News

No one was expecting hacky roast jokes to become a focal point of this year’s presidential election, yet here we all are.

Tony Hinchcliffe’s appearance at Sunday’s Trump rally was, as we’re all aware by now, peppered with jokes so desperately racist that even the dude who showed up at the same event waving around a literal crucifix and ranting about the Antichrist took a backseat to the media coverage of Hinchcliffe.

The right has been adamant that these were just jokes, you know like Don Rickles used to tell (several decades ago and never as part of a political campaign predicated on xenophobia and dehumanization). According to his defenders, including vice presidential candidate and real-life Troy McClure J.D. Vance, the problem isn’t Hinchcliffe, it’s that the left just can’t take a joke.

But during the Madison Square Garden rally, Hinchcliffe’s infamously...

Comic and podcaster Marc Maron is calling out his peers who use their positions to drive what he terms “the new fascism” just a day after right-wing comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made racist and sexist jokes at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.

Other comics also slammed Hinchcliffe who, among other things, called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.”

Tweeted Michael Ian Black, “I think America just found its next Jim Breuer!”

Maron’s statement, posted in full on his Wtf With Marc Maron website and shared in part on social media, did not specifically name Hinchcliffe, but the message seems clear.

Writes Maron: “The anti-woke flank of the new fascism is being driven almost exclusively by comics, my peers. Whether or not they are self-serving or true believers in the new fascism is unimportant. They are of the movement. Whether they see themselves as acolytes or just comics doesn’t matter.

Right now, open mic host Tony Hinchcliffe is the most famous comedian in America despite never once being the funniest comic on his own show.

Last night, the 40-year-old standup and podcaster from Youngstown, Ohio took the stage at a rally for Donald Trump in Madison Square Garden, an historic venue where he hosted a special live episode of his podcast and comedy show Kill Tony back in August. On Kill Tony, which Hinchcliffe typically hosts in Austin, Texas, Hinchcliffe and a panel of manosphere stand-up comics such as Shane Gillis and Joe Rogan invite amateur comedians to perform one minute of standup comedy while Hinchcliffe and his friends roast them and riff amongst themselves. But while Hinchcliffe played his previous Msg performances in front of a crowd that came to see his mean-spirited, anti-woke and anti-originality style of comedy, the Austin comedy scene’s most powerful gate-keeper was surprised...

Johnny Carson might have been furious with Don Rickles for busting his cigarette box, but Rickles wasn’t the comedian Carson most hated having on The Tonight Show. That honor went to a comic who’d been entertaining U.S. presidents since Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Bob Hope. “Johnny admired Hope’s place in show business, but he was not a great admirer of his work,” said Tonight Show producer Peter Lasselly in the book Hope: Entertainer of the Century (via Last Night On).

The difference between the two comics? Carson preferred off-the-cuff improvisation while Hope relied on scripted punchlines, according to Andrew Nicholls, Carson's former head writer. Hope “was a guy who relied on his writers for every topic,” explained Nicholls. “Johnny was very quick on his feet. He appreciated people who he felt engaged with the real world. There was nothing to talk to Bob about.”

Carson grew...

Doc Severinsen was a snitch.

After a night off, Johnny Carson was back in his Tonight Show chair, and it didn’t take him long to notice something was off. A cigarette box that had been a mainstay on his desk for years was broken. “What the hell happened to this?” Carson asked the bandleader. “You know how long I’ve had this cigarette box? I brought this out from New York. What on earth?”

“Rickles!” came the shouts from offstage, either from the audience, stagehands or both. “Don Rickles,” Doc clarified in case Carson thought some other Rickles was the perpetrator.

Carson wasn’t happy. “What the hell did he do with it?” he wondered. “The wood is broken! That’s an heirloom!”

It was an easy explanation. He was screwing around with guest host Bob Newhart, banging Johnny’s desk and accidentally busting Carson’s box.

This indignity would not stand.

In the "Gilligan's Island" episode "The Kidnapper", the castaways are found, but not in the most helpful way. A rogue kidnapper named Norbert Wiley (Don Rickles) has found his way to the island, and he begins to ply his trade immediately. He kidnaps Lovey Howell (Natalie Schafer) and demands the castaways pay $10,000. Mrs. Howell manages to give her kidnapper the slip, but he manages to kidnap Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) in exchange, now demanding $20,000. The cycle repeats itself again when Mary Ann escapes, and Norbert kidnaps Ginger (Tina Louise), demanding $30,000. 

Eventually, the castaways capture Norbert using Gilligan (Bob Denver) as the ultimate bait. In a bamboo cage, Norbert explains that kidnapping is a compulsion for him and that he cannot be reformed. Ginger takes it upon herself to psychoanalyze him and reform him, while the Skipper and the Professor (Russell Johnson) repair the boat that brought him to the island.

