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      ‘S.N.L.’ Takes on Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz and Kari Lake

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      Tom Hanks also returned to “Saturday Night Live” for a Halloween episode hosted by Jack Harlow. Any questions?The rising fortunes of some Republican candidates with no previous electoral experience allowed “Saturday Night Live” to try out some new (or newish) political impressions in its opening sketch this weekend.The broadcast, on which the rapper Jack Harlow was both host and musical guest, began with a parody of “PBS NewsHour,” with Heidi Gardner playing the anchor Judy Woodruff. “We’re what your grandma is talking about when she says, ‘I saw this on the news,’” she explained.Introducing three Republicans who are running for office this November, she began with Kenan Thompson, who played Herschel Walker, the Senate candidate from Georgia. “Hello, Judas,” he said. “My name is Herschel Walker, Texas Ranger, and I am running for president of the United Airlines.”Mikey Day played Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, who has been criticized for a lack of familiarity with the state. “My Pennsylvania Phillies are in the World Series and I just had a delicious Philadelphia cheese and steak,” he said. “Yum.”And in her first “S.N.L.” appearance this season, Cecily Strong played Kari Lake, the candidate for governor of Arizona. “Great to be with you, Judy, on your sweet little show full of lies,” she said.Asked how he’d been able to maintain his popularity despite several scandals, Thompson replied, “The whole world is a mystery, ain’t it? For example, a Thermos. It keeps the hot things hot, but also the cold things cold. My question is: How do it decide?”Or perhaps it was because voters thought he was fun, Thompson said: “Look, if you want to get on a Jumbotron at the Packers game, you don’t throw on a cardigan and start making sense. You take your shirt off and shake your belly around. That’s what I’m doing and people love me.”Day said that his candidacy was initially perceived as a long shot. But, he added, “I always told myself, you can win this election if you’re honest, if you’re fair and if your opponent has a debilitating medical emergency. So we’re very lucky.”Strong said her strength with voters was her normalcy.“I’m just a regular hometown gal, constantly in soft focus and lit like a ’90s Cinemax soft-core,” she said. “And frankly, I’ve just clicked with many of the wonderful, terrified elderly people here in Arizona, the Florida of the West. Also, I’m a fighter. In my life, I’ve sent back over 2,000 salads and I’m not afraid to do the same thing with democracy.”Asked if she would implement electoral reforms if she won, Strong answered, “I’ll make it easy. If the people of Arizona elect me, I’ll make sure they never have to vote ever again.” She added, “Look, nothing I say can be incendiary because I say it in TV voice. So jump on into Kari Lake, Arizona, because it’s placid and serene on top, but underneath, it’s a whole lot of giardia.”Obligatory Kanye West Sketch of the WeekIn a run that would come later on Weekend Update, the anchor Colin Jost riffed on the last remaining businesses, including Dippin’ Dots, Scrub Daddy and TCBY, that could still cut ties with Ye (the rapper formerly known as Kanye West) for his antisemitic statements. But “S.N.L.” also made hay from a real-life incident earlier this week in which Ye made an unannounced trip to the headquarters of Skechers and was thrown out of the building.In this fake commercial, Skechers employees can’t quite decide between wondering what it might have been like to work with Ye or embracing the minimal amount of cred they’re finally enjoying for turning him away. While Ye may have been known as a fashion-industry disrupter, “we invented shoes you can wash in a washing machine,” Marcello Hernandez said proudly.12-Step Meeting of the WeekThere were a lot of head fakes in “S.N.L.” this week — like, say, following the monologue with a sketch about a Halloween wedding where the best man has dressed as the Joker. Or take this segment that starts off as what appears to be an Alcoholics Anonymous-style recovery meeting, but which quickly becomes the setting for Harlow’s character to pitch the concept for a Pixar movie about anthropomorphic suitcases that travel the world.And when you think the sketch has peaked with a spontaneous singalong of the would-be movie’s feel-good theme song, who should show up to voice its main character but America’s sweetheart and multiple-time “S.N.L.” host Tom Hanks. (And if you’re wondering whether Hanks’s reappearance on a Halloween episode meant he was going to bring back David S. Pumpkins, yes, he brought back David S. Pumpkins.)Fake Movie Trailer of the WeekIn keeping with the spooky spirit of this episode, “S.N.L.” spun a trailer for an ersatz horror movie that claimed to be a collaboration “from the producers of ‘Smile’ and the twisted minds of ‘Morning Joe.’”As its various characters contemplate all the reasons they would not want to see President Biden run for re-election — they worry he would be too old or vulnerable to easy attack ads — they find themselves just as unenthusiastic about the potential candidates that could replace him, an overly familiar roster that includes Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. The terrifyingly simple title: “2020 Part 2: 2024.” (Coming in 2023.)Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and the emergence of another accuser who said Walker had pressured her to have an abortion.Jost began:This week, Elon Musk officially bought Twitter for $44 billion. Beating out the next highest offer of $0. Musk sent an open letter to advertisers saying that he doesn’t want Twitter to become a free-for-all hellscape. Because that’s his plan for Mars. I honestly don’t understand why people are so worried that Elon is going to ruin Twitter as if it’s this beloved American institution. It’s not like he bought Disneyworld. It’s like he bought the rest of Orlando.Che continued:Herschel Walker denied allegations from a second woman that he pushed her to have an abortion, saying, “I’m done with this foolishness.” Which is also what Walker says when he takes off the condom. The woman claimed that Walker drove her to an abortion clinic, then waited in the parking lot for hours while she had the procedure. Not only that, while he was in the parking lot, he got two more women pregnant. More

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      Why Did It Take HBO So Long to Make Shows About Women?

