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      ‘Law & Order’ Is Having an Identity Crisis

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      The franchise has always portrayed the police as flawed but ultimately good. The latest spinoff does away with that ambivalence.If you were going to watch a police procedural — which, for the record, I don’t particularly recommend — you could do worse than NBC’s “Law & Order” franchise. Across 32 years and more than 1,200 episodes, the original series and its six American spinoffs have offered a gentle critique of law enforcement, presenting a parade of flawed individuals navigating a byzantine justice system. Detectives are stymied by bureaucrats and squabble with lunkhead patrol officers, who reliably contaminate crime scenes. Idealistic prosecutors grow disillusioned and leave for nonprofit work. And yet the franchise still hinges on a lesser-of-two-evils logic: The institutions may be imperfect, and the cops imperfect, but their vocation is, by definition, good. There are always more victims to avenge, and none better equipped to do it than the New York Police Department.This cautiously optimistic view of policing was once embodied by Elliot Stabler, the detective played by Chris Meloni since the 1999 premiere of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.” A hotheaded ex-Marine, Stabler initially clashed with authority and struggled to adapt to married life, receiving reprimands from his captain and consulting a shrink. But paired with his compassionate partner, Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), he proved an exemplary cop and father. He was dogged and intuitive, a man who gave more than he took, rough around the edges but heroic nonetheless.And yet the franchise’s latest spinoff, “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” has done away with all that fortitude. In the pilot, Stabler’s wife is killed by a car bomb, leading him to contemplate violent retribution. He grows a goatee. He goes undercover. He has a rockin’ good time. In a scene from the second season, airing now, we find him training in a boxing gym, where he’s approached by a sultry mob wife — a suspect in a sex-trafficking sting — who presents him with a pair of carnation-pink panties and invites him to her home. Once there, Stabler spikes her drink with an incapacitating agent, and they kiss until she passes out. Stabler hustles into her bedroom and riffles for evidence, escaping through a back door when her husband arrives.Stabler’s wife is killed by a car bomb, leading him to contemplate violent retribution. He grows a goatee.Never mind how implausible this sequence feels, especially given Stabler’s background as a sex-crimes detective. The tone is sleazy, owing more to 1980s action flicks than the trademark “Law & Order” grit. It’s a far cry from the franchise’s origins: middle-aged cops and attorneys plagued with lousy diets and troubled families, a dour but lively metropolis teeming with nosy neighbors and wisecracking witnesses. Instead, “Organized Crime” depicts a backlot version of New York, its desolate cityscapes almost devoid of pedestrians. Stabler’s task force targets deep-pocketed warlords and ethnic outfits, armed traffickers who hijack shipping containers and vaccine supplies. Officers meet informants on abandoned waterfronts, and everybody drives around in a giant black S.U.V. Cruising gang-controlled neighborhoods, Stabler is anxious, adrift and thirsty for vengeance. Whatever happened to America’s dad?While Stabler busies himself with mobsters and madams, the long-running “Special Victims Unit,” whose fictional plots often riff on real-world headlines, has become a lugubrious public-service announcement on modern policing. Now a captain, Benson has been elevated to virtual sainthood, leading an understaffed unit and deflecting misogyny from her superiors. In the aftermath of George Floyd, even her pristine character is tested by institutional bias and dysfunction — and her commanding officer, a Harvard-educated Black man, is replaced by a chauvinistic white man prone to victim-blaming.Benson’s relentless drive for justice remains. An arc in the 22nd season recalls the 2020 Central Park bird-watching incident, in which a white woman filed a false report against a Black man. (The charge against her was later dismissed.) The show’s stand-in for the bird-watcher is arrested; after he’s exonerated, Benson apologizes. “We both want the department to own up to their mistakes and to make changes moving forward,” she tells him. “We can get rid of the worst cops.” Her promise echoes Mayor Eric Adams’s campaign claim that he once worked to “reform the police” from the inside, and it’s a stretch even by “Law & Order” standards. The franchise once focused on good work done by flawed people, but now even “S.V.U.” takes a more evangelistic stance. Police departments may abuse their power, it concedes, but they are redeemed by the likes of Olivia Benson.Stabler is an avenger, Benson a heart-of-gold administrator.What’s jarring about the way “Organized Crime” and “S.V.U.” have diverged is how thoroughly both shows sacrifice realism to preserve optimistic attitudes toward policing. The original “Law & Order,” which aired from 1990 to 2010 (a revival begins this month), took pains to establish its characters as public servants, not superheroes. On the job, the detectives and attorneys wore drab, rumpled suits and worked desk phones from cramped offices. Off the job, they drank and avoided their families, because dealing with predators makes for a harrowing day. For some of them — Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy, S.Epatha Merkerson’s Anita Van Buren — the lack of glamour suggested selflessness: Clearly they could’ve made more money elsewhere.Judging by the show’s longevity, this vision was a palatable one, a big-tent philosophy that allowed the show to celebrate the justice system while acknowledging its failures. A tone of knowing cynicism lent the writing credibility; a wariness of machismo and bureaucracy gave it tension. It maintained a certitude that New Yorkers needed protection from their neighbors, and that those who provided it merited sympathy.But in a time of skyrocketing funding and increased attention on police brutality, that big tent has collapsed. “Organized Crime” and “S.V.U.” face a new hurdle: They must demonstrate that cops are indeed the good guys. Both have cagily staked their territory. “S.V.U.” pays lip service to reform without seriously considering it; “Organized Crime” looks the other way entirely, supposing a wasteland of a city overrun by militant thugs. Stabler is an avenger, Benson a heart-of-gold