addition to the “Scenes in the Square” trail in Leicester Square, the home of numerous international film premieres.

    The attraction, launched in 2020 to celebrate a century of cinema, also features statues of Mr. Bean, Bugs Bunny, Laurel and Hardy, Batman and Wonder Woman.

    “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy,” the fourth film in the franchise, was released earlier this year.

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  • New statue of Bridget Jones joins other film icons in London’s Leicester Square

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    LONDON — LONDON (AP) — Bridget Jones has joined Harry Potter, Mary Poppins and Paddington as permanent residents of London’s famed Leicester Square.

    A new bronze statue of the romantic comedy heroine was unveiled Monday to mark 25 years since the release of the first “Bridget Jones” film.

    Actor Renée Zellweger, who has played the titular character four times since the first “Bridget Jones’ Diary” was released on big screens in 2001, attended the unveiling along with author Helen Fielding, whose books inspired the films.

    The statue, which depicts Zellweger dressed in a mini skirt and clutching a diary and a pen, is the newest addition to the “Scenes in the Square” trail in Leicester Square, the home of numerous international film premieres.

    The attraction, launched in 2020 to celebrate a century of cinema, also features statues of Mr. Bean, Bugs Bunny, Laurel and Hardy, Batman and Wonder Woman.

    “Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy,” the fourth film in the franchise, was released earlier this year.

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  • South Park’s Donald Trump and J.D. Vance Are Hooking Up

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    She got him.
    Photo: Comedy Central

    AI couldn’t make the November 12 episode of South Park. This week, the animated comedy took on Sora, OpenAI’s video-creation tool, and somehow managed to work in a new twist in the Donald Trump and Satan romance: a love triangle. J.D. Vance is pulling Trump away from his partner, despite Satan’s butt pregnancy.

    The episode begins with Butters using Sora to make revenge videos of his ex-girlfriend, Red McArthur, getting “pissed on by Santa.” Red retaliates by making a video of Butters having sex with Totoro (from My Neighbor Totoro) and playing the video at school assembly. Detective Harris, who doesn’t fully understand “Sora,” comes looking for Totoro, who he believes is actually molesting kids. But the South Park Elementary children continue to make gross videos of each other, leading Detective Harris down wackier and wackier paths, attempting to find his animated foes.

    Meanwhile, Cartman is being held in a hotel room by Peter Thiel, who kidnapped him during the “Six-Seven” episode because he believed Cartman was possessed (why else would he be laughing so hard at that meme?) and could help stop Satan’s butt baby, a.k.a. the Anti-Christ. Thiel is sending AI videos to Cartman’s mom in which Cartman tells her that everything is okay and he’s doing well, which she takes at face value.

    Co-conspirator Vance is also hard at work at the White House and tells Trump to get rid of his own baby because he won’t actually want to deal with it. Trump agrees. In the heat of the moment, Vance and Trump consummate their relationship on Trump’s bed with Satan in a NSF-anywhere scene.

    In South Park, the detective brings the kids to court to try to catch the animated predators. He then traces the IP address on the videos “Cartman” sent his mother and goes to arrest Thiel. There, on Thiel’s laptop, he finds security footage of Vance and Trump hooking up and leaks it. Satan chooses to believe Trump when he says that the sex tape is just AI. But when Trump leaves their bed, he goes to make out with Vance. What will Satan do?

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    Jason P. Frank

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  • Why Miss Pat Still Tours Doing Stand-up – Houston Press

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    Miss Pat explains it all as she returns to Houston for a weekend continuing at Houston Improv on Saturday, November 8.

    ‘Every hole I get,” the television comedian explains about her schedule, “ that’s for stand-up. Anytime I’m not doing something with TV, that’s stand-up and that’s because, and everybody know, but stand-up is what I own. TV is where I work. I have to keep my business going while I help them keep they business going.”

    Having just finished the taping on the third season of BET courtroom series Miss Pat Settles It, the Georgia-born storyteller is back to the clubs to refine what will be her second stand-up special.

    Her first hour long, the 2022 Netflix release Y’all Wannna Hear Something Crazy?  had some all-star comedy pedigree behind it, with the legendary comics Wanda Sykes as a producer and Robert Townshend as director.

    “I went after Robert Townsend,” the comic says of her pursuing Townsend, director of (among others) Eddie Murphy’s generational concert special Raw. “I said I just need you to do my stand up special because whatever you do, you do it right. That was my very first one and I’m working on my second one now. I tell people to go watch my first one so they can get to know me better, because I am very personal in it.”

    “I’m working on it right now,” Pat says of her next hour special, “We’re gonna tape it in February. I don’t know about a quick turnaround, but it is a turnaround. It’s getting closer to solidifying, but I am still working. It’ll be pretty close by the time I’m in Houston. “

    While Stand-Up remains the Last Comic Standing alumni’s happy place, she has made quite the impression on BET and BET+, which has aired five seasons of her self-titled sitcom.

    But don’t let that success fool you – Miss Pat still does things her own way. “The special and the TV shows… either way, you’re getting to know who I am. And I’m not big into personal feedback, I don’t listen to what nobody says about me. Some people say I’m fat, some people say I’m sexy! I just try to be me.”

    YouTube video

    With her surprised court-room success, Miss Pat Settles It has locked in three seasons and counting of a show that both entertains fans of her material, as well as those who follow the world of reality TV. “Its like a family court and I always say: it’s a safe court where people want to go,”  she explains to new viewers. “They come in fighting or whatever, but by the end, I’m gonna settle it and I hope I can put this situation back together. So it’s a sprinkle of love, life, family and counseling – and it’s that black grandma who can cook kind of counseling, and all of that good stuff at the end.”

    This year? “We had reality show hosts, and we had friends and family, so we did it in three type of segments. And the reality? They drive me crazy. That’s all I can tell ya: reality is something else, honey.”

    Also unique – Miss Pat invites her own children to be part of the proceeding as she settles a family dispute before a national audience. “I’m getting the kids behind the scenes, in front of the camera. Whatever I can do to keep them from asking me for my money!”

    It seems like her kids might be the greatest gift of all – especially when it comes to gathering new material. “Every day, sir, you gotta come to my house and see who I live with: they’re animals. Stuff just fall out they mouth and onto my paper.”

