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Michael Keaton is having a big year, thanks to the success of the long-awaited sequel "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice." The film reunited director Tim Burton with the man who created a truly iconic performance out of thin air, and the movie is still making decent money at the box office several weeks after its release. Last weekend, "Beetlejuice 2" managed to sit higher on the box office charts in its sixth week in theaters than the massively panned "Joker: Folie à Deux," which was only in its second weekend. That's some impressive staying power, and it's especially surprising as a follow-up to a beloved 1988 horror comedy that has endured in popularity for decades. It only makes sense that "Beetlejuice" made an appearance in Michael Keaton's season 50 episode of "Saturday Night Live" -- but it wasn't Keaton who suited up in the black and white stripes this time. 

In Michael Keaton's opening monologue,...

Michael Keaton brought nostalgia and laughs to “Saturday Night Live” during his most recent hosting appearance celebrating the show’s 50th season. In his opening monologue, Keaton looked back on his long history with SNL dating back to his debut in 1982. He shared a funny anecdote about working as a production assistant on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” in the 1970s.

The monologue took an unexpected turn as Keaton started talking about the newly released “Beetlejuice” sequel film. As he joked about fans still recognizing him as his iconic character from the 1988 movie, two surprise guests joined him on stage dressed as Beetlejuice. Former SNL cast member Andy Samberg and current cast member Mikey Day both wore Beetlejuice’s signature striped suit.

Samberg used Beetlejuice’s growling voice to reminisce about attempting but failing many times to bring the character to SNL. This led Keaton to remind everyone to just call him “Beetlejuice” instead of other nicknames.

Michael Keaton returned to “Saturday Night Live” this week, marking his fourth time hosting at Studio 8H after first appearing on the show in 1982. “Man, I am excited to be back here hosting ‘Saturday Night Live’s’ 50th season,” he said before reminiscing on where his career stood when the show first premiered.

“I was a Pa on ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,’ he said. “And in the ’70s, you know, ‘SNL’ and ‘Mister Rogers’ have a lot more similarities than you would think. Lots of puppets. Tons of cocaine” — though Keaton then praised Fred Rogers as “everything you’d think he was.”

Keaton then touched on “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the recently released film that saw him reprise his role from 1988’s “Beetlejuice.”

“You know with Halloween coming up, I know I’m going to see a lot of those little kids out there dressed as Beetlejuice, which is adorable,” he said. The...

Allan Blye, an Emmy-winning writer for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and “Van Dyke and Company,” died Friday morning at home in Palm Desert, Calif., a family spokesperson confirmed. He was 87.

In 1968, Tom and Dick Smothers convinced Blye to move to Los Angeles to serve as head writer and producer on their new variety show, CBS’ “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” There, Blye worked alongside young comedians such as Bob Einstein, Steve Martin, Rob Reiner and Carl Gottlieb. The show won an Emmy for best writing in a variety comedy television series in 1969.

Blye wrote and produced many shows throughout his career, including “The Andy Williams Show,” “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour,” “The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show,” “That’s My Mama,” “The Bobby Vinton Show” and “The Ray Stevens Show,” which he co-created with Chris Bearde. Blye also co-wrote several TV specials, such as Elvis Presley’s 1968 “Comeback Special...

Allan Blye, a comedy writer who joined Fred Rogers in the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood predecessor MisteRogers, has died at 87. Blye died at home in Palm Desert, California, on the morning of Friday, October 4, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on July 19, 1937, Blye started his showbiz career as a singer, as THR reports. After a childhood spent performing solos in his synagogue’s choir, Blye sang on variety radio shows across his native Canada. When Blye was in his early 20s, Rogers hired him to play Captain Blye on MisteRogers, which the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired between 1971 and 1967. Blye appeared in 44 episodes of the show between 1963 and 1967, his IMDb filmography shows. In 1968, Tom and Dick Smothers got Blye to move to Los Angeles to join the writers and ...

It’s been too damn long since we last had an evil videotape horror, amiright? Well good news, Mr. Crocket is here to help haunt your VCRs once more and poison the well of your favorite childhood programming. This freaky very-n0t-kid-friendly flick is surprisingly dark, despite its retro public access aesthetic, and its villain is an unstoppable supernatural monster. Imagine Pennywise The Clown in Mr. Rogers drag and you’re pretty much there.

Adapted from a short by the same name for Hulu’s Bite-Size Halloween, Mr. Crocket is directed by Brandon Espy from a screenplay co-written with Carl Reid. Mr. Crocket himself is the host of retro kid’s TV show and a boogeyman for parents he deems unworthy of their child’s love. If you’re shooting up heroin while your daughter’s in the other room, he’s gonna get ya. If you’re trying to...