administrator who could maybe be talked into some additional sensitivity training.It bears mention that another spinoff, “Law & Order: Hate Crimes,” was announced and then put on hold in 2019. Given the franchise’s expositional method and penchant for moral ambiguity, it’s unsettling to contemplate what that show might have looked like. In interviews, the franchise’s creator, Dick Wolf, has stressed that the shows maintain a nonpolitical lens on current events. But the incoherence of the new installments is a statement in itself. The shows could not ignore that millions of Americans were so shaken by police violence that they took to the streets in 2020. But it’s also true that some share of “Law & Order” fans must have thin-blue-line flags draped from their porches. Two roads diverged in a wood, and “Law & Order” pretends to take them both.Opening page: Screen grab from YouTube. Above: Virginia Sherwood/NBC; Chandan Khanna/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images; Heidi Gutman/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Missing in Brooks County’ and ‘Sisters With Transistors’

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      A documentary about a Texas border region plays as part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” series. And a documentary about women in electronic music airs on Showtime.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 21-Feb. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY (2021) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Hundreds of people have died trying to migrate from Mexico to the United States through Brooks County, Tex., in the past two decades. This documentary looks at what makes the region, on the southern end of Texas, so perilous for those crossing the border, and explores work that activists and community members are doing to address the crisis. It focuses on two families who turn to Eddie Canales, the founder of the South Texas Human Rights Center, for help finding missing family members.CELEBRATING BETTY WHITE: AMERICA’S GOLDEN GIRL 10 p.m. on NBC. This hourlong special celebrates the life and career of the comic actress Betty White, who died in December at 99. Many famous people will pay tribute to White, including Drew Barrymore, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Goldie Hawn, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Morgan, Jean Smart and President Biden.TuesdayA scene from “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power.”Greenwich EntertainmentBARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (2021) 8 p.m. on Starz. “A Super Bowl touchdown roar.” That’s how The New York Times described the reception that Representative Barbara Lee received from an audience in Oakland, Calif., at a community gathering in October 2001. The reason for the crowd’s enthusiasm: Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against invading Afghanistan in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. This documentary looks at Lee’s life both before and after that pivotal move. Interviewees include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the CNN commentator Van Jones and the actor Danny Glover.Remembering Betty WhiteThe actress, whose trailblazing career spanned seven decades, died on Jan. 31. She was 99. Obituary: After creating two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history,  White remained a beloved presence on television. Remembered Fondly: Hollywood stars, comedians, a president and seemingly the entire internet paid tribute after her death was announced. Final Prank: People magazine found itself in an awkward spot when a cover for White’s upcoming 100th birthday hit the newsstands right before her death.From the Archives: In a 2011 interview, White shared the memory of a relationship she held dear to her heart — with an elephant.WednesdayLUCY IN THE SKY (2019) 7:15 p.m. and 9:50 on FXM. Earlier this month, the “Fargo” and “Legion” showrunner Noah Hawley released a dark new novel, “Anthem,” that imagines teenage characters several years after the Covid-19 pandemic. For a multiformat double feature, pair the book with Hawley’s film “Lucy in the Sky,” where Natalie Portman is a lovesick astronaut.ThursdayThe composer Maryanne Amacher in a scene from “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary that explores how women shaped electronic music.Peggy Weil/Metrograph PicturesSISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (2021) 6:30 p.m. on Showtime. When the multimedia musician and composer Laurie Anderson mentions “radical sounds” while narrating this documentary, the phrase has a clear double meaning. Not only did synthesizers and other digital technology, a focus of the film, create never-before-heard sounds during the 20th century, but it gave opportunities for female composers like Daphne Oram, Maryanne Amacher and Clara Rockmore to innovate outside of the traditional, male-dominated music industry. The film explores the work of these women and more, arguing that their importance in shaping electronic music has been overlooked. The result, Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times, is “informative and often fascinating.”SCREAM (1996) 8 p.m. on BBC America. The shrieks came with a laugh in “Scream,” Wes Craven’s horror-parody that gave new life to the slasher genre when it hit theaters just over 25 years ago. The movie spawned a slew of sequels — the latest of which came out earlier this month — but even this first entry feels like something of a sequel, so filled is it with references and callbacks to previous, genre-defining movies, including “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” It introduced the character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a suburban teenager who is stalked by a masked killer with a long face. BBC America is airing it alongside its first sequel, SCREAM 2 (1997).Friday2022 WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. on NBC. The Winter Olympics in Beijing formally begin on Friday with an opening ceremony set to include the traditional cauldron lighting and parade of nations. (Other than athletes, American presence at the games will be subdued: The United States is among the countries whose governments have planned for a diplomatic boycott of the games, citing human rights abuses.) The ceremony will be covered live at 6:30 a.m., then rebroadcast at 8 p.m. as a more polished special.STAND AND DELIVER (1988) 10 p.m. on TCM. The actor Edward James Olmos took a break from the sheen of “Miami Vice” to play a schlubby (but deeply gifted) math teacher in this late ’80s drama. Directed by Ramón Menéndez and based on actual events, the film casts Olmos as Jaime