Once upon a time in late night television, it was customary for talk shows to fill up their couches as the evening's episode progressed. The first guest would do their segment and then move down a spot on the adjacent couch, making room for the next guest to yap with Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett or whoever. What with the barnacle presence of sidekick Ed McMahon, Carson's couch could get especially crowded some nights. Sometimes this got tense (like the time Burt Reynolds inexplicably went after "Double Dare" host Mark Summers on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno"); sometimes it was chaotic comedy bliss (which is what happens when you ask Carson to rein in the irrepressible duo of Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters); and sometimes it was just plain surreal.

This tradition started to fade out of fashion in the 1980s when "Late Night with David Letterman" introduced its one-guest-at-a-time approach.

This article contains spoilers for the "Toy Story" movies.

When John Lasseter's "Toy Story" was released in 1995, it was a coup for the industry. CGI had been used in films for a decade and there were myriad computer-animated short films, but the first theatrically released, fully-computer-animated feature changed the landscape. It certainly helped that "Toy Story" was a massive success, raking in over $365 million on a mere $30 million budget. The film was also highly acclaimed, sporting a novel concept (your toys are alive when you aren't looking), an excellent screenplay, and a first-rate cast.

After "Toy Story," it felt like the floodgates opened, and a shift from traditionally animated features to fully computer-animated features occurred within the next five years. One might even recall when Disney announced that it would be shuttering its traditional animation studio and only make computer-animated features going forward. This was slightly before its 2004 film "Home on the Range" flopped.

We’re guessing Judd Apatow isn’t a Dr. Pepper fan. The “Knocked Up” filmmaker is attached to direct “Cola Wars,” a film about the battle for market share between Coca Cola and Pepsi to become America’s favorite soda, an individual with knowledge of the project told IndieWire.

Tag-teaming with him on the project is none other than Steven Spielberg, who will produce the film through his Amblin Entertainment production banner.

The individual adds that at this point, “Cola Wars” is in very early development stages, with Apatow and Spielberg joining based on a pitch that Sony acquired back in April.

The writers for the film are Ben Queen and Jason Shuman, who co-created and writes the Apple TV+ series “Acapulco” and was also a producer on the canceled HBO series “Winning Time.”

Few other details are available at this early stage of development, but Deadline, which first reported the news,...

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez will solve another murder at the Arconica in a season 5 of Only Murders In The Building.

One of the most delightful surprises of the last few years has been the runaway success of Hulu’s (Disney+ in the UK) Only Murders In The Building.

Created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, the show follows Charles Haden-Savage (Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), three neighbours in a luxury New York City apartment conplex called the Arconia, who form an unlikely bond as they come together to record a true crime podcast about the surprisingly high number of murders of their fellow residents which keep occuring in the building, for which they are continually framed.

The warmth and wit of the writing combined with the chemistry between the three has ensured that the show is among the most streamed on the platform,...

Steve Martin has turned down the chance to play Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz on Saturday Night Live.

The Los Angeles Times reported that SNL boss Lorne Michaels offered him the role, but Martin politely declined.

“I wanted to say no and, by the way, he wanted me to say no,” Martin told the L.A. Times. “I said, ‘Lorne, I’m not an impressionist. You need someone who can really nail the guy.’ I was picked because I have gray hair and glasses.”

He also spoke about the time commitment such a gig would involve. (Alec Baldwin ended up playing Donald Trump on SNL for several years after first taking on the role before the 2016 election.)

“It’s ongoing,” Martin says. “It’s not like you do it once and get applause and never do it again. Again, they need a real impressionist to do that. They’re gonna find somebody really,...

Lo, the enduring miracle of the film awards year. Just when things begin to look hopeless—and it was looking pretty bleak a month ago—intriguing, maybe even watchable, prospects suddenly sprout. The movies are like Osiris, that old Egyptian resurrection god: You just can’t keep ‘em down.

As August arrives, more than a few adult viewers, unattuned to the ongoing fantasy-and-animation boom, are now peeking around the corner at Saturday Night, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night Live origins story. The film was scheduled last week by Columbia Pictures for release on Oct. 11—the 49th anniversary of NBC’s first SNL broadcast, back in 1975.

As historical moments go, that may or may not impress the film Academy’s growing body of foreign-based Oscar voters. But for the domestic crowd, especially those in upper age brackets, the birth of an American comedy phenomenon, still alive some five decades later, is compelling.

June Walker Rogers, a singer, dancer and comedian who performed on Broadway and television and wrote several musicals and a book about how to survive in show business, has died. She was 97.

She died July 8 at her home in Westport, Connecticut, her family announced.

