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      Maya Rudolph’s Super Bowl Challenge: Make M&M’s Sweet Again

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      Unpopular companies and brands in trouble go with a strategy of hiring a likable celebrity and hoping for the best. But they might be better off with a puppy.There are 179 actresses who are better known than Maya Rudolph, including Whoopi Goldberg (third most famous), Lindsay Lohan (15th) and Gwyneth Paltrow (32nd). But Ms. Rudolph is more likable than those three and many others who are household names, according to the market research firm YouGov.So it made sense that M&M’s, the candy that has found itself in the cultural cross hairs, would enlist Ms. Rudolph as its corporate pitchwoman and make her the star of a commercial scheduled to air during Super Bowl LVII on Sunday.Nearly 75 percent of the people who have heard of Ms. Rudolph said they liked her, and her popularity was on an upswing in the fourth quarter of 2022, YouGov reported in its most recent ranking. Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Paltrow each came in around 55 percent, and Ms. Lohan at 39 percent.Ms. Rudolph, a “Saturday Night Live” cast member from 2000 to 2007, is likable enough to make the multibillionaire she plays seem down to earth on the AppleTV+ series “Loot.” She managed something similar more than a decade ago in “Bridesmaids,” winning over audiences as a bride-to-be who develops bride-zilla tendencies. Now she will attempt to do the same for a candy brand in trouble.M&M’s got some blowback from cable pundits and social media warriors after it made cosmetic changes to its long-running cartoon characters. The Fox News host Tucker Carlson and others accused the brand of “woke” advertising, arguing that the “spokescandies” had lost their sex appeal. A point of contention was that one of the cartoon candies had replaced her high-heeled go-go boots with sneakers — and at times it was hard to tell if M&M’s was trolling right-wing commentators with its promotional stunts or if it was the other way around.“M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous,” Mr. Carlson said on his show more than a year ago. He was at it again last month, saying, “The green M&M got her boots back but apparently is now a lesbian, maybe, and there is also a plus-sized obese purple M&M.”In the commercial to be shown during the second quarter of Sunday’s game, Ms. Rudolph will try to calm the brouhaha. (A spokeswoman for M&M’s “Chief of Fun” declined to comment for this article.)Marketers, especially those trying to create an appealing image for unlikable industries like pharmaceuticals and airlines, know that a bit of charm can do a lot to disarm doubters and critics. In addition to Ms. Rudolph, other “Saturday Night Live” alumni have brought some warmth to companies that could certainly use it. Amy Poehler, whose affability set the tone for the sweetly humorous sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” has taken on the challenge of making a cable, internet and phone company seem sympathetic in a series of commercials for Xfinity. Cecily Strong, who left “Saturday Night Live” in December after a 10-year run, has lent her services to Verizon.Rashida Jones, a onetime regular on “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office,” manages to make banking seem almost fun in commercials for Citi. Jennifer Coolidge, an endearingly kooky addition to the America’s Sweetheart club thanks to her performance on “The White Lotus,” was featured in two Super Bowl commercials last year: one for Uber Eats, which had faced criticism for its treatment of pandemic-shocked restaurants and gig workers, and another for FanDuel, part of a growing sports betting industry that has drawn worries about gambling addiction.Put on a happy face: Cecily Strong, Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones and Jennifer Coolidge have all appeared in commercials for brands that needed help with their public images.But companies can sometimes make a misstep in their attempts to capitalize on the amiability of certain celebrities. In 1984, Burger King introduced “Mr. Rodney,” a character based on Fred Rogers, the esteemed host of the PBS children’s show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Wearing a cardigan, Mr. Rodney addressed the camera in a gentle voice: “Hi, neighbors. Today’s new word is something McDonald’s does to every burger: Let’s call it ‘McFrying.’ Can you say that?”One call from the real Mr. Rogers got the commercial bounced from the airwaves. “Mr. Rogers is one guy you don’t want to mess with, as beloved as he is,” an apologetic Burger King spokesman said at the time.Beer companies may not need the assistance of likable celebrities as much as banks and phone companies, but Anheuser-Busch InBev is taking no chances on Sunday, with several Super Bowl commercials, including one starring Serena Williams.Likability “is paramount” in the choices of corporate spokespeople, said Shana Barry, the head of celebrity, entertainment and influencers at Anheuser-Busch. “You want to associate with a talent that is having a good time,” she said. “We want to make sure that you’re paying attention to the ads and that you can connect with them onscreen.”Social scientists who have delved into the mysteries of likability point to the mere exposure effect (sometimes known as the familiarity principle), which posits that people tend to like something the more they are exposed to it. They also cite emotional contagion, a phenomenon in which people often sync up with the emotional state of others in their orbit, meaning that viewers may get a lift when they see someone having a good time in a TV commercial. And a 2021 academic study found that experts who testify in civil and criminal trials have an easier time persuading jurors if they are perceived as likable.