Before there was Saturday Night Live, MuchMusic or MTV, the really big shew with hottest music acts was The Ed Sullivan Show. It began in 1948 as The Toast of the Town, with bold face newspaper columnist Ed Sullivan introducing, between the plate spinners, acrobats, comedians and a little puppet mouse named Toppo Gigio, everyone
Sometimes my name trips people up on the phone. In 2008, for example, Hulk Hogan wrestled with it. “Bill Brioux–sounds like a wrestling name,” said the WWE’s ultimate showman. Hogan was on the line to promote the finale of American Gladiators, then in its first incarnation on NBC and City-TV. The Hulkster was shocked to
Bloody hell! Wasn’t Ozzy Osbourne supposed to live forever? The Black Sabbath frontman and self-proclaimed “Prince of Darkness” died Tuesday at 76. Besides a half century of substance abuse, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer battled Parkinsons and emphysema. Not being much of a Heavy Metal fan, my first exposure to the Warwickshire, England,
As Theo Huxtable, Malcolm-Jamal Warner was probably one of the biggest teen stars ever on broadcast network television. Back in the 1980s, when The Cosby Show was at it’s “Must See” peak on NBC, around 40 million U.S. viewers a week were watching The Huxtables — live at 8 pm on a Thursday. It was
There are plenty of twists and turns in the compelling new HBOMax documentary Billy Joel: And So It Goes (seen in Canada on Crave). We learn that things very nearly took a tragic turn early for the multi-Grammy award winning singer-songwriter entertainer. He tried to take his own life, for example, before breaking through in
CBS says their decision to shut down The Late Show with Stephen Colbert next May is a financial one. It is, but perhaps not for the reasons they suggest. True, late night talk shows are not the oil wells they were back when Johnny Carson and David Letterman ended the night for millions of viewers.
Here are the headlines: three days after CBS’s parent company Paramount paid $16 million to settle a Trumped up, meritless 60 Minutes dispute with the US president; hours after a bill passed yanking a billion dollars in funding from PBS and NPR; CBS announced that Stephen Colbert will be silenced at CBS. Colbert mocked Trump
You can’t put tarriffs on talent: Canadians are among the multi-nominated heading into the 77th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (airing Sept. 14 on CTV and ABC). Vancouver-native Seth Rogan earned three nominations for writing, directing and starring and his AppleTV+ series The Studio drew 23 noms in total, a record for a rookie series. Fellow