Born in Steubenville, Ohio, and raised in Queens, June L. Walker started dancing at age 5 and soon had a nightclub act, appearing on bills with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Louis Prima, Don Rickles, Rodney Dangerfield and, when he was known as the singer “Calypso Gene,” Louis Farrakhan.

After being placed in an accelerated pilot program for gifted children in the New York school system, she graduated from high school at 15. She accepted a scholarship to Columbia University but left college to make her Broadway debut in 1944 in the comedy revue Laffing Room Only, starring Ole Olsen & Chic Johnson.

The platinum blond returned...

While taking a break from producing the upcoming Spaceballs sequel that somehow exists, this past weekend Mel Brooks presented a special screening of Blazing Saddles in L.A. to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary. Which might be the best possible way to view Blazing Saddles, other than on horseback in 1974.

Brooks was, according to IndieWire, full of great stories about the making of the film, as one would expect. For example, he described how the head of Warner Bros. once had him dragged by the nape of the neck into an office, at which point he was thrown a legal pad and a Sharpie and told, “Write: No hitting an old lady — out. No hitting a horse — out. No farting — out.”

So Brooks promptly “crumpled up his notes” and “threw (them) in the waste basket,” reasoning, “Why listen to anything? I would’ve had an 11-minute movie.”

He also...

“A fart joke is easy.”

This may be, but executed by Mel Brooks, it can get a crowd going more than anything on view at this summer’s Paris Olympics. So was the case this past weekend at a 50th anniversary screening of his western comedy classic, “Blazing Saddles,” which played at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and was followed by a Q&a with the 98 year-old filmmaker himself. Moderated by Brooksfilms producer Kevin Salter, Brooks dazzled and enraptured the audience with tidbits on the making of the film and stories from his colorful past. One such story involved his hard-to-believe Oscar win for his first film, “The Producers.”

“I didn’t have a speech because Stanley Kubrick was in the same category for ‘2001,’” Brooks said of being nominated for Best Original Screenplay. “There was a brilliant director called Pontecorvo who did ‘The Battle of Algiers,’ a great picture...

Few names (if any) loom larger over the world of comedy than Mel Brooks. Now, his eight-decade career will be the subject of an upcoming two-part HBO special from co-directors Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio.

The documentary project, which is being produced through Apatow Productions, will reunite the two men with editor Joe Beshenkovsky, who collaborated with them on their recent documentaries “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling” and “George Carlin’s American Dream.”

“I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks,” Apatow said in a statement announcing the documentary. “This project is the dream of a lifetime.”

While the film does not yet have a title or release date, Brooks’ remarkable career will offer no shortage of material to pull from. After launching his career in the 1950s on the storied writing staff of Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows” and collaborating with Carl Reiner on...

Jane Fonda and Bob Newhart’s paths didn’t cross much over the many decades of their respective careers — but in the last eight years, they became neighbors and friends, as Fonda wrote in an Instagram tribute to Newhart, who died Thursday at age 94. “He was just like on the screen: understated, kind, wry, and very funny,” Fonda wrote on Instagram. “As I’m the oldest one around here these days, Bob liked to have me come over to reminisce with him about the old timers, Red Skelton, Ed Sullivan,...

Hollywood is paying homage to legendary comedian and actor Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at age 94 after battling “a series of short illnesses.”

Stars including Jamie Lee Curtis, Mark Hamill, Judd Apatow, Kaley Cuoco, and more took to social media to celebrate his life. Apatow, who directed a documentary about Newhart and Don Rickles’ friendship, shared a post on Instagram, calling Newhart “as funny as they come.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Judd Apatow (@juddapatow)

“The best stand up, the best situation comedy star, the kindest soul,...

Bob Booker, the veteran writer and producer whose crowning achievement was the hugely popular 1962 comedy album The First Family, which poked fun at President John F. Kennedy and won the Grammy for album of the year, has died. He was 92.

Booker died Friday of heart failure at his home in Tiburon, California, his family announced. He spent 75 years working in the recording industry and in radio, film and television.

Booker also teamed with George Foster to write the cult film The Phynx (1970), about a rock band who goes to Albania to rescue celebrities (among them Colonel Sanders and Leo Gorcey of The Bowery Boys) taken captive by communists.

He wrote and produced five seasons (1987-91) of the syndicated sitcom Out of This World, which starred Donna Pescow, Maureen Flannigan and friend Burt Reynolds, who as a favor agreed to voice the extra-terrestrial father on the show.

Booker and partner Earle Doud...

Bob Newhart was the recording industry’s first comedy superstar. Newhart, who passed away today at the age of 94, took home the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1961, beating out lightweights like Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte. He also took home 1961’s Comedy Album of the Year for his second album, recorded hastily after his first, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, occupied the #1 spot on the Billboard charts for 17 of 18 weeks that summer and fall.

