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      “The Traitors” Host Alan Cumming Wore His Own Clothes on the Show

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      On “The Traitors,” a reality game show framed as a whodunit, host Alan Cumming’s wardrobe has some viewers on the edge of their seats.“The Traitors,” a new reality game show, hinges on startling revelations. In episodes of the series, which is framed as a whodunit, cast members are regularly “murdered” (kicked off). Others are “banished” (also kicked off). But some of the most astonishing reveals have nothing to do with the plot — and everything to do with what outfit the show’s host, the actor Alan Cumming, will appear in next.There are pink plaid suits. Herringbone tweed capes. Sleek little kilts. “Perhaps, rather alarmingly,” Mr. Cumming said, “the vast majority of the clothes were mine.”Some fans of “The Traitors,” which premiered this month on Peacock, said Mr. Cumming’s knack for turning natty looks became a favorite part of tuning in. “I really appreciated that he was dressing in so many colors,” said Catherine Maddox, 39, a lab manager in Boston.The series, which is based on a show from the Netherlands, arrived in the United States after a British adaptation (not hosted by Mr. Cumming) became a surprise hit last year. Contestants on the American version are a mix of celebrities made famous by past reality shows — including Arie Luyendyk (“The Bachelor”), Cirie Fields (“Survivor”), and Kate Chastain (“Below Deck”) — and people who have yet to earn their 15 minutes of fame.Mr. Cumming, whose demeanor is at once macabre and flirtatious, presides over them as they compete for a cash prize on the grounds of Ardross Castle, an estate in the Scottish Highlands once owned by an heir to the Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce empire.Many of the clothes Mr. Cumming wears on the show came from his own closet.Photographs by Euan Cherry/PeacockSam Spector, who styled Mr. Cumming for “The Traitors,” wanted to achieve an aesthetic that he described as Sherlock Holmes, with a touch of “villain from a James Bond movie.”Euan Cherry/PeacockThe set was meant to evoke “Clue,” the murder-mystery board game turned movie, said Mathieu Weekes, the production designer of “The Traitors.” To freshen up the 19th-century castle, his team decorated it with ruby red dining room chairs, a crimson love seat, an emerald couch and other vibrant furniture. “Our first reference for color was the film ‘Knives Out,’” Mr. Weekes said. “We wanted to make it feel quite quirky.”Rarely do reality show sets “have this vintage maximalism,” said Rachel Trombetta, an architectural researcher who works in film and TV. Mr. Weekes, the production designer, said that the set of “The Traitors” was “quite different to create” than those of previous reality shows he has worked on (among them: “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!”) “We wanted to break from the norm and try to give it sort of its own identity,” he said.Setting the show at such a spectacular location meant its host needed a wardrobe that would “relate to the craziness of this beautiful castle,” said Sam Spector, who styled Mr. Cumming for “The Traitors.” Thankfully, Mr. Cumming, who is Scottish, had a closet full of suits, kilts and plus fours that could serve as a foundation for the aesthetic he and Mr. Spector wanted to achieve. “We talked about trying to make this sort of dandy,” Mr. Cumming said, “this eccentric Scottish laird.” Or, as Mr. Spector put it: Sherlock Holmes, with a touch of “villain from a James Bond movie.”Robin Emry, a 31-year-old researcher in London who has seen both the British and American versions of “The Traitors,” described Mr. Cumming’s wardrobe as “Vivienne Westwood meets Vincent Price.”To make Mr. Cumming’s clothes pop even more, Mr. Spector accessorized the host in fly plaids, a type of Scottish scarf worn over one shoulder, hats, capes, sashes and opulent brooches, which tied many of his outfits together (literally and figuratively). Some of his accessories, like a pair of blue opera-length gloves, were made especially for the show.“The gloves are just hilarious,” Mr. Cumming said. He wears them with what he called “a little policeman’s cape” and a porkpie hat — an eccentric get-up that even he said pushed the limits of an already theatrical wardrobe.“It’s the most mental look,” Mr. Cumming said, “but I love it.” More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Spoofs Merrick Garland’s Hunt for Classified Documents