    Between two shows, a full touring act, and dipping her toes into the world of film, Pat certainly keeps busy. “It is a lot for a 50-something year old person,” the comedians agrees, before adding: “But I just keep eating my Chic-Fil-A and keep going.”

    Miss Pat’s performance is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 9 at Houston Improv, 7620 Katy Freeway. For more information, call 713-333-8800 or visit improvtx.com/houston. $173.54

    This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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    Vic Shuttee

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  • ‘Entourage’ star Jeremy Piven says people are too easily triggered and need to hear each other out

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    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    Actor Jeremy Piven says people need to start listening to one another.

    The 60-year-old actor recently spoke with Fox News Digital about his transition from acting to stand-up comedy and his 2025 U.S. National Stand-up Tour. During the conversation, Piven said the culture of outrage has gone too far — and it’s hurting people’s ability to listen to one another.

    “I think that what I’m experiencing is this kind of need to be right, and that need to be right and hold on to one’s beliefs or preconceived notion of what your beliefs are, and then if you are defined by your judgments, and then you introduce something that is the inverse of that, and I’m so tied to it, and that I get triggered,” he explained.

    He said he thinks that if people “could let go of all that and really hear each other,” they would “understand that issues are nuanced.” Piven then admitted to feeling “hesitant to even unpack” his feelings on the topic because people are quick to start “labeling each other and trying to vilify each other based on where you’re coming from.”

    Jeremy Piven says people need to start listening to one another instead of getting triggered. (Michael Rowe/Getty Images for IMDb)

    ‘SEINFELD’ STAR MICHAEL RICHARDS MOUNTS WILD COMEBACK AFTER INFAMOUS RANT SPARKED COMEDY EXODUS

    Piven further explained that comedians should not be afraid of cancel culture and censor themselves out of fear of triggering their audience, saying: “Creativity at its core is the ability to be totally present and to not monitor yourself.”

    “So I think the enemy of creativity is being self-conscious and trying to figure out how it’s going to be received,” he said. “And I think authenticity is the highest vibration and, you know the ones, the comics that we gravitate to the most, are the most authentic ones, the comics that we gravitate to the most are the most authentic.”

    The “Serendipity” actor transitioned from acting to stand-up comedy in 2017, and began touring full-time by 2019.

    He said while people may think “Oh wow, okay, this seems like new territory for him,” he said he “grew up on the stage doing improv and sketch comedy,” so this has always been a part of his background.

    Jeremy Piven in a black shirt doing stand-up at the Improv.

    Jeremy Piven said he grew up doing improv. (Ted Castillo)

    CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER

    “I could literally run down the street and come back and come back with material. It’s everywhere. It’s absolutely everywhere,” he said about where he got the inspiration for his act. “I mean, life is insane, and we’re all trying to do the best that we can. And hopefully we’re growing and learning every day and I unpack it all on stage.”

    When it comes to his career as a stand-up comedian, Piven said it helped him realize “that I’ve taken myself way too seriously at times” and that if people were “a little more silly and have fun, life would be more interesting.”

    Piven’s breakthrough role in Hollywood was Ari Gold in the hit HBO comedy series, “Entourage,” which earned him three consecutive Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe Award. In his opinion, the show would still be a success today.

    “I think it would, I think, because of the times that we’re in, it would be such fertile ground to explore with someone like Ari Gold, for instance, who in these times would be a bit of a relic,” he said. “And I think he would stay he would walk in a lot of landmines, and it would be really funny to watch.”

    Jeremy Piven at the season three premiere of "Entourage" in New York in June 2006.

    Pivens believes “Entourage” can still be successful if it premiered today. (Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

    LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

    He continued: “So I think it would do really well. You know, there’s a whole new generation of kids that have been binging it since the pandemic. So we got a whole new audience along with the ones that haven’t gone anywhere. And I think if we didn’t f— it up, it would do really well.”

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    Lori Bashian is an entertainment production assistant for Fox News Digital. 

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  • Is Ashley Padilla Saturday Night Live’s New Breakout Star?

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    To see this in action, look no further than Padilla’s first big moment this season: when she anchored the “Parent Teacher Conference” sketch during the Bad Bunny–hosted premiere on October 4. Padilla milked major laughs as an awkward principal who was desperately attracted to Bad Bunny’s single father. She had a brief but memorable turn as Amy Klobuchar during the cold open of Amy Poehler’s episode on October 11, which earned a shout-out from the senator herself on X, and followed that up with a starring role as an office worker who accidentally let one rip in “Surprise,” from Sabrina Carpenter’s October 18 episode. Even when fumbling a line about laughing out of her butt, Padilla was funny enough that costars like Fineman and featured player Ben Marshall were visibly struggling not to break character.

    Clearly, the show’s writing staff feels similarly. After the first three episodes of season 51, SNL superfan and data analyst Mike Murray—who hosts the SNL by the Numbers podcast—ranked Padilla, based on her screen time and the number of sketches in which she appeared, as number three on his SNL power list, placing her just after Sherman and Weekend Update cohost Colin Jost. According to Murray, Padilla logged the most screen time of any cast member during Carpenter’s episode, with 13 minutes and 45 seconds on air—a single-episode total that Murray claims beats the career highs of Nwodim, Gardner, Fineman, and Melissa Villaseñor.

    Perhaps Padilla is rising so quickly due to a talent vacuum on the show. Before season 51, SNL lost two of its biggest female stars in Gardner and Nwodim; of its 17 current cast members, only two full repertory players are women—Sherman and Fineman. As it stands, women make up only 30% of SNL’s cast. And given the lack of female talent, all five of SNL’s women have been given more to do.

    Especially Padilla. On the November 1 episode, hosted by Miles Teller, Padilla once again popped up in multiple sketches and had a breakout moment with a Weekend Update bit, “Two People Who Just Hooked Up Discuss the Government Shutdown.” The extended riff cast Padilla and frequent scene partner Andrew Dismukes as newly besotted lovers, highlighting her brand of naturalistic, grounded comedy peppered with unexpectedly broad line readings.