“The essential elements are true no matter who you are,” said Natalie Anne Kerr, a psychology professor at James Madison University. “Companies can manipulate the situation to promote liking and connection to their ambassadors, especially if they’re actors who can intentionally choose to play the role of a likable person.”Keanu Reeves appeared in a 2018 Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace.But being seen as trying too hard to be liked can backfire, Dr. Kerr said. Truly likable people show vulnerability (this is known as the pratfall effect) and are relatable (the similarity attraction effect). See Keanu Reeves, who appeared in a 2018 Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace, doing a motorcycle stunt while reciting the words of the 1983 cult hit “Adventures in Success” as the track played in the background. Quirkiness may also be an asset, Dr. Kerr added, noting that one of her favorite actors is Nick Offerman, who is known for playing gruff but kind loners, as well as for his good-natured appreciation of carpentry and his wife.Tone deafness can destroy likability, said Mitch Prinstein, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina and the chief science officer at the American Psychological Association.“We always tell elementary school kids that they can’t walk up to a bunch of kids playing Legos and say, ‘That’s stupid; let’s play with trucks,’” said Dr. Prinstein, the author of “Popular.” “You can include your truck with the Legos, but you can’t just disregard the group norm.“The same thing applies to adults,” he continued, “whether you’re leading a boardroom or you’re a celebrity. You have to read the room.”Public figures may have a tougher time connecting with audiences when they become so famous and wealthy that they lose touch with everyday experiences, he added. An out-of-touch star is rarely likable, especially at a time when fans have grown accustomed to joining their favorite entertainers on social media as they document a date night or grocery run.Rather than relying on big stars to pitch products, some companies are tapping TikTok tastemakers and Instagram nanoinfluencers to chase niche groups. “Brands are really looking for authenticity, for somebody that can talk about the brand in a way that others might not be able to,” said Adma Ortega, who handles celebrity and influencer relations for the Wieden & Kennedy ad agency in New York. “They want to talk to a specific audience, because you can’t talk to everyone anymore.”Some companies break through the noise by ignoring likability altogether, as Samsung did in building ads around the reality TV star Christine Quinn, who once said of her role on “Selling Sunset”: “I love being the villain, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”Deciding on a spokesperson is increasingly complicated, involving metrics like social media follower counts, audience demographics, algorithmic calculations including the Klear Score, the Aspire authenticity score and E-Score polls. After the Super Bowl, Anheuser-Busch and other companies will study rankings like Ad Meter and the Super Clios to see how viewers reacted to their commercials.Some firms still use the Q Score, a nearly 60-year-old measure of appeal that costs $1,750 per name. Clients get a detailed breakdown of sentiment among different demographics, and can also buy a full work-up of more than 1,200 personalities or a ranking of celebrities customized by their appeal to a particular audience. The score is used by ad agencies, movie studios, TV networks, lawyers and estates, said Steven Levitt, the president of the Q Scores Company.The “Q” stands for “quotient” — a reference to how the rating is calculated, by dividing the percentage of respondents who say a celebrity is one of their favorite personalities by the percentage of those who have heard of the person. Another part of the rating evaluates unpopularity. The highest score ever, a 71 in 1985, went to Bill Cosby; nowadays, celebrities rarely score above the low 40s, Mr. Levitt said. Ms. Rudolph’s score is 19, three points above the average for actresses, he said.Ad makers often ignore Q Scores in favor of gut instinct, Mr. Levitt added. “A lot of decisions are not based on data,” he said. “They’re based on creative appeal, or the strength of an executive to outshoot and overpower subordinates and say, ‘No, I think this is the way to go.’”But celebrity likability may not last. It takes only one slap at the Oscars, one rude complaint about an omelet, or one too many reports that a nice talk show host with a penchant for dancing was perhaps not so nice after all.Which may be why some of the most popular Super Bowl commercials of recent years have had no recognizable celebrities front and center, according to an analysis by the measurement firm iSpot.TV. Last year, the most likable ad featured a variety of wild animals grooving to the 1987 Salt-N-Pepa hit “Push It” after sampling some Flamin’ Hot Doritos.And the stars of the most likable spot on record, a Budweiser commercial from 2014? Clydesdale horses and a golden retriever puppy. More