There are some very cool options available to viewers who are about to be blocked from Disney+ thanks to new password-sharing rules.

The days of sharing a friend’s Disney+ account are just about over. On Wednesday, Disney unveiled full details regarding its paid sharing program, which will allow Disney+ account holders to pay an extra $7 per month to add someone outside their household to their Basic subscription. It’s likely that many viewers who are now borrowing someone else’s password will lose their access thanks to password-sharing restrictions that are being enforced by Disney these days, and if this describes your situation, we’ll walk you through some good options for leaving Disney+ behind and saving money as well.

On-Demand Replacements for Disney+ Paramount+

Paramount+ is a great way to help replace Disney+ in your streaming lineup. You’ll have to pay for this streamer, but an account...

Kevin Smith will always hold a special place in my heart as one of the filmmakers who defined my formative years in cinema. "Clerks," "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," "Dogma," and even the silly "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" were packed full of hilarious yet immature laughs and pop culture references that tickled my funny bone and my geek gland. But ever since he tried to make his own Judd Apatow movie with "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," which made him feel like he ruined Seth Rogen's career at the time, he's struggled to re-capture the comedic voice that once defined him.

"Jay & Silent Bob Reboot" was a clumsy return to Kevin Smith's stoner slacker duo, and while "Clerks III" had a meaningful emotional core inspired by the filmmaker's real life brush with death and a meta narrative about the beginning of his film career, the movie ultimately...

“Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice,” the upcoming action-comedy from writer/director BenDavid Grabinski, has found its baddie in legendary actor Keith David.

David, whose credits include everything from John Carpenter’s “They Live” to Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog,” joins a stacked ensemble cast led by Vince Vaughn that also includes James Marsden, Jimmy Tatro and Eiza González.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, but it has previously been described as a buddy action-comedy. The project hails from 20th Century, which landed the project after a heated bidding war with multiple interested parties.

David has been working in Hollywood since the early 1980s. His first big movie role was in John Carpenter’s immortal “The Thing” in 1982. Speaking to his versatility, starting the following year, he had a recurring role on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” as Keith David the Handyman. He also appeared in Oliver Stone’s “Platoon,...

PBS Kids has given a third-season renewal to Donkey Hodie, a puppetry series that hails from Fred Rogers Productions and Spiffy Pictures.

New episodes of the series will debut in 2025.

The series, which is said to be inspired “by the funny, quirky side of Fred Rogers,” launched in 2021 and features reimagined characters from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Season three will feature 15 new episodes, including two half-hour specials plus additional digital content, that will continue to follow the adventures of Donkey Hodie and her friends Purple Panda, Duck Duck and Bob Dog in the whimsical land of Someplace Else.

The news follows of the heels of the season seven premiere of Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, which also was inspired Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and also hails from Fred Rogers Productions. In season three of Donkie Hodie, the two series will come together for the first time with a special half-hour crossover episode. Daniel Tiger...

Television has been full of memorable moments over the years, some more so than others.

Yet, there's a difference between just memorable and monumental.

The nine television episodes below made history in various ways and, in some cases, permanently changed the TV landscape.

All in the Family Season 2 Episode 21: Sammy's Visit

The late writer and producer Norman Lear, who passed away in 2023, created several beloved classic sitcoms that pushed the boundaries of American television at the time.

None more so than All in the Family (1971-1979), a show about a bigoted working-class man and his struggles with family and society during the changing 1970s.

Related: Classic TV is the Perfect Binge Watch For So Many Reasons

The show covered many exciting and often controversial topics over its nine seasons.

From draft dodging to sexual assault, the show never avoided complex subjects of the time.

One of the most difficult...

It’s one of the most unexpected and unusual ideas for a film in recent memory – but since Pharrell Williams has rarely played by conventional rules, it somehow makes sense. The music legend – producer, rapper, frontman of N.E.R.D, beatmaker to Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani and plenty more – is telling his story in a biopic titled Piece By Piece. And that biopic happens to come in animated Lego form. Yes it’s your, um, typical animated Lego Pharrell Williams biopic. Watch the trailer here:

Let’s lay any cynicism aside for a minute: this could be a fascinating and unique film, a distinctly Pharrellian way to tell the story of a musical icon who made it his signature to pick apart melodic bricks and rebuild them in his own image. And amid a deluge of straight-up play-the-hits music movies, it’s refreshing to see a different...

Pluto TV, Paramount’s free streaming service, has revealed its June highlights. The Pluto TV June 2024 schedule includes the return of Summer of Cinema, their movie extravaganza featuring a lineup of fan-favorite titles you can enjoy for free, whatever your mood or vibe.