My parents owned both of those albums, and I wore them out as I studied their uproarious rhythms. Because Newhart’s comic persona was so mild-mannered and unassuming, it’s easy to forget what an out-of-the-box maverick he was in his heyday. Newhart didn’t spew stale one-liners like Catskills comics of a previous generation—instead, he created elaborate, one-sided conversations (often with a pantomimed phone in hand) with dead Presidents, craven advertising executives,...

Refresh for updates: Comedy icon Bob Newhart, who died today at the age of 94, is being remembered by coworkers, peers and fans as one of television’s all-time greats, a genius of understatement with an unfailing warm-hearted spirit.

“I had the honor of doing a guest role on Newhart & got to spend the week listening to the great Bob Newhart making us all laugh,” recalls writer and director Paul Feig. “A brilliant standup & comedic actor, he was truly one of a kind. His legacy will live on.”

Related: Remembering Bob Newhart: A Career In Photos

I had the great pleasure of working with Bob and being his friend. He was as kind and nice as he was funny. He will be missed. pic.twitter.com/xYYyZpN54m

— Carol Burnett (@imcarolburnett) July 18, 2024

George Schlatter, producer: “Bob Newhart was a good friend and he was an original. I did one of his...

Jamie Lee Curtis, Judd Apatow, Paul Feig and The Big Bang Theory cast and crew members, including Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik and Bill Prady, are among those across Hollywood paying tribute to Bob Newhart, who died Thursday morning at age 94.

Newhart, a beloved stand-up performer known for his iconic deadpan humor highlights on two CBS sitcoms, died after a series of short illnesses, his longtime publicist, Jerry Digney, shared with The Hollywood Reporter.

Apatow, who co-directed Bob and Don: A Love Story about the life-long friendship of Newhart and Don Rickles, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “Bob Newhart was the kindest most hilarious man. He asked me to make a documentary about his friendship with Don Rickles. I was so lucky to get to spend that time with my hero. His brilliant comedy and gentle spirit made everyone he encountered so happy.”

Prady, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory, where...

Bob Newhart, one of the most beloved stand-up comedians of all time, had passed away at 94. According to THR, he died on Thursday morning, with no cause of death listed. He was 94. Many of you reading this may know him best from his classic role in Elf, where he played Will Ferrell’s adopted North Pole father, but his legendary career went back decades, with Newhart an Emmy, Golden Globe and Grammy Winner. Originally an accountant by trade, Newhart used to pass the time at work by making crank phone calls. Soon, he developed a stand-up comedy act, which became a monster hit, leading to an album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, which became the biggest-selling non-musical album of all time and won him three Grammys in 1961.

From there, Newhart became a popular talk show guest before moving into acting. In the seventies, he had a major hit. The Bob Newhart Show,...

TV producer/writer Bob Booker, who spent 75 years working in television, radio, film, and the recording industry, died July 12 at his home in Tiburon, California, at age 92 from heart failure, according to his daughter, Laura Booker.

Booker was best known for the Grammy Award-winning album, The First Family,

In 1963, Booker, with partner Earle Doud, wrote and produced The First Family, a lampoon of President John F. Kennedy and his family starring Vaughn Meader. The album became the largest- and fastest-selling record in the history of the record industry, selling one million copies per week for the first six weeks and ultimately selling 7.5 million copies. The First Family went on to win the Grammy for Best Album that year.

JFK was known to have enjoyed parody, and when asked about the album, he replied, “I listened to Mr. Meader’s record, and frankly, I thought it sounded more like Teddy than it did me.

Donald Sutherland, the beloved actor who starred in scores of films from The Dirty Dozen, Mash and Klute to Animal House and Ordinary People to Pride & Prejudice and The Hunger Games franchise and won an Emmy for Citizen X, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness. He was 88.

The 2017 Honorary Oscar recipient also is the father of Emmy-winning 24 and Designated Survivor actor Kiefer Sutherland and veteran CAA Media Finance exec Roeg Sutherland. CAA confirmed the news to Deadline.

Related: Remembering Donald Sutherland: A Career In Photos

In some of his most well-known roles, he perfected a laconic, wry and dead-serious delivery. Such was the case for characters including the cool-headed amateur murder investigator John Klute, opposite Jane Fonda’s terrified and erratic call girl Bree Daniels in Klute; as Hawkeye Pierce in the film Mash, where he played opposite Elliott Gould’s cut-up Trapper John; and in Nicolas Roeg...

The first time I watched an Ali Siddiq special, I wondered, “Why isn’t this guy on Broadway?”

Like the storytelling shows of Mike Birbiglia and Alex Edelman, each installment in Siddiq’s Domino Effect series feels like a one-man play full of characters, chaos and pathos.