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      Michael B. Jordan hosted an episode that was saved by a couple of commercial parodies.Classified documents are all the rage these days: They’re turning up in the homes of President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, and on “Saturday Night Live,” which used these recent discoveries as grist for its opening sketch.This weekend’s “S.N.L.” broadcast, hosted by Michael B. Jordan and featuring the musical guest Lil Baby, began with a dramatic voice-over intoning, “Criminals beware. There’s a new sheriff in town, and he means business.” This person had already put away the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and, the voice-over added, “Now he’s searching for classified documents and he’s coming for whoever has them — Democrat, Republican or whatever Trump is now.”That person turned out to be Attorney General Merrick Garland, played by Mikey Day in an especially nebbishy manner. “I may look like I was born in a library,” Day said as Garland, “but there’s something you should know: Merrick Garland don’t play.” Though his voice was hardly intimidating, his bold assertions were often punctuated with head shakes and whip-crack sound effects.Day noted that “some have said the federal government classifies too many documents.” He added, “This has led people to ask, ‘Does recovering these documents even matter?’ To which I say: I don’t know. But it’s the law. And I am the law.” A pair of pixelated sunglasses then descended upon his face, accompanied by a caption that read “Deal With It.”He introduced three special agents that he had dispatched to the residences of elected officials, starting with Kenan Thompson playing an agent who said he had conducted a search of Pence’s home.“I knew right away this man needed a friend,” Thompson recounted. “When he opened the door, he said, ‘You came!’ with a big smile, and he offered to make us pancakes.”His search turned up no documents, but, Thompson said, “In an envelope marked ‘tax stuff,’ we discovered photographs of the country pop-singer Shania Twain, cut out from several magazines. When confronted with this, Mr. Pence said, ‘I’m sorry; I’m disgusting.’ ”Ego Nwodim played an agent who had searched the home of Vice President Kamala Harris. “Come on now — Joe Biden won’t even give this woman a pen,” Nwodim said. “You think she has classified documents?”Finally, Bowen Yang appeared as an agent who was still star-struck by a recent visit to the home of former President Barack Obama. “No big deal, but it was really fun,” Yang said, adding that Obama had possessed “175 letters from Lin-Manuel Miranda begging the president to attend a performance of ‘Hamilton.’ ”Day shared a final message for anyone still potentially holding onto classified documents: “Do you think this is a game?” he said. “Who do you think you’re playing with?”Thompson said to him, “Hey boss, when we done playing with these little papers, we gonna head down to Memphis and make sure justice is served down there, too, right?”“I sincerely hope so,” Day replied.Commercial Parody No. 1 of the WeekA pair of pretaped commercial parodies really rescued this week’s broadcast, beginning with this segment poking fun at the recent difficulties faced by Southwest Airlines. The carrier canceled thousands of flights around the holiday season, costing the company more than $1 billion.As the airline’s employees (played by Jordan, Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker and others) explain, Southwest has since taken steps to provide customers with a better, more modern experience: The company has upgraded its entire communications system — to 2008 Dell computers, replacing their old 2002 IBM ThinkPad laptops. And the airline has ditched its old pen-and-paper method of air-traffic control in favor of computers: that’s right, 2002 IBM ThinkPad laptops.Commercial Parody No. 2 of the WeekThis weekend’s second noteworthy commercial parody is also an effective little suspense thriller.It begins innocuously by lampooning a line of State Farm insurance ads, with Day and Gardner playing a married couple seeking the consultation of the company’s red-shirted spokesman, Jake From State Farm (Jordan). But as the story progresses, Jordan — who never fully exits the family’s house — begins to displace Day in all of his household roles, taking his wife and children out for pizza and to church and even supplanting Day in his marital bed.Day’s efforts to change insurance providers don’t go so well either: You’ll never hear anyone make a basic sales pitch sound as sinister as Jordan does when he says, “Even if you do find cheaper coverage, we’ll just match it.”Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the discovery of classified documents in the homes of Trump, Biden and Pence. Other jokes targeted Facebook’s decision to reinstate Trump’s account and a Senate hearing investigating the concert promoter Live Nation.Jost began:Facebook announced that it will reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account, but this time they’ll put guard rails in place to keep him under control. Which I think is the same thing they said every time they tried to reopen Jurassic Park. Also, what even are guard rails on Facebook? And can they apply to my uncle? Because he’s posted some very disturbing fan fiction about the green M&M.In the wake of the classified document scandal, representatives for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama issued statements saying they all turned over all classified records before leaving office. While Jimmy Carter issued a statement saying, “Come and get ’em, you bastards” [his screen showed a photo of President Carter wielding heavy firepower].Che continued:A lawyer for Mike Pence says that after they discovered classified documents in his home, Pence stands ready and willing to fully cooperate. Incidentally, “I stand ready and willing to cooperate” is also what Pence says before sex. During the Senate hearings investigating Live Nation and their monopoly on concert ticket sales, fans of Taylor Swift protested outside the Capitol. Aw, that’s sweet. And only two years after their dads were there [his screen showed a photo of Jan. 6 rioters at the Capitol building]. More

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      Jay Leno Is Recovering From Surgery After a Motorcycle Accident

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      The former late-night host and comedian drove into a wire a few miles from his garage in Burbank, Calif., he said in an interview. It comes two months after he sustained burns while working on his cars.Jay Leno, the former “Tonight Show” host also known for his obsession with cars, had surgery on Tuesday to repair multiple broken bones after a motorcycle accident in early January, he said in an interview on Friday.He seemed to be back in good spirits: “A 72-year-old man driving an 83-year-old motorcycle. What could go wrong?” he quipped.In his latest accident, two months after he sustained burns while working on cars in his garage, Mr. Leno said he was test riding a 1940 Indian four-cylinder motorcycle with a sidecar on Jan. 17, when he noticed the smell of gas coming from the bike.He turned down a side street to check the motorcycle and was thrown off it after riding through a wire he could not see. The accident left him with a scar across his neck, two broken ribs, two broken kneecaps and a snapped collarbone that he had surgically repaired.“It’s a little painful, but it’s not the end of the world,” he said. “Luckily, I’m only 72. If I had been an older man, this could have been very serious.”Despite the injuries, the comedian insisted during the interview that he was in good physical condition and said he would be recovered enough to work this weekend.His Sunday night show at the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach, Calif., which he still plans to do, is sold out. He also has shows scheduled in Arizona and Ohio in the coming weeks.Mr. Leno cracked a joke about the crash on Twitter, writing on Friday, “I was riding my motorcycle up in Lake Tahoe and I came around the corner and bam, I crashed into Jeremy Renner’s snowplow.”Mr. Leno first shared the news of the motorcycle accident in an interview with a Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist on Thursday.The columnist, John Katsilometes, had asked about his recovery from a gasoline fire at his Burbank, Calif., garage in late 2022 that left him with serious burns. “That was the first accident,” Mr. Leno replied.He said in the Review-Journal interview that he had not wanted to talk publicly about the motorcycle accident because of the widespread attention around his previous accident just a couple of months before.In November, Mr. Leno had surgery after sustaining what doctors called “significant burns” to his face, chest and hands while working on one of his cars. After that fire, Mr. Leno said in a statement that he would “just need a week or two” to get back on his feet.He joked about the accidents on Friday: “I try to crash within five or six miles of my garage all the time so I can get stuff back,” he said.The comedian and car aficionado’s injury also comes amid CNBC’s decision not to renew his show “Jay Leno’s Garage,” he said, a program that since 2015 has showcased his extensive automobile collection alongside celebrity interviews.The move was part of a larger restructuring of programming at CNBC, Mr. Leno said. Representatives for the network did not respond to requests for comment.“I’d like to continue my relationship with NBC. So, you know, there’s no bad blood or ill feeling, right?” he said, adding: “I wish them luck in everything there. We had a good time while we were there.”Mr. Leno, who has been a mainstay of NBC’s television content for three decades, said he was looking for a new home for the show, possibly on a streaming platform, which he said “seems to be the wave of the future.” More

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      ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Celebrates 20 Years on Air