Escalante, a teacher at a public high school in East Los Angeles whose ability to motivate his students leads to impressive test scores that were called into question by prejudiced standardized-testing authorities. Olmos plays the part to “inspiringly great effect,” Janet Maslin said in her review for The Times in 1988. (He later received an Oscar nomination for his performance.) “If ever a film made its audience want to study calculus,” Maslin wrote, “this is the one.”SaturdayWillem Dafoe, left, and Bradley Cooper in “Nightmare Alley.”Searchlight PicturesNIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. After its recent release in theaters, Guillermo del Toro’s latest haunted house of a movie hits smaller screens via HBO on Saturday night. Set primarily amid a grimy carnival, “Nightmare Alley” centers on a 1930s con man (Bradley Cooper) who finds success putting on a mentalist act. The real star, though, might be the setting: In her review for The Times, Manohla Dargis praised del Toro’s textured, polished world building, but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the rest of the film. “The carnival is diverting, and del Toro’s fondness for its denizens helps put a human face on these purported freaks,” she wrote. “But once he’s finished with the preliminaries, he struggles to make the many striking parts cohere into a living, breathing whole.”SundayGUY’S CHANCE OF A LIFETIME 9 p.m. on Food Network. Some competition shows offer their winners a cash prize that they can retire on. “Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime” offers an opportunity: Contestants vie for ownership of a Guy Fieri-branded chicken joint in Nashville. A winner will be revealed on Sunday night’s season finale. More

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      6 TV Tie-In Podcasts to Enhance Your Next Binge

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      Who’ll be the last one standing in “Succession”? Is “The Good Place” heaven or hell? These are the audio companions to keep the conversation going around some of your favorite shows.For a true TV devotee, watching the latest episode is just the beginning. Depending on the show at hand, there are plot twists and character revelations to dissect, theories to discuss and historical context to plumb. Fans have been gathering online to do all this since before the turn of the century, but in recent years, shows have started producing their own post-episode debriefs.Starting in the early 2010s, the TV “after-show” became a subgenre. Immediately after a new episode aired, a host would interview the stars and creators about what just happened, in programs like AMC’s “Talking Dead” and “Talking Bad,” HBO’s “After the Thrones,” and more recently Netflix’s “The Netflix Afterparty.” But as Hollywood seems to be realizing, the format works just as well (if not better) in audio form.As a result, there’s now a huge selection of official tie-in podcasts for your favorite TV shows. Some of these offer real added value, while others are skippable puffery. These six are worth your time.‘HBO’s Succession Podcast’Since fans of HBO’s towering, dramatic family tragicomedy have had to wait a full two years for new episodes, audio stepped in to fill the void. Beginning last summer, the host Roger Bennett (best known for the soccer podcast “Men in Blazers”) conducted interviews with the “Succession” ensemble, diving into the psychology of the power-hungry, emotionally stunted Roy clan. Now that the long-awaited third season has finally debuted, the podcast has switched up its format, swapping out Bennett for the veteran Silicon Valley journalist Kara Swisher (host of The New York Times podcast “Sway”). The focus now is less on the show itself, and more on the realities of the kind of power it depicts — Episode 1 features a conversation with Jennifer Palmieri, a former White House communications director, who weighs in on a politically charged moment from the season premiere. Though it may not please every fan, this shift in focus sets it apart from other tie-in podcasts.Starter episode: “Rich Doesn’t Equal Smart (With Jennifer Palmieri)”‘The Crown: The Official Podcast’One of the great pleasures of watching Netflix’s richly drawn royal drama “The Crown” is looking up the real historical events portrayed in each episode, and identifying what’s fact versus fiction. Hosted by the Scottish broadcaster Edith Bowman, this companion podcast helps to scratch that itch, offering additional context on the research that goes into depicting figures like Princess Diana and the divisive British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Each episode features Bowman alongside a variety of guests from the cast and creative team, who share behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the vast scale of the production. Sadly for fans of Claire Foy’s era, the podcast didn’t debut until Season 3 of the show, but will continue through its already-confirmed fifth and sixth seasons.Starter episode: “Episode 1: Goldstick”‘Better Call Saul Insider Podcast’Way back in 2009, when podcasts were still niche and held no interest for TV networks, the team behind AMC’s then under-the-radar drama “Breaking Bad” started putting out a roundtable podcast called “Breaking Bad Insider Podcast.” As the series gradually snowballed to become one of the most iconic series of all time, the podcast remained charmingly unchanged — with Kelley Dixon, an editor on both dramas, and Vince Gilligan, the creator of both, hosting an affable weekly chat about every aspect of the production. This dynamic continued with the introduction of the also acclaimed prequel series “Better Call Saul.” The hosts genuine warmth and camaraderie distinguishes this from many similar roundtable-style podcasts, and their insights into the nitty-gritty of production are invaluable for fans and aspiring creatives alike.Starter episode: “101 Better Call Saul Insider”‘The Good Place: The Podcast’There are layers upon layers to peel back in Michael Schur’s existential NBC sitcom “The Good Place,” which follows a ragtag group of recently deceased characters trying to navigate a zany afterlife where the rules keep changing. So it’s not surprising that the show makes ideal fodder for a podcast, which is hosted by the actor Marc Evan Jackson (best known to fans for playing a mysterious demon named Shawn). Offering episode-by-episode conversations spanning the entire series, the podcast features a revolving door of actors, writers and producers, as well as set decorators, props masters, and costume and production designers.Starter episode: “Ch. 1: Michael Schur”‘Late Night With Seth Meyers Podcast’Late-night talk shows aren’t