Siddiq is one of comedy’s unlikeliest success stories, graduating from a stint in prison to a series of Comedy Central and independent stand-up specials, with the Domino Effect shows racking up more than 18 million views. Siddiq recently talked to Cracked about his improbable journey from jail to stand-up star. Here’s what he had to say…

“I did Domino Effect, the first one, and then people started asking me about the rest of the story. The simplest way to tell it was to just do it in chronological order. If they’re gonna listen to the whole story, let’s just do...

Buoyed by a two-year deal at HBO, a weekly CNN presence and a new book, Bill Maher now has decided to describe himself as a “centrist.” Is it a claim in vain?

Having watched his show for years and done several shows with him, I suspect he’s instinctively too “incorrect” to qualify for “moderation.” Strategically, some feel he shouldn’t even try.

The audience for stand-ups and for TV in general is changing noticeably, to some performers’ discomfort. At their annual upfronts, TV executives two weeks ago no longer were obsessed by that premium 18-49 age group, acknowledging that their remaining audience is becoming geriatric – 66 for the ABC network, for example, and 69 for Fox News.

Stand-up comics report their crowds at arenas or clubs are aging as well, and they are adjusting their routines accordingly. Even the jokes seem less coital, more socially consensual.

So will the more mature...

When the news of Roger Corman’s passing was announced, the online film community immediately responded with a flood of tributes to a legend. Many began with the multitude of careers he helped launch, the profound influence he had on independent cinema, and even the cameos he made in the films of Corman school “graduates.”

Tending to land further down his list of achievements and influences a bit is his work as a director, which is admittedly a more complicated legacy. Yes, Corman made some bad movies, no one is disputing that, but he also made some great ones. If he was only responsible for making the Poe films from 1960’s The Fall of the House of Usher to 1964’s The Tomb of Ligeia, he would be worthy of praise as a terrific filmmaker. But several more should be added to the list including A Bucket of Blood (1959) and Little Shop of Horrors...

Netflix’s live special of The Roast of Tom Brady was expected to hit off with a blast, and so it did. However, things didn’t exactly go as planned or as anticipated, as the audience realized a few minutes into the episode. This was because the millions of viewers who were airing it live were met with a whole new round of discomfort due to a joke Jeff Ross made.

The Roast of Tom Brady | Netflix

Why? Well, to put it simply, the joke that the 58-year-old comedian cum actor made was a bit inappropriate in itself due to previous controversies surrounding Brady because of it. But what made it even worse was the former NFL quarterback’s reaction to it. And ever since, netizens have been sharing the most hilarious reactions to this awkward live situation.

Tom Brady Couldn’t Handle Jeff Ross’ Live Massage Joke

The Roast of Tom Brady...

Exclusive: Maude Apatow and Olivia Rosenbloom have partnered to launch Jewelbox Pictures, a film and television production company with an eye towards bold and complex human stories, which already has three films in development.

As the duo tells Deadline, they came to launch a shingle together as best friends who have been working together since high school. “We have both always been drawn to flawed and complicated characters and using comedy as a tool to tell their stories,” Apatow and Rosenbloom stated. “We are so excited to launch Jewelbox and hope it can be a home for artists with distinct voices and perspectives to develop compelling original ideas.”

First up for development on Jewelbox’s slate is Poetic License, which will mark Apatow’s feature directorial debut. Written by Raffi Donatich, the film watches as two inseparable best friends, Sam and Ari, start to unravel as they compete for the affection of Liz,...

Elvis Presley put on a thrilling act that captivated audiences for years. His most ardent fans wouldn’t say a negative word about Elvis, even when the quality of his shows declined through the 1970s. This wasn’t the case when an audience hadn’t paid to see an Elvis show, though. Once, he took the stage during comedian Don Rickles’ act. His chosen method of entertaining the audience was uncomfortable and embarrassing.

Elvis bored Don Rickles and his audience at a show in Las Vegas

While Elvis’ audiences attended his shows to hear him sing, he often treated them to other forms of entertainment, such as karate demonstrations or readings from his favorite books. Once, Elvis did this to the audience at someone else’s show.

Elvis was watching Don Rickles perform his comedy act in Las Vegas. Rickles invited Elvis onstage, and the singer was only too happy to oblige.

Renowned comedian Richard Lewis, famous for his stand-up performances and memorable role on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, died on Tuesday night at his Los Angeles home after he suffered a heart attack. He was 76 years old.

The news of Lewis’s death was confirmed by his publicist, Jeff Abraham. Lewis had been living with Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis he revealed in April 2023. In a statement, Lewis’s wife, Joyce Lapinsky, expressed gratitude for the love, friendship and support people had extended, and asked for privacy at this difficult time.

