Subterms
You streamed it. Now you can buy it at Netflix.shop, a new site that will offer everything from a “Lupin” side table to a “Yasuke” clock.There will be “Lupin” pillows and Netflix-branded boxer shorts.There will be caps, necklaces, charms and hoodies, all of it for sale at Netflix.shop, a site that goes live on Thursday, when the world’s biggest streaming company plants a flag in the territory of e-commerce. More
“Come on, Europe, you can’t judge us. You had fascists; we had fascists. You have rulers that marry their cousins; we have Rudy, who married his cousin,” Colbert joked.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Euro TripPresident Biden embarked on his first presidential trip abroad on Tuesday with hopes of strengthening bonds with European leaders that had been damaged, in part, by Donald Trump.“Come on, Europe, you can’t judge us. You had fascists; we had fascists. You have rulers that marry their cousins; we have Rudy, who married his cousin. You had Nosferatu; we have — we have Rudy. Potato, pot-ah-to,” Stephen Colbert said.“He’s going to see the sites, ride the rails, come back saying words like ‘lorry’ and ‘zed,’ complaining about how bad our butter is over here. Of course, switching from double fisting ice cream to double fisting gelato.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s going to be a little awkward trying to mend fences. Every speech he gives is going to begin with ‘Uh, hey, look, about the last guy — sorry about that.’” — JAMES CORDEN“Yep, Biden’s going to England, Belgium and Switzerland, and he won’t come home until he finds a new host for ‘The Bachelor.’” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, Biden is hoping to repair ties with our European allies. I think he’ll be well received. I mean, for starters, there won’t be a giant baby balloon following him wherever he goes.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Cicada Attack Edition)“The news coverage of Biden’s trip got off to a bumpy start. The White House press plane was delayed almost seven hours because a swarm of cicadas flew into the engine of the plane. If this was a movie, the government would have to go to a cabin in the woods to convince Sully Sullenberger to do one last job.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“United was like, ‘Ooh, that’s good; can we use that?’” — JIMMY FALLON“And they’re so out of touch. They haven’t been aboveground since 2004, and it shows. I mean, look at this one — Ed Hardy shirt, Von Dutch hat, and he’s using a BlackBerry, wearing one of those Live Strong bracelets. It’s embarrassing.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Oh, [expletive], a cicada got Joe Biden? I’m no scientist but I’m pretty sure that means Joe Biden is now going to turn into a cicada.” — TREVOR NOAH, on Biden’s swatting away a cicada on camera“Tomorrow, that cicada will be on Fox News in a neck brace calling for Biden to be impeached: ‘See what he did to me! It’s on tape.’” — JIMMY FALLON“The cicada returned to his buddies like, ‘Damn, the old man’s quicker than I expected.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Forget the Secret Service; that man needs a SWAT team!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meanwhile, Mike Pence was like, ‘Bugs on your head — you’re supposed to save that for the big debate.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingKristen Bell played a game of “You Can Only Keep One” on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightTig Notaro, star of Netflix’s “Army of the Dead,” will appear on Thursday’s “Conan.”Also, Check This OutKevin James and Leah Remini in “King of Queens.” In one episode, James’s character plots to keep his wife thin.CBSA new AMC+ show satirizes the tradition of hot wives with schlubby husbands on network sitcoms. More
The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, N.Y., will house the archives, which it hopes will include set pieces, audience tickets, press photos and other memorabilia.“Showcase Showdowns” and “Daily Doubles” of yesteryear will no longer be relegated to just reruns.A museum in Rochester, N.Y., announced on Wednesday that it would serve as the home of a first-of-its-kind National Archives of Game Show History to preserve artifacts and footage from programs like “Jeopardy!” “The Price Is Right” and “The $25,000 Pyramid.”The archives will be housed at the Strong National Museum of Play, which is undergoing an expansion that will add 90,000 square feet to its space and that it expects to be completed by 2023.Curators at the museum already have some ideas about what types of artifacts would make an ideal centerpiece and are asking for items from collectors.“The wheel from ‘Wheel of Fortune’ would be iconic,” Chris Bensch, the museum’s vice president for collections, said in an interview on Wednesday. The museum, he said, would gladly accept the letter board, along with a dress from the show’s famous letter-turner, Vanna White.Museum officials said there was a void of preservation groups dedicated to game shows. They represent a key aspect of television and cultural history in America, from the earliest panel shows and the quiz-show scandals of the 1950s to big-money mainstays of evening television.