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    Chris Murphy

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  • What to Stream: ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ Tracy Morgan, Kim Kardashian and ‘Downton Abbey’

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    The earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and Tracy Morgan returning to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: The upstairs-downstairs drama “Downton Abbey” bids farewell in a final movie, Kim Kardashian plays a divorce attorney in Hulu’s “All’s Fair” and Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year.

    New movies to stream from Nov. 3-9

    — Guillermo del Toro realizes his long-held dream of a sumptuous Mary Shelley adaptation in “Frankenstein” (Friday Nov. 7 on Netflix). Del Toro’s film, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster, uses all the trappings of handmade movie craft to give Shelley’s classic an epic sweep. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr wrote: “Everything about ‘Frankenstein’ is larger than life, from the runtime to the emotions on display.”

    — Matt Shakman’s endearingly earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Wednesday on Disney+) helps alleviate a checkered-at-best history of big-screen adaptations of the classic Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn play Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, respectively. In 1964, they work to defend Earth from its imminent destruction by Galactus. In my review, I praised “First Steps” as “a spiffy ’60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism.”

    John Cougar Mellencamp performs both on stage and on one of two large screen television screens set up at the University of Illinois Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Ill. on Sept. 22, 1985 during the Farm Aid concert. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, file)

    — “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” (Friday, Nov. 7 on Peacock) bids goodbye to the Crawleys 15 years after Julian Fellowes first debuted his upstairs-downstairs drama. The cast of the third and final film, directed by Simon Curtis, includes Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Paul Giamatti. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote that the film gives “loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey.” Peacock is also streaming the two previous movies and all six seasons of “Downton Abbey.”

    — “The Materialists” (Friday, Nov. 7 on HBO Max), Celine Song’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2023 breakthrough “Past Lives,” stars Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans in a romantic triangle. The New York-set film adds a dose of economic reality to a romantic comedy plot in what was, for A24, a modest summer hit. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck called it “a smart rom-com that tries to be honest about life and still leaves us smiling.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    New music to stream from Nov. 3-9

    — The legendary Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year. “Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle,” out Friday, Nov. 7, is exactly what it sounds like: Nelson offering new interpretations of 11 classic songs written by Merle Haggard. And we mean classics: Check out Nelson’s latest take on “Okie From Muskogee,” “Mama Tried,” “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink” and more.

    — Where’s the future of the global music industry? All over, surely, but it would be more than just a little wise to look to Brazil. Not too dissimilar to how Anitta brought her country’s funk genre to an international mainstream through diverse collaborations and genre meddling, so too is Ludmilla. On Thursday, she will release a new album, “Fragmentos,” fresh off the heels of her sultry, bilingual collaboration with Grammy winner Victoria Monét, “Cam Girl.” It’s a combination of R&B, funk and then some.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    New series to stream from Nov. 3-9

    — Tracy Morgan returns to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch.” Morgan plays a widowed empty-nester whose world is turned around when his adult children move home with his grandkids in tow. The Paramount+ series debuts Monday.

    — Kim Kardashian says she will soon learn whether she passed the bar exam to become a lawyer, but she plays a sought-after divorce attorney in “All’s Fair,” her new TV series for Hulu. Kardashian stars alongside Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash-Betts, Naomi Watts and Teyana Taylor in the show about an all-female law firm. Ryan Murphy created the show with Kardashian in mind after she acted in “American Horror Story: Delicate.” It premieres Tuesday on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

    — The old saying about truth being stranger than fiction applies to Netflix’s new four-episode limited-series “Death by Lightning.” It’s a historical dramatization (with some comedy thrown in) about how James Garfield became the 20th president of the United States. He was shot four months later by a man named Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), who was desperate for Garfield’s attention. Two months after that, Garfield died from complications of his injuries. It’s a wild story that also features Betty Gilpin, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham. The series premieres Thursday.

    — HBO offers up a new docuseries about the life of retired baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. “Alex Vs. A-Rod” features intimate interviews with people who are related to and know Rodriguez, as well as the man himself. The three-part series premieres Thursday.

    — The next installment of “Wicked,” called “Wicked: For Good,” flies into theaters Nov. 21 and NBC has created a musical special to pump up the release. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande lead “Wicked: One Wonderful Night,” a concert event that premieres Thursday on NBC and streams on Peacock Friday, Nov. 7. Additional film cast members like Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode and Ethan Slater appear as well.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    New video games to play from Nov. 3-9

    — It’s going to be a while until the next Legend of Zelda game, but if you’re craving some time with the princess, check out Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. In this spinoff, a prequel to 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda travels back in time to join forces with the Six Sages in a war against the invader Ganondorf. You can also drag another human into battle with split-screen or the GameShare feature on Nintendo’s new console. Like the previous collaborations between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo, it’s more hack-and-slash action than exploration and discovery. It arrives Thursday on Switch 2.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • What to Stream: ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps,’ Tracy Morgan, Kim Kardashian and ‘Downton Abbey’

    [ad_1]

    The earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and Tracy Morgan returning to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch” are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you.

    Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week, as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists: The upstairs-downstairs drama “Downton Abbey” bids farewell in a final movie, Kim Kardashian plays a divorce attorney in Hulu’s “All’s Fair” and Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year.

    — Guillermo del Toro realizes his long-held dream of a sumptuous Mary Shelley adaptation in “Frankenstein” (Friday Nov. 7 on Netflix). Del Toro’s film, starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster, uses all the trappings of handmade movie craft to give Shelley’s classic an epic sweep. In her review, AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr wrote: “Everything about ‘Frankenstein’ is larger than life, from the runtime to the emotions on display.”

    — Matt Shakman’s endearingly earnest superhero team-up tale “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (Wednesday on Disney+) helps alleviate a checkered-at-best history of big-screen adaptations of the classic Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Joseph Quinn play Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, the Thing and the Human Torch, respectively. In 1964, they work to defend Earth from its imminent destruction by Galactus. In my review, I praised “First Steps” as “a spiffy ’60s-era romp, bathed in retrofuturism and bygone American optimism.”