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      Kimmel reminisced about his show’s highs and lows on its milestone anniversary.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.‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Turns 20“Jimmy Kimmel Live” celebrated its 20th anniversary on Thursday with a special prime-time episode. During his monologue, Kimmel read from early reviews that panned the show and said “very few people expected us to make it this far, but we did. One reason he cited: “I made a great deal with the devil.”“When we started, there were no iPhones. There was no YouTube, there was no Uber, no Twitter, no Wi-Fi, no Netflix, no Google. We had Nokias and Ask Jeeves, and that was it. We’ve been through two wars, a worldwide pandemic, four presidents, one insurrection, at least three different Kanyes.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You want to know how long our show has been around? We still have — this is real — a Blockbuster card. That’s how long. If you told me we were going to last longer than Blockbuster, I would have sooner believed I would be working at Blockbuster in 20 years.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Every day, it takes a lot of people to make something this dumb, and we’ve covered a lot of dumb stuff over the past 20 years, from Snooki to Honey Boo Boo. Ken Bone to Sarah Palin. Sanjaya. Clay Aiken. ‘Chocolate Rain,’ double rainbow, Stormy Daniels, William Hung, the astronaut diaper lady. Kim Kardashian’s sex tape. Hulk Hogan’s sex tape. Pam and Tommy’s sex tape. The Octomom — I think she made a sex tape. Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I have been allowed to use this platform to speak out about issues that matter to me, like health care, sensible gun laws. I’ve encouraged thousands of parents to eat their children’s Halloween candy.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Facebook Edition)“After a two-year suspension, Meta is reinstating former President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts. Trump hasn’t been on Facebook for two years, so, pretty much just like the rest of us.” — JIMMY FALLON“I mean, letting Trump back on Facebook is crazy. You’re just asking for trouble. It’s like letting Hannibal Lecter babysit your most delicious child.” — WANDA SYKES“Look, we all know Facebook is losing a ton of money, and they want that Trump attention back. They need a hit. Trump is their ‘White Lotus.’” — WANDA SYKES“Well, yeah, that’s a punishment for all of us! If you’ll remember, back in 2021, the ex-president got kicked off of the platform for a Facebook violation known as trying to overthrow the U.S. government.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meta, what are you thinking? You can’t allow him to post conspiracy theories on Facebook — that’s your mom’s friend’s job.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So what are these new rules? For starters, the ex-president will be required to follow Meta’s updated community guidelines, which prohibit violence and incitement, fraud and deception, and hate speech. So, all of the former president’s love languages.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingStephen Colbert and his “Late Show” guest Tom Hanks shared posters from new movies they may or may have not co-starred in.Also, Check This OutJoan Didion transcended ordinary literary fame to become a symbol of bicoastal chic and, with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, an ideal of intellectual-conjugal partnership.The archives of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne/New York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library has acquired Joan Didion’s papers from her joint archive with her husband, John Gregory Dunne. More

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      Lance Kerwin, ‘James at 15’ and ‘Salem’s Lot’ Star, Dies at 62

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      “James,” which followed the adventures of a sandy-haired teenager who moves with his family to Boston from Oregon, made him a teenage idol.Lance Kerwin, a former child actor who played the title role in the 1970s coming-of-age drama “James at 15” and a vampire hunter in a mini-series based on the Stephen King novel “Salem’s Lot,” died on Tuesday at his home in San Clemente, Calif. He was 62.His death was confirmed by his daughter Savanah Kerwin, who said that a cause had not been determined and that the family was awaiting the results of an autopsy.In 1977, when Mr. Kerwin was 16, he was cast in a television movie, “James at 15,” that served as the pilot episode for the NBC series of the same name. The show, which ran for 21 episodes, followed the adolescent adventures of a sandy-haired budding photographer, James Hunter, who has moved with his family to Boston from Oregon.The show tackled serious themes like sex, alcoholism and pregnancy. It also made Mr. Kerwin a teenage idol.Writing in The Washington Post a few weeks into the show’s run, the critic Tom Shales said that while “James at 15” was “not perfect, not revolutionary, not always deliriously urgent,” it was “still the most respectable new entertainment series of the season.”