Born as Richard Philip Lewis on June 29, 1947, in Brooklyn and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, Lewis went on to graduate from Ohio State University. He emerged in the 1970s comedy scenes of New York and Los Angeles alongside future stars like Andy Kaufman, Richard Belzer and Elayne Boosler. Lewis quickly gained popularity and made appearances on late-night shows such...

Richard Lewis, the wild, eccentric, ultra-neurotic stand-up comedian and comic actor who most recently served as a semi-regular alongside Larry David on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is dead. He was 76. Lewis suffered a fatal heart attack Tuesday night less than a year after announcing in April 2023 that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was retiring from performing stand-up comedy. Lewis’ death was confirmed by his publicist Jeff Abraham, who noted, “His wife, Joyce Lapinsky, thanks everyone for the love, friendship and support and asks everyone for privacy at this time.”

He appeared this month on the 12th and final season of “Curb” after begging off of the show in its 11th season while recovering from a series of surgeries. But he wound up shooting a scene in an episode that year, anyway.

SEECelebrity Deaths 2024: In Memoriam Gallery

A beloved and respected comedian known to be the kind...

Richard Lewis, the master of self-deprecating comedy who whined his way to stardom with stand-up TV specials, a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall and turns on Anything but Love and Curb Your Enthusiasm, has died. He was 76.

Lewis died peacefully Tuesday night at his home in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack, his publicist told The Hollywood Reporter. The actor and comic revealed in April that he had been living with Parkinson’s disease and was retiring from stand-up.

“For the last three-and-a-half years, I’ve had sort of a rocky time,” he said on social media when sharing his health woes publicly after wrapping Curb‘s 12th season, which would eventually be announced as the last for the Larry David HBO comedy. Lewis had stepped away in 2021, appearing on only one season 11 episode, and returned for the now-airing final season.

Lewis, who was dealing with illness while they filmed season 12, “was a champ,...

Richard Lewis, the stand-up comedian who also starred alongside Larry David in “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” died Tuesday night at his Los Angeles home due to a heart attack, Variety has confirmed. He was 76.

Lewis announced last April he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was retiring from stand-up comedy. He most recently appeared in Season 12 of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” currently airing on HBO.

In 2021, Lewis announced he would not appear in Season 11 of “Curb” in order to recover from three surgeries. He surprised viewers by returning to set for one Season 11 episode, telling Variety at the time, “When I walked in and they applauded, I felt like a million bucks. Larry doesn’t like to hug, and he hugged me and told me how happy he was after we shot our scene.”

Lewis, who played a semi-fictionalized version of himself throughout the 24 years of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” was known for his neurotic,...

Richard Lewis, one of America’s most beloved and revered stand-up comics who also played a fictionalized version of himself on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, died Tuesday night at his home in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack. He was 76.

His death was confirmed by his publicist Jeff Abraham. Lewis had been living with Parkinson’s disease, a diagnosis he revealed in April 2023.

“His wife, Joyce Lapinsky, thanks everyone for all the love, friendship and support and asks for privacy at this time,” Abraham said.

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

Related: Remembering Richard Lewis: A Career In Photos

Richard Lewis on ‘The Tonight Show’ in late-’70s

Born Richard Philip Lewis on June 29, 1947, in Brooklyn and raised in Englewood, NJ, Lewis — after a childhood he would describe as difficult — graduated from Ohio State University before landing in the New York and Los Angeles comedy scenes of the 1970s.

Ringo Starr has been a professional musician for years and has dedicated his life to creating and consuming rock music. In the early 1960s, when The Beatles rose to fame, they had the opportunity to see and meet many other bands. One night, they attended a concert in Miami for a band Starr loved. He was disgusted by the way other people were enjoying the music, though.

Ringo Starr was not happy to see people dancing to rock music

In 1964, The Beatles went to America. As they traveled around the country, they often crossed paths with the American band The Coasters.

“When we were in New York, The Coasters were on there, and then when we were in Florida, they were there, too,” George Harrison said in The Beatles Anthology. “Everywhere we went, even when we were in California, The Coasters were advertised.”

The Beatles went to see The Coasters in Miami.

During The Beatles’ 1964 trip to America, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr went to a comedy show. Don Rickles was doing standup in Miami and the band stopped in to see him. They weren’t familiar with his comedy but quickly discovered that he liked poking fun at his audience. Harrison said that if they had been in their own element, they could have hit back at Rickles.

George Harrison said The Beatles could have ripped Don Rickles to shreds

The Beatles were some of the most famous people in the world in 1964, so, naturally, Rickles poked fun at them during his show.

“He went on, ‘It’s great. They just lie up there on the ninth floor, between satin sheets and every time they hear the girls screaming they “Oooohh”‘ McCartney recalled in The Beatles Anthology. “Very funny, we thought. We were not amused, as I recall.