    — “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” (Friday, Nov. 7 on Peacock) bids goodbye to the Crawleys 15 years after Julian Fellowes first debuted his upstairs-downstairs drama. The cast of the third and final film, directed by Simon Curtis, includes Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Paul Giamatti. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck wrote that the film gives “loyal Downton fans what they want: a satisfying bit of closure and the sense that the future, though a bit scary, may look kindly on Downton Abbey.” Peacock is also streaming the two previous movies and all six seasons of “Downton Abbey.”

    — “The Materialists” (Friday, Nov. 7 on HBO Max), Celine Song’s follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2023 breakthrough “Past Lives,” stars Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans in a romantic triangle. The New York-set film adds a dose of economic reality to a romantic comedy plot in what was, for A24, a modest summer hit. In her review, AP’s Jocelyn Noveck called it “a smart rom-com that tries to be honest about life and still leaves us smiling.”

    — AP Film Writer Jake Coyle

    — The legendary Willie Nelson continues to demonstrate his prolific output with the release of yet another new album this year. “Workin’ Man: Willie Sings Merle,” out Friday, Nov. 7, is exactly what it sounds like: Nelson offering new interpretations of 11 classic songs written by Merle Haggard. And we mean classics: Check out Nelson’s latest take on “Okie From Muskogee,” “Mama Tried,” “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink” and more.

    — AP Music Writer Maria Sherman

    — Tracy Morgan returns to TV with a new comedy called “Crutch.” Morgan plays a widowed empty-nester whose world is turned around when his adult children move home with his grandkids in tow. The Paramount+ series debuts Monday.

    — Kim Kardashian says she will soon learn whether she passed the bar exam to become a lawyer, but she plays a sought-after divorce attorney in “All’s Fair,” her new TV series for Hulu. Kardashian stars alongside Glenn Close, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash-Betts, Naomi Watts and Teyana Taylor in the show about an all-female law firm. Ryan Murphy created the show with Kardashian in mind after she acted in “American Horror Story: Delicate.” It premieres Tuesday on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

    — The old saying about truth being stranger than fiction applies to Netflix’s new four-episode limited-series “Death by Lightning.” It’s a historical dramatization (with some comedy thrown in) about how James Garfield became the 20th president of the United States. He was shot four months later by a man named Charles Guiteau (Matthew Macfadyen), who was desperate for Garfield’s attention. Two months after that, Garfield died from complications of his injuries. It’s a wild story that also features Betty Gilpin, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford and Shea Whigham. The series premieres Thursday.

    — HBO offers up a new docuseries about the life of retired baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez. “Alex Vs. A-Rod” features intimate interviews with people who are related to and know Rodriguez, as well as the man himself. The three-part series premieres Thursday.

    — The next installment of “Wicked,” called “Wicked: For Good,” flies into theaters Nov. 21 and NBC has created a musical special to pump up the release. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande lead “Wicked: One Wonderful Night,” a concert event that premieres Thursday on NBC and streams on Peacock Friday, Nov. 7. Additional film cast members like Michelle Yeoh, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode and Ethan Slater appear as well.

    — Alicia Rancilio

    — It’s going to be a while until the next Legend of Zelda game, but if you’re craving some time with the princess, check out Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. In this spinoff, a prequel to 2023’s Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda travels back in time to join forces with the Six Sages in a war against the invader Ganondorf. You can also drag another human into battle with split-screen or the GameShare feature on Nintendo’s new console. Like the previous collaborations between Nintendo and Koei Tecmo, it’s more hack-and-slash action than exploration and discovery. It arrives Thursday on Switch 2.

    — Lou Kesten

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  • I Love LA Series-Premiere Recap: Sympathy Is a Knife

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    I Love LA

    Block Her

    Season 1

    Episode 1

    Editor’s Rating

    4 stars

    It’s Maia’s birthday, and she’ll make up with her influencer bestie, Tallulah, if she wants to.
    Photo: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO

    When I first moved to Los Angeles, everyone told me to give it “at least two years.” They said that’s how long it would take to find out whether I could live there. But to like it, let alone love it? Who knows! Everything was beautiful and nothing felt real. As a spinning Rachel Sennott put it in a bizarrely compelling 2020 video that’s essentially a succinct thesis statement for the dissertation that is her 2025 HBO show: “Come on! It’s L.A.! Haha! What?! It’s L.A.!” Basically: the girls who get it, get it. The girls who don’t, don’t.

    I did, until I didn’t. Still, leaving proved a much more painful breakup than I’d ever expected because I really did learn to love so much about L.A. The food! The arts! The biodiversity! The vibrancy! L.A. can rule! But seeing some of its most insular instincts through Sennott’s eyes (and those of pilot director Lorene Scafaria) feels more familiar than I’d expected, too. As much as I Love LA will inevitably get compared to Lena Dunham’s Girls, I’m gonna throw it out there that its truest HBO ancestor is Entourage, with all the desperate social climbing and grimy Hollywood truths that implies.

    This first episode opens with Maia (Sennott) waking up on her 27th birthday. She climbs on top of her sweetiepie boyfriend Dylan (fittingly played by professional onscreen sweetiepie Josh Hutcherson), and does her best to have a great time amid an ongoing earthquake, because “if we’re gonna die, I just wanna come.”

    Once this noble mission is accomplished, she begins the traditional birthday tradition of whining about getting older. Dylan does his best to combat her blues, quickly realizing that the lovely sentiment of “every year you become more and more yourself” isn’t half as convincing to his girlfriend as, “and you’re skinnier now, which I know you love.” Yes, yes, she does. One crashout thus avoided, she opens Instagram and skids straight into another one. Her former best friend, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), just posted a pic from a campaign they worked on together in New York, before Tallulah apparently dumped Maia for a bigger-name manager.

    Stewing in fresh rage, she sets off to meet her friends Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker) for a brisk coffee walk around Silver Lake Reservoir, a classic meetup mode for anyone in L.A. vaguely committed to “healthy living” but not enough to hike. Maia absorbs the glow of compliments on her new haircut before going in on Tallulah, because she’s at the point of a friendship breakup where she needs everyone around her to agree that the friend in question sucks. Ever since Tallulah went from It Girl to #influencer, Maia’s resentment has calcified into a bitter pill she refuses to swallow. She was the one who turned Tallulah’s wildness into something marketable, she says. “I’m not gonna sit around and do nothing while she reaps the benefit of my hard work!” And so, with Charlie’s enthusiastic encouragement, Maia blocks Tallulah and feels, she insists, amazing.