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      Late Night Is Still Concerned About That Balloon

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      “AT&T told their customers, ‘Relax, they can’t spy on you if you can’t get a signal,” Jimmy Fallon said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Going Over Like a Lead BalloonOn Thursday, the State Department revealed that the Chinese spy balloon the U.S. downed last weekend was capable of monitoring Americans’ electronic communications.“When they heard that, Siri and Alexa were like, ‘Oh, hell no, that’s our job!” said Jimmy Fallon.“Yeah, they were tracking all of our communications, including phone calls and text messages. The balloon was like, ‘Based on what we’ve gathered, we should invest in eggplants.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Meanwhile, AT&T told their customers, ‘Relax, they can’t spy on you if you can’t get a signal, you know what I’m saying?’” — JIMMY FALLONOn “The Daily Show,” Chelsea Handler reported that China was demanding that the balloon be returned.“[Expletive] you, China! You sent the balloon over here to spy on us — we found it, and now it’s ours! You don’t get to demand that we return it, just like the guy who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband doesn’t get his hammer back.” — CHELSEA HANDLER“And I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not scared about the supposed explosive self-destructing capability on a balloon. All balloons have a self-destructing capability — it’s called deflating.” — CHELSEA HANDLER“Sorry, China, but that’s confusing. Usually, when you release things, it’s for the entire world to enjoy, like Covid.” — CHELSEA HANDLERThe Punchiest Punchlines (Nepo Baby Edition)“North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was joined onstage yesterday by his 9-year-old daughter at a military parade unveiling the country’s new missiles. So I guess Bring Your Daughter to Work Day has officially jumped the shark.” — SETH MEYERS“Yes, this girl is speculated to become Kim’s successor. Who would’ve ever thought that North Korea would have a female leader before America? And she’s a minority!” — CHELSEA HANDLER“I have to say, I am so sick of these nepo babies. First we have Lily-Rose Depp and then Willow Smith, and now this girl? Whatever happened to becoming a nuke-wielding tyrant on merit? You know how many girls are out there working hard, learning how to fire missiles and starve an entire population who will never have an opportunity to lead a regime?” — CHELSEA HANDLERThe Bits Worth WatchingGordon Ramsay taste-tested Super Bowl snacks on Thursday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This Out“Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey” features Craig David Dowsett as a demented version of the children’s character.Jagged Edge ProductionsIn the horror film “Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey,” friendly animal icons from childhood turn sadistic when Christopher Robin leaves for college. More

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      How Many Comics Does It Take to Joke About a Dim Bulb?