This new programming launches alongside the return of Pluto TV’s Free Movie Weekend, which spreads business karma and free movie tickets to independent and family-run theaters across the country. And it’s going to be a beautiful day in the neighborhood for their youngest streamers as they launch a dedicated Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood channel on the service.

Pluto TV is the leading free streaming television service, delivering hundreds of live, linear channels and thousands of titles on-demand to a global audience. The Emmy Award-winning service curates a diverse lineup of channels in partnership with hundreds of international media companies.

Pluto TV offers a wide array of genres,...

Roku also remained the largest TV operating system in the United States.

As the costs of streaming services continue to climb higher and higher, free streaming platforms are routinely showing growth that dwarfs their subscription-based competitors. That continued to be the case on Thursday as Roku released its first quarter 2024 earnings. The leading streaming platform in the United States reported that in the first three quarters of the year, 81.6 million households used Roku to stream video content, and they did so to the tune of 30.8 billion hours of viewing.

Key Details: Roku reported adding 1.6 million new households to its platform in Q1 2024. With over 30 billion hours streamed, the company is on pace to shatter last year’s record. The Roku operating system remains the most used in both the United States and Mexico. Watch Now Free roku.com

Both of those streaming metrics represented impressive increases for Roku. The 81.6 million...

Amanda Kelso, the new acting CEO of the Sundance Institute, told the Sundance community that she is focused on the “long term sustainability and growth” of the non-profit well into the 21st century.

“As we look to the future of the Sundance Institute, I am filled with both pride and humility as I take on the role of acting CEO,” Kelso said in a statement shared with press. “It is an immense honor to return to lead during this pivotal time for arts organizations and, more specifically, independent storytellers. I believe in the power of Sundance and its ongoing impact in nurturing our mission-based work. This work is dedicated to the discovery and development of independent artists and connecting them with audiences around the world.”

Joana Vicente, who joined Sundance from TIFF back in 2021, announced Friday that she will be stepping down, with Kelso coming aboard in April and Vicente...

The Sundance Institute announced on Friday that Joana Vicente will be stepping down as CEO, with Amanda Kelso to lead the organization as Acting CEO.

No specific reason for Vicente’s departure was given, nor a next destination. But Kelso starts in her new role in April, with Vicente to continue to serve as an advisor to Kelso and the board through June.

“After two and half inspiring years, I have made the decision to begin a new chapter and will be moving on from my role as CEO of Sundance Institute,” wrote Vicente in a letter to staff. “Over the past six years, I have had the privilege of leading two of the most culturally significant organizations for independent film in North America through some of the most challenging times for our industry. This journey has been incredibly rewarding, and I’m so proud of the work our Sundance team has accomplished together,...

For decades now, Steve Martin has been making us laugh – whether it’s in comedy classics like The Jerk, The Man With Two Brains, and Three Amigos; heartfelt favourites like Father Of The Bride; or in his more recent ongoing role as actor-slash-true-crime-podcaster Charles-Haden Savage in Only Murders In The Building. His career has spanned so many years and so many styles of comedy – and now, fans can take a trawl through his legendary life in a brand new documentary. Or, more accurately, two documentaries. Get ready for the highly-punctuated Steve! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces (as it’s officially stylised), a… well, two-part documentary about Steve Martin. Watch the trailer here:

The film(s) come from acclaimed documentarian Morgan Neville, previously behind the Oscar-winning 20 Feet From Stardom, and Mister Rogers doc Won’t You Be My Neighbour? Each part will present different looks at Martin’s life – the...

While Japanese actor cum martial artist Hiroyuki Sanada has been in multiple masterpieces before, probably none comes as close to the epic superhit dropping-soon series Shōgun. One of the most anticipated series of perhaps the entire decade, it is a historical drama set in the year 1600, based on the same name novel from 1975 by James Clavell.

FX’s Shōgun (2024)

What’s more, is that Shōgun has already earned a perfect 100% rating from critics on the Tomatometer and holds a whopping 9.4/10 score on IMDb as well. With a stunning rating as this and a storyline as brutal and violent as ever, fans are dubbing this series as the next and much better replacement for Game of Thrones.

Suggested“It is a very different and worthy perspective”: Shōgun Creators Reveal Real Reason Behind a Major Change in Hiroyuki Sanada Series Fans are Calling Shōgun the Next Game of Thrones

Hiroyuki Sanada...

If Ann Landers had it right, and hanging on to resentment amounts to letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head, then “Your Monster” is what happens when you kick open the door and let those feelings run amok. Drawing from personal experience, writer-director Caroline Lindy delivers a clumsy metaphor of a movie, in which a promising young actor named Laura Franco (“In the Heights” star Melissa Barrera) has her Broadway dreams derailed by a cancer diagnosis, only to discover a ferocious inner strength, courtesy of the beastly creature she finds hanging around her childhood home.