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      An early top executive at the network believed that “the man of the house” paid for cable TV subscriptions. That mind-set affected HBO’s programming for decades.On “House of the Dragon,” Emma D’Arcy plays a would-be queen who is weighing what to do in the face of betrayal. On “Euphoria,” Zendaya plays a high school student who starts using drugs shortly after leaving rehab. On “The White Lotus,” which returns for its second season on Sunday night, Jennifer Coolidge plays a dazed heiress trying to escape her troubles in the comforts of a Sicilian luxury hotel.These characters are the new faces of HBO, the Emmy-magnet cable network that, until recently, specialized in making programs about men for men. In fits and starts over the last two decades, the network has at last begun to move away from the leering lotharios of its early years and the tortured male antiheroes of its middle period to present shows built around complicated women who drive the action.In the 1980s, when HBO was just starting to make original programming, its top executives made a point of appealing to male viewers. It was a strategy that affected the network’s creative output for years to come.Jennifer Coolidge, center, in a scene from Season 2 of “The White Lotus.” Fabio Lovino/HBOEmma D’Arcy, right, with Olivia Cooke in HBO’s latest ratings hit, “House of the Dragon.”Ollie Upton/HBO“I’ve figured out through research, and in my own mind, that the man of the house decided whether to have HBO or not,” said Michael Fuchs, the channel’s top executive when it started to concentrate on original programming, in a 2010 interview with the Television Academy.“I made sure that there were things for men,” he continued. “If commercial television had a female slant, HBO had a male slant.”The network bet big on stand-up comedy specials featuring mostly male comics in the years when it was defining the look and feel of premium cable. Without the restrictions of broadcast TV, George Carlin, Chris Rock and Robin Williams were free to do their routines unfettered.In the 1980s, the network cemented its identity as one that appealed to men when it signed the heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to an exclusive deal. At the same time, HBO started airing the documentary series “Eros America,” which was soon renamed “Real Sex.” It kicked off a run of sex-focused documentary shows, which would include “G String Divas,” “Cathouse” and “Sex Bytes.”HBO’s early forays into scripted programming followed a similar tack. John Landis, an executive producer of “Dream On,” a comedy about a male book editor that made its debut in 1990, used the show’s gratuitous nudity as a selling point. “We have breasts in the script just for the sake of seeing breasts,” he said in a 1992 interview. “Excuse me, but what’s so bad about that?”Susie Fitzgerald, an HBO programming executive from 1984 to 1995, said “Dream On” appealed to her bosses because it was cheap to make and “it featured nudity — female nudity, of course.” She recalled HBO’s research executives preaching that men “controlled the remote.” That line of thinking became a factor in programming decisions, she added.Return to Westeros in ‘House of the Dragon’HBO’s long-awaited “Game of Thrones” prequel series is here.Playing Kingmaker: Fabien Frankel plays Ser Criston Cole, who got to place the crown on the new King of Westeros’s head. He is still not sure how he landed the role.The Princess and the Queen: Emma D’Arcy and Olivia Cooke, who portray the grown-up versions of Rhaenyra Targaryen and Alicent Hightower, talked about the forces that drive their characters apart — and pull them together.A Man’s Decline: By the eighth episode of the season, Viserys no longer looks like a proud Targaryen king. The actor Paddy Considine discussed the character’s transformation and its meaning.A Rogue Prince: Daemon Targaryen is an agent of chaos. But “he’s got a strange moral compass of his own,” Matt Smith, who portrays him, said.Ms. Fitzgerald, who helped oversee HBO comedy specials starring Ellen DeGeneres, Roseanne Barr and Whoopi Goldberg, was part of the team behind the network’s first series to win widespread acclaim, “The Larry Sanders Show,” about an insecure talk-show host and cocreated by and starring Garry Shandling. Around the time of its debut, Ms. Fitzgerald said she floated the idea that a woman should be the lead of an HBO comedy series. She faced resistance when she brought it up, she said.The beginning of the shift toward productions centered on women did not come about until 1996, with the premiere of “If These Walls Could Talk,” a movie chronicling abortion in three different decades. It was produced by Demi Moore, who also had a leading role in the film.HBO didn’t give the green light to “If These Walls Could Talk” in the hope that it would attract large numbers of viewers and subscribers. The network’s main interest was in doing business with Ms. Moore, who was then at the height of her fame.“If These Walls Could Talk” did have something in common with HBO’s other productions, though: It had a strong point of view — fiercely in favor of abortion — and it was not a fit for broadcast TV or basic cable, which made money by keeping skittish advertisers happy.When the ratings came in, the executives were floored: “If These Walls Could Talk” had attracted the largest audience ever for an HBO production, contradicting its “man-of-the-house” programming strategy.Shortly afterward, HBO bought the option for “Sex and the City,” a book by Candace Bushnell on the lives of single women in Manhattan. The series ran from 1998 to 2004, becoming a cultural touchstone and winning 7 Emmys (out of 54 nominations). It also spawned two feature films, a popular sequel series, “And Just Like That,” for HBO’s streaming service, HBO Max, and countless memes.Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw in the long-running HBO series “Sex and the City.”HBO, via Everett CollectionBut just as “Sex and the City” was in the middle of its run, HBO went back to the old playbook, adding “The Mind of the Married Man” to its prime-time schedule. The half-hour series was centered on a married Chicago newspaperman, his married pals and their sex lives. Writing in Entertainment Weekly, the critic Ken Tucker called the show a “rancid little barf-com” and found fault with its “moronic sexism.” And soon after 10 million viewers tuned in for the “Sex and the City” finale, HBO returned to a bro-y sensibility with “Entourage,” about young men on the loose in Hollywood.When Casey Bloys, the current head of programming at HBO, joined the network in 2004, its audience was still largely male, thanks to a cluster of shows — “Oz,” “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” — that chronicled the exploits of male antiheroes and outlaws.“There was definitely a core male 25- to 54-year-old audience,” Mr. Bloys said.Some HBO series appealed to women — Alan Ball’s “True Blood” and Michael Patrick King’s and Lisa Kudrow’s “The Comeback” — but old habits were hard to shake.In 2010, Mr. Bloys and his colleagues in the programming department were impressed by a proposal from a 23-year-old writer and filmmaker, Lena Dunham, for a series about young women in New York. Other executives were against it, partly because of the age of Ms. Dunham’s central characters, who were more than a decade younger than the “Sex and the City” foursome.“The prevailing wisdom of the time was that men basically subscribed,” Mr. Bloys said. “So in conversations around ‘Girls,’ they said we had never done a show with that young a lead and a female lead that young. The idea was young adults were not deciding to subscribe to HBO because they weren’t the head of the household.”After Mr. Bloys and his associates prevailed, “Girls” became a critical hit and fodder for thousands of think pieces. “Veep,” starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a U.S. vice president, was right around the corner.Even so, shows about men remained HBO’s stock in trade, along with certain tropes that had devolved into cliché. In a 2011 essay, “HBO, you’re busted,” Mary McNamara, a critic for The Los Angeles Times, blasted the network for its overreliance on scenes set in strip clubs and brothels.Must every HBO drama, Ms. McNamara lamented, feature shadowy men conducting business against a backdrop of unclad women? She cited “The Sopranos,” “Game of Thrones,” “Rome,” “Deadwood” and “Boardwalk Empire” as the biggest offenders, noting that “HBO has a higher population of prostitutes per capita than Amsterdam or Charlie Sheen’s Christmas card list.”The cast of “The Mind of the Married Man,” a critical flop.Anthony Friedkin/HBOJames Gandolfini as the HBO antihero Tony Soprano.Anthony Neste/Getty ImagesBy the time Mr. Bloys took over the programming department in 2016, 57 percent of viewers of HBO’s Sunday prime-time lineup were male, according to Nielsen. As Mr. Bloys settled into his new role, the network began a reboot of the cultural shift it had attempted two decades earlier with “If These Walls Could Talk” and “Sex and the City.”“My philosophy as a programmer was, if you’ve got a male core, that’s great,” Mr. Bloys said. “You do want to make sure you’re tending to that core audience, but you also have to broaden out from that. You can do both.”As the #MeToo movement ousted men in positions of power in the media industry, the signature HBO protagonist began to change. There were still shows centered on tortured male antiheroes — “Succession,” for one — but more and more, a new character came to the fore: the tough but flawed heroine who is looking to right past wrongs.“Big Little Lies,” starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon, chronicled a group of women in Monterey, Calif., who band together after one of their husbands, an abuser, is murdered. In “Sharp Objects,” Amy Adams played a self-harming newspaper reporter who investigates the murders of two girls in her Missouri hometown. In “Mare of Easttown,” Kate Winslet immersed herself in the role of a damaged police detective working to solve the murder of a teenage mother in blue-collar Pennsylvania. “I May Destroy You,” a coproduction with the BBC, starred Michaela Coel as a struggling writer who attempts to shed light on her own past rape.Michaela Coel was the star, writer and producer of “I May Destroy You.”HBO, via Associated PressMs. Coel was the creative force behind “I May Destroy You.” Another female writer-producer, Marti Noxon, was the creator of “Sharp Objects,” a limited series based on the novel by Gillian Flynn. But several other HBO shows with female protagonists were led by men: David E. Kelley was the showrunner of “Big Little Lies”; Brad Inglesby created “Mare of Easttown”; and Saverio Costanzo was the creator of HBO’s adaptation of “My Brilliant Friend,” a show adapted from the Neapolitan novels series by Elena Ferrante.HBO reapplied the lesson it had learned from “Girls” when it signed off on “Euphoria,” a series about the drug-fueled escapades of teenagers created by Sam Levinson, with Zendaya in a starring role. Earlier this year, that show became the most-watched HBO program since the network’s biggest hit, “Game of Thrones.”The results of the shift have been evident in the makeup of the audience for HBO, which celebrates its 50th anniversary in November, and the streaming platform that shares its name. According to Nielsen, those watching the cable channel had a 50-50 male-female split in 2021, and 52 percent of HBO Max’s viewers in September were women.“I think that any brand — this is not specific to television — has to evolve,” Mr. Bloys said. “You can’t just kind of become comfortable and think, ‘Well, we know how to do one thing and let’s keep doing it.’” More

