Notizie

Carson. Letterman. O’Brien. Baira. Rahma. Williams. You may not recognize those last few names, but there’s a direct line between them and some late-night legends. They’re part of the wave of TikTok talk-show hosts who are remixing old-school late-night tropes — breezy interview segments, parlor games, silly characters — for a digital audience. Gone are hosts sitting behind bulky desks; the stars of the future are mics on the move.

“My job is to share the mess,” says Tiff Baira, host of the dating show Street Hearts, in which...

The first season of Dropout’s Very Important People had some of the most wild improvised characters interviewed by host Vic Michaelis, so it’s been no surprise that the second season has not only matched that energy but exceeded it. Still maintaining the “improv first,” no prior knowledge of the guest quality, Michaelis entered Season 2 with more backstory for their host character and a willingness to allow the guests to also become part of their backstory to broaden the show’s entire narrative.

After being given full makeovers — including makeup, prosthetics and costumes — comedians come up with a character to sit down for a fully improvised interview. Season 2 has seen some small changes to the show — including longer episodes which has knocked Very Important People out of eligibility for the Short Form Emmy category. Director Tamar Levine says its a “good problem to have” and it’s hard to disagree with her,...

From the very first episode of “Game Changer” — in which players were confronted with a lie detector machine that was revealed to be under the control of their significant others — the show has played with making and breaking classic game show and comedy formats. The Dropout series has continually tried to “one-up” and “yes-and” itself over the course of its run. Looking toward Season 7 of “Game Changer” on an episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast, the show’s host and mostly gentle dom Sam Reich wasn’t sure how “Game Changer” was going to keep topping itself.

The answers to that worry are starting to come in, now that Season 7 has opened with “One Year Later,” wherein Reich gives players Vic Michaelis, Lou Wilson, and Jacob Wysocki one calendar year to complete a series of tasks, ranging from keeping a sourdough starter alive to getting the most followers on a...

Dropout has revealed its Emmy submissions for this year’s awards consideration — and they’re shaking things up.

The indie streamer’s improv-based interview show “Very Important People” is officially in the running for an Emmy, this time in a brand-new category. The series, hosted by comedian Vic Michaelis, has been submitted for consideration in the outstanding talk series category for the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, where it will face off against ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, CBS’ “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and last year’s winner, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” This marks the show’s first time competing in the full-length variety talk category after previously entering in short form fields.

Meanwhile, Dropout’s flagship game show series “Game Changer,” which returns for its seventh season on April 7, will not be eligible for Emmy consideration this year. Under Television Academy rules for the outstanding game show category,...

Shane Gillis is back and ready to turn his business around in “Tires” Season 2, releasing June 5 on Netflix.

Following the success of their major marketing plan, Will (Steven Gerben) and Shane (Gillis) rush to grow their business professionally. The official synopsis reads: “Will, the nervous and unqualified heir to an auto repair chain, attempts to turn his father’s business around despite constant torture from his cousin and now employee, Shane.”

Gillis self-financed Season 1’s first six episodes before Netflix acquired the show as part of a deal including a stand-up special. The show is created by Gillis, Steve Gerben and John McKeever with a cast featuring Chris O’Connor, Kilah Fox and Stavros Halkias, including guest star Andrew Schulz.

Watch the first clip from Netflix below.

First Looks/Trailers

“The Summer I Turned Pretty” has unveiled the first look at its third season, which will also be the show’s last.

“Game Changer” is officially returning on Dropout starting April 7, with the ten-episode Season 7 dropping episodes biweekly on the comedy streaming service.

This season’s cast includes Brennan Lee Mulligan, Vic Michaelis, Lisa Gilroy, Lou Wilson and Oscar Montoya as the game show changes its premise every episode. Last season, the contestants faced unpredictable challenges revolving around art, bingo, trivia questions and false personas.

The show is hosted and executive produced by Dropout CEO Sam Reich, with co-executive producers including Chloe Badner, Ryan Creamer, Sam Geer, Mulligan and Paul Robalino. Sam Geer edited and directed all ten episodes.

In other TV Roundup News:

Executive News

Eli Baldrige has been promoted to EVP of development at A. Smith & Co. Productions, where he will continue to lead unscripted television.

Since joining the company in 2018, Aldridge has served as VP and SVP of development. He spearheaded the development process on Magnolia Network’s...

The second season of Apple TV+’s psychological thriller “Surface” has a new trailer for its eight-episode season, teasing Sophie’s (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) ambitious venture to London.

The new chapter of the show follows Sophie as she is forced to unravel the secrets of her past with an injury that has wiped her memories clean. She embeds herself in royal British society but everything changes when a journalist unexpectedly reaches out to her about a new scandal.