In what amounts to a heavy-handed empowerment tale, the monster in question is at first a surly roommate, later a potential love interest and ultimately a manifestation of Laura’s long-suppressed sense of rage. The symbolism isn’t exactly subtle as Laura learns to break free of her polite good-girl upbringing and embrace those roiling emotions.

Four months late and coming off the heels of two strikes, an awkward Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards, there perhaps weren’t many expectations leading into the 75th Primetime Emmys. When actor Anthony Anderson was announced as the host, it seemed like a safe albeit humdrum choice — until news of past sexual assault allegations against the actor began to resurface and go viral, and what had seemed tame became something more unsettling. Yet despite the Anderson controversy, the Television Academy surprised viewers and attendees by delivering a delightful Emmys, honoring classic TV and its legends, while celebrating the shows we love and revere now.

Anderson opened the Emmys with a clever spoof of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and honored several shows and their iconic theme songs — practically a lost art in television today. The “Black-ish” and “Law & Order” alum hit the nail on the head in a pleasingly...

Anthony Anderson paid tribute to classic TV shows Good Times, Facts of Life, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Miami Vice in the opening musical number on tonight’s Emmys, with the Black-ish star belting out some earworm theme songs from behind his piano.

“No Good Times, no Black-ish,” Anderson said introducing the former’s memorable “ain’t we lucky we got ’em” theme song, the show’s famous “Black Jesus” portrait hanging in the background.

For Miami Vice‘s “In The Air Tonight,” Anderson was joined by blink-182’s Travis Barker on drums.

Anderson made his entrance spoofing Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (re-titled Mr. Anderson’s Neighborhood), changing out of a fur (seemingly) coat for a tux jacket.

Following the brief opening musical number — just snippets from the three theme songs — Anderson, an 11-time Emmy nominee for the ABC sitcom making his Emmy hosting debut, laid down some ground rules (his mother...

Ahead of the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday, the Television Academy has compiled a list of the 75 Most Impactful TV Moments.

In collaboration with a group of academic professionals, the Television Academy scoured eight decades on television in search of the moments that have made the most impact on viewers, the industry and culture.

Chosen were classic moments (from the late 1940s until the 2020s) of TV’s most beloved programs, as well as news events that brought the U.S. and the world together to watch them in real time. Many of the selected televised events influenced politics and shifted the common wisdom about race, Lgtbq+ representation and more.

At the top of the list is the Apollo 11 moon landing, followed by coverage of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade center and the Beatles’ 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.

You can read the entire list here and watch a video compilation above.

Los Angeles, CA – Eight-time Emmy Award winner Andrea Romano further cemented her reputation as the greatest voiceover director in animation history on Sunday night when she was inducted into the prestigious Children’s & Family Emmys’ inaugural Silver Circle during a ceremony at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel.

The Silver Circle recognizes those professionals who have performed distinguished service within the television industry for 25 years or more. But the recognition goes well beyond their longevity – they are honored for making an enduring contribution to the vitality of the television industry and for setting standards of achievement the rest of the industry hopes to emulate. These honorees also give back to the community as mentors, educators and volunteers.

“This industry has given me so much, from wonderful relationships with actors and marvelously creative individuals throughout the animation world to a lifetime of incredible memories and fulfilling work,” Romano said. “I’m so flattered that,...

The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) has announced its 2023 Gold and Silver Circle inductees, honorees who have significantly contributed to children’s television.

The inductees will be honored at the second annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on Dec. 17.

According to NATAS, “the Gold and Silver Circle is a society of honor. Inductees have performed distinguished service within the industry, setting standards for achievement, mentoring, leadership, and professional accolades for 50 or 25 years, respectively. They represent the best and the brightest in the television community.”

Gold Circle – 2023 Children’s & Family Inductees:

Peter Engel, Producer/Executive Producer (“Saved By The Bell,” “One World”) David Newell, Actor/Producer/Public Relations Director/Props/Manager/Talent Booker (“Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “My Tale of Two Cities”) Fred Seibert, Producer/Creator/Innovator/Creative Genius/Mentor/Mensch (“Adventure Time,” “The Fairly OddParents”)

Silver Circle – 2023 Children’s & Family Inductees:

Vicki Ariyasu, Senior Vice President,...

Exclusive: Rosamund Pike (Saltburn) and Matthew Rhys (Perry Mason) have entered production overseas on Hallow Road, a new psychological thriller, which Under the Shadow‘s Babak Anvari is directing from a script by William Gillies.