generally first in line to get the podcast treatment, but this is less of a companion show than an alternative way to enjoy Meyers’s incarnation of “Late Night,” on NBC. New episodes typically drop two or three times a week, and feature highlights from the satirical nightly show, including Meyers’s opening monologues, interviews and signature recurring segments like “A Closer Look.” Guests run the cultural gamut — interviews from the last few weeks include Senator Elizabeth Warren, the cast of “Ted Lasso,” and Meyers’s onetime “SNL” colleague Colin Jost. Some episodes of the program are devoted to a sub-podcast, “Late Night Lit,” which features the “Late Night” producer Sarah Jenks-Daly discussing books and interviewing authors. Throw in the odd behind-the-scenes segment with Meyers and the producer Mike Shoemaker, and there’s something here to entertain just about anyone.Starter episode: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren | Southwest Contradicts Fox News, Says Chaos Not Caused by Vaccine Mandate: A Closer Look”‘The Chernobyl Podcast’If you devoured HBO’s riveting 2019 mini-series “Chernobyl” but skipped the tie-in podcast, you’re missing out on the full experience. Peter Sagal, best known as the host of NPR’s beloved quiz show “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!,” led this five-part conversation with the “Chernobyl” writer Craig Mazin, who co-hosts the long-running screenwriting podcast “Scriptnotes.” Their combined audio experience is evident in their effortless back-and-forth, which blends behind-the-scenes anecdotes with fascinating historical insights into the 1986 nuclear disaster and its fallout. Mazin’s enthusiasm for the subject matter is palpable, and the episode-by-episode discussion allows for a detailed breakdown of key moments. If you’re the kind of die-hard TV fan who pines for DVD audio commentaries, this is the next best thing.Starter episode: “1:23:45” More

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      Willard Scott, Longtime 'Today' Weatherman, Dies at 87

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      Mr. Scott, who played both Bozo the Clown and the original Ronald McDonald on television, was a longtime weather forecaster on the “Today” show who emphasized showmanship over science.Willard Scott, the antic longtime weather forecaster on the “Today” show, whose work, by his own cheerful acknowledgment, made it clear that you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, died on Saturday at his farm in Delaplane, Va. He was 87.His death was confirmed by his wife, Paris Keena Scott. She did not specify a cause, saying only that he had died after a brief illness.Mr. Scott, who had earlier played both Bozo the Clown and the original Ronald McDonald on television, was among the first of a generation of television weathermen who stressed showmanship over science. Throughout the late 20th century, he was also a ubiquitous television pitchman.A garrulous, gaptoothed, boutonnière-wearing, funny-hatted, sometimes toupee-clad, larger-than-life American Everyman (in his prime, he stood 6-foot-3 and weighed nearly 300 pounds), Mr. Scott was hired in 1980 to help NBC’s “Today” compete with its chief rival, ABC’s “Good Morning America.”Joining “Today” that March, Mr. Scott went on to sport a string of outré outfits, spout a cornucopia of cornpone humor and wish happy birthday to a spate of American centenarians, all while talking about the forecast every so often, until his retirement in 2015.Though he was meant to represent the new, late-model television weatherman, Mr. Scott brought to the job a brand of shtick that harked back to earlier times. He seemed simultaneously to embody the jovial, backslapping Rotarian of the mid-20th century, the midway barker of the 19th and, in the opinion of at least some critics, the court jester of the Middle Ages.There was the time, for instance, that he delivered the forecast dressed as Boy George. There was the time he did so dressed as Carmen Miranda, the “Brazilian bombshell” of an earlier era, dancing before the weather map in high heels, ruffled pink gown, copious jewelry and vast fruited hat. There was the time, reporting from an outdoor event, that he kissed a pig on camera.The pig did not take kindly to being kissed and squealed mightily.Mr. Scott, who began his career in radio before becoming a weatherman at WRC-TV, an NBC affiliate in Washington, had no background in meteorology or any allied science. But as he readily acknowledged, the weatherman’s job as reconstructed for the postmodern age did not require any.“A trained gorilla could do it,” Mr. Scott said in 1975, while he was at WRC.The only scientific asset one actually needed, he pointed out, was the telephone number of the National Weather Service.In more than three decades with “Today,” Mr. Scott traversed the country, delivering the weather on location at county fairs, town parades and quaint byways across America, as well as from NBC’s studios in New York.A frequent guest on late-night TV, he was a spokesman for a range of charitable causes and a commercial pitchman with wide television exposure — too wide, some critics maintained.The concerns he endorsed included Howard Johnson Motor Lodges, True Value Hardware, Burger King, Lipton tea, Maxwell House coffee, the American Dairy Association, the Florida Citrus Commission, Diet Coke, USA Today and many others.“A huckster for all seasons,” The New York Times called him in 1987.Mr. Scott’s onscreen persona — by his own account little different from his offscreen persona — divided viewers. Some adored him, inundating him with gifts, which he might display on the air. (Among them, the 1987 article in The Times reported, was “an airplane built out of Diet Coke cans.”)In January 1989, the country’s new first lady, Barbara Bush, broke ranks from the inaugural parade for her husband, George H.W. Bush, to dart over to Mr. Scott, broadcasting from the sidelines, and plant an impromptu kiss on his cheek.