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      Nate Bargatze, Chase O’Donnell and the star of “Cunk on Earth” find smart nuances in pretending that they aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.If there’s one group of people who have been made fun of more than any other, it’s the stupid.From Homer Simpson to Zoolander to Rose from “The Golden Girls,” no satirical target has produced more laughs. Jokes about the dumb are ancient and show up in nearly every country. Certain kinds go out of fashion (you don’t hear Polish jokes much anymore), but the idiocy of others has proved universally funny.Why don’t we feel guilty about this? Sometimes, we do. But savvy comics have always found ways to mitigate the cruelty and condescension of mocking the moronic. And these days, when audiences can be particularly sensitive to the direction comedy is punching, the dumb joke often requires a lighter touch. Two deft new stand-up specials dig into stereotypes about the unintelligent, dust them off and renovate them for a new era, while a new mockumentary gets even bigger laughs through the stunt of placing a fool in a variety of intellectual arenas.Nate Bargatze — whose new special, “Hello World,” is his first hour for Prime Video after breaking out with two popular and well-crafted Netflix efforts — told The Daily Beast that he wanted his comedy to be “the right amount of dumb.” His brand of clueless Christian dad self-deprecation isn’t buffoonish. He presents himself as a little slow in a world that seems far too fast. He speaks with a hint of a drawl, and his delivery moseys as he settles into a gem of a story about the time he couldn’t figure out how to turn off the light in a hotel room.Nate Bargatze in his new special, “Hello World.” He presents himself as a little slow, not buffoonish.Amazon PrimeBargatze, 42, says he knows he utters  idiotic things, with a bit of bashfulness. “I try to keep it in front of large groups,” he explains in the special. “When you say something dumb one on one, it’s a lot for that person.”The moment is characteristic: thoughtful about his lack of thought. Bargatze, who has a gift for making something out of seemingly nothing, has emerged as one of the finest clean, family-friendly comics in America, firmly in the conversation with Jim Gaffigan, Jerry Seinfeld and Brian Regan. His last three specials begin with his adorable daughter introducing him. But he’s putting an updated spin on another comedy tradition, the Southern rube, poking fun at his own dimness but also at those who would look down on him.Bargatze draws attention to his roots (a previous special is called “The Tennessee Kid”), but unlike Larry the Cable Guy or Jim Varney, he doesn’t lean on exaggerated accents or dopey language. When he tells you Andrew Jackson is from his town, it’s to set up a scene in which a snotty interviewer informs him that Jackson was a bad man. “I stopped him and was like: We didn’t, like, know him or anything,” Bargatze says, the slightest touch of defensiveness mixed with minor annoyance. “We didn’t move there because we were fans.”There is a gentleness to his ignorance, one that taps into a fertile area for laughs: childhood anxieties. Even his joke about struggling to turn off the light is designed not to make you laugh at him but relate to him. He acts out a kind of helplessness that we all once had and often still do. It’s a dumb joke that makes you feel if not smart, then at least less alone in your stupidity.While perhaps not as old as punch lines about country folk, the dumb blond joke has been around as long as America. Scholars trace it to a 1775 French one-act satire, “Les Curiosités de la Foire.” The archetype boomed in the middle of the last century with the stardom of Marilyn Monroe in movies like “Gentleman Prefer Blondes.” As that title suggests, blonds have favorable stereotypes attached to them, which makes poking fun at their intelligence, as well as their superficiality, a little more palatable. Because we think blonds have more fun, people can have more fun with them. And yet this has been under some scrutiny lately, reconsidered in movies about objectified stars like Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears and Monroe herself. (The recent drama about her was titled “Blonde” as if her hair color was her Rosebud).The performer Chase O’Donnell plays more ditsy then dumb, but she leans into it. Years ago, she starred in a cabaret double act called “Too Blondes,” and her new special, “People Pleaser,” an enjoyable YouTube distraction, is full of self-deprecating jokes and precisely timed malapropisms. Her most faithful strategy is to begin a joke, pause, bug out her eyes in an innocent glare, then shift direction to upend expectations. When a date tells her to dye her hair, she acts offended. “I literally died,” she says, glaring. “My hair the next day.”Chase O’Donnell in “People Pleaser.” She specializes in precisely timed malapropisms.Steve NguyenThe quality of her joke-writing is not as assured as her persona. It’s a low-budget production with rough edges, but like Bargatze, O’Donnell finds laughs in being more innocent than those around her. There are some darker undercurrents if you want to look for them, which you probably won’t. A show about the consequences for a woman who can’t say no is not what this breezy act is going for. And credit where it’s due: It’s hard to stay this light. She performs obliviousness with enough savvy to make you not quite believe it.In the hilarious “Cunk on Earth” (now on Netflix) Diane Morgan performs imbecility in an entirely different way. She’s an actor, not a stand-up, and as the spectacularly ill-informed anchor Philomena Cunk, she doesn’t wink at the audience. She commits, brilliantly. Dressed stylishly in an overcoat and boots, speaking in the sober and dispassionate cadences of high-toned public television, she stands in the desert, musing pensively: “Looking at the pyramids tonight, it’s hard not to be struck by the thought they are just big triangles.”This five-episode series, produced by the “Black Mirror” creator Charlie Brooker, is based on a simple idea — place a dummy among posh, smart elites — but it’s exactingly executed. The show is beautifully shot and edited, impeccably deadpan and dense with jokes. In episodes that explore the history of civilization, our most popular religions or our greatest inventions, it captures a refined BBC aesthetic: staged in front of sweeping landscapes, inside museums or near ruins and featuring a collection of academics, authors and other intellectuals. How fully realized this world is only makes it funnier when Morgan, sitting across from a professor of Middle Eastern history, asks: “Were numbers worth less in ancient times?”As with so many artists in the growing documentary comedy genre, Morgan uses real people as foils for her scripted lines. But in this case, they belong to a single class of experts whose tasteful clothes and thick spectacles project intelligence better than any design department could muster. There’s cringe comedy in their fluster opposite her flamboyant imbecility. At no point does she break character. Her confidence is impenetrable, though sometimes she does use vulnerability strategically, as when she tells an academic she’s worried that her question will sound stupid before asking about Aristotle saying, “Dance like no one’s watching.” This is a cagey manipulation that extends the scene and shifts the dynamic into something more polite than it otherwise would be.It’s a reminder of a piece of wisdom from David St. Hubbins of Spinal Tap, the metal band at the center of the greatest mockumentary: “It’s such a fine line between stupid and clever.” More

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      Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Tries Reality TV to Find ‘the Next Great Artist’