“And if it romanticizes adolescence through the weekly trials and triumphs of its teenage hero,” he continued, “at least it does so in more ambitious, inquisitive and authentic ways than the average TV teeny-bop.”The show ran into trouble with NBC’s censors over a script that called for James to lose his virginity, to a Swedish exchange student, on his 16th birthday (when the program would be retitled “James at 16”). The network objected to the script’s use of the word “responsible” as a euphemism for birth control, and agreed to air the episode only “if the boy suffers for it and is somehow punished,” the novelist Dan Wakefield, the show’s creator, told The New York Times in 1978.The disagreement led to Mr. Wakefield’s resignation before the episode was broadcast, on Feb. 9, 1978. “James at 16” was canceled in May of that year.Lance Michael Kerwin was born on Nov. 6, 1960, in Newport Beach, Calif., to Don and Lois Kerwin. When he was growing up, he told The Times in 1982, he was so addicted to television that he could not read when he reached the fourth grade.After his parents divorced, his mother and stepfather “unplugged the television,” he said.“Every day after school I would come home and read out loud with my mother and stepfather — stories, plays and scripts that they would bring home from work,” he said.In addition to his daughter Savanah, Mr. Kerwin’s survivors include his wife, Yvonne Kerwin, and four other children: Fox, Terah, Kailani and Justus. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Kerwin’s acting career began in the early 1970s with small roles on popular TV shows like “Little House on the Prairie,” “Gunsmoke” and “Wonder Woman.” From 1974 to 1976, he appeared in five installments of “ABC Afterschool Special,” the daytime educational anthology series aimed at young people.Mr. Kerwin in 2022. After dealing with a drug problem for many years, he helped run a rehabilitation program and was a youth pastor.AFF/AlamyIn 1979, he starred in the mini-series adaptation of “Salem’s Lot.” The series followed a novelist who returns to his New England hometown to write a book and encounters vampires who have invaded the town. Mr. Kerwin played Mark Petrie, a teenager who helps the author stop the vampires.Mr. Kerwin continued acting through the 1980s and into 1990s. He appeared in the 1985 science fiction movie “Enemy Mine” and the 1995 thriller “Outbreak,” about a deadly plague.By the time he was making “Outbreak,” Mr. Kerwin “was actively struggling with sobriety,” Savanah Kerwin said, which may have played a role in his decision to walk away from acting.In 2010, Mr. Kerwin pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree theft for falsifying documents to obtain state medical assistance and food stamps in Hawaii, The Associated Press reported. He was sentenced to five years of probation and was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.“I’ve been struggling with the sin of drug use for a long time,” Mr. Kerwin told The Los Angeles Daily News in 1999, in an interview conducted while he was in a rehabilitation center in Perris, Calif. “I’ve gotten in years of abstinence. The last time I found myself turning to drugs again, I came here to restore my walk with the Lord.”Later, his daughter said, he helped run the rehabilitation program U-Turn for Christ and was a youth pastor there for several years.“He was constantly trying to help people who were struggling to find God or become sober,” she said. “That was his focus for the rest of his life.”Sheelagh McNeill More

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      Lloyd Morrisett, a Founder of ‘Sesame Street,’ Dies at 93

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      His observations about his 3-year-old daughter’s viewing habits led him to join Joan Ganz Cooney in creating a program that revolutionized children’s television.Lloyd Morrisett, a psychologist whose young daughter’s viewing habits inspired the creation of the revolutionary children’s educational television program “Sesame Street,” and whose fund-raising helped get it off the ground, died on Jan. 15 at his home in San Diego. He was 93.His daughter Julie Morrisett confirmed the death.Mr. Morrisett was a vice president of the nonprofit Carnegie Corporation in 1966 when he attended a dinner party in Manhattan hosted by his friends Joan Ganz Cooney and her husband, Tim. During the evening, Mr. Morrisett told the guests that his daughter Sarah was so mesmerized by TV that she would watch the test pattern on weekend mornings until cartoons began.Sarah had also memorized advertising jingles, which suggested to Mr. Morrisett that youngsters might more easily learn reading, writing and arithmetic if they were delivered in an entertaining way.