“I don’t know Willard Scott,” Mrs. Bush explained afterward. “I just love that face.”Then again, as The Boston Globe reported in 1975, there was this incident, from Mr. Scott’s days at WRC: “He was pushing a shopping cart in a Virginia supermarket recently when a little old lady charged by and smacked him with her umbrella. ‘I can’t stand you,’ she said.”The son of Willard Herman Scott, an insurance salesman, and Thelma (Phillips) Scott, a telephone operator, Willard Herman Scott Jr. was born on March 7, 1934, in Alexandria, Va.He was smitten with broadcasting from the time he was a boy, and at 16 he became a $12-a-week page at WRC-TV. After he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from American University, Mr. Scott and a classmate, Ed Walker, took to the Washington airwaves with a comic radio show, “The Joy Boys.”With time out from 1956 to 1958 for Mr. Scott’s Navy service, “The Joy Boys” was broadcast on WRC-AM from 1955 to 1972 and on WWDC-AM in Washington from 1972 to 1974. Featuring humorous improvisation and topical satire, it won a large following.From 1952 to 1962, Mr. Scott also played the title character on “Bozo the Clown,” the WRC-TV version of a syndicated children’s show. In the early ’60s, on the strength of his Bozo, McDonald’s asked him to develop a clown character to be used in its advertising.As Ronald McDonald, Mr. Scott did several local TV commercials for the franchise but was passed over — in consequence of his corpulence, he later said — as its national representative.In 1967, he started doing the weather on WRC-TV. There, his exploits included emerging from a manhole one Groundhog Day dressed as an astoundingly large groundhog.When Mr. Scott was hired by “Today,” he supplanted the meteorologist Bob Ryan, who was fired to make way for him. Mr. Ryan, who held a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s in atmospheric science, had previously worked as a cloud physicist.Mr. Scott’s early weeks at “Today,” he later recalled, were “touch and go.”But by 1987, The Times reported, “his tenure there” was “credited with helping to catapult the show past ‘Good Morning America’ into first place in the breakfast-time sweepstakes.”Not all of Mr. Scott’s colleagues approved of his modus operandi. In 1988, Bryant Gumbel, a co-host of “Today,” wrote a confidential memorandum to an NBC executive in which he castigated the work of several colleagues, notably Mr. Scott.The memo, leaked to New York Newsday the next year, charged that Mr. Scott “holds the show hostage to his assortment of whims, wishes, birthdays and bad taste.”Though Mr. Scott publicly forgave Mr. Gumbel, giving him a conciliatory kiss on the cheek on a “Today” segment soon afterward, he said elsewhere that the memo had “cut like a knife.”With NBC colleagues, Mr. Scott shared three Daytime Emmys in the 1990s for coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He went into semiretirement in 1996, ceding regular forecasting to Al Roker while continuing to deliver birthday tributes.Mr. Scott’s first wife, Mary (Dwyer) Scott, whom he married in 1959, died in 2002. He married Paris Keena Scott, his second wife, in 2014. In addition to her, he is survived by two daughters from his first marriage, Sally Scott Swiatek and Mare Scott, and two grandchildren, Sally Marie Swiatek and John Willard Swiatek.Mr. Scott was the author of several books, including “Willard Scott’s Down Home Stories” (1984) and “Willard Scott’s All-American Cookbook” (1986).For all its burlesque jocularity, Mr. Scott asserted, his job was no less taxing as a result.“Everything I do looks like it just falls into place,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1988. “Part of what I do is make it fall into place. You have to work at being a buffoon.”Michael Levenson More

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      William G. Clotworthy, ‘Saturday Night Live’ Censor, Dies at 95

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      A self-described “professional square,” he fell in love with the show, and worked with its writers to tweak questionable material. Cast members called him “Dr. No.”William G. Clotworthy, who as the in-house censor for “Saturday Night Live” from 1979 to 1990 decided whether Eddie Murphy could say “bastard,” whether Joe Piscopo could make fart jokes and whether inebriated Romans could vomit on network television, died on Aug. 19 in Salt Lake City. He was 95.His son Robert confirmed his death, at a hospice facility.Mr. Clotworthy, who described himself as “a professional square,” had never seen an episode of “Saturday Night Live” when he arrived in 1979, coming off a career of nearly 30 years in advertising and looking for a midlife career change.His predecessors had struggled with the late-night sketch show’s limits-pushing humor and had often rejected entire skits. Mr. Clotworthy was different. A trained actor, he fell in love with the show and its brand of satire, and he worked with its writers to tweak questionable material.“A writer once asked me what was the first thing I did when I read a script, and I said, ‘I laugh,’” he wrote in his memoir, “Saturday Night Live: Equal Opportunity Offender” (2001). “After I laugh, then I go to work with the scissors and blue pencil, screaming or begging.”Mr. Clotworthy, by then in his mid-50s, was liked and respected by the show’s anti-authoritarian young cast and writing staff. He chuckled along when they called him “Dr. No” and guffawed when one cast member, Tim Kazurinsky, took to interrupting skits as the prudish censor “Worthington Clotman.”“He was an ally,” said the former United States senator Al Franken, who as a longtime “Saturday Night Live” writer and performer often clashed with Mr. Clotworthy — but who also considered him a friend. “Sometimes I’d lose, sometimes I’d win, but he was always sophisticated in his understanding of what we were doing.”Another writer, Kevin Kelton, recalled one of his earliest skits, in which Mr. Murphy, playing his recurring character Mister Robinson — a riff on Mister Rogers — finds a baby outside his apartment door. Like Mister Rogers, Mister Robinson often had a “word of the day” written on a board for his purported juvenile audience. The word for that episode was “bastard.”Mr. Clotworthy said no, they could not say “bastard” on network TV. But instead of shutting down the skit, he and Mr. Kelton negotiated. Eventually they came up with a compromise: The word would appear on the board, but Mr. Murphy would be pulled away by a visitor before he could say it.“He had as tough a job as anyone had there, but he was very friendly,” Mr. Kelton said in an interview. “Even though he was the censor, he understood his job wasn’t to impede the show.”By his own admission, Mr. Clotworthy wasn’t perfect. He regretted killing a sketch in which several fraternity brothers, in the middle of lighting their farts, are interrupted by a parody of Smokey Bear, played by Mr. Piscopo, and he equally regretted giving approval to “Vomitorium,” in which Roman men drink and eat too much and then throw up.“I wish I had the script so I could recall why the heck we ever let that one in,” he wrote in his memoir.“A writer once asked me what was the first thing I did when I read a script, and I said, ‘I laugh,’” Mr. Clotworthy wrote in a memoir published in 2001. “After I laugh, then I go to work with the scissors and blue pencil, screaming or begging.”