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      Seven artists compete for an exhibition at the museum in a series it produced with MTV and the Smithsonian Channel.“One of you will show your work at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and will take home $100,000.”At least that’s the promise made by Dometi Pongo, the host of a new reality television series, “The Exhibit: Finding the Next Great Artist,” about the making of an art star. The first season is six episodes, produced by the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn together with MTV and the Smithsonian Channel.The program, which starts March 3, focuses on seven rising artists from around the country who were selected by Hirshhorn curators. Each week, the artists are commissioned to make a themed work — such as an exploration of gender — that is evaluated by Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn’s director, and a team of guest judges (the artists Adam Pendleton, Kenny Schachter and Abigail DeVille are among them).“This TV partnership was really about an expansive idea of art — radical accessibility,” Chiu said in a telephone interview, adding that the show will be “bringing new light to artists and artwork.”The show’s host, Dometi Pongo, left, with three of its judges: Melissa Chiu, director of the Hirshhorn; Kenny Schachter, an artist and writer; and Keith Rivers, a Hirshhorn trustee and collector.via Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Photo by Shannon FinneyThe artist Jennifer Warren inside Barbara Kruger’s “Belief + Doubt” (2012) at the Hirshhorn Museum during filming.via Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Photo by Shannon FinneyWhether audiences find the making of art compelling television remains to be seen. Chiu said she hopes the show will help “demystify what it means to be an artist.”The artists are Jamaal Barber, Misha Kahn, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Baseera Khan, Clare Kambhu, Jillian Mayer and Jennifer Warren.The weekly series will feature artwork from the museum’s collection, including pieces by Harold Ancart and Jacqueline Humphries and an exhibit by Barbara Kruger. Chiu said the program was part of the museum’s mission to serve as “the national museum of modern art” and builds on its recent initiatives, including the revitalization of its Sculpture Garden with a design by Hiroshi Sugimoto that connects to the National Mall.Recently, the museum also appointed the Colombian pop star J Balvin as a global cultural ambassador to work with teens in its Artlab education center. And the museum recently created the Hirshhorn Eye (Hi), which allows visitors to point their phones at a work of art and see a video of the artist talking about it.Having the TV series broadcast on both MTV and the Smithsonian Channel (there are no plans to stream it) will allow the Hirshhorn to reach both “a younger demographic as well as a more mature demographic,” Chiu said, adding that she hoped the program would reveal more about “what the museum does, but also the artistic process.” More

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      Chelsea Handler Thanks Republicans for Enlivening a Dull Night

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      After her antics during the State of the Union address, Handler wondered when Marjorie Taylor Green would join the cast of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Republicans Gone WildPresident Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address of 2023 on Tuesday night, where Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled him and called him a liar.On Wednesday’s “The Daily Show,” the guest host, Chelsea Handler, found it wasn’t as boring as she thought it would be, saying the Republicans were acting like wild animals — and she liked it.“Keep this up, guys. You finally made a State of the Union watchable,” Handler said.“Marjorie Taylor Greene stood up during the screech and screamed out, ‘Liar!’ and then George Santos stood up and is like, ‘Over here!’” — CHELSEA HANDLER“When are they gonna put this woman on ‘Real Housewives of Atlanta’?” — CHELSEA HANDLER“Why is she wearing a white fur coat to the State of the Union address? She looks like an old rapper’s first wife.” — SETH MEYERS“It was a busy night for Marjorie. She went right from the State of the Union to getting her 102nd Dalmatian.” — JIMMY FALLON“If you’re going to heckle the president, definitely do it while you’re dressed like a Disney villain.” — JAMES CORDEN“The list of people harassed by Marjorie Taylor Greene now includes President Biden and any bartender at every T.G.I. Fridays.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (More State of the Union Edition)“Well, as I mentioned, last night was President Biden’s State of the Union address and I saw a poll that said 72 percent of people responded favorably to his speech. That’s amazing. We can’t even get 72 percent of Americans to agree on what an M&M should wear.” — JIMMY FALLON“President Biden delivered his second State of the Union address last night and spoke for 73 minutes. Which sounds like a lot, but I feel like Biden could speak for 73 minutes to a wrong number.” — SETH MEYERS“Yep, Biden’s speech was passionate and energetic. He basically went from decaf green tea to Mountain Dew Code Red.” — JIMMY FALLON“At one point in his speech, Biden said, ‘Covid no longer controls our lives.’ He was like, ‘Now that honor belongs to TikTok.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Biden also talked about the strong jobs market. He said people are working as bankers, real estate developers, dancers, philanthropists, Broadway producers — and that’s just George Santos.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingQueen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon played the whisper challenge on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightMeagan Good, a star of “Harlem,” will pop by “The Late Late Show” on Thursday.Also, Check This OutRihanna, a social media natural, has been particularly adept at playing along with fans’ agonizing waiting game for new music.Axelle/Bauer-Griffin and FilmMagic, via Getty ImagesRihanna’s fans have been patiently waiting for a new album while the singer pursued other projects, but her Super Bowl halftime show should satisfy them for the time being. More

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      Bob Orben, One-Man Gag Factory and Speechwriter, Dies at 95