Late comedian Don Rickles is often branded as one of the best comedians, thanks to his quickest wits. He was also known for his sharp tongue among his peers. He was a true original, beloved by his audiences and by the comedy community. However, he became world-famous not by cracking jokes but by insulting his audience.

Don Rickles in Casino (1995)

For his comedic style, he was often regarded as the master insult comic. His sharp wit, sarcasm, and put-downs spared nobody, not even any celebrity. And, Pretty Woman actress Julia Roberts was one of them whom he insulted in a public place where hundreds of A-listers were also present.

Suggested“You are a lousy actor”: Don Rickles’ Grave Insult For Clint Eastwood Even Took Jim Carrey By Surprise Comedian Don Rickles Roasted Julia Roberts in a Hall Full of Celebrities

Don Rickles kept pouring insulting jokes on nightclub stages,...

When The Beatles traveled to America in 1964, they stopped in at one of Don Rickles’ shows in Miami. The band had not yet heard of Rickles, but he immediately recognized them. As he spent a significant portion of his shows poking fun at his audience, he took the opportunity to joke about one of the biggest bands in the world. The Beatles were not prepared for this, and it shocked them.

The Beatles were taken aback by Don Rickles’ jokes

In 1964, The Beatles stayed at the Deauville Hotel in Miami. Though they had a tight schedule, they made time to stop in at one of Rickles’ shows despite not knowing him.

“Probably everyone has heard of Don Rickles now, but we hadn’t in those days, and he was playing in the Deauville Hotel where we stayed,” Ringo Starr said in The Beatles Anthology. “He was a vicious type of comedian.

If you didn't know Quentin Tarantino hosted "Saturday Night Live" in the 1990s, and had to guess when he took the Studio 8H stage, your best options would be early 1995 (when the zeitgeisty "Pulp Fiction" was speeding toward an Academy Awards showdown with "Forrest Gump"), early 1996 (to promote "From Dusk till Dawn") or late 1997/early 1998 (in support of "Jackie Brown"). None of these would be correct.

No, the brash indie filmmaking sensation guested on November 11, 1995, with nothing to promote but himself. This might seem peculiar now, but it made perfect sense at the time because, after the Oscars, Tarantino was hitting the talk show circuit harder than Don Rickles. Could you blame him? He'd skyrocketed from know-it-all video store clerk to generational filmmaking genius. The problem here was that Tarantino knew he was a genius before critics and fans started telling him so. As a result, he felt free to...

Only Murders In The Building is returning for a fourth series, and it’s confirmed that Meryl Streep will reprise her role.

Spoilers for season 3 of Only Murders In The Building lie ahead.

One of the most delightful surprises of the last few years has been the runaway success of Hulu’s (Disney+ in the UK) Only Murders In The Building.

Created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman, the show follows Charles Haden-Savage (Martin), Oliver Putnam (Martin Short) and Mabel Mora (Selena Gomez), three neighbours in a New York City apartment called the Arconia, who form an unlikely bond as they come together to record a true crime podcast about the murders of their fellow residents, for which they are continually framed.

The warmth and wit of the writing combined with the chemistry between the three has ensured that the show is among the most streamed on the platform, and...

Rita McKenzie, known for staging the longest-running one-woman show in theatrical history, died Feb. 17 in Los Angeles days before her 77th birthday. She succumbed to what her family described as a long-term illness.

A powerhouse stage voice and theatrical personality, McKenzie’s 1988 off-Broadway one-woman show, Ethel Merman’s Broadway, became the longest-running one- woman show in theatrical history.

McKenzie had a wide theatrical resume. She played Lita Encore in the Los Angeles premiere of Ruthless! The Musical and reprised the role in the recent New York revival of the show.

She also performed a wide range of stage roles throughout the U..S , including Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes!, appeared in the 50th Anniversary tour of Annie Get Your Gun, played Rose in Gypsy, and starred in a three-year U.S. tour of Neil Simon’s The Female Odd Couple, co-starring with Barbara Eden.

Additionally, she was the opening act...

The conservative news streaming service is off to the races, showing off an impressive subscriber total for its first 30 days.

It’s hard to underestimate the importance of live news, even as cord-cutting continues to impact the TV-watching audience. One survey from September found that all age groups used their broadcast TV channels to watch news more than any other type of programming.

The conservative news streaming service Newsmax+ launched at the beginning of November. At the end of that month, the service had already accrued 150,000 subscribers. The figure is impressive for a streamer with a niche audience and a narrow selection of content. How is Newsmax+ Doing?

When Newsmax+ first launched earlier this month, it was undoubtedly a gamble for Newsmax. After all, the channel’s content had been streaming on a free ad-supported TV (Fast) channel on platforms like Roku and YouTube, so it was no guarantee that...