“It is something we feel uniquely qualified to do,” Mr. Bensch said of the museum, which opened in 1982.The archive’s creation is part of the broader expansion at the museum, which is being supported by a $60 million campaign. The cost of the archive is yet to be determined.Several marquee names have already lined up in support of the project, according to the museum, which said that the archive’s co-founders are Howard Blumenthal and Bob Boden, the producers of “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” and “Funny You Should Ask.”The museum, which is already home to the World Video Game Hall of Fame and the National Toy Hall of Fame, has found another key ally: Ken Jennings, the record-setting “Jeopardy!” champion.“There’s like a pleasant nostalgia to game shows for generations of Americans,” Mr. Jennings said in an interview on Wednesday.Calling the preservation effort overdue, Mr. Jennings said that people were starting to realize the importance of game shows the way they did with other great 20th century art forms like jazz and comic books.“I think it’s the game show’s turn,” he said.In a statement released through the museum, Wink Martindale, the veteran game show host, said there was a certain urgency to the preservation effort.“Without this initiative, many primary resources relating to these shows, as well as oral histories of their creators and talent, risked being lost forever,” he said.The museum, which welcomed nearly 600,000 visitors in 2019 before the pandemic, said it was seeking to acquire everything from set pieces and audience tickets to press photographs.“It deserves a place where it can be preserved, a place where scholars, media and the general public can access it,” Mr. Bensch said.The museum is not limiting its focus to those in front of the camera. Officials said contestants, television crews and audience members would play an important role in preserving the history of game shows.“There are so many significant folks who have shaped this industry over the years,” Mr. Bensch said. “They deserve a chance to tell their stories. We also have plans to do video oral histories with key people so we will capture their stories directly and share those with the world.”It seems the museum has a lead on an artifact.“If they want a necktie I lost on ‘Jeopardy!’ with,” Mr. Jennings said, “they’re happy to have it.” More
A new AMC+ satire mocks the family sitcom cliché of schlubby husbands paired with beautiful wives. Here are a few of the more egregious examples.In 1998, during the second episode of the CBS sitcom “The King of Queens,” the husband, Doug (Kevin James), learns that the women in his wife’s family put on weight as they age. So even though Doug is fat — “I look like I’m in my twelfth trimester,” he says — he plots to keep Carrie (Leah Remini, a knockout then and now) slim. More
“Backstage passes automatically come with a hush money payment of $130,000. Isn’t that nice?” Jimmy Fallon joked.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Tour de DistortsDonald Trump and Bill O’Reilly announced a new speaking tour on Tuesday, with dates lined up in Texas and Florida for December.“It should be a fun tour. Backstage passes automatically come with a hush money payment of $130,000. Isn’t that nice?” Jimmy Fallon joked.“When he heard, Sean Hannity was like, ‘Well, I met someone new and totally awesome, too, so.’” — JIMMY FALLON“He’s teaming up with Bill O’Reilly for a series of live events they’re calling ‘The History Tour,’ which was also the name of Michael Jackson’s tour 25 years ago. And wait until you hear those two duet on ‘The Girl Is Mine.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Better lock up your daughters. Seriously, though, it’s probably best if you do. You know, just till they’re out of town.” — SETH MEYERS“They’re planning to do four shows, and tickets go on sale next week. So if you enjoyed Charlie Sheen’s ‘Violent Torpedo of Truth’ tour, but weren’t so excited about the ‘truth’ part, this might be your thing.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Internet Outage Edition)“The internet was down for almost an hour today. Multiple major websites crashed this morning due to an outage at a company I’d never heard of before, a cloud services company called Fastly, which sounds like it was named by Donald Trump demanding a Diet Coke.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Amazon, CNN, The New York Times, Pinterest, Twitch, Google, eBay and more went offline for 50 minutes. It led to the world’s most productive hour of time in the last 30 years.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It even affected the print edition’s front-page story: ‘Error 503: Newspaper unavailable.