Mbatha-Raw returns alongside co-stars Oliver Jackson-Cohen (“The Invisible Man”) and Millie Brady (“The Queen’s Gambit”). New additions to the “Surface” world include Phil Dunster (“Ted Lasso”), Gavin Drea (“Daisy Jones & The Six”), Rupert Graves (“Maurice”), Tara Fitzgerald (“Sirens”), Nina Sosanya (“Baby Reindeer”), Joely Richardson (“101 Dalmatians”) and Freida Pinto (“Slumdog Millionaire”).

“Surface” Season 2 drops its first episode on Friday, Feb. 21 followed by weekly new episodes. Watch the trailer below.

In other TV...

Exclusive: Peacock’s espionage thriller series Ponies has added five new cast members to its series regular cast: Adrian Lester, Artjom Gilz, Nicholas Podany, Petro Ninovskyi and Vic Michaelis.

They join previously announced Emilia Clarke, who also executive produces, and Haley Lu Richardson.

Set in Moscow in 1977, the series follows two Ponies (“persons of no interest” in intelligence speak) who work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy. That is until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in the Ussr, and the pair become CIA operatives. Bea (Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. Alongside her cohort, Twila, they work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy and solve the mystery that made them widows in the first place.

Lester will play “Dane” – Precise and impossible to read, Dane is...

Back in my college days, I was a theatre performance major and became the first woman to serve as captain in the history of my underfunded state school's improv team (no one who reads /Film regularly is shocked), which meant I spent an excessive amount of time on YouTube consuming sketch clips and illegally uploaded episodes of "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" This fixation led me to the CollegeHumor channel and I became obsessed with a show called "Hello My Name Is." Each episode had Josh Ruben being transformed into a new character with prosthetics, wigs, and costumes, after which he would have to sit down for an improvised, in-character interview upon seeing the result. Nearly 15 years later, my college friends and I still quote a few of the episodes.

"Hello My Name Is." ended long ago, but "Very Important People" hosted by Vic Michaelis has continued to carry that...

Spoiler Alert for Murder in a Small Town episode 8, "Sleep While I Sing"Murder in a Small Town has a gripping season finale that gives its characters inspiring endings, but it leaves some questions unanswered. "Sleep While I Sing" also opens the possibility of new beginnings, leaving many questions unanswered. Rossif Sutherland's Karl Alberg continued to grapple with the serial killer case that had Gibsons in a panic. The police chief progressed despite his severed connection to his best informant following Karl and Cassandra's break-up in Murder in a Small Town season 6. They keep their distance in episode 7, but Cassandra's connection to various suspects gets her entangled in yet another investigation.

Their proximity and the closing of season 1 forced the couple to reconcile their romance, with Karl and Cass sealing their reunion with a kiss. Still, they could face hurdles. Cassandra has a development in the mix that could cause...

Dropout is home to much more than Dimension 20 and other DnD actual play, and now the critically acclaimed series Very Important People returns for season 2, giving host Vic Michaelis (known for playing Mildred in Upload) a whole new roster of idiosyncratic creations to interview. Structured as a long-form interview show, Very Important People sees Vic (playing an exaggerated version of themself) discuss the life, origins, and goals of bizarre characters created through a mixture of improv comedians and stunning make-up work. Season 1 was a strange and surprisingly sweet collection of characters (who were never too far away from revealing a horrible secret).

Season 2 ups the ante, with some returning faces from across Dropout appearing as new characters. A number of new guests like John Early, Danielle Pinnock, Bobby Moynihan (Lego Star Wars: Rebuild The Galaxy), Nicole Byer, Chris Redd, and more are also poised to join the festivities. Ahead...

Dropout’s “Very Important People” has a very important list of guest stars for Season 2. That starts off with Anna Garcia (“Superstore”), who plays “Zeke Aaron McKinley,” fourth grader who was turned into a rock formation after making a wish. Also set to appear this season: Comedians including Nicole Byer, Chris Redd, Bobby Moynihan, John Early, Kate Berlant, Paul F. Tompkins, Echo Kellum, Lisa Gilroy and Danielle Pinnock.

The premise of the comedic talk show, which comes from the team formerly known as CollegeHumor and host Vic Michaelis, is simple. It starts out as a chat between Michaelis and their guest — who has to come up with the character they’re going to play during the interview in five minutes, following a blind makeover.

Garcia is one of several “VIP” Season 1 guests and fellow Dropout stars who have returned this time, along with the well-known stars like Byer, Moynihan and Tompkins.

Apple TV+ has released the trailer for “Silo” Season 2. Based on Hugh Howey’s trilogy of dystopian sci-fi novels, the second season premieres Nov. 15 with new episodes airing every Friday until Jan. 17.

