Rolling Stone magazine has just come out with their list of the 100 Best TV sitcoms of all-time. It’s a pretty fair list, compiled mainly by my Television Critics Association pal Alan Sepinwall along with three other Rolling Stone contributers — Maria Fontoura, David Fear and Rob Sheffield. These lists are always great argument starters.
New Rule: stop being shocked every time Bill Maher says something that skates over the hard line that is cancel culture. That is, after all, his job. Yes, he’s made some egregious mistakes in the past. He claimed that Islam, “has too much in common with ISIS.” In 2017, he used the N-word to make
The launch of the new Star Wars animated series The Bad Batch on “May the 4th” sparked memories of my 2009 trip to Lucasfilm’s Big Rock Ranch. I took plenty of photos on this visit (I was there as a guest of Teleroon at the time) and thought I’d share a few more here. This
The Force remains strong with Disney+ with the launch of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Bad Batch. The new animated series starts streaming Tuesday, May 4 with a 70-minutes premiere, with new episodes following Friday’s on Disney+. If the graphic style looks familiar, this is brought to you by the same folks who created Star Wars:
Hard to believe but Conan O’Brien has been hosting his late-night talk show on TBS going on 11 seasons. The 58-year-old officially announced Monday that June 24 would be the final episode on TBS and that his next incarnation will be on the streaming service HBO Max. (Warner Brothers owns both services.) O’Brien’s began in
Canadian coverage of the 93rd Annual Academy Awards bombed ratings-wise about as badly as it did in the U.S. while still clinging to the most-watched spot for the week. That’s according to Numeris’ Top-30 tally for April 19-25. The Oscars in Canada drew 2,258,000 total 2+, Live+7 viewers April 25, almost twice the audience, proportionally,
Since they also own everything else, it’s easy to forget that Disney now also owns The Simpsons, along with retaining rights to the “Star Wars” franchise. Itr doesn’t take Yoda to figure out that the two would someday be made as one. That day is today, May the 4th, as Disney+ premieres Maggie Simpson in
Johnny Crawford was a kid on a real cowboy set back when millions of other youngsters across North America were faking it at home. Difference was, Crawford was getting paid big bucks to live out his fantasy as a child star on the late ’50s, early ’60s TV western The Rifleman. I met him in
On Sunday, CNN premieres The Story of Late Night, a six-part docuseries examining the nearly 70-year history of television’s post-primetime talk shows. The series was produced by Toronto-based Cream Productions. To set it all up, listen to my conversation with Bill Carter (above), the long-time New York Times columnist and bestselling “Late Shift” author who
Felix Silla was one of those actors you likely saw many times on TV or in blockbuster films but you’d never recognize him out of costume. The Italian born actor, for example, was unrecognizable under a body suit of hair as Cousin Itt on The Addams Family (1964-66). Later, he played an Ewok in the
Much of my world view of international politics in the late ’60s, early ’70s was gleaned from the work of the great Toronto Star editorial cartoonist Duncan Macpherson. One example, above, shows HRH Prince Philip, returning home from a royal visit to Canada with multiple cowboy hats. His wife, The Queen, waits with a rolling
The money is no longer in the banana stand. Jessica Walter, who capped off a long and distinguished stage, screen and television career with roles on cutting edge 21st century comedies Arrested Development and the animated FX series Archer passed away Wednesday at home in her native New York. She was 80. She earned her
When I was speaking with Enrico Colantoni for a podcast episode a little over a year ago I momentarily blanked on the name of one of his co-stars from the late ’90s sitcom Just Shoot Me. “Are you really not remembering George Segal?” said an incredulous Colantoni. This was pre-COVID, and we were sitting together