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Amazon’s website was temporarily down this morning due to an issue with their cloud computing services provider. But don’t worry. I’m sure that flight into outer space next month will go great.” — SETH MEYERS“But it all came back, thank goodness. Everyone in the world hit control-alt-delete at the same time and, voilà, the internet is back — whew!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But don’t worry: Serious news sources, like this show, were untouched.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingLin-Manuel Miranda and Jimmy Fallon celebrated the Great White Way’s return with “Broadway’s Back.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightLisa Kudrow will reconnect with James Corden, the “Friends” reunion host, on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutIn his book “Hola Papi,” John Paul Brammer is both kind and piercingly funny, often in the same sentence, as he writes about queer life.Zack Knoll
John Paul Brammer’s new book, “Hola Papi,” was born out of a popular advice column on the gay dating app Grindr. More
He had a hand in some of the biggest shows of the 20th century, including “Dynasty” and “The Love Boat.”Douglas S. Cramer, who produced some of the most successful television shows of the 20th century, many — including “The Love Boat” and “Dynasty” — in partnership with Aaron Spelling, and who used his substantial wealth to become a leading art collector, died on Friday at his home on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. He was 89.His husband, Hubert Bush, said the cause was kidney failure.Mr. Cramer had a long career in television, producing or helping to develop shows including “Peyton Place” in the 1960s, “The Odd Couple” in the 1970s and “Hotel” in the 1980s. In the 1990s he produced a string of television movies based on novels by Danielle Steel.Today, television producing credits are handed out for a variety of reasons, and those given them often have little direct involvement in the show. But in Mr. Cramer’s day the producer was often more like a film director, shaping the cast and look of a series.“I was very hands-on,” he said in an oral history recorded in 2009 for the Television Academy Foundation. “There was nothing I wasn’t involved with. I worried about every performer, every extra, every piece of clothing.”Mr. Cramer joined forces with Mr. Spelling, the most prolific American television producer of the era, in the mid-1970s. “The Love Boat,” which they produced jointly, ran for 250 episodes beginning in 1977 and had a vast, eclectic list of guest stars that reflected Mr. Cramer’s connections and interests — Andy Warhol turned up in a 1985 episode, playing himself.Mr. Cramer, left, in 1984 with his longtime producing partner Aaron Spelling, center, and their fellow producer E. Duke Vincent.Gene Trindl/MPTV ImagesIf that series was a cultural reference point, “Dynasty” was the type of show that helps define a decade. A prime-time soap opera about a rich oil family, the Carrington clan — Blake (John Forsythe), Krystle (Linda Evans), Alexis (Joan Collins) and others — the show ran from 1981 to 1989. It gave a campy gloss to the decade while also occasionally managing to be groundbreaking: It had a prominent gay character and a prominent Black character, both still rare at the time.“We walk a fine line, just this side of camp,” Mr. Cramer told New York magazine in 1985. “Careful calculations are made. We sense that while it might be wonderful for Krystle and Alexis to have a catfight in a koi pond, it would be inappropriate for Joan to smack Linda with a koi.”That series and others, Mr. Spelling, who died in 2006, told The New York Times in 1993, benefited from the distinctive Cramer touch.“Douglas is a very creative man,” he said. “He has immaculate taste in art direction and wardrobe.”He also had immaculate taste in art. He amassed a collection that included both known names and up-and-coming talents, and he made significant gifts to museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, whose director, Glenn D. Lowry cited Mr. Cramer’s donation of “a superb group of paintings and sculptures by Ellsworth Kelly, among others.”Steve Martin, a fellow art aficionado, recalled gatherings at a ranch Mr. Cramer owned in Santa Ynez, Calif.“He would host a yearly ‘hoedown,’ with hay rides, buffets, inviting Hollywood’s and the art world’s glitterati,” Mr. Martin said by email. “One year, the hoedown centered around the opening of his gigantic, multilevel private museum, stuffed with Lichtenstein, Baselitz (as I recall), Ruscha (as I recall), and dozens of other important artists. All the high-level art mingled with guys and gals dressed in gingham and cowboy hats.”“The Love Boat” had a vast, eclectic list of guest stars that reflected Mr. Cramer’s connections and interests. Andy Warhol turned up in a 1985 episode, playing himself.Walt Disney Television, via Getty ImagesDouglas Schoolfield Cramer Jr. was born on Aug. 22, 1931, in Louisville, Ky. His father was a businessman, and his mother, Pauline (Compton) Cramer, was an interior designer who, after the family moved to Cincinnati when Doug was a boy, started writing a newspaper column, “Polly’s Pointers,” full of home decorating and other tips. She and his grandmother, who owned an antiques shop and would take him on buying trips, “opened my eyes to looking at what was around me,” Mr. Cramer said in the oral history, “which I think had a lot of impact on me as a producer.”Those buying trips with Grandma also spawned his interest in collecting, something he began doing as a child.