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      He wrote tens of thousands of jokes in his career. Among those who told them were Dick Gregory, Jack Paar, Red Skelton — and, for a while, President Gerald R. Ford.Bob Orben, who after writing jokes for Dick Gregory, Jack Paar, Red Skelton and others in the 1960s found a new avenue for his wit when he became a speechwriter for President Gerald R. Ford in 1974, died on Feb. 2 in Alexandria, Va. He was 95.His death, at a nursing home, was confirmed by his great-niece, Yvette Chevallier.Mr. Orben was a one-man gag factory. He wrote joke books. He dispatched one-liners to entertainers, politicians and disc jockeys through his subscription newsletter, Current Comedy. And he wrote a column, My Favorite Jokes, for Parade magazine.“I don’t mean to blow my own horn,” he told The Washington Post in 1982, “but between Johnny Carson’s monologues, the political cartoonists such as Herblock and Oliphant, and me, if we all decide what the hot subject in the country is, that’s what it is.”In 1968, Gerald Ford, a Michigan Republican who was then the House minority leader, needed someone to spice up a speech he was going to give to the Gridiron Club, an organization of journalists whose annual dinner was an opportunity to lampoon political figures. George Murphy, the former actor and United States senator, knew Red Skelton, for whom Mr. Orben was a writer, and recommended him.Mr. Orben’s goal was to make Ford funny, or at least funnier than Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, another speaker at the dinner. After listening to tapes of Ford’s delivery, Mr. Orben came up with a few zingers.“Ford was the surprise hit,” Mr. Orben recalled in 2008 in an oral history interview with the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. Among the Orben lines Ford delivered was the observation that he had no interest in the presidency, except that “on that long drive back to Alexandria, Virginia, where I live, as I go past 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I do seem to hear a little voice within me saying, ‘If you lived here, you’d be home now.’”Mr. Orben continued to feed jokes to Ford during his vice presidency. When Ford became president in 1974, after President Richard M. Nixon resigned, he hired Mr. Orben.A 1975 profile of President Ford in The New York Times Magazine quoted him reading aloud from a speech written by Mr. Orben that he was going to give to the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association. It included references to a prominent Democratic senator and an agriculture secretary known for his off-color remarks.“I have only one thing to say about a program that calls for me to follow Bob Hope,” he read. “Who arranged this? Scoop Jackson? It’s ridiculous. Bob Hope has enormous stage presence, superb comedy writing and the finest writers in the business. I’m standing here in a rented tuxedo — with three jokes from Earl Butz!”Mr. Orben cautioned the president not to pause when delivering a good one-liner.“Watch Hope,” he told him. “You’ll see he really punches through a line.”Mr. Orben fed Ford self-deprecating lines that suited his personality. One of those lines, also delivered in 1975, played off something Lyndon B. Johnson had famously said about him.“It’s a great pleasure — and great honor — to be at Yale Law’s Sesquicentennial Convocation,” he said. “And I defy anyone to say that and chew gum at the same time.”Mr. Orben became the director of the White House speechwriting staff in early 1976 and served through the end of the Ford administration.Mr. Orben at the White House with President Ford in 1976. He fed jokes to the president and coached him on how to deliver them.Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.John Mihalec, a speechwriter for President Ford during the 1976 presidential campaign, said it was not surprising that a comedy writer should excel at writing speeches.“Comedy writing is so precise — the setup and the punch line and everything has to be at exactly the right volume and in the right place,” Mr. Mihalec said in a phone interview. “It’s good training for the precision of presidential speechwriting.”Robert Orben was born on March 4, 1927, in the Bronx to Walter and Marie Orben. His father was in the hardware business. Bob was smitten by magic at an early age, and when he was 12 he and his brother, Walter, performed a mentalist act in the Catskill Mountains, “The Boy With the Radio Mind.” It flopped.After graduating from high school in 1943, he attended Drake Business School. He also started his short-lived career in magic.He was hired as a magic demonstrator in a shop in Manhattan, but he found his métier not in performing magic but in writing about magicians; he was impressed by one magician’s onstage comedic patter, which led him to publish a pamphlet, “The Encyclopedia of Patter,” in 1946.Over the next decade he would publish books like “Blue Ribbon Comedy,” “The Working Comedian’s Gag File,” “Tag-Lines,” “Bits, Boffs and Banter” and “The Emcee’s Handbook.” He published dozens of joke collections in his career.He began writing his comedy newsletter in 1958, and in the 1960s he wrote for “The Jack Paar Program” and then for “The Red Skelton Hour.”After coming to the attention of the groundbreaking Black comedian Dick Gregory, Mr. Orben said, he sent him a page of jokes every day. Another one of Mr. Orben’s clients was someone very different from Mr. Gregory: the conservative Arizona Republican senator Barry Goldwater, for whom he wrote during his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964.“One of the jokes that I wrote for Greg was talking about Goldwater,” Mr. Orben said in the Ford Presidential Foundation interview. “And as you know, the campaign slogan was, ‘In your heart, you know he’s right.’ And Greg used to say, ‘In your heart, you know he’s white.’”Mr. Orben never returned to the White House. But he kept writing joke books, among them “2500 Jokes to Start ’Em Laughing” (1979), “2100 Laughs for All Occasions” (1983) and “2000 Surefire Jokes for Speakers” (1986).He also continued to write his newsletter through 1989, as well as writing speeches for business executives and working as a consultant to IBM.Mr. Orben’s wife, Jean (Connelly) Orben, died last year. He leaves no immediate survivors.In 1974, Mr. Orben was helping Vice President Ford rehearse his speech for the Gridiron Club dinner. One line, about Ronald Reagan, who was then the governor of California, worried Ford: “Governor Reagan does not dye his hair. Let’s just say he’s turning prematurely orange.”He asked Mr. Orben, “Do you think the governor would take offense at that?”“Now, I’m looking at this blockbuster joke of the year go up in smoke, but I think I gave him a fair, honest answer,” Mr. Orben said in the 2008 oral history interview. “I said, ‘You know, Mr. Vice President, Reagan has been in show business a good part of his life. He has gone through a thousand roasts and I’m sure he has heard dyed-hair jokes. So I really don’t think so.’”To Mr. Orben’s relief, Vice President Ford delivered the line. More