Commissioned and developed by London Film & TV, the film watches as two parents enter a race against time when they receive a distressing late-night phone call from their daughter after she caused a tragic car accident. Production is taking place in Ireland and Prague, with Lucan Toh of Two & Two Pictures producing alongside Ian Henry of London Film & TV and Richard Bolger of Hail Mary Pictures. XYZ Films and Screen Ireland are co-financing.

XYZ and Anvari’s Two & Two come to the project after collaborating on the Anvari-helmed features Under the Shadow and I Came By, as well as the upcoming History of Evil, written and directed by Bo Mirhosseni. They’re also...

Tom Hanks is one of the most decorated and beloved actors of all time, and he's also a husband, grandfather, and father of four. The two-time Oscar winner has played everyone from Walt Disney ("Saving Mr. Banks") and Mister Rogers ("A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood") to war heroes ("Saving Private Ryan" and "Forrest Gump") and Woody the pull-string cowboy rag doll (the Toy Story franchise).

Tom had his oldest two children, Colin and Elizabeth Hanks, with his first wife, Samantha Lewes, whom he divorced in 1987 (she later died in 2002). He then married actor and singer Rita Wilson in 1988, and the two have two children, Chester "Chet" Hanks and Truman Hanks.

In 2020, Tom thanked his family in an emotional speech when he was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes. "A man is blessed with a family sitting down front like that," he said. "A wife...

When Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood debuted in 1968, they didn’t just usher in a golden age of puppetry on TV. They also set standards for inclusion and education in children’s programming that the industry is still trying to live up to, decades later. Especially at the studios that launched them.

Developed for Children’s Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop), Sesame Street paired producers with educators to create programming designed to support and empower young viewers from lower income and underrepresented backgrounds, and populated its Manhattan-inspired set not only with a colorful menagerie of Jim Henson’s Muppets but also a racially diverse human cast.

Meanwhile, Henson’s friend Fred Rogers, the eponymous creator, host, head writer, lead musical composer and chief puppeteer of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, leaned on the expertise of child psychologists like his own mentor, Margaret McFarland, to help children navigate their feelings, relationships, self-image and curiosities.

PBS Kids SVP and general manager Sara DeWitt always thought she would go into publishing after earning her English degree with a focus on children’s literacy development from Stanford University. But after taking an “experimental class” for her master’s degree, her entire career trajectory changed.

“The idea was that you had all these computer science folks who were suddenly in positions where they had to write story to get people through game environments and you had all these English majors who understood story but were afraid of the technology,” DeWitt told TheWrap for this week’s Office With a View. “My prerequisite for that class was having to learn HTML and then I got paired with computer science students to tackle different challenges and create different media types and I came out of it thinking there’s something really interesting here about what I’ve been thinking about...

I love you, you love me, Barney’s back on your TV.

A reboot of “Barney,” the famous 1990s children’s TV franchise featuring the titular purple dinosaur, is officially in the works, Mattel announced Monday. Set for an unnamed date in 2024, the relaunch will see Barney getting a new look as an animated series produced by Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana and Mattel Television.

Along with the new series, Mattel plans to roll out films and YouTube videos starring Barney in addition to a line of kids’ merchandise. The company is also planning a line of adult apparel and accessories featuring the original Barney design.

Also Read:

The Best Super Bowl Commercials of 2023 (Video)

“Barney’s message of love and kindness has stood the test of time,” said Josh Silverman, Chief Franchise Officer and Global Head of Consumer Products at Mattel. “We will tap into the nostalgia of the generations who grew up with Barney,...

With his long-in-development passion project Pinocchio now out in the world, director Guillermo del Toro has set his next stop-motion animation: an adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2015 novel The Buried Giant. Currently in the process of co-writing the script with Dennis Kelly (Matilda: The Musical), the director tells The Telegraph that they’ll begin the design process in two months for the story of an elderly couple who live in a world with no long-term memories. When they faintly recall they may have had a son many years earlier, they go on an adventure to seek him out.

“Animation has given us so many indelible images over the years, but in many ways the industry wants to keep it at the children’s table. So I want to keep pushing the medium into areas that demonstrate its capacity” said del Toro. First up, he’ll helm a yet-to-be-announced live-action feature,...

Click here to read the full article.

Every December, the denizens of the art world converge on Miami for its many art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach, Design Miami and Art Miami. Celebrities, gallerists and collectors create conversations and make headlines, and most of it disappears as quickly as it materialized. However, a few key pieces remain, while others just occupy headspace as beautiful memories.

This year, arriving and staying a while is Starchild from L.A.-based duo Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III, also known as both Sam and Tury and as the art collaborative FriendsWithYou. The duo has created a new 50-foot tall public sculpture commissioned by the city of Miami Beach at Henry Liebman Square, which celebrates the creative team’s 20th anniversary and also the same benchmark for Art Basel.