“I said at one point in the conversation, ‘Joan, do you think television can be used to teach young children?’” he said in an interview on “BackStory,” a podcast about history, in 2019, “and her answer was, “I don’t know, but I’d like to talk about it.’”The idea was intriguing enough for Mr. Morrisett, along with Ms. Ganz Cooney, then a producer of public affairs television programming, and others to begin brainstorming about creating a program for preschoolers, particularly poor children who were likely to fall behind in the early grades, that would educate and amuse them.“‘What if?’ became their operative phrase,” Michael Davis wrote in “Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street” (2008). “What if you could create content for television that was both entertaining and instructive? What if it went down more like ice cream than spinach?”At Mr. Morrisett’s request, and with money from the Carnegie Corporation, Ms. Ganz Cooney traveled the country interviewing educators, animators, puppeteers, psychologists, filmmakers and television producers to produce a study, “The Potential Uses of Television for Pre-School Education.” That study became the blueprint for “Sesame Street.”Mr. Morrisett focused on raising $8 million to start “Sesame Street,” with about half coming from the United States Office of Education and the rest in the form of grants from Carnegie, the Ford Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.Mr. Morrisett had “magnificent political skills” that helped him raise money, Mr. Davis said in a phone interview. “He lived in that rarefied world and had connections. He was so believable and so clear and made so much damn sense.”In a statement, Ms. Ganz Cooney said, “Without Lloyd Morrisett, there is no ‘Sesame Street.’”The series made its debut on public television on Nov. 10, 1969, introducing children to a fantasy world where they could learn numbers and letters with help from a multiracial cast and a corps of Jim Henson’s Muppets that would include Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, Kermit the Frog, Cookie Monster and Elmo.Mr. Morrisett recalled that “Sesame Street” had a curriculum based on continuing research, designed to help children who watched the show succeed in school.“We were spending maybe a third of our budget on that research,” he told WBUR Radio in 2019, “and that was something that commercial television just couldn’t do.”Mr. Morrisett in 2009 with Joan Ganz Cooney at a benefit in New York for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit company that produces “Sesame Street.”Bryan Bedder/Getty ImagesMr. Morrisett was born on Nov. 2, 1929, in Oklahoma City, and grew up in Yonkers, N.Y., and Los Angeles. His father, also named Lloyd, was an assistant schools superintendent in Yonkers, N.Y., and later a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles. His mother, Jessie (Watson) Morrisett, was a homemaker.After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Oberlin College in Ohio in 1951, Mr. Morrisett studied for two years at U.C.L.A, then earned a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Yale in 1956. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley, but left after two years to work at the Social Science Research Council. He then joined the Carnegie Corporation as the executive assistant to its president, John Gardner. He later became a vice president.Mr. Morrisett never took an operational role at the Children’s Television Workshop, now Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces “Sesame Street” and other programs, but he was an active chairman of its board until 2000. During that time he was instrumental in the creation and funding of “The Electric Company,” a series that taught language skills to children ages 6 to 10, which was broadcast in the 1970s and rebooted from 2009 to 2011.“He had this wonderful combination of being a child psychologist who was also a champion of media and technology and was research-based, which is the DNA of the company,” Sherrie Westin, the president of Sesame Workshop, said in a phone interview. She added, “He was a pioneer who believed that television could be an educational force.”When “Sesame Street” received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2019, a gaggle of Muppets onstage shouted “We love you” to Mr. Morrisett and Ms. Ganz Cooney, who were seated in the balcony.In addition to his daughters, Julie Morrisett and Sarah Morrisett Otley, Mr. Morrisett is survived by his wife, Mary (Pierre) Morrisett, and two grandchildren.Julie Morrisett said that, unlike her sister, she didn’t like television. “There’d be no ‘Sesame Street,’” she joked, “if I