“I started to collect saltshakers for some bizarre reason,” he told The Courier-Journal of Louisville in 2003. “From saltshakers it went to postcards. I had an enormous collection of postcards of art and posters.”He also developed an early fascination with the theater and New York City. After six months at Northwestern University in Illinois, he left college at 18 and went to live in New York, securing a job as a production assistant at Radio City Music Hall.The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 led him to conclude that “I’d rather be at the University of Cincinnati than fighting in Korea,” as he put it in the oral history; he eventually earned an English degree there.He returned to New York as a graduate student at Columbia University, obtaining a master’s degree and also making a start on a career as a playwright; his drama “Call of Duty” was staged at the Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village in 1956. The play had a decent run, but his main takeaway from the experience, he said, was the realization that “I really hadn’t lived enough to have anything to write about.”Though the Korean War was over, he was eventually drafted into the Army, spending six months working in communications. He managed a summer playhouse in Cincinnati for several seasons, at the same time teaching at what is now Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.From left, Joan Collins, John Forsythe and Linda Evans in an episode of “Dynasty,” one of the most successful shows with which Mr. Cramer was involved. “We walk a fine line,” he said of “Dynasty,” “just this side of camp.”ABC Photo ArchivesIn the late 1950s and early ’60s, sponsors were particularly influential in television, and Procter & Gamble, headquartered in Cincinnati, was one of the biggest players. Hoping to work his way into the television business, Mr. Cramer went to work there as a supervisor on two of its daytime shows, “As the World Turns” and “The Guiding Light.”After several years there he moved to New York, where in the early 1960s he took a job at ABC. As director of programing planning there, he helped develop “Peyton Place” into a hit series and also was involved in bringing “Batman” to the small screen in 1966.At ABC and throughout his career, Mr. Cramer crossed paths with future Hollywood titans. One was Barry Diller, who would later lead Paramount and 20th Century Fox.“I met Doug Cramer in the parking lot of the Bel Air Hotel as I was leaving my job interview with his boss at ABC,” Mr. Diller said by email. “He gave me the ticket to retrieve his car, thinking I was the parking attendant, and I’ve greatly admired him ever since.”From ABC Mr. Cramer moved to 20th Century Fox, and then to Paramount. There, as executive vice president in charge of production, he had overall authority over its many series, including “Love American Style,” “The Brady Bunch” and “The Odd Couple.” He soon formed his own production company, and in 1974 he produced “QB VII,” based on the Leon Uris novel, a star-studded production often identified as network television’s first mini-series. It won six Emmy Awards.After his run with Mr. Spelling, Mr. Cramer formed a different kind of partnership with Ms. Steel, beginning in 1990 with a TV movie version of her “Kaleidoscope.”“The time that I spent working with Doug Cramer on 21 TV movies and mini-series based on my books,” Ms. Steel said by email, “are among the happiest memories of my career, with fantastic results.”Mr. Cramer’s marriage to the gossip columnist Joyce Haber ended in divorce in the 1970s. A daughter, Courtney, died in 2004, and a son, Douglas III, died in 2015. Mr. Cramer began his relationship with Mr. Bush in 1991, and they married in 2006. A brother, Peyton, also survives him.Mr. Bush said that one of Mr. Cramer’s proudest accomplishments was that quirky casting on “The Love Boat.” In addition to working Warhol into an episode, he would sometimes engineer theme episodes, including one that featured designers like Bob Mackie and Halston. It was a chance, Mr. Bush said, to give Middle America, which loved the show, a look at people they might not otherwise see.“Doug made that accessible to America,” Mr. Bush said. “I think that was important.” More