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      John Cleese to Reboot ‘Fawlty Towers’ With His Daughter Camilla Cleese

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      Mr. Cleese will write and act alongside his daughter Camilla Cleese in a revival of the renowned BBC comedy.“Fawlty Towers,” the renowned 1970s British sitcom that starred John Cleese as a surly and snobbish hotel owner, will be rebooted with Mr. Cleese returning alongside his daughter Camilla Cleese, Castle Rock Entertainment announced on Tuesday.The original show, which Radio Times declared the best British sitcom of all time in 2019 after a survey of comedy experts, ran for two seasons of six episodes each, in 1975 and 1979. Mr. Cleese, now 83, played Basil Fawlty, who was forced to contend with disasters and ludicrous situations while displaying all the kindness and hospitality of sandpaper.In the reboot, Mr. Cleese’s character will open a boutique hotel with his daughter, whom he has just discovered he had, and deal with a more modern set of problems.Mr. Cleese, an original member of the Monty Python comedy troupe, has recently been dealing with a more modern set of problems in his real life as well.On social media, he has frequently railed against “cancel culture” and what he has deemed “woke” behaviors. He has signed up to host a show on GB News, a British right-wing television network, in which “no one will be canceled — and no topic will be too controversial for discussion,” the network said.In 2020, an episode of “Fawlty Towers” was removed from some streaming services because it contained racial slurs. Mr. Cleese called the decision “stupid,” telling the newspaper The Age that “if you put nonsense words into the mouth of someone you want to make fun of you’re not broadcasting their views, you’re making fun of them.”Some fans have also accused him of transphobia for his comments in support of J.K. Rowling, the author of the “Harry Potter” series.As with other British series in the 1970s, the original “Fawlty Towers” was shown in the United States on PBS. Despite interest from American broadcasters, the show’s small number of episodes and half-hour run time, without commercials, made it unable to fit American TV schedules.Castle Rock Entertainment did not say where the new series would air.Mr. Cleese said in a statement that he and his daughter developed the concept for the reboot with one of its executive producers, Matthew George, a producer of the films “Wind River” and “A Private War.”“When we first met, he offered an excellent first idea, and then Matt, my daughter Camilla, and I had one of the best creative sessions I can remember,” Mr. Cleese said. “By dessert, we had an overall concept so good that, a few days later, it won the approval of Rob and Michele Reiner. Camilla and I look forward enormously to expanding it into a series.”Mr. George, the Reiners and Derrick Rossi are the executive producers of the new “Fawlty Towers” series.“John Cleese is a comedy legend,” Mr. Reiner said in a statement. “Just the idea of working with him makes me laugh.”Amanda Holpuch More

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      The Trouble With Reboot TV