were the older daughter.”While chairman of Sesame Workshop, Mr. Morrisett was also president from 1969 to 1998 of the Markle Foundation and shifted its focus from medical research and education to supporting the study of mass communication and information technology.In an essay published in Markle’s annual report in 1981, Mr. Morrisett looked at the state of children’s television and advocated for a cable TV network devoted to younger viewers. (He did not mention Nickelodeon, which had started in 1979.)He argued that such a channel had to compete effectively for viewers’ attention, but that “the key for a new children’s television service will be to provide cultural and educational values widely believed necessary for leading a productive and satisfying life in our society.” More

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      ‘You People’ Review: Guess Who’s Going to Roscoe’s

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      Jonah Hill and Eddie Murphy are among the stars in this prickly-charming generational Netflix comedy, the feature directing debut of Kenya Barris.When Ezra hops in the back seat of Amira’s Mini Cooper, sparks fly. Played with savvy charm by Lauren London, the budding costume designer furiously calls out Jonah Hill’s unhappy broker and fledgling podcaster for his assumption that she, a Black woman, is his rideshare pickup. But their exchange goes from prickly to something warmer and at times winning — which is an apt description of this interracial, interfaith, bigotry-teasing comedy, directed by Kenya Barris and written by Hill and Barris.More than his Wu-Tang Clan tees and her Gucci slides, hip-hop culture is their lingua franca.And these kids are all right-ish, to borrow a suffix Barris made popular with his TV shows “black-ish” and “grown-ish.” Much like the parents who met in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” more than 50 years ago, it’s the elders who prove to be the problem. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and David Duchovny play Shelley and Arnold Cohen of Brentwood; Eddie Murphy and Nia Long are Amira’s pessimistic-at-best parents, Akbar and Fatima Mohammed, of Baldwin Hills.While Duchovny and Long aren’t silent partners here, it’s the former “S.N.L.” castmates Murphy and Louis-Dreyfus who whet the comedy as their characters are poised to scuttle Ezra and Amira’s plans to wed. Shelley by being so effusive in her clumsy embrace of Amira that she becomes exhaustingly offensive. The disapproving Akbar by trying to reveal Ezra as a white opportunist.Hill’s Ezra is, in fact, a fool of sorts. Mo, his cocky partner in podcasting (played by the dynamic comic Sam Jay) tries to keep him real. But Ezra lies to please. He tries too hard. He refers to Malcolm X as “the G.O.AT.” during his first meeting with Amira’s parents at a Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles (his idea). He wants to be edgy and lovable. And Hill, wearing blond-streaked hair and a lit smile, carries that yearning throughout the film.Hill and London build on a nice vibe. Their characters are playful and frisky, in sync with their eye rolling and mouthing of apologies from across a room. Like the betrothed, viewers recognize the shoals but remain optimistic they can navigate them. And then the movie begins nimbly nudging doubts. Maybe there is no happily ever after here.Between the two of them, insiders Barris and Hill must have Rolodexes that cover the entire industry. There are cameos aplenty. Rhea Perlman offers a few quips as Ezra’s grandmother. Richard Benjamin, Hal Linden and Elliott Gould say wildly inappropriate things after a Yom Kippur service. Anthony Anderson cuts heads at a Crenshaw barbershop. And Mike Epps arrives as Akbar’s knowing brother, E.J.Additionally, Los Angeles gets more than a passing glance. Mark Doering-Powell’s photography hovers from above and cruises at street level, capturing the city in its best light. This L.A. feels decidedly upscale. With its lavish homage to sneakerhead couture and its killer soundtrack (by Bekon), “You People” can be read as either a critique of the commercialization of hip-hop culture or a celebration of its ongoing durability. Or maybe it’s both, which would likely suit Amira and Ezra just fine.You PeopleRated R for language, sexual friskiness and cannabis use. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      A New Expansion of The 1619 Project on Hulu