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      Jules Bass, Co-Producer of TV Holiday Staples, Is Dead at 87

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      The animation company he ran with Arthur Rankin Jr. gave the world “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty the Snowman” and much more.Jules Bass, who created an animation empire with his business partner, Arthur Rankin Jr., that produced perennial Christmastime television favorites like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman,” died on Tuesday in Rye, N.Y. He was 87.His death, at an assisted living facility, was confirmed by Jennifer Ruff, whose mother was Mr. Bass’s first wife.The Rankin/Bass studio was a major force in animated programming, mostly on television, from the early 1960s to the late ’80s. Some of its TV shows and movies used traditional hand-drawn cel animation, but it carved out a separate specialty in the stop-motion puppet animation familiar to viewers since “Gumby” in the 1950s.Rankin/Bass’s stop-motion specials included “Rudolph” (1964), featuring the voice of the folk singer Burl Ives as Sam the Snowman;“Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” (1970), with Fred Astaire as the narrator and Mickey Rooney as the voice of Kris Kringle; and “Jack Frost” (1979), with Robert Morse voicing the title role.“Frosty” (1969), narrated by Jimmy Durante, used traditional animation.To create the stop-motion effect, animators in Japan painstakingly shot thousands of pictures of the tiniest movements and gestures of inches-tall puppets. When run at 24 frames a second, the images generated a whimsical sort of herky-jerky animation that became the Rankin/Bass signature.“When I saw their cartoons, they left a great impression on me because they had dimensionality versus drawn animation,” said Tom Gasek, a professor in the school of film and animation at the Rochester Institute of Technology who was inspired by Rankin/Bass’s work to become a stop-motion animator. “They were not high quality by any means, but they were charming and their designs were very smart.”Mr. Bass and Mr. Rankin were often credited as the directors of their work and offered input on scripts and storyboards. But they played different roles at the company, said Rick Goldschmidt, the studio’s official historian.Mr. Bass composed much of the music. He hired and worked closely with the musical supervisor, Maury Laws, and ran the company’s business in Manhattan while Mr. Rankin was in Japan supervising the animation.“Where Jules is really the star of Rankin/Bass is as a songwriter and his partnership with Maury,” Mr. Goldschmidt said in a phone interview.Mr. Rankin, who was the studio’s chief executive, also sold the shows to TV networks and made sure they were delivered on time.“After a while, we were never seen together — I’d be doing production in Tokyo and he’d be recording a soundtrack in New York,” Mr. Rankin said in an interview in 2003 with the Museum of Television and Radio, now the Paley Center for Media. “If we were together, one of us wasn’t necessary.”Mr. Bass was rarely quoted publicly, and little is known about his private life. But the two partners spoke during a joint interview with The New York Times in 1982 when their animated theatrical feature, “The Last Unicorn,” was released.When they were asked who did most of the directing — the movie credits both of them — they initially said they did it together.“Anything he can do, I can do better,” Mr. Rankin said.Mr. Bass countered: “He never worked a day on the film. I did everything.”Peter S. Beagle, who wrote the screenplay for “The Last Unicorn” and the novel it was based on, recalled in a phone interview that his dealings with Mr. Bass “were very professional.” But, he added, “he was very private, and I never had a true sense of what was going on deepest in his head.”He added, “I’m grateful that the film came out pretty much as I wrote it.”Arthur Rankin Jr., left, and Mr. Bass in 1965. Both men were credited as producers and directors of their TV specials, but Mr. Bass was more involved with the music and Mr. Rankin with the animation.Miser Bros. Press/Rick Goldschmidt ArchivesJulius Bass was born in Philadelphia on Sept. 16, 1935. His father, Max, was a wholesale beer salesman, and his mother, Bernice (Palat) Bass, was a homemaker.He attended New York University, where he studied marketing from 1952 to 1954, but he did not graduate. He was hired by Gardner Advertising in Manhattan, where he met Mr. Rankin, who was making TV commercials under the banner of his company, Videocraft International.Mr. Bass joined Videocraft in the mid-1950s, and the two men produced commercials, occasionally using animation, for agencies that represented clients including General Electric and the A.&P. supermarket chain. They wearied of commercial production and shifted to animation in 1960 with a TV series, “The New Adventures of Pinocchio,” which used the stop-motion technique Mr. Bass had discovered in Japan.The company eventually changed its name to Rankin/Bass, and its work toggled between stop-motion and traditional cel animation.Although Rankin/Bass was best known for its Christmas programs, it also made TV movies like “The Ballad of Smokey the Bear” (1966), which was narrated by James Cagney,; “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” (1971); and “The Hobbit” (1977), which earned a Peabody Award. They also produced animated TV series like “King Kong” (1966), “The Reluctant Dragon & Mr. Toad Show” (1970), the “Jackson 5ive” (1971),“TigerSharks” (1985) and “Thundercats” (1987).Mr. Bass and Mr. Rankin ended their partnership in the late 1980s after their company was acquired by Lorimar-Telepictures, which was subsequently bought by Warner Communications, which is now Warner Bros. Discovery. Mr. Rankin died in 2014.Mr. Bass later wrote three children’s books. “Herb the Vegetarian Dragon” and “Cooking With Herb the Vegetarian Dragon,” illustrated by Debbie Harter, were both published in 1999. “The Mythomaniacs” (2013), with illustrations by Lawrence Christmas, is about a teenage magician who sends a group of readers of his father’s fairy tales into the books as characters.He also wrote an adult novel, “Headhunters” (2001), about four women from New Jersey who go to Monte Carlo and pretend to be among the world’s wealthiest women. It was adapted into a 2011 film, “Monte Carlo,” starring Selena Gomez.Mr. Bass leaves no immediate survivors. His daughter, Jean Nicole Bass, died this year. His marriages to Renee Fisherman and Sylvia Bass ended in divorce.The power of two of Rankin/Bass’s best-known productions has reverberated for decades since they were released: Both “Rudolph” and “Frosty” remain highly rated cornerstones of CBS’s pre-Christmas programming.In 2014, CBS promoted “Rudolph” on its 50th anniversary with ads that used stop motion to show the renowned reindeer and Sam the Snowman walking around the network’s backlot, meeting the stars of some of its other shows, including Mayim Bialik of “The Big Bang Theory” and Michael Weatherly of “NCIS.”“They’re the fabric of our Christmas hearth, the wood in the Christmas fire,” George Schweitzer, CBS’s former president of marketing, said in a phone interview. “You knew Christmas was coming when Rudolph and Frosty showed up on CBS.” More