      William Griffith Clotworthy was born on Jan. 13, 1926, in Westfield, N.J. His father, William Rice Clotworthy, worked for AT&T, and his mother, Annabelle (Griffith) Clotworthy, was a homemaker. He traced his family line to 11th-century England and his American roots to Jamestown, the first English settlement in North America.His first two marriages ended with his wives’ deaths. Along with his son Robert, he is survived by his third wife, Jo Ann Clotworthy; another son, Donald; his daughters, Lynne and Amy Clotworthy; his stepsons, Peter Bailey and Bradford Jenkins; and a grandson..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1gp0zvr{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:25px;}Mr. Clotworthy entered the Navy after graduating from high school and later attended Yale and Wesleyan before enrolling at Syracuse University, where he studied theater, graduating in 1948.He headed to New York City intent on an acting career and arrived at the dawn of the television era, something he got to watch firsthand after being hired as an NBC page. The premier program at the time was “Texaco Star Theater,” hosted by Milton Berle, and among Mr. Clotworthy’s tasks was escorting Mr. Berle’s mother up to Studio 8H before every performance.He left NBC after eight months and, after a brief, unsuccessful stab at acting, took a job with the advertising agency B.B.D.O.William Clotworthy, right, in the mid 1950’s during a recording session with Efrem Zimbalist Jr.via Clotworthy FamilyFirst in New York and later in Los Angeles, he worked as an agency representative. In the early days of television, many shows were owned by corporations, some of them B.B.D.O. clients, and it was Mr. Clotworthy’s task to see that their interests were protected. On “General Electric Theater,” for example, he made sure that there were no gas ranges on kitchen sets.He became especially close friends with the host of “General Electric Theater,” Ronald Reagan, and was among those encouraging him to move into politics in the 1950s. When Mr. Clotworthy told Reagan he should run for mayor of Los Angeles, he recalled, Reagan replied, “Nah, it’s president or nothin’!”Mr. Clotworthy returned to New York in 1974, and five years later he went back to NBC, this time as the head of standards and practices for the East Coast.The job had him overseeing several programs, including soap operas, movies and, later, “Late Night With David Letterman,” where he would visit comics in their dressing rooms and ask them to run through their acts just minutes before going on air.“He was not a jovial, yuck-a-minute guy,” said Carol Leifer, a former writer for “Saturday Night Live” who often appeared as a stand-up comic on “Letterman.” “I would always be more relaxed when I went on because I knew my routine couldn’t go over as badly as it did with Bill.”But the bulk of his time was spent on “Saturday Night Live.” He would sit in on the first script read-through, on Wednesday, raising flags and suggesting edits. He would remain in and around the studio up through the broadcast, watching nervously from the control room to make sure no one let slip an obscenity.Mr. Clotworthy, center, with his son Donald and Ronald Reagan in 1994. He was friends with Reagan and was among those who encouraged him to move from acting into politics.via Clotworthy FamilyThat’s just what happened in February 1981, when one of the show’s cast members, Charlie Rocket, uttered a forbidden four-letter word toward the end of a skit.“The control room went absolutely silent, then, as on swivels, every head turned to look at me,” Mr. Clotworthy wrote in his memoir. “I saw this through my fingers, mind you, as my hands were covering my face, just before I beat my head against the console.”The word was deleted from the tape before it aired on the West Coast. With the show’s ratings already sinking, Mr. Rocket was let go a month later, along with two other cast members, four writers and the producer.Mr. Clotworthy retired in 1990, after which he became an amateur historian and wrote several books, including one in which he recounted visiting every site that claimed “George Washington slept here.”Mr. Clotworthy rarely socialized with the cast or writing staff, and he kept his personal and political opinions to himself, especially when the show poked fun at his old friend President Reagan. It was, he later wrote, all about the delicate balance between enforcement and negotiation, between taking a hard line and letting things slide.“The hardest part of the job,” he wrote, “is to say ‘No’ and make them like it.” More

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      Herbert Schlosser, a Force Behind ‘S.N.L.’ and ‘Laugh-In,’ Dies at 95

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      As a top NBC executive, he wrote a memo envisioning the show that became “Saturday Night Live.” He also helped recruit Johnny Carson and oversaw a raft of hit shows.Herbert Schlosser, a longtime NBC executive who put an indelible stamp on the network by negotiating Johnny Carson’s first deal to host “The Tonight Show,” putting “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In” on the air and overseeing the development of “Saturday Night Live,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 95.His death was confirmed by his wife, Judith Schlosser.Mr. Schlosser was president of NBC in 1974 when he faced a late-night predicament: Carson no longer wanted the network to carry repeats of “Tonight” on weekends. But pleasing Carson, the network’s most important star, led to an inevitable question: What would NBC televise at 11:30 on Saturday nights?Mr. Schlosser wrote a memo in early 1975 that laid out the fundamentals of an original program that would be televised from NBC’s headquarters at Rockefeller Center; would be carried live, or at least taped on the same day, to maintain its topicality; would be “young and bright,” with a “distinctive look, a distinctive set and a distinctive sound”; would “seek to develop new television personalities”; and would have a different host each week.