Since their start in Miami decades ago, Sam and Tury — who jointly describe their synergies as “different,...

Click here to read the full article.

Stomp, the award-winning percussion, rhythm and comedy production created by Steve McNicholas and Luke Cresswell, will take its final off-Broadway bow this winter.

On Tuesday, producers announced the long-running show would close, with its final performance at the Orpheum Theatre set for Jan. 8, 2023. The closing is “due to declining ticket sales,” a spokesperson for the production told The Hollywood Reporter.

“We are so proud that the East Village and the Orpheum Theatre has been Stomp’s home for so many wonderful years and want to thank our producers and our amazing cast, crew and front-of-house staff, all of whom have worked so hard for so long to make the show such a success,” Cresswell and McNicholas said in a statement. “They have always given 100 percent to every audience, from the very beginning in 1994 to the post-lockdown audiences of 2022. We want to thank everyone...

Rolling Stone has released their list of the 100 Greatest TV Theme Songs of All Time. While some of the expected classics rank high, they have rightly included some key titles from the past few years. In fact, ten shows make up for as many entries on the list.

Starting off the list at #100 is WandaVision, praising its bold move to change the theme song for each episode. WandaVision is one of three shows from the 2020s, joining two shows that debuted in 2022, Apple TV+’s Pachinko (#83), HBO Max’s Peacemaker (#65). Other shows that debuted in the past decade are Netflix’s Stranger Things (#88), season two of HBO’s The Leftovers (#84), Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black (#47), Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (#26), HBO’s Succession (#25), Adult Swim’s Too Many Cooks (#10), and CW’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (#4).

In compiling the list, Rolling Stone “considered two main factors: 1) How great is it as a song?...

Composer Carter Burwell initially thought he’d be responsible for creating the titular fiddle tune for Martin McDonagh’s “The Banshees of Inisherin.” In the screenplay, the song is one Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) writes after having decided to no longer spend time with his former friend Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell). But Gleeson, a fiddle player himself, wanted a crack at it. So he proposed a competition.

“Brendan said, ‘Well, let’s have Carter write a thing and I’ll write a thing and may the best tune win,'” Burwell told IndieWire. It didn’t fully surprise him, even though he’s never been in that situation before. The Irish musical tradition is filled with competition, according to Burwell. But the man behind the scores for “Fargo,” “Carol,” and the three previous movies directed by playwright and filmmaker McDonagh never ended up submitting his version. It wasn’t just...

Click here to read the full article.

In the second hour (or “episode”) of Peacock’s I Love You, You Hate Me, a former neo-Nazi turned anti-hate activist goes for a rather big thematic swing, connecting her personal journey with the slings and arrows directed at one particularly kid-friendly purple dinosaur.

“Obviously, I’m not saying that people who hate a children’s television character are in any way the same thing as someone who embraced the things that I embraced. However the dynamics of basing your identity around what you hate and what you despise, that those dynamics are exactly the same,” she posits.

It’s a contestable but also provocative point made in contradictory and ultimately under-defended terms, and that means that it’s probably a perfect encapsulation of Tommy Avallone’s documentary.

I Love You, You Hate Me doesn’t want to be simply a hollow celebration of ’90s nostalgia,...

In the vein of “Toy Story” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Netflix’s miniseries “Lost Ollie” treats its young, target audience as people who can grasp weighty subjects like grief without being condescended to. At the same time, the live-action/animated hybrid series, from Shannon Tindle and directed by Peter Ramsey, offers family-friendly programming that allows adults to access a lost sense of childhood — something star Gina Rodriguez feels is a “huge gift” to both her younger and current self.

“There was an unbelievable clarity to the vision [Ramsey and Tindle] had and it was undeniable and the scripts were just so beautiful, and just so nuanced, where it has joy and levity, and it has this quest and this action-adventure fulfillment, and then it also has really difficult subject matters that aren’t always presented to the young,” Rodriguez told TheWrap.

The four-part limited series, which premieres Aug. 24 on the streamer, and is...

There’s no doubt that “Donkey Hodie” is a funky and funny spinoff of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” a popular children’s television series. The new kid on the block comes in the form of a little yellow donkey that’s helping drive the show’s popularity. Television and movie analysis platforms show that the TV series’ audience demand is five times higher than the average show — and 62 of viewers who reviewed it on Google posted positive feedback.

In this article, learn about the educational puppet show’s premise, target audience, cast members, and whether it’s part of the original “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

Where Can You Watch “Donkey Hodie?”

If your kids can’t get enough of this puppet television series, you can stream via one of several platforms. Currently, it’s available on PBS Kids, Vudu, Spectrum TV, Roku, and Amazon Prime Video.