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      Stephen Colbert Bans Kanye West From ‘The Late Show’

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      Colbert said his jurisdiction extended into the northern half of Times Square, and that he was “banning Kanye from coming north of Bubba Gump Shrimp.”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.Ye Takes Another ‘L’Stephen Colbert made a big announcement on Thursday night.“After much thought and soul-searching, I, Stephen Colbert, am banning Kanye West from the Ed Sullivan Theater,” Colbert said. “In fact, as host of ‘The Late Show’ my jurisdiction extends into the northern half of Times Square, and I am banning Kanye from coming north of Bubba Gump Shrimp.”“And I just want to take a moment here and just point out that this — this next part is the courageous part — I’m ending all of our high-profile collabs, including, but not restricted to, our collection of spreadable jams, Strawbeezy Jelleezy. And I have decided not to release our duets album, ‘Ye and Phen Sing ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I know this has been too long in coming. I have no excuses for why I didn’t do this before, except that he has never been on the show, had no plans to be on the show, we have never asked him to be on the show, and I’m not sure he’s aware that I have a show.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But I had to do it now, because I was afraid he would just show up at any moment, because that’s what he did yesterday. The shoe company Skechers says it had to escort Kanye West from its offices after an unannounced visit. In five years, the idea of an unannounced visit from Kanye has gone from amazing to ‘Sir, you need to leave this Skechers.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Unlike with Adidas, Kanye never had a deal with Skechers. Apparently, Kanye is so desperate, he’s just driving around and searching Google Maps for ‘shoes near me.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Sinking In Edition)“Speaking of ‘Stranger Things,’ Elon Musk is in the news. Elon Musk is close to buying Twitter, and, yesterday, he walked into their headquarters carrying a sink just so that he could tweet — this is real— ‘Entering Twitter HQ. Let that sink in.’ That pun cost him $44 billion.” — JIMMY FALLON“I know a lot of people think that was corny, but I think once you have 87 children, you are allowed to make dad jokes.” — TREVOR NOAH“Just when you thought Kanye made the most bizarre entrance, Elon was like, ‘Hold my sink.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Where did he get the sink? Is it just the one he ripped out of the wall when the judge told him that he had to buy Twitter?” — TREVOR NOAH“If anything, Elon is the right billionaire to make this joke, you know? Because if Jeff Bezos walked into Amazon with a sink, his employees would be like, ‘Oh wow, we’re finally getting a restroom?’” — TREVOR NOAH“I’m looking forward to Twitter on his first bad day as C.E.O.: ‘Our stock is in the toilet!’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingRonny Chieng makes the case that Halloween is awful in a new segment of “Prove Me Wrong” on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutGijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns, via Getty ImagesMusicians who worked with Stevie Wonder on his landmark 1972 album “Talking Book,” and others who just cherish it, reminisce about its magic, half a century after its release. More

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      Stand-Up Comics and the Parent Trap