    Unfortunately, that brief high of righteousness quickly wears off when she clocks in for her thankless job as a publicity assistant. It disappears for good when her #girlboss Alyssa (Leighton Meester, who’s always welcome on my screen even while playing someone who gives me hives) rejects her case for a promotion. Scafaria’s close-ups on Sennott’s face throughout this pilot, such as in this scene with Alyssa hemming and hawing in the background, are so good. When Maia grits her teeth and brings up her experience managing Tallulah — now known to thousands as It Girl Tallulah Steele — it’s clear how much it pains her to pull that card.

    Imagine Maia’s shock, then, when she gets home after work only to be tackled by the tornado that is a half-naked Tallulah herself, squealing “happy birthday!!!!1” as if nothing ever happened. Apparently, Alani flew her out to L.A. as a birthday surprise. (Gotta love daddy’s Oscar-winning money!) Sennott’s always had such compelling charisma, so it says something that A’zion immediately makes Tallulah so over-the-top magnetic — with, it must be said, incredible hair —  that it’s easy to understand Maia’s insecurities by comparison. Having a friend who’s hot and fun in such a natural way that she can just make things happen is a blessing when it benefits you, and a curse when you inevitably get left behind.

    But Sennott’s script is smart not to make Maia such a killjoy straightman opposite Tallulah. All I need to understand how these two were friends is their exchange as they wait in the line for the club Maia swore she didn’t want to go to:

    Talullah: “You remember when I got roofied at Mr. Purple?”

    Maia: “Yeah, that night was insane. They used to roofie people here, but then they fixed it.”

    Tallulah: “Ugh, bummer.”

    Maia: “Yeah, I know.”

    These two, to quote a dearly departed HBO show, really did used to be The Disgusting Brothers.

    We don’t see what happens after Tallulah somehow meets the club owner in the 30 seconds it takes Maia to humiliate herself while trying to cut the line. But it’s enough to leave Maia too hungover the next day to eat the supposedly great bagels Charlie waited so long in line for, or to join Tallulah when she insists they have to blow off her other plans and go to the beach. (What?? It’s L.A.!) Fed up and exhausted, Maia leaves Tallulah and Alani to go off on an idyllic montage — set to Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” obv — of getting stoned, hitting up Erewhon and vintage shops, and looking hot in bathing suits. Maia, meanwhile, spends all day frantically trying to get her fancy birthday dinner reservation to accept a fifth person at the last minute.

    But by the time she and Dylan get to dinner, the reservation doesn’t even matter anymore, because Tallulah’s pulled another Tallulah. The extremely unimpressed hostess leads them away from the restaurant and up to an adjoining hotel suite, which Tallulah somehow managed to land for a mini surprise party. Even Charlie’s now “totally obsessed” with her, to Maia’s obvious annoyance. Worse still is the fact that Talullah also invited Alyssa, because Maia had told her that they were “basically best friends” instead of admitting that she didn’t get the promotion. The biggest indignity of all, though? Tallulah got the suite in exchange by telling the hotel that she was celebrating her birthday. When the cake comes floating towards Maia and the words “Happy Birthday, Talullah!” come into focus, it is, understandably, Maia’s 13th reason of the day.

    Maia leaves her own party to be alone; Tallulah, refusing to read the room, goes after her. Though Dylan tries to follow, Charlie and Alani know better than to let him. It’s time for the girls to finally be honest in that most sacred of friendship spaces: the bathroom.

    Sick of pretending she’s fine, Maia tells Tallulah the truth: “Having you here just reminds me of how good you’re doing without me, and I’m a fucking flop.” Luckily for her ego, though, they’re both flops! Tallulah reveals that she’s not only broke, but that she caught the rich guy she was dating DM’ing women for “titty pics.” At this, Maia’s instantly back on her side. “Ew! I’m sorry, just Google ‘boobs.’” Look, it may not be a cute instinct, but sometimes, all you need to get over a grudge with someone you truly love is to realize you’re on the same level (and that some men are gross and unoriginal, obviously).

    With that, Maia and Tallulah are back. With only a Balenciaga bag and an incredible face card to her name, Tallulah decides that she may as well stay in L.A. — with Maia as her manager for real. As Peaches’ “Boys Wanna Be Her” kicks off, they yowl, “we’re gonna fucking KILL IT” in each other’s faces and scamper back into the suite, where a male stripper’s already getting the party started on Alyssa’s lap. After getting her own spin with him, Maia grabs Tallulah’s phone and directs her into the limelight instead. As long as they’re a team again, she doesn’t mind being the brains behind the star — until, inevitably, she does.

    • As a Gemini moon (iykyk), I’m comfortable saying that of course Tallulah is a Gemini. Good luck with that Saturn Return, babes!

    • Dylan being a guy whose day almost gets ruined by his bookmark falling out is a tiny detail, but a perfect one.

    • “I can’t get another UTI. The doctor said if I get another one, I can’t Zoom in for meds anymore.”

    • “You don’t see me hanging out with Avicii anymore, do you?” “Yeah, because he died.”

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    Caroline Framke

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  • The Chair Company Recap: Jeep Tours

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    The Chair Company

    @BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy.

    Season 1

    Episode 3

    Editor’s Rating

    3 stars

    Photo: Sarah Shatz/HBO

    “@BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy” strikes me as the closest thing we might ever get to an average episode of The Chair Company. That’s not a knock at all, star rating aside; the show is just settling into a more consistent groove, and for me, that means this episode lacks a little of the surprise of the previous weeks.

    That says a lot, though, in an episode where a bug crawls into Ron’s phone through its charging port, addressed in one line of dialogue by a weirded-out sales rep and then never mentioned again. There’s a creeping menace underneath everything here, and it makes watching the show a discomfiting experience even when the actual threat of violence isn’t there. In fact, much of this episode plays out as a series of misunderstandings and clarifications, and that might be the dominant mode for this show: introducing something unsettling but then undercutting it one scene (or one episode, or five episodes) later.