The hard-right news channel now has its own subscription streaming platform, with prices starting at $4.99 per month.

The removal of Newsmax from Directv earlier this year drew sharp protests from ultra-conservative viewers of the channel, who were quick to cry censorship at its withdrawal. Directv insisted there was no political motivation behind the removal, and eventually a new carriage deal brought the channel back to airwaves for Directv customers.

Carriage disputes are only becoming more common as cable and satellite lose customers, however. To help allay audience anxiety that the channel may be pulled from other providers in the future, Newsmax has launched its own direct-to-consumer (Dtc) service, imaginatively named Newsmax+, which is available now.

What Is Newsmax+?

How Much is a Subscription to Newsmax+?

Does Newsmax+ Come with a Free Trial?

What Other Content is Available on Newsmax+?

Is Newsmax Still Free to Stream?

What Devices Can You Use...

As a Jew, you are taught early on that you are different and people will hate you for it and maybe kill you. They’ve done it since the beginning of Jews. We watched Holocaust documentaries at Hebrew school to make sure we understood. It didn’t seem like something I really had to worry about here as an American Jew.

I’ve been working professionally as a comic since 1988. When I was a kid, most of my favorite comics were Jews. Old Jews. Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Rodney Dangerfield, Woody Allen, Richard Lewis, Lenny Bruce. Comedy was basically Jewish in my mind for years. When I started doing comedy, I didn’t embrace my Jewishness. I didn’t want to honor the stereotype.

I just believed that being a Jewish comic had to be more than a schtick or neurosis or a way of talking and acting. I didn...

Bianca Del Rio has nothing but fond and funny memories of meeting one of her idols, Joan Rivers, shortly before the legendary comedian’s death.

Rivers died nine years ago this week after being placed in a medically induced coma following complications from throat surgery.

TheWrap recently caught up with Del Rio and asked her about taping an episode of “In Bed With Joan” in 2014. The drag queen, who counts Rivers as one of her comedic inspirations, was the icon’s second-to-last guest on the YouTube series.

Del Rio had been crowned the winner of the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” a few months prior, and in hindsight, the comic queen’s own quick wit and criticisms, which she styled after insult comics like Rivers and Don Rickles, helped her dominate the entire season.

“A friend of mine by the name of Tony Tripoli, who’s a comedian and...

One thing you can always count on from horror anthology shows is that eventually, they'll get to an episode about ventriloquist dolls. Don Rickles starred in an episode of "Tales from the Crypt" about a ventriloquist and his dummy and the granddaddy of them all, "The Twilight Zone," had multiple episodes centered around a ventriloquist and his little wooden pal.

And why wouldn't they? Ventriloquist dummies exist on that same uncanny valley plane as overly realistic porcelain dolls that everybody's grandmother collected for some reason. They're just creepy.

For episode 98, titled "The Dummy," the storytellers wanted to convey a tale about a down-and-out ventriloquist convinced his puppet is alive and being uncooperative. Of course, to the outside world it looks like the dude is having a mental break, but in true "Twilight Zone" fashion the big twist is that the main character's doll is indeed alive. The shocking reveal goes one step further because,...

Ginnie Newhart, the wife of famed comedian Bob Newhart who came up with the innovative idea for how to conclude his Vermont-based sitcom by combining with it with his earlier Chicago-based show, has died. She was 82.

She died Sunday at their home in Century City after a long illness, publicist Jerry Digney told The Hollywood Reporter. She and Bob recently celebrated their 60-year wedding anniversary.

Bob Newhart starred for six seasons (1972-78) as clinical psychologist Bob Hartley on CBS’ The Bob Newhart Show opposite Suzanne Pleshette as his wife, then played Vermont innkeeper Dick Loudon on CBS’ Newhart for another eight seasons (1982-90), when his wife was played by Mary Frann.

In one of the most admired series finales in TV history, Newhart winds up with a cheeky scene in which Dick wakes up in the middle of the night as Bob Hartley — he’s in bed with Pleshette in...

Don Rickles isn't afraid of insulting anyone, and a young Quentin Tarantino was no exception. Some of the biggest legends in Hollywood converged when the "Pulp Fiction" director met Martin Scorsese for the first time on the set of his 1995 film "Casino," in which Rickles played a supporting role. Rickles was a mutual friend of Scorsese and Tarantino, but he went out of his way to make Tarantino blush that day. Believe it or not, the famous insult comic didn't humiliate the young filmmaker with an insult — he did him in with a compliment.

"I was acting in a movie in Vegas and it turned out that during that time Scorsese was doing 'Casino' in Vegas," Tarantino revealed on the 2 Bears, 1 Cave Podcast. This was presumably the crime film "Destiny Turns on the Radio," which was released the same year as "Casino." "I'd never really met Martin Scorsese before,...