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      A television docuseries from Lionsgate and Hulu reimagines a signature piece of Times journalism for a new audience.A little over three years ago, after The 1619 Project was first published, The New York Times began the process of turning it into a television documentary. It was clear, from the initial response to the project, that it introduced readers to an eye-opening perspective on American history, one that pushed them to examine how the contradictions of our founding led to persistent inequalities in contemporary society. In its initial form — a special issue of the magazine, a special broadsheet section and a multi-episode podcast series — it reached millions of people. We knew that putting a version of it on television would help it reach millions more.Today the result of that effort finally arrives. “The 1619 Project” docuseries is a six-episode program that will air on Hulu over the next three weeks. The first two episodes premiere tonight, Thursday, Jan. 26; the next two arrive a week from today, on Feb. 2, and the series wraps up the week after that, on Feb. 9, with the final two. The show is hosted, of course, by the project’s creator and main voice, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and it features some of the journalists and historians who contributed to the original 1619 Project. But it is also something new, a collaboration among Nikole, the executive producer Oprah Winfrey and a talented team of producers and writers led by the Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Roger Ross Williams. Together with the New York Times film and television producers Caitlin Roper, who was an editor on the original project, and Kathleen Lingo, they reimagined The 1619 Project for a new format, creating new story lines, adding new reporting and bringing in a host of new voices, from the civil rights activist MacArthur Cotton to the pop-music pioneer Nile Rodgers.Since its initial publication, the project has already taken two new forms: an adult trade book and a children’s picture book, both of which were published in 2021. The adult book took the original magazine issue, a series of essays with historical poetry and fiction interspersed, and revised and expanded it significantly, increasing the number of essays from 10 to 18 and the number of pieces of imaginative writing from 16 to 36. The children’s book did something entirely different: It told the story, in an age-appropriate style, of the White Lion, the ship that brought the first enslaved Africans to the English North American colonies and highlighted the contributions of the ancestors of those first arrivals.The docuseries is another new iteration of the original concept behind The 1619 Project. Though each episode is based on an essay from the book, the show represents the most extensive reimagination of the project yet. This is partly because a new group of collaborators brought a fresh set of ideas to the material. But it’s also because television created so many new possibilities.One of my favorite moments in the series is a long interview Nikole conducted with Cotton, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It comes about midway through the episode based on her opening essay in the book, “Democracy.” This was an expansion of her Pulitzer Prize-winning essay from the original magazine issue, which made a powerful argument that the struggles across many generations by Black Americans for civil and political rights have been an essential part of the evolution of our democracy. In the show, Nikole interviews Cotton, now in his 80s, sitting on a bench outside the county courthouse in Greenwood, Miss., where he tried to register Black people to vote 60 years ago. When she asks him why so few Black people were registered to vote in those days, he responds matter-of-factly: “State-sponsored terror. Straight out. They killed people for trying to register.” In 1963, Cotton and other S.N.C.C. members tried to overwhelm this opposition by leading a large group of registrants to the courthouse. He was arrested and sent to state prison, where he was housed on death row and tortured. In her essay, Nikole wrote about the courage and idealism of people who “believed fervently in the American creed,” as she puts it, “despite being violently denied the freedom and justice promised to all.” Even in this context, it is a revelation to see Cotton describe, with remarkable calmness, how he found the courage to persevere. “Somebody had to do it,” he tells her. “Democracy is a fight.”Nikole’s interview with Cotton is just one of the many new elements of the docuseries that expand the ideas of the original project. Over the course of the six episodes, she interviews various historians, politicians, musicians, activists and average Americans, and she travels to many states and important sites in the nation’s past. She also plunges deep into her own family history. (Greenwood, Miss., where Cotton is from, was the birthplace of Nikole’s father.) For us at the magazine, who helped Nikole launch the original project, it is a thrill to see it reinvented for television, to watch as she brings to life onscreen the urgent contemporary and historical themes that have animated this groundbreaking work of journalism from the beginning. More