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      Specials from Nick Kroll, Hasan Minhaj and other young dads and moms show just how difficult it is to mine fresh insights from such worked-over terrain.There are an endless variety of boring people, but none are more brazenly tedious than parents telling you about their kids.Part of the reason, I’m convinced, is that it is taboo to tell them so. When there’s no possibility of criticism, people get lazy. I know I do, droning on about sleep schedules or marveling to some poor trapped soul about how my daughters have opposite personalities. Besotted parents often can’t see how dull we are, a blind spot that is benign unless you’re listening to one. Or are a stand-up comic with a new baby.That population grew over the pandemic, particularly the number of dads. Mazel tov to Nick Kroll, Hasan Minhaj, Matt Braunger and Kurt Braunohler, all charming comics who in the past several weeks have released specials with jokes about becoming a parent. Daniel Sloss also procreated, and in a recent live show downtown, he confessed that he once hated when his favorite comics became parents, comparing the shift in their work to that of a British soccer star moving to an American league. It’s always a step down.Then Sloss did some mediocre material about having a child that just goes to show how powerful the temptation is to turn the stuff of Facebook oversharing into professional comedy.Jokes about raising children make an easy connection with certain sleepy-eyed audiences, but that can be its own parent trap. This is well-trod ground. (Ophira Eisenberg just started a podcast, Parenting Is a Joke, in which she talks to comics about raising kids.) It’s hard to hear Kroll discuss the double standards we have for mothers and fathers without thinking about Ali Wong’s breakthrough work. That the most successful dad comics of all time are Bill Cosby and Louis C.K. haunts the category. They once seemed endearing, too. But the primary challenge of stand-up on this subject is that it risks cheap sentimentality. Nothing smothers comedy faster.With their Netflix specials, Minhaj and Kroll lean into schmaltz. In “Little Big Boy,” Kroll describes watching his wife give birth as “majestic.” With glassy eyes, he says, “It’s like you’re seeing life, creation begin.”Minhaj also seems to tear up describing this moment in “The King’s Jester” while baby photos are projected behind him. “I’m like, oh my God, I’ve never felt this before in my life,” he says. “I’ve only known you three days but I would do anything for you. I can’t believe how much I love you.”I can. Parental love is a common if beautiful thing, and these are talented comedians. Kroll is a charismatic impressionist with a knack for surreal detail. The way Minhaj spoofs his own enjoyment of his righteous comedy going viral is one of the best bits I’ve seen about the wages of social media. But on the subject of children, they get deadly earnest, trite and sugary enough to make your teeth ache.“I’m like, oh my God, I’ve never felt this before in my life,” Hasan Minhaj says of becoming a father in “The King’s Jester.”Clifton Prescod/NetflixThey try to exploit the sappiness by juxtaposing it with something crass or trivial. But it’s too little, too late, after the maudlin emotionalism of their vision of new fatherhood. They both incorporate having children into narratives of their own growth.Kroll learns to appreciate his mother, and Minhaj tells his wife that while he would do anything for a joke, he won’t if it gets in the way of his family. This is lovely, but just because something is the right thing doesn’t make it the most interesting or entertaining.People like to say becoming a parent helped them become less self-involved, but making a smaller version of yourself can just as easily lead to a more insular, selfish life. It’s also possible to explore the subject without resorting to fairy-tale lessons and pat emotional arcs, but it requires some hardheaded decisions.The female comics I’ve seen recently seem more likely to do that. In her new Peacock special, “Ladykiller,” a pregnant Jena Friedman makes clever jokes about America’s hatred of moms by pinpointing how one of our most popular curses refers to having sex with one. In the first minutes of the new season of her Paramount+ sketch show, Amy Schumer is in her kitchen when a girl playing her daughter brings in a picture of the family she drew with a crayon. “I’m really not seeing it,” Schumer says, before imperiously ordering her to do it again. That’s the last we see of the kid.In “Ladykiller,” Jena Friedman uses a popular curse word to make a point about how America views mothers.Heidi Gutman/PeacockThe specials of Braunohler and Braunger benefit from not only clearly being aware of the pitfalls of parenting comedy, but also actively crafting strategies to elude them. Braunger all but hides those jokes in his special “Doug” (available on demand), neither opening nor closing with them, and introducing them with this segue: “OK, I’ve talked about big penises, testicles, what next?” he said, putting his finger in the air. “Oh, I have a daughter.”Braunger has an intense sarcastic delivery that builds up an impressive amount of deadpan comic energy. It reminds me a little of Brody Stevens. And while it slows when he describes his sadness at dropping off his daughter at day care, there’s something hilarious about this manic man as a parent. That is a good joke. By the time he pulls down his pants to show off his tattoo, you are convinced that becoming a father has not changed him.By contrast, Braunohler has the sensible bespectacled gravity of a paternal figure, a point he underlines in his new special, “Perfectly Stupid” (on Moment), by saying, “My life has finally caught up with my looks.” His bashfulness in admitting he has a child is the first clue that he knows this is treacherous territory. Then he shakes his head when the crowd roars. He’s too smart to want that. It’s no accident that he ends his hour with a sarcastic “aww.”His special smartly gets specific and eccentric, a good way to avoid cliché. “My daughter calls me ‘papa’ because we, as a society, ruined ‘daddy,’” he says. “No one ever said: ‘Choke me, papa.’”His reflection on the classic book “The Giving Tree” and, in particular, the oddly large and intimidating author photo of Shel Silverstein does what fresh comedy can, make you see things that were always there but never noticed. And though Braunohler actively works at not scoring easy emotional points, he does have a moving theme, one that culminates in a joke his daughter tells him that illustrates the perfectly stupid comedy he aims for.This hints at how becoming a parent can improve your comedy, because children understand certain kinds of primal jokes that adults lose the ability to appreciate. These laugh lines tend to be dumb or silly, but not, in my experience, sappy. That’s cringe mom and dad stuff. Braunohler notices and captures this quality without romanticizing it, which only makes the impact hit harder.Comics shouldn’t avoid joking about raising kids. It’s far too fertile territory, and the rewards of a new idea are considerable. Trust me: Parents could use a laugh. Even some sentimentality can complement humor if handled deftly.Perhaps the solution is to consider jokes about diapers or the impossibility of getting a 4-year-old to eat dinner the same way other comics grapple with jokes about the Holocaust or racist police brutality, which is to say, carefully, with high standards. When it comes to the banal and the transgressive, only the best will do. More