    Take the opening, which resolves last week’s cliffhanger with the reveal that the man taking photos of Ron in his closet is actually working for Mike Santini. He was supposedly sent here just to keep an eye on Ron and was supposed to send the photo to Mike, but he mixed up the burner numbers. That doesn’t take away from the cliffhanger or the confrontation itself — the episode starts off with an intense chase following LT’s burst from the closet — but it does provide another blueprint for this show’s regular horror subversions.

    Of course, it’s not like Ron can forget about what just happened. Each of these scares leaves a lasting imprint on his psyche, and you get the sense that they’re starting to accumulate. At the rate this man is going, he might be a shut-in by the finale. The scene with LT is just the latest nightmare fuel-up, judging by his aggressive broom-stabbing to check the closets in the middle of the night. LT might’ve been a “red herring,” but the scenario leads Ron to imagine the worst, including an intruder who would force him to kill his own family. Those people exist, he points out to Barb, so an expensive security system only makes sense.

    As for the actual conspiracy investigation, Ron and Mike make some headway in this episode, traveling several layers deeper down the Tecca rabbit hole. Mike apparently managed to confirm that his employer, Jim X, got paid $50,000 to have Mike scare Ron. (Seems like Mike should be pissed he got a measly fraction of that to do the actual scaring.) So Ron goes to the county clerk’s office (using Douglas’s name) and sees the name RBMG, Inc. on the deed for the abandoned building he visited. Apparently the last man to check out the deed was a mean man named Steven Droyco — intel Ron manages to capture with some not-bad spy work.

    A quick Google clarifies that RBMG is short for Red Ball Market Global, a shady company with a photo of that giant red ball from the abandoned office on its website. There are photos and names for board members, including a woman named Ronda whom Mike calls gorgeous, but they go nowhere. And when Ron calls the RBMG phone number, the (amazingly catchy) hold music plays on a loop nonstop. “That’s the problem with the world today,” Ron vents to Mike over beers. “People make garbage, and you can’t talk to anybody.” Theme of the show?

    Aside from a drunk, angry message for National Business Solutions mentioning the RBMG board, the rest of Ron’s progress this week relates to Droyco, whom Mike tracks down. The guy seems unstable, freaking out and taking off as soon as they ask about Tecca. But Ron isn’t leaving empty-handed, so he and Mike break in and grab some random papers. In a spooky touch, they also run into an old woman who supposedly died a couple years ago: Droyco’s mother, who is apparently pretending to be dead because she owes her sister money.

    Droyco explains this to Ron during an unannounced visit to Fisher Robay. He’s willing to admit that he worked at Tecca for four days, taking parts off chairs and putting other parts on while in the nude. He recognizes a photo of Ken Tucker, the CFO of Red Ball Global, but doesn’t have any more information to offer. Ron will return his papers to him when he’s ready to chat more. Soon after, though, Ron is getting a security alert with a horror-movie shot of a hooded figure in a hockey mask sitting in a Tecca chair outside the Trosper house, shaking his head manically. “Jason!” Ron exclaims in the final moments, just in case the scene was in danger of falling too far on one side of the horror/comedy divide. I expect the horror to further deflate once we get the context.

    Aside from near-misses like the intruder at game night, Ron is still managing to not let his Tecca obsession totally infiltrate his work and family life, though there are signs of discord on both fronts. For one, the choice to keep football out of the Canton mall development gets some pushback and publicity, including from a former Cleveland Browns player who cries on the news about it. Ron wants to stick to his vision, but his boss Jeff and colleague Alon undercut him by coming up with their own nod to football. It’s small, but Ron’s ego is fragile — especially thanks to the pressure to live up to his father’s legacy, a character trait straight out of Detroiters. As Ron explains it to Mike, his dad was a great man with “a bridge named after him.”

    Ron’s homelife in this episode feels particularly Breaking Bad-esque: His wife is suspicious about his whereabouts, and his son is acting out. When he sees Seth drinking outside on the security camera, he arranges a meet-up at a café, where Seth explains, “I found out that if you actually don’t drink too much, drinking is actually really fun.” When he’s drunk, he says, he tells jokes because they’re funny, not just to get a laugh. (He also sometimes drinks beers and watches Abbott and Costello, which really has nothing to do with self-consciousness.) Ron doesn’t even fight Seth’s logic, maybe because he experiences that same desire to just be his core self instead of an idealized, hard-working family-man projection of himself.

    But Ron breaks one secret to keep another by using the Seth issue to get out of explaining his own recent extracurricular activities to Barb — in the process totally violating his agreement with Seth, a sign that Ron’s efforts to hide are pushing him to be a worse husband and worse father. His recent absences have Barb wondering if he’s escaping the tedium of Fisher Robay by doing “Jeep tours” again, having seen the box that LT and Mike were kicking around in the garage. In this absurd take on a Breaking Bad-esque antihero drama, Ron’s dark past has nothing to do with drugs or gambling or contract killing. He used to be obsessed with Jeep tours.

    Whenever I spend too long writing about the actual character drama of The Chair Company, or untangling the increasingly convoluted plot, it starts to feel a little silly. This is a series with a distinct vision and tone, yes, but it’s also just a chance for Tim Robinson and Co. to fuck around, and that’s still true in “@BrownDerbyHistoricVids Little bit of Hollywood? Okayyy.” Look at the clerk who gets sent home to take a shower, because apparently people can smell her. Or Douglas’s supremely creepy “mistakes party,” where people wear either yellow or green wristbands depending on their comfort level with mistake-making. In an episode dense with theories and red herrings, those glorious diversions are what linger most.

    • “You put a little guy in my closet?”

    • Good background line from a sales rep: “Oh, fuck yeah. We’re just popping in for a fuck-around, but it’s always such a pleasure to see you, Ron Trosper.”

    • Ron reassures Barb about their expenses by saying they’ll have “a billion bucks” soon. Sure, Ron.

    • Mike’s anecdote about his ex-wife poisoning him with a hundred “sexual stamina pills” raises a lot of questions, but at least we know that the pills made him smell like a duck.

    • I would think Ron would be concerned about Mike making direct contact with his son, but maybe he knows Seth is too much of an airhead to even question the guy.