What’s “Donkey Hodie” About?

As...

One of the most sought-after lost episodes of “Sesame Street” has been unearthed by Internet archivists, as a rare encounter between Big Bird and the Wicked Witch of the West from “The Wizard of Oz” is now available to view online.

Back in 1976, actress Margaret Hamilton was asked by Sesame Workshop to reprise her role as the Wicked Witch for a “Sesame Street” episode, 37 years after her iconic “Oz” performance opposite Judy Garland. The 73-year-old Hamilton agreed, filming a sketch teaching children to face their fears in which The Wicked Witch demands that the denizens of Sesame Street return her broom, even threatening to turn Big Bird into a giant feather duster.

But according to the show’s producers, the episode prompted hordes of angry parents to call in, complaining that the Wicked Witch had terrified their children. As a result, Hamilton’s appearance on “Sesame Street” was never re-aired...

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Because the documentary marketplace is every bit as beholden to the sway of nostalgia as any other, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that one of its most lucrative genres has focused on TV shows that helped form a target demographic.

If you’re trying to woo a hesitant audience of Gen X or millennial viewers — less a worry with today’s documentary-filled streaming landscape than it might have been a decade ago — looking back on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) or Sesame Street (Street Gang) represents an easy way to do it.

Not coincidentally, those shows are the two longest-running children’s series in PBS history, followed by Reading Rainbow, which gets its own documentary retrospective with Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb’s Butterfly in the Sky, debuting at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

While Won’t You Be My Neighbor?...

The children’s television program “Reading Rainbow” aired on PBS from 1983 to 2006, and “Butterfly in the Sky” is the story of how that show came to be, what it was like to work on it and its afterlife. The people interviewed here are all so nice, warm and likable that watching this movie is like sinking into a warm bath.

The key creators of the show were Twila Liggett, who started out as a teacher of eight- and nine-year-old kids, and Cecily Truett Lancit and Larry Lancit, a married couple who had a production company in New York. Liggett left teaching because she didn’t like the excessive and superficial testing of young kids, and she wanted to take what she had learned and bring it to television, which was seen as an enemy of reading for children in the early 1980s.

LeVar Burton had become a star on TV...

In a deal sources place at 25M+ for worldwide rights, Searchlight Pictures has acquired Annapurna’s darkly comic horror film Nightbitch, starring six-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams (Arrival), acquired in a competitive sale. Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) has come aboard to direct the film, based on Rachel Yoder’s acclaimed debut novel, from her own script.

Nightbitch tells the story of a woman thrown into the stay-at-home routine of raising a toddler in the suburbs, who slowly embraces the feral power deeply rooted in motherhood, as she becomes increasingly aware of the bizarre and undeniable signs that she may be turning into a canine. Bond Group and Annapurna acquired film rights to Yoder’s book back in 2020 and developed the script alongside Heller. It marks a reemergence of Megan Ellison’s reconfigured Annapurna in the marketplace. The original plan was to launch sales in Cannes, but...

Mister Rogers' legacy is one of kindness and warmth, no matter who he was addressing -- which was often the young viewers of his long-running television program on PBS. To him, everyone is worth getting to know and listen to, which provides the basis for his show's opening song, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" Speaking with a gentle, patient tenor, host, ordained minister, and all-around beloved human being Fred Rogers would spend each episode of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" fulfilling the simplest, and grandest, of missions: being a friend. He would teach cognitive skills to children through puppetry, poetry, and songs like "What Do You...

The post How Mister Rogers Helped Launch the Career of a Horror Legend appeared first on /Film.

Wearing fuschsia lipstick and a resplendent, Pucci-inspired cornflower-blue blouse, Jeffrey Marsh addresses the camera head-on: “Hey, kids!,” Marsh says chirpily. “It’s possible to be like me and to be happy.” Marsh, who is nonbinary, then proceeds to address the audience further: “It’s Ok to like dresses, to like sparkly things. It’s Ok to be a little different than what people want you to be, than what people expect you to be.”

That simple message of acceptance and self-inclusion went moderately viral, garnering more than 235,000 views and 12,000 comments.

Perhaps best known as the Caped Crusader of Tim Burton's "Batman" films, Michael Keaton has had a wide-ranging and thriving career. Keaton started off in comedy, training at the legendary Second City, before working on iconic television series such as "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and "Maude." Keaton finally entered the big screen in "Night Shift" with a crackling, frenetic energy that would launch a successful film comedy career before Burton took the risk of casting him as Batman, a role that would change the trajectory of Keaton's work by proving he could tackle action and drama. 

Since then, Keaton has taken on a variety of roles, bringing a wry cynicism,...

The post The 20 Best Michael Keaton Movies, Ranked appeared first on /Film.