According to an official logline, “‘Silo’ is the story of the last ten thousand people on earth, their mile-deep home protecting them from the toxic and deadly world outside. However, no one knows when or why the silo was built and those who try to find out face fatal consequences. Rebecca Ferguson stars as Juliette, an engineer who seeks answers about a loved one’s murder and tumbles onto a mystery that goes far deeper than she could have ever imagined, leading her to discover that if the lies don’t kill you, the truth will.”

Steve Zahn joins the Season 2 cast, starring alongside Ferguson, Tim Robbins, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, Alexandria Riley, Shane McRae,...

Indie streamer Dropout has set the full guest-star lineup for the second season of its Vic Michaelis-hosted comedic interview series “Very Important People.”

“Very Important People” features Michaelis as the host of a standard talk show series with a twist: all interview subjects receive makeovers before sitting down to chat and then must immediately invent a character to play during the interview.

Following the Aug. 14 announcement of the guest stars for the first eight episodes of “Very Important People” Season 2, which debuts Nov. 7, Dropout has confirmed that Episodes 9-16 will star Bobby Moynihan (“Saturday Night Live”), Nicole Byer (“Nailed It!”), Echo Kellum (“Arrow”), Corin Wells (“A Black Lady Sketch Show”), Alex Song-Xia (“Rick & Morty”) and Paul Robalino (“Smarypants”).

Additionally, “Very Important People” Season 1 guests Brennan Lee Mulligan (“Dimension 20”), Izzy Roland (“Sex Lives of College Girls”) and Lisa Gilroy (“Glamorous”) will return in new roles.

Left to right: Bobby Moynihan,...

Indie streamer Dropout has set the second season premiere date for its Vic Michaelis-hosted comedic interview series “Very Important People,” and revealed five new guest stars joining the lineup for Season 2.

“Very Important People” features Michaelis as the host of a standard talk show series with a twist: all interview subjects receive makeovers before sitting down to chat and then must immediately invent a character to play during the interview.

New cast members booked for an improvised interview in “Very Important People” Season 2 include John Early (“Search Party”) and Kate Berlant (“Don’t Worry Darling”), Danielle Pinnock (“Ghosts”), Chris Redd (“Saturday Night Live”) and Paul F. Tompkins (“Bojack Horseman”).

Left to right: Kate Berlant (Photo Credit: Sela Shiloni); Danielle Pinnock (Courtesy photo); Paul F. Tompkins (Courtesy photo); Chris Redd (Photo Credit: Chris Haston/NBC); John Early (Photo Credit: Michael Tyrone Delaney).

Dropout will launch the first episode of “Very Important People” Season 2 Nov.

The Naboo Movie is a hilarious live reading of the Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace script by comedy legends. The show cleverly sidesteps controversial parts of the movie through deft performances, and in general, it transforms the film into a comedy masterpiece. Dynasty Typewriter, where it was shown, is a home for this kind of top comedic talent, and the result of the collaboration makes The Naboo Movie a standout Star Wars project of recent years.

If there's anything Star Wars fans can agree on these days, it's that they can't agree, and it feels like almost every new filmed entry in the storied franchise is born with a built-in culture battle. The vicious and apparently unrelenting online comment-section fight over The Acolyte is only the newest in a long history of conflicts of opinion in the Star Wars fandom, though, a tradition that goes all the way...

Very Important People has seen host Vic Michaelis interview an assortment of characters that really can’t be described in just a few words. From Vic’s Ex-Step Grandmother (Lisa Gilroy) to Mental Health Advocate Tommy Shriggly (Zac Oyama), every improvisor brought a uniquely wild energy to Dropout’s short form series, matched by Michaelis’ ability to perfectly adapt to every situation while keeping up their host persona.

After being given full makeovers—including makeup, prosthetics and costumes—comedians come up with a character to sit down for a fully improvised interview. Michaelis says it was important for them, as well as director Tamar Levine, to create a sense of continuity with the host character, especially since the goal of the series was to showcase “different comedian’s styles of comedy” by not putting them into a box, “but to build the box around them.”

Host Vic Michaelis interviewing Princess...

Spoiler Alert for “Ratfish (Part 1)”: Coming out in 2019 after the success of unscripted content for Dropout, Game Changer was an instant hit on the platform. Now, six seasons later, host Sam Reich is still working to bring “consistently original” ideas to the show with no signs of stopping. “Every season, I feel like I fly a little closer to the sun,” says Reich. “And every season, the response I get from the audience is like, ‘This was the best yet,’ which is a very dangerous thing to tell me as I push it more and more, further and further.”