    • “I didn’t even want the green. He made me take the green and said, ‘What are you going to do? What mistake do you think you’ll do?’”

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    Ben Rosenstock

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  • Movie Review: ‘Bugonia’ is a darkly comic gut punch

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    The twisted filmography of Yorgos Lanthimos has by now trained us to expect darkly comic visions of contemporary life, both savage and mundane. His movies have perhaps inspired the most “What?!” reactions of the last decade, partly because they’ve tried so hard to do so.

    His movies — farces, fables, experiments — reside in surreal worlds of their own. But his latest, “Bugonia,” is thrillingly, if tragically, tied to our reality. It might even be his best film. Though I’ve been apprehensive about the flamboyant severity of Lanthimos’ movies, I found “Bugonia,” a chamber-piece gut punch, hard to shake. For starters, it’s difficult to resist any movie with a line in it like: “There’s Andromedan code all over your Instagram.”

    That’s one of the things that Teddy (Jesse Plemons), an incel eco-terrorist, says to Michelle (Emma Stone) after kidnapping her with his neurodivergent cousin Donny (newcomer Aidan Delbis) and tying her up in their basement. Teddy and Donny live together in fairly remote, rundown old house. There, Teddy tends to both his bees and to unhinged conspiracy theories.

    But as Plemons so deftly plays him, Teddy doesn’t seem like a lunatic. He might reach wildly insane conclusions, such as that Michelle, a pharmaceutical company chief executive, is an alien. But he’s thoughtful in nature and sweetly cares for his cousin. It’s a feat of Plemons’ innate good nature that we kind of like Teddy, even as he shaves Michelle’s head, to prevent “it,” as he calls her, from contacting the mothership.

    The opening moments of the script by Will Tracy (“The Menu,” episodes of “Succession”) cast these demented shenanigans in an apocalyptic light. The fate of bees is much on Teddy’s mind; colony collapse disorder, often caused by pesticides, is one of his talking points. It’s a phenomenon that, in “Bugonia” — a movie reckoning with, or maybe just lamenting, humanity’s fate — isn’t just for the bees.

    While Stone’s abilities alone might legitimize extraterrestrial suspicions, there’s more to why Teddy has pinpointed Michelle. She’s a lauded corporate leader; her office includes a framed Time magazine with her on the cover and a photograph with Michelle Obama. Her company, Auxolith, operates out of a sleek office building where Michelle presides over her workforce like a queen bee. She has the corporate lingo of “transparency” and “diversity” down pat, but whether she actually adheres to any of those ideals is dubious, at best. Before Teddy and Donny jump her, she announces a “new era” at Auxolith where employees leave at 5:30 p.m. But not if they haven’t met their quota, she adds. And not if they’re, you know, busy.

    In that way, Michelle is a camera-ready cover for whatever Auxolith is up to, which, as the movie goes along, teases out a poisonous history, including opioid manufacturing that affected Teddy’s mother (Alicia Silverstone).

    The bulk of “Bugonia” is the ideological dialogue between her and Teddy back in the basement. It’s a conversation, laced with contemporary divides, that is comical for its impossibility. One is addled by paranoia and extremism, the other knows only heartless corporate speak. Understanding each other is futile. Watching Stone, as Michelle, attempt to reason with Teddy is part of the movie’s dark fun, just as is seeing Plemons’ Teddy resolutely stick to his certainty that Michelle is part of an alien infiltration of Earth that he wants gone by the next lunar eclipse.

    The source of such a wild narrative can only come, of course, from South Korea. “Bugonia” is loosely based on the 2003 Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” All of Lanthimos’ most notable films before have been written with either Efthimis Filippou (“Dogtooth,” “The Lobster”) or Tony McNamara (“Poor Things,” “The Favourite”). But, otherwise, “Bugonia” has the feel of a quick follow-up to last year’s “Kinds of Kindness,” a black-comedy triptych also led by Stone and Plemons.

    Yet what could easily be mistaken for a tossed-off, in-between movie — there are only a handful of characters and a few scene locations — ends up feeling like a culmination-slash-nadir for Lanthimos. Having made a dozen films darkly satirizing the sad, primal folly of humankind, it’s comeuppance time in “Bugonia.”

    The movie drags in the middle, when it’s locked in a prisoner drama that grows a little tiresome and predictable. But the payoff is immense. Teddy calls his torture chamber “the headquarters of the human resistance.” By the time “Bugonia” reaches its unforgettable finale, it’s made chillingly clear just how feeble any such movement might be, and the movie’s apocalyptic air of resignation, of fait accompli, sounds a chastening death knell.

    “Bugonia,” a Focus Features release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for bloody violent content including a suicide, grisly images and language. Running time: 118 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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  • Legendary ‘SNL’ Writer Jim Downey Finally Steps Out of the Shadows

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    Perhaps the best example of over-explaining the thing that doesn’t need to be explained is “First Citywide Change Bank,” which you star in.

    Yeah. [Laughs.] It’s also not a service that needs a whole organizational arrangement. People can generally handle it by themselves.

    You and Norm MacDonald famously did Weekend Update together. What was your first impression of Norm?

    Adam Sandler knocks on my door and goes, “I want you to see this guy. He’s so funny, he scares the shit out of me. He’s, like, the funniest person I’ve seen in years.” I instantly agreed. At the time, he was writing for Roseanne. And I don’t think Roseanne [Barr] wanted to lose him. But when he said it was a chance for him to perform, she gave him her blessing.

    Within a month, he came on as a writer and featured player. He did a couple things that were on Update in the 1993-1994 season. He did an Andy Rooney piece that was one of the bravest pieces of comedy, where he’s going, “This is a letter that comes from Toledo, Ohio. This is a letter that comes from Denver, Colorado.” He didn’t care about the fact that half the audience was going to be completely bewildered.