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      Stephen Colbert Ponders Dr. Oz’s Views on Abortion

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      “No one should have to discuss health care with their local political leaders, especially if you live in one of those really small towns where the local mayor is a dog,” Colbert 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.Abort MissionOn Wednesday’s “Late Show,” Stephen Colbert joked that Mehmet Oz had already faced some obstacles as a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania: “For one thing, he lives in New Jersey.”In his monologue, Colbert said the candidate, a former talk show host also known as Dr. Oz, had “accidentally said what he meant” about abortion in his Tuesday debate with Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. Oz said the federal government should stay out of the issue, which he said should be left to women and doctors — and, he quickly added, “local political leaders.”“Oh, so close! No one — no one should have to discuss health care with their local political leaders. Especially if you live in one of those really small towns where the local mayor is a dog. ‘Making this decision was ruff. But I believe life begins at — squirrel!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Dr. Oz said abortion rights should be decided by women and their doctors and local political leaders, which is pretty slick, right? Because he started that sentence like he was on the side of women, then he snuck in the politicians at the end like a teenager buying condoms at the gas station.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Speaking of Abortion Edition)“I think we can all agree there is only one politician who should have a say in your abortion and that’s Herschel Walker, because it is his. It’s his. It’s probably his. Ladies, check, they’re all his.” — TREVOR NOAH“Wait a second — didn’t we do this story already? Am I in a rerun right now?” — STEPHEN COLBERT, on another allegation that Walker, a candidate for the Senate in Georgia, had asked a woman to have an abortion“At this point, the only athlete who would be dumb enough to sign with Donda Sports is Herschel Walker.” — JIMMY KIMMEL, referring to Kanye West’s marketing agencyThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” stars Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira and Letitia Wright surprised fans on Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightTegan and Sara will perform a track from their new album “Crybaby” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutLawrence Mercado, a special effects artist, with Josh Nalley, who was playing a corpse on the set of “CSI: Vegas.”Sonja Flemming/CBSJosh Nalley posted videos of himself playing dead on TikTok. It led to a role as a corpse on “CSI: Vegas.” More

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      TikToker Lands the Role of a Lifetime: Playing Dead on TV

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      Every day for nearly a year, Josh Nalley posted TikToks of himself playing dead in the hopes of being cast in a television series or movie. Then “CSI: Vegas” reached out.The Otter Creek Outdoor Recreation Area, near Louisville, Ky., is Josh Nalley’s favorite place to play dead.This time of year is especially “creepy,” he said. The shuttered campground’s derelict buildings and the fallen leaves scattered on the ground make for an ideal filming location.Over the past year, Mr. Nalley has posted a daily TikTok of himself playing dead in the hopes of being cast as a corpse in a television series or movie. He’s lain prone along the banks of rivers and streams near his home in Kentucky; had his three dogs lick his face as he propped himself up against a tree; slumped in a car; floated in pools; draped himself over doorways and splattered himself across sidewalks.Mr. Nalley always included a caption tallying the number of days “of playing un-alive until I’m cast in a move or TV show as an un-alive body.”By mid-July, and about 200 videos later, “CSI: Vegas” took note. On Nov. 3, Mr. Nalley, 42, will appear on an episode of the forensic crime drama on CBS. The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported Mr. Nalley’s big, dead-guy break.“I was just having fun on the internet,” Mr. Nalley said. He never expected his campaign to actually catch on. He said he developed the concept “out of boredom.”