In “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” Andrew Garfield and Jessica Chastain play Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, the self-styled Christian TV personalities who did more than anyone else to mold televangelism into a game-changing, culture-shaking, credit-card-maxing industry/cult/diversion. The movie, which is a ticklishly fascinating rise-and-fall saga, was directed by Michael Showalter, who almost always makes comedies, so you might expect him to treat the Bakker saga as a delicious slice of kitsch — which, in a sense, it was.

There’s a bit of that, but Showalter is up to something more sly, and maybe more artful. In “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” he gives Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker the full dignity — and scandal — of their humanity. He knows that a lot of people think of the Bakkers as walking caricatures, and that in the case of Tammy Faye, with her infamous troweled-on ’60s-raccoon-from-Maybelline clown-freak makeup, she verged on self-parody.

Exclusive: Keith David has joined the cast of HBO Max’s Love Life‘s sophomore season in the role of the narrator.

Season two of the romantic comedy anthology focuses on Marcus Watkins (executive producer William Jackson Harper) as he comes out of a years-long relationship with the woman he thought was going to be his person. The rug pulled out from under him, he is plunged back into the search for the romantic fulfillment that he thought he had already found.

Other cast includes series stars: Jessica Williams, Punkie Johnson, and Chris “Comedian Cp” Powell; and recurring guest stars Arian Moayed, Leslie Bibb, and John Earl Jelks. Season 1’s Anna Kendrick, who also executive produces, Zoë Chao, Peter Vack, Sasha Compére, and Nick Thune will also appear.

Love Life season two is co-showrun by creator Sam Boyd, Bridget Bedard, and Rachelle Williams. Boyd, Bedard, and Williams serve as executive producers with Kendrick,...

Michael Keaton is no stranger to true stories where lies are exposed within corrupt organizations, lest anyone forget his Best Picture winner “Spotlight,” or for that matter, the 2010 comedy “The Other Guys.” But he is a relative outsider when it comes to TV. “Dopesick,” an upcoming Hulu limited series about a pharmaceutical company that set off the worst drug epidemic in American history, will bring Keaton to both, and fans of the former Batman (and “Multiplicity” icon) can check out the first trailer below.

Hulu also announced the release date during the show’s TCA panel, setting the premiere for October 13. Per Hulu, here’s the official synopsis:

“Dopesick” examines how one company triggered the worst drug epidemic in American history. The series takes viewers to the epicenter of America’s struggle with opioid addiction, from the boardrooms of Big Pharma, to a distressed Virginia mining community, to the hallways of the DEA.

Updated with more details: Normally on the opening day of a Morgan Neville film, the talk would be about box office potential—after all, his 2018 Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? earned an astounding $23 million.

But as Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain hits theaters today, focus has shifted to controversy over the Oscar-winning director’s use of AI in the film to simulate Bourdain “voicing” several lines that the late chef, author and TV host wrote but did not record. The issue has triggered a debate inside and outside the doc community, with some accusing Neville of committing an unacknowledged “deep fake.”

“This sucks!” Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel exclaimed on Twitter. Critic Sean Burns tweeted, “I feel like this tells you all you need to know about the ethics of the people behind this project.”

The AI ethical debate might never have happened were it not for the sharp eyes,...

Milo Ventimiglia has been nominated three times at the Emmys for playing Jack Pearson, the father of triplets on NBC’s hit drama “This is Us.” In Season 5 his character must come to terms with his own past and make a conscious effort to not allow history to repeat itself. “There’s one line that Jack says when he’s sitting at the bar,” Ventimiglia explains. “He’s kind of opening up about his father and says, ‘My dad, he wasn’t all bad.’ And I was really drawn into that.” Watch the exclusive video interview above.

“Pete Onorati, who plays my father in the show, is just the most wonderful, lovely actor of all time,” Ventimiglia continues. “Even he struggled with how poor his character had handled his relationship with his son. Things like that are what I’d like to see a little bit more of, but I...

Classic characters from “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” are being reimagined in the new children’s series “Donkey Hodie” from Fred Rogers Productions and Spiffy Pictures that premieres today, Monday, May 3, on PBS.

The series follows the original puppet’s precocious namesake granddaughter whose big ideas sometimes get the best of her, but, with the help of Grampy and her friends, she learns to keep on trying. Each half-hour episode features two 11-minute stories.

The idea for the show started with the folks at Fred Rogers Productions. “We were looking at a list of character names from ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ and Donkey Hodie was so funny, it made us laugh,” chief creative officer Ellen Doherty recalls. “An idea started percolating about a preschool show about a little donkey with big dreams and the idea of perseverance and grit, and how apt that is for preschoolers who are little kids with really big feelings.