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      The reboot that changes nothing will be uncanny and lifeless; the one that thinks itself more clever than its predecessor will turn out cynical and sour. In life, you rarely get a second chance to do something right — so goes the shopworn cliché. Contemporary Hollywood is a different matter. If a property was even glancingly popular in the 1980s or ’90s, it seems, it’s either in the process of being resuscitated or has been already. “Reboot” is one of those coinages that burrows into the lexicon without ever being fully explained (at least to me), but it has clearly supplanted “remake,” migrating over from the language of computing such that you now imagine the entertainment industry pulling every last item from its junk drawer and plugging it in to see if it still works. So startlingly large is the number of rebooted series that the phenomenon has even inspired an original show: Hulu’s very funny “Reboot,” about a fictional garbage ’80s sitcom being brought back to life.Hollywood’s dependence on old intellectual property has been a source of hand-wringing for at least the past two decades, but a majority of those complaints have centered on the film world and its parade of blockbusters. It’s on television and streaming services, though, that all this grasping at the familiar has really reached an apotheosis, with three recent shows yielding some of the strangest gambits yet. One of them is distinguished by the threadbare rationale for its existence. Gen Xers like me sacrificed untold I.Q. points on the shoals of ’80s television, but even I look at the new incarnation of “Night Court” — among the less-remembered of NBC’s classic Thursday sitcoms, about a Manhattan judge who was also an accomplished magician — and marvel at its pointlessness. The original, which ran between 1984 and 1992, felt like a supersize sketch show and depicted weirdos and reprobates dragged before the court after hours, a parade of old-timey jokes about winos, flashers and sex workers. Later I would have occasion to learn firsthand that there is no such magical judge to slap you on the wrist and send you on your way when you get arrested at night.The labored premise of NBC’s hit new version puts us right back where we started: The now-deceased Judge Harry Stone (played by the great Harry Anderson in the original) has been replaced on the bench by his daughter. The show strikes a sort of nonaggression pact with the audience: It won’t be funny, but neither will it challenge or rearrange any of the psychological furniture of the original. Its selling point is stasis. When Dan Fielding — John Larroquette, returning from the original — finds himself “surprised” by fake snakes exploding from a box, an old Harry Stone gag, even he seems vaguely disappointed. Whom exactly is this show for? What is the point of making it about Stone’s daughter, rather than any judge in any night court? How do you generate nostalgia for something that wasn’t especially missed? This is the reboot at its most indecipherable, a miasma of reflexive nostalgia and boardroom guesswork. HBO Max’s new “Velma” operates on the opposite logic: It interrogates and deconstructs its source material so aggressively that it often turns abrasive. The program is an animated spinoff from the “Scooby-Doo” franchise — first produced for television in 1969 and then in various forms since, with a talking Great Dane and a group of young detectives traveling around in a van solving mysteries (Arthur Conan Doyle meets “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”) and unmasking ornery criminals who curse about how they “would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids” (a Watergate-era mantra). This isn’t an especially offensive premise, which makes it difficult to understand the level of contempt “Velma” seems to have for it.One simple explanation may be that “Velma” sits in a lineage of dorm-room pop-culture deconstruction that became popular, during the 1990s, among a generation seized by the misapprehension that it was the first to discover irony. (This was my generation; in my early 20s, I briefly thought I was a genius for recognizing subtext in the cartoon “He-Man” that was actually just text.) The core of this aesthetic position is condescension — a belief that you, the astute modern viewer, are equipped with a sophisticated grasp of the medium, and the world, that eluded the credulous rubes who came before you. Programs that pander to this fantasy often skew mean, and “Velma” is meaner than most. There are some funny jokes, and Mindy Kaling voices the lead role with dyspeptic panache, but the series on the whole oozes molten hostility: It is viciously satirical, festooned with disturbing imagery, full of slapdash violence and kneejerk nihilism. Within its first two episodes, the original characters Fred and Daphne appear as a possibly psychopathic man-child and a glamorous drug dealer. Scooby-Doo makes no appearance at all. There are needling remarks about television’s checkered history of minority representation, and the showrunners seem to treat their reconception of Velma — making the character South Asian and moving her to the center of the story — as an act of bold subversion, but it’s not clear “Scooby-Doo” is a cultural monument of such gravity as to make those choices particularly brave. “Velma” mostly just wants to bite the hand that feeds it.Netflix’s reboot of “That ’70s Show” makes some rational sense, at least. The original sitcom chronicled the escapades of a group of cheerfully stoned and horny Wisconsin teenagers across the Carter administration. Its reincarnation, “That ’90s Show,” follows a parallel cabal of stoned and horny Clinton-era teenagers, who through some tortured story machinations end up pursuing their indolence in the very same Wisconsin basement, under the watch of the very same authority figures. All this is tactically coherent: It revives a cozy period piece while also capitalizing on the current youth vogue for all things ’90s.Unfortunately, the subtle warping of the space-time continuum is by orders of magnitude the most interesting thing about the show. Like so many family reunions, the overarching vibe is one of obligation. The pilot features a large swath of the original cast, but no one radiates much happiness at being back. Saddest of all is the return of Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp as the roost-​ruling adults. Unlike the younger actors reprising their roles, these two never get to leave; their characters are now tasked with spending their golden years still wisecracking at a bunch of teenagers.The logic of the television industry suggests that so many reboots exist for the simple reason that they stand a high chance of being popular, using a familiar idea to cut through a glut of programming. Distant number-crunching concludes that some substantial segment of NBC’s prime-time viewers, a demographic whose median age is around 60, may sooner revisit “Night Court” than sample something more novel; excellent Nielsen ratings bear that out. Judging by Netflix’s rush to reboot everything from “Full House” to “Lost in Space,” streaming services’ internal data must say similar things.These shows face a clear creative bind. The reboot that changes nothing will be uncanny and lifeless; the one that thinks itself more clever than its predecessor will turn out cynical and sour. Either way, the market will keep serving them to us. So often, on TV as in apps, research and algorithms seem to manifest our lowest impulses as an audience, even the ones we would rather not have — say, a weakness for stupefying predictability, a smug feeling of superiority or a comforting retreat into fuzzy-blanket familiarity. They know what makes us click, even when the answer isn’t pretty.Source photographs: Patrick Wymore/Netflix; Robert Sebree/20th Century Fox Film Corp., via Everett Collection. More