    During this time, Don Ohlmeyer had joined the network and was very aggressive about giving notes. And one of his edicts was that Kevin Nealon had to go as Update anchor. Kevin was a great favorite of mine and all the writers, and we felt it was the writing of the segment that was the issue. It wasn’t Kevin’s fault. I went out to one of my first and only meetings where I had to listen to network notes, in ’94, and Ohlmeyer said, “Nealon’s gone. Who’s going to replace him?” So there was a discussion. I thought Norm would be the best to do it. I remember at the meeting a network executive went out of his way to talk about his objections to the show that year. He said, “I don’t know if any of you saw this guy Norm MacDonald doing Andy Rooney, and he’s just reading addresses off envelopes.“ It was like, “Please don’t tell me you’re bringing that guy back.” And I said, “Well, funnily enough, we were on the subject of who should do Update, and I think Norm MacDonald.” And the executive did a cartoon-like take, pretending that’s the strangest thing he ever heard.

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    Andrew Buss

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  • Joe Cappa Never Intended Haha, You Clowns to Be So Wholesome

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    Handsome strong boys.
    Photo: Adult Swim

    A decade of “large adult sons” humor has been building to Haha, You Clowns. The new Adult Swim series from animator Joe Cappa follows a tight-knit family — three big beautiful boys (Preston, Tristan, and Duncan) and their buff dad — as they try to get by after the death of their mother. The show is based on a series of surreal shorts Cappa created for Adult Swim’s Smalls programming block in 2023, which he’s built out into a whole universe in this first season, giving Dad a job as a weatherman, casting June Squibb as Preston’s elderly co-worker, and adding professional pool player Jeannette Lee to the voice cast as a version of herself who lives next door to the boys and offers them sage advice from over the fence.

    Haha, You Clowns takes its animated-comedy ambitions from The Simpsons and story beats from Seventh Heaven and wraps it all in an outsider-art style reminiscent of an older, more experimental era of Adult Swim. Its goofy sweetness is summed up best by the comments section on the first episode, posted to YouTube ahead of the series’ October 19 TV premiere: “I love how giant the boys are and how often everyone cries it’s amazing.” The show’s proud father, Joe Cappa, spoke to Vulture ahead of its premiere.

    Tell me about the process of getting this to air.
    They have a thing called Smalls, where they let up-and-coming artists create shows. A year before my Smalls shorts, I started making short animations on Instagram and papier-mâché head videos, then one of those videos went viral on TikTok. It got to Smalls executive producer Dave Hughes, who asked if I could make a longer papier-mâché head video for Adult Swim and also told me about Smalls. All I had to do was pitch him an idea, and at that time, I was toying around with the idea of three boys who just really love their dad and think their dad is just the coolest. I thought there was something funny there. I learned who these characters were as I was making the shorts.

    What is it about three boys loving their dad that’s funny to you?
    When I made short animations before Adult Swim, people would say that my stuff is so “wholesome.” I never was trying to be wholesome; I just was reacting to a lot of adult animation that felt snarky and cynical — which is great, but I was getting bored of it. So I was just trying to do something different.

    Are there any differences between how you voice the three boys? It’s hard to tell.
    In the Smalls shorts, they all pretty much sound exactly the same. But in the show, I had to differentiate them a little bit. Duncan is a little bit higher and a little bit more innocent, Tristan’s always being a little bit silly, and then Preston’s pretty much [lowers voice] down here. He’s the leader. And the dad is really low. When I’m in the studio recording them, I usually start with Duncan, Tristan, Preston, and then end with Dad once my voice is all gravelly from voicing all day.

    When it was time to turn these little shorts into full-blown episode-length stories, how did you flesh out these characters? They all have the same build. I don’t even know what age they are.
    We don’t know. After all the scripts were turned into Adult Swim, Cam Tang, who runs development, was like, “So, how old are they?” It was so late in the process. I was like, “I don’t know. They’re in high school.” I would say Preston can drive. Duncan doesn’t know how to drive yet. I don’t think we’ll ever see them in any high-school experience or anything like that. They’re young and they love their dad, and that’s what the show’s about.

    There’s nothing quite like this on TV. What are your inspirations?
    In regards to the style, I’ve always thought that high-schoolers’ drawings in art class of celebrities is the funniest aesthetic out there — when it looks like the person’s trying to do a good job, but they’re not really nailing it. There’s a certain type of humor that’s being translated when something looks really polished, and when it’s not so polished, there’s another layer of comedy happening there that I’m trying to play with. As we’re onboarding artists, just so they can kind of understand the sensibilities of the show, we like to say that it’s like a live-action director was given an animated show, and they don’t know how to draw that well, and they have to somehow execute their idea. It’s trying to be sincere, but it’s stumbling along the way and looking a little bit crude.

    In the shorts, the mother’s spirit is a presence. In the show, she’s referenced, but there’s not this feeling of there being a ghost-mom. Why the change?
    I like horror movies where they really keep it subtle and don’t explain too much. For anything that’s paranormal, I think you have to play the long game. To keep a show relevant and interesting over the course of many seasons, you have to play it really slow.

    You share a writing credit with Dave Cappa. Is that your brother?
    Yeah. When we got the green light, they were asking for writers, and I could only think of my brother. I’d say the show is inspired loosely on my dad and my brotherly love with my brother. He lives in England, so it’s been great to have these opportunities to write scripts with him across the Atlantic.

    June Squibb is in the voice cast. How did she get involved with the show?
    I’ve been a big June Squibb fan ever since About Schmidt. Then Thelma came out, and I thought it was so good. I reached out to the director, and I was like, “Man, I would love to get you and Squibb on this show.” Then the people at Adult Swim reached out to June Squibb, and she said yes. I don’t know why she decided to do the show, but she would show up to the studio and do it in one take. She’s really that good. She was perfect for that role.

    I want to go back to people calling your work “wholesome.” I love this show’s depiction of these big straight men who are so sweet and emotionally open.
    I just think they’re very funny characters to write for. The way they see the world and how they interact with one another, I feel like a lot of people can relate to somebody like that in their life. They don’t have self-awareness, in a way, and they don’t seem to care that they might come off cringey. They really just care about being nice people, and from that, you’re going to have wholesome moments where they’re crying to one another.

    I think the dad cries every episode.
    His eyes definitely go red every episode.

    Has your dad seen it?
    I think he’s seen all the animatics. He’s very excited for his sons to be working on a show together and knowing that it’s loosely based on him. He’s very tickled by it all.

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    Rebecca Alter

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