“Saturday Night is an ideal time to launch a show like this,” Mr. Schlosser wrote. “Those who now take the Saturday/Sunday ‘Tonight Show’ repeats should welcome this, and I would imagine we would get much greater clearance with a new show.”A sketch from the first episode of “Saturday Night Live,” seen on Oct. 11, 1975; from left, George Coe, John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner. The formula for the show had been spelled out in a memo by Mr. Schlosser earlier that year.Herb Ball/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty Images“Saturday Night Live,” originally called just “Saturday Night” — which followed much of Mr. Schlosser’s formula, and which was produced, then as now, by Lorne Michaels — made its debut on Oct. 11, 1975, after Game 1 of the World Series, between the Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds. Mr. Schlosser had attended the game in Boston with Bowie Kuhn, the strait-laced baseball commissioner, and invited him to his hotel room to watch.“He didn’t laugh. And I thought, ‘Well, that’s Bowie,’” Mr. Schlosser recalled in “Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of ‘Saturday Night Live’ as Told by Its Stars, Writers, and Guests” (2002), by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. “And then after a while, he started to chuckle. And then he’d actually laugh. And I figured, ‘Well, if he likes it, it’s going to have a wider audience than most people think.’”Mr. Michaels, in a phone interview, said that Mr. Schlosser had been a staunch backer of the show.“We wouldn’t have been on the air without him,” he said. “‘Live’ was his idea, not mine. He just believed in the show. He protected it.”Mr. Schlosser, a lawyer, had been an executive in NBC’s business affairs department, where he negotiated programming contracts to carry, among other events, the 1964 Summer Olympics from Tokyo and talent deals like ones with the comedian Bob Hope, whose specials were a mainstay of NBC’s prime-time schedule.“There were always kickers to his deals,” Mr. Schlosser told the Television Academy in an interview in 2007. With each new one, NBC had to buy a piece of land from Hope, one of the largest private landowners in California.“We bought it, got capital gains and never lost money on it,” Mr. Schlosser said.In 1966, Mr. Schlosser was named NBC’s vice president for programs on the West Coast, based in Burbank, Calif. Over six years, he was involved in developing numerous shows, among them some with Black stars, like the popular comedian Flip Wilson’s variety series and “Julia,” a sitcom starring Diahann Carroll as a single nurse with a son. He also hired the first woman and the first Black person to be vice presidents in the department.Flip Wilson, left, and Richard Pryor in 1973 on “The Flip Wilson Show,” which Mr. Schlosser had helped develop.Paul W. Bailey/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesMr. Schlosser particularly championed “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” a fast-paced satirical series that made its debut in early 1968. It was considered outrageous then for the political and risqué humor of its skits, performed by a cast of future stars including Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin.George Schlatter, the executive producer of “Laugh-In,” recalled that Mr. Schlosser had protected him from those within NBC who found the show’s content offensive.“Every Tuesday morning there was a parade into his office — censors, lawyers, bookkeepers,” Mr. Schlatter said by phone. “They’d say, ‘Herb, talk to him.’ Then he’d say to me, ‘I promised them I’d talk to you.’ And he’d say, ‘Just keep doing what you’re doing.’”Herbert Samuel Schlosser was born on April 21, 1926, in Atlantic City, N.J. His father, Abraham, owned a furniture store; his mother, Anna (Olesker) Schlosser, was a homemaker.After serving stateside in the Navy, he studied public and international affairs at Princeton University, graduating in 1949. Two years later, he graduated from Yale Law School.He started as a lawyer with a Wall Street firm, but the insurance work there bored him, and he moved to Phillips Nizer Benjamin Krim & Ballon (now called Phillips Nizer LLP), a Manhattan firm with many film and television clients. That experience led to his hiring around 1957 as general counsel of California National Productions, a film, merchandising and syndication subsidiary of NBC. He later became its chief operating officer before moving to NBC’s business affairs department in 1960.Johnny Carson in his first appearance as host of “The Tonight Show,” on Oct. 1, 1962. Mr. Schlosser had led the negotiations that brought him to NBC from ABC.NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesAs a lawyer with the department, he led the talks to bring Carson to NBC to replace Jack Paar as the host of “Tonight” in 1962. At the time, Carson was with ABC as M.C. of the game show “Who Do You Trust?,” and ABC required him to fulfill the last six months of his contract.Mr. Schlosser said he had agreed to pay Mr. Carson $2,500 a week (about $21,000 today). But when ABC held up his departure, one of Mr. Carson’s agents made a further demand.“He said, ‘Now that you can’t get him, we want more money,’” Mr. Schlosser recalled in the Television Academy interview. “I said, ‘We’re sticking with our price.’”Mr. Schlosser rose steadily at NBC. He was named executive vice president of the television network in 1972; promoted to president a year later; and named president of the National Broadcasting Company, the network’s corporate parent, in 1974 and chief executive in 1977.“He supported quality programs and had an idea that news was probably the most important thing the networks did,” Bud Rukeyser, a former executive vice president of corporate communications for NBC, said in a phone interview. “He gave news the benefit of the doubt. If news wanted a half-hour to do something, the answer was always yes.”But Mr. Schlosser was ousted in 1978 and replaced by Fred Silverman, who had engineered ABC’s rise to first place in prime-time ratings as its chief of programming.Mr. Schlosser’s standing had been hurt by NBC’s inability to produce a new prime-time hit series the previous season and climb out of third place.Shortly before Mr. Schlosser left NBC, the network presented “Holocaust,” a four-part mini-series that he had greenlighted. It won eight Emmy Awards. His main contribution to the project, he said, was persuading the executive producer, Herbert Brodkin, to change the title of the series, which had been called “The Family Weiss,” after some of its main characters.Mr. Schlosser and his wife, Judith, in 2011 at an event held by the Museum of the Moving Image at the Manhattan restaurant Cipriani. Mr. Schlosser was the museum’s first chairman. Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesMr. Schlosser didn’t have to go far for his next job: He was named an executive vice president of RCA, NBC’s parent company. His assignment was to develop software for RCA’s SelectaVision videodisc project. Three years later, he was named to run all of RCA’s entertainment activities, which also included RCA Records (but not NBC).He left in 1985 to become a senior adviser at Wertheim & Company, a Wall Street investment bank, as well as chairman of the planned Museum of the Moving Image, which opened in Queens in 1988. He remained there as either chairman or co-chairman until 2013.In addition to his wife, Judith (Gassner) Schlosser, Mr. Schlosser is survived by his son, Eric, the author of “Fast Food Nation”; a daughter, Lynn Jacobson, a former television executive; five grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.Mr. Schlosser once recalled his certainty that “Saturday Night Live” could be a part of NBC for a long time, just as “Tonight” and “Today” were. Another model of late-night success at NBC under his watch was “The Midnight Special,” a series featuring pop and rock performers, that was broadcast on Fridays after “The Tonight Show” from 1973 until 1981.“NBC had this tradition of succeeding with shows like that,” he told the Television Academy. “To me, it was a no-brainer.” More

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      With the Golden Globes Tarnished, the Group Behind Them Adapts

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      The Hollywood Foreign Press Association revised its bylaws to expand its leadership, diversify its membership and ban gifts.Following months of criticism that led to the cancellation of next year’s Golden Globe Awards telecast by NBC, the group that hands out the awards, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, announced Thursday that it was instituting a series of reforms.The group, a nonprofit, adopted a new set of bylaws that are aimed at revamping its leadership, increasing and diversifying its membership and stabilizing it to ensure the future of the lucrative awards program.The association, a relatively small group of roughly 85 journalists who vote on the Golden Globes, has long been scrutinized over questions about its ethics, finances and journalistic credentials. But this year, following a Los Angeles Times investigation, a lawsuit and a growing outcry from the movie and television industries, NBC canceled the 2022awards telecast, making swift changes necessary for the organization’s survival.The group said Thursday that the membership vote in favor of the new bylaws was quite a bit higher than the two thirds required.The rules call for expanding the group’s board of directors to include people from outside the organization. The association will also bring on a new chief executive as well as heads of finance, human resources and a chief diversity officer.The reforms also cleared away several of the barriers to membership the group had long had in place. For years, critics said that the association’s membership application process was opaque, biased and generally meant to keep most people out. But the association said it would now allow any journalist who would like to join to apply, and that new members will be selected by a credentials committee that will be comprised mainly of nonmembers.All existing members — some of whom have had their journalistic credentials questioned over the years — will need to reapply to remain, the organization said. All members will be required to sign a new code of conduct, and will not be allowed to accept promotional materials or gifts from people associated with movies and television programs.“Three months ago, we made a promise to commit to transformational change and with this vote we kept the last and most significant promise in reimagining the H.F.P.A. and our role in the industry,” Ali Sar, the group’s current board president, said in a statement. “All of these promised reforms can serve as industry benchmarks and allow us to once again partner meaningfully with Hollywood moving forward.”Over the last several months, the association has gotten input on how it should change from various stakeholders, and the reforms announced on Thursday did not include some of the bolder proposals put forth, such as creating a spinoff, for-profit Golden Globes company.It also did not set specific targets for enlarging its membership or diversifying its ranks, though officials have said they aim to increase membership by at least 50 percent. (The group has come under fire for one particular finding of The Los Angeles Times report: That although the group has more than 80 members, none of them are Black.)Some of the association’s most important business partners reacted positively to the changes that were announced.In a statement, NBC said it was “encouraged by the passage of the amended bylaws” and called it “a positive step forward” that “signals the H.F.P.A.’s willingness to do the work necessary for meaningful change.”The statement did not discuss the status of a 2023 Golden Globes telecast.Dick Clark Productions, the decades-long producer of the Golden Globes, similarly said it applauded the adoption of the new bylaws, calling the policy revisions “important” and expressing optimism about next steps.“We look forward to seeing continued urgency, dedication and positive change,” the production company said, “in order to create a more diverse, equitable, inclusive and transparent future.”Brooks Barnes contributed reporting. More

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      Comfort Viewing: 3 Reasons I Love ‘Community’

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      This cult favorite comedy had a simple premise, but its mission was more complex: to deconstruct the modern sitcom.In the early days of the pandemic, when everyone was bored at home, I took an extremely comprehensive online personality quiz designed to determine your similarity to more than 1,600 fictional characters from TV, literature and film. My closest counterpart, with a 96 percent match, was Jeff Winger, the charismatic lead character played by Joel McHale on NBC’s cult sitcom “Community.” More