      @living_dead_josh #CloseYourRings #foryoupage #fyp ♬ Ruff Ryders’ Anthem (Re-Recorded / Remastered) – DMX “I was spending a lot of time on TikTok and trying to figure out what I could do to get on TikTok and maybe get in a movie with as little effort as I thought would be possible,” he said.Jason Tracey, the showrunner for “CSI: Vegas,” said Mr. Nalley was the perfect person to play “body in the background of the morgue.”“Nobody has done a more thorough job of auditioning for a nonspeaking role, maybe in the history of television,” Mr. Tracey said. “After 321 pictures or so, he hit his stride and it was time to get called up to the big leagues.”Mr. Nalley is not a big crime genre fan. In fact, he doesn’t watch much television at all. But he was a fan of the original “CSI.”He lives in Elizabethtown, Ky., and works as a restaurant manager in the next town over. He usually films multiple videos on his days off at nearby parks, like Bernheim Forest and Saunders Springs, or in his backyard, and posts them throughout the week. Sometimes he’ll even record outside the restaurant where he works.“A desolate, empty parking lot is always a good place to dump a big body,” he said.More often than not he films the videos using his phone and a tripod, but every once in a while he engages the help of friends of family. Mr. Nalley’s method is simple: He takes a couple of big breaths and then holds his breath for about 25 seconds and tries to stay as still as possible. That can prove difficult when a rock is digging into his side on the ground.“You want to move but you’re like, ‘No, just hold it for a little big longer,’” he said he tells himself.If he’s playing dead sitting up, Mr. Nalley will usually have his eyes open so viewers can see his face. If he’s lying down, his eyes are typically closed because “half my face is usually pressed into the ground.”While Mr. Nalley’s intentions are comedic in nature, TikTok does not always agree. He uses the term “un-alive” instead of “dead” and has moved away from gory makeup like fake blood and bullet wounds to avoid running afoul of the platform’s content moderators. (He’s been placed on probation with TikTok several times, he said.) Even Mr. Nalley’s handle, living_dead_josh, was crafted with TikTok’s algorithms in mind.He tries to capture TikTok trends of the moment and adds music to lighten the mood, including Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and the “Peanuts” theme song for a Thanksgiving post. One of his favorite videos is from Christmas, when he usually gets together with friends for pizza and beer. Last year, they all played dead together.

      @living_dead_josh #fyp #foryoupage ♬ It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Christmas – Michael Bublé “I love that one because they’re family to me, they were all in it.” Mr. Nalley said.More than 200 videos later, producers at CBS emailed him about a role on “CSI: Vegas.” He didn’t believe it at first, but after an exchange of several emails, the studio flew him to Los Angeles over the summer. Mr. Nalley announced his new gig on Sept. 15, in video No. 321, in a caption over footage of him splayed out on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next to the star of Marg Helgenberger, a longtime “CSI” actress.

      @living_dead_josh Tune in to the Season 2 premiere September 29th @csicbs #csivegas #cbs #dreamcometrue #goals #fyp #foryoupage ♬ Who Are You – The Who The job required him to sit through two hours of makeup to make it appear as if an autopsy had been completed on his character. Over the course of five hours of filming, Mr. Nalley’s instructions were simple and familiar: “Take a deep breath and look dead,” he recalled.Mr. Tracey, the “CSI” showrunner, said the show and the job of a crime scene investigator “can be unrelentingly grim,” and producers try to find “gallows humor in the profession and in the history of the franchise.”Mr. Nalley’s quiet presence “was a nice way to keep it light on set that day.”“We often have dummies down in the morgue,” Mr. Tracey said. “The cast was as surprised as anyone else to have a breathing corpse next to them.”But he did have some half-serious notes for the aspiring dead body.“Honestly I would have liked to see a little less breathing, but we can fix that in post,” Mr. Tracey said. He offered an insider tip: “Most people don’t know you’re not supposed to move your eyes at all. The trick is to find a spot and focus even though they’re closed.”Mr. Nalley said he wasn’t sure what would be next for his career — perhaps another television show or a movie, maybe even one with the filmmaker and actor Kevin Smith, he mused. “I always like his movies and I think we have the same sense of humor,” Mr. Nalley said. “That would be awesome, even just a cameo.”But for now, he’ll keep posting his daily TikToks for his about 120,000 followers.“I hope they laugh, honestly,” he said. “I hope they chuckle, and I hope that inspires somebody to be perseverant.” More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Wonders Why Trump Would Talk to Bob Woodward

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      “Why are you agreeing to do 20 interviews on tape with the guy who took down Richard Nixon with tapes? With tapes!” Kimmel said on Tuesday.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.A Regular ChatterboxThe journalist Bob Woodward released hours of content from his interviews with former President Donald Trump in a new audiobook, “The Trump Tapes.”“According to Woodward, Trump would call him randomly at unexpected hours to talk while he was president,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “Because there is nothing he likes doing more than talking about himself — it’s his version of phone sex.”“One of the things he talks about is explaining Covid to his son, Barron, who was 13 at the time. He told Barron he wished he’d known about Covid two months earlier, so he could have stopped it, which is also what he told Ivana about Don Jr.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Why are you agreeing to do 20 interviews on tape with the guy who took down Richard Nixon with tapes? With tapes! The emperor has no brain.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Just Dropped Edition)“Kanye West had another bad day. You know how Kanye said he could say antisemitic stuff and Adidas cannot drop him? Well, today, Adidas dropped him.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Today, Adidas finally ended their massive deal with Kanye West after his antisemitism controversy. To which I say, ‘Ye!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“No one wants to work with Kanye — even New Balance thinks he’s unbalanced.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingZedd and Maren Morris performed their song “Make You Say” on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightElizabeth Banks will promote her new film “Call Jane” on Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutRyan Condal on the set of “House of the Dragon.” The first season of the “Game of Thrones” prequel ended on Sunday.Ollie Upton/HBOThe “House of the Dragon” showrunner Ryan Condal was surprised by the warm reception given to Season 1 of the first “Game of Thrones” spinoff. More