The longtime host permanently parted ways with the reality franchise after stepping back in February.Chris Harrison, the longtime host of “The Bachelor,” “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” has parted ways with the reality TV franchise after nearly 20 years as its most constant presence.His departure, which was first reported by Deadline on Tuesday, comes several months after a much-criticized exchange with a previous Bachelorette about racism, which led Mr. Harrison to step back temporarily from his role as host. It also immediately follows Monday night’s premiere of the first season not hosted by Mr. Harrison since the series’ debut in 2002.Mr. Harrison was fundamental to the narrative arc of each season of “The Bachelor” and its spinoff shows, playing the role of M.C., conflict mediator and even onscreen dad to the contestants — all while talent scouting and orchestrating drama, with the help of producers, behind the scenes.“I’ve had a truly incredible run as host of The Bachelor franchise and now I’m excited to start a new chapter,” Mr. Harrison wrote on Instagram on Tuesday. “I’m so grateful to Bachelor Nation for all of the memories we’ve made together. While my two-decade journey is wrapping up, the friendships I’ve made will last a lifetime.”Warner Horizon and ABC Entertainment, which produce and distribute the series, wrote in an email statement: “Chris Harrison is stepping aside as host of ‘The Bachelor’ franchise. We are thankful for his many contributions over the past 20 years and wish him all the best on his new journey.”The Deadline story alluded to an eight-figure payout for Mr. Harrison, which The Times could not confirm.Mr. Harrison’s exit was prefigured in an announcement in February that he would be “stepping aside” from the show “for a period of time” after a heated conversation with Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette, in which he downplayed her concerns about the past conduct of Rachael Kirkconnell, a contestant on this year’s season of “The Bachelor.”Before the series finale, a photo had surfaced of Ms. Kirkconnell attending an “Old South” antebellum-themed sorority party in 2018, where she and other attendees dressed in period attire. Ms. Kirkconnell, who is white, was a clear front-runner on Matt James’s season — the first with a Black male lead. (She eventually received the final rose.)Ms. Lindsay had expressed concerns about Ms. Kirkconnell’s attendance of such an event, as well as that she had not thought to tell Mr. James about it. Mr. Harrison vigorously and reflexively defended Ms. Kirkconnell, suggesting that she wouldn’t have known better in 2018.He assailed Ms. Kirkconnell’s critics as being “judge, jury, executioner.”“People are just tearing this girl’s life apart,” he said. “It’s just unbelievably alarming to watch this.”He later apologized on Instagram. “I invoked the term ‘woke police,’ which is unacceptable,” Mr. Harrison wrote, adding, using an abbreviation for Black and Indigenous people and people of color: “I am ashamed over how uninformed I was. I was so wrong. To the Black community, to the BIPOC community: I am so sorry. My words were harmful.”“This historic season of ‘The Bachelor’ should not be marred or overshadowed by my mistakes or diminished by my actions,” he wrote.Ms. Kirkconnell also posted an apology on Instagram. While she did not directly confirm the veracity of the party photos or other content posted online, she said her actions had been racist.“I’m here to say I was wrong,” she wrote in her post. “I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist.”The interaction between Mr. Harrison and Ms. Lindsay was notable because the “Bachelor” franchise had long been criticized for its lack of diverse contestants. Before Ms. Lindsay’s season, nearly all of the previous 33 Bachelors and Bachelorettes had been white.And as the Bachelorette, Ms. Lindsay could not escape racism in the form of microaggressions and, seemingly, sabotage. One potential suitor greeted her by saying, “I’m ready to go Black and I’m never going to go back,” and another referred to her as “a girl from the hood.” A third contestant, Lee Garrett, bad-mouthed several Black contestants to Ms. Lindsay, using words including “aggressive,” “big,” “angry” and “violent.” (Tweets attributed to Mr. Garrett that surfaced during Ms. Lindsay’s season equated the NAACP with the KKK.)At the time of Mr. Harrison’s exchange with Ms. Lindsay over the “Old South” party in February, she was a correspondent on “Extra,” interviewing him for the show.After, Ms. Lindsay addressed the interaction on a podcast she co-hosts. She said Mr. Harrison had apologized to her but said she was “having a really, really hard time” accepting his apology.“I can’t take it anymore,” she said, speaking broadly about her frustration with the franchise’s handling of race. “I’m contractually bound in some ways, but when it’s up — I am so — I can’t, I can’t do it anymore.”Though the franchise has not named a permanent replacement host, there are some temporary ones lined up for the next few seasons. This season of “The Bachelorette” is hosted by Tayshia Adams and Kaitlyn Bristowe, two former Bachelorettes. When it airs this summer, “Bachelor in Paradise” will be guest-hosted by David Spade. More
“You know, usually if you got this close to Trump’s crotch, he’d pay you $130,000,” Jimmy Kimmel joked of rumors that the former president had worn his pants backward.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. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now. More