Hosted by Reich, Dropout’s Game Changer is a game show where the premise changes every episode and the contestants must learn the rules as they play. Among the assortment of games, season 6 has seen contestants search for buzzers in a simple trivia game-turned-scavenger hunt for “Beat the Buzzer”, trapped...

There are a lot of streamers out there, but none quite like Dropout. “I’m a determined hipster,” jokes Dropout owner and CEO Sam Reich. “I can’t do anything that the rest of the industry is doing — I’m just too determined to be unique.”

Unique is not difficult to find on Dropout, which was created in 2018 as a subscription service for CollegeHumor content before CHMedia rebranded to Dropout in 2023. Take Game Changer, hosted by Reich, where the premise changes every episode and the contestants must learn the rules as they play. This season alone has seen an elaborate version of Simon Says, a parody of The Newlywed Game and a simple trivia game-turned-scavenger hunt where contestants need to search the studio for buzzers to answer questions.

There’s also Dimension 20, an anthology series where a group of improvisors play role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. “It all...

The two-part season finale of Dropout’s hit game series “Game Changer,” originally scheduled to premiere on May 20, has been delayed “to allow for more time in the edit.”

On Monday, Sam Reich, host and Dropout CEO, announced on social media: “Scheduling Update: we’re pushing the 2-part Game Changer season finale to allow for more time in the edit. It’s one of the most complicated episodes we’ve ever done (you’ll see why). Part 1 will now launch on Dropout on June 3rd, and Part 2 on June 17th.”

Despite the delay, the sixth season, which featured seven episodes, surpasses the six-episode minimum requirement for submission for the outstanding game show category. According to current Emmy rules, the two-part finale will compete as part of the upcoming seventh season when it airs during the next eligibility window. This is consistent with other competition and game shows with multiple seasons competing as one,...

Indie streaming platform Dropout, formerly known as CollegeHumor, is vying for a spotlight at this year’s Primetime Emmys with an ambitious campaign to secure its first major nominations. With a passionate and niche audience, Variety has learned exclusively about Dropout’s top contenders submitted for Emmy love, including the innovative game show “Game Changer” and the unique interview series “Very Important People.”

“Game Changer,” a standout series hosted by Dropout CEO Sam Reich, turns the traditional game show format on its head. Each episode introduces a new game, but the twist is that the three comedian contestants are clueless about the rules until the game begins. The blend of improv comedy and fierce competition has not only captivated audiences but also spawned three successful spinoffs: “Dirty Laundry,” “Make Some Noise” and “Play It by Ear.”

Two of the season’s funniest episodes, “Sam Says 3” (featuring Jacob Wysocki’s epic...

Fans of heartwarming Hallmark originals should check out Sling TV to watch that channel, as well as Hallmark Drama and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries.

The holiday season doesn’t provide one with many opportunities to slow down. It seems to be all hustle and bustle every year, with no time to stop and enjoy the season for all the warmth, brightness, and love it’s supposed to bring.

That’s why, when you do get a chance to take a breath before Christmas, you should take a look into Sling TV. This live TV streaming service carries some of the most in-demand cable channels out there like ESPN, Fox News, MSNBC, and TNT, and with packages starting at $40 per month, it’s one of the best values in live TV.

Get 50% Off $40+ / month sling.com What New Christmas Movies Are Coming to Hallmark Channel in 2023?

With apologies to Mariah Carey,...

It’s Hanukkah again… and again… and again in the Hallmark Channel time-loop movie Round and Round, which celebrates the Festival of Lights with a twist.

Premiering this Sunday, Dec. 10 at 8/7c, the flick — which is TVLine’s top holiday movie pick for the week — follows Rachel (played by Upload’s Vic Michaelis), a young woman on her way to a Hanukkah party hosted by her parents (Suits’ Rick Hoffman and Nancy Drew’s Nicole Oliver) when she bumps into a stranger and her family’s beloved sufganiyot are destroyed in the walk-and-crash.

More from TVLineHallmark’s January Movie Slate to Star Katherine McNamara,...

"Make sure the dog is hydrated. I'll check back in later." Save the dog! And save the world! Hot Dog is a comedy short filmed in one shot, from writer / director Patrick Muhlberger. Set at a parking lot in Southern California, a group of coworkers try to rescue a dog locked in a hot car. Chaos ensues. Muhlberger perfectly describes his film: "Hot Dog is a single shot comedy that is basically 1917, but with idiots in a parking lot." Hot Dog stars Elisha Yaffe as Matt, along with Marissa Rivera, Nathan Ramos, Gabe Gibbs, Vic Michaelis, and Cecily Breaux. While this short isn't particularly innovative, it is clever and funny, and that still makes it an enjoyably entertaining short to watch. Not only is there meticulous work in setting up the scene and all the people that interact with the characters, but the witty writing also adds some intense drama to the situation.