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      David Lazer, Executive Who Joined the World of Muppets, Dies at 89

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      At IBM, he hired a young Jim Henson to make humorous corporate films using his puppet creations. Mr. Henson later hired Mr. Lazer to help run his company.David Lazer, who as an IBM executive in the mid-1960s hired Jim Henson’s Muppets to star in a series of short films that injected laughs into sales meetings — and who a decade later joined Mr. Henson’s company as a producer — died on April 10 at his home in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 89.His death, which had not been widely reported, was confirmed by Doyle Newberry, a manager of Mr. Lazer’s estate. He did not cite a cause.“What David brought to the company was class,” Brian Henson, Mr. Henson’s son and the chairman of the Jim Henson Company, said in an interview. “Even my dad would say you couldn’t call Muppets Inc. classy. Up until then, it was a bunch of beatniks making weird stuff.”In 1965, Mr. Lazer was making commercials and sales training films for IBM’s office products division and had learned the importance of keeping in-house audiences at the company interested during meetings. Intrigued by a reel of commercials and short films made by Mr. Henson, Mr. Lazer wanted to bring his “sense of humor and crazy nuttiness” to IBM, he told Brian Jay Jones for his book “Jim Henson: The Biography” (2013).The star of Mr. Henson’s early films for IBM was Rowlf the Dog, who typed letters to his mother on a series of IBM manual and electric typewriters in which he described his new career as a salesman for the company. He promoted real products; he also plugged an electric guitar from IBM’s “Hippie Products Division” that, improbably, dispensed coffee.In another short, an early version of Cookie Monster devoured a talking coffee machine.“The idea is that if you can give people a good laugh, they’ll listen better,” Mr. Lazer told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1985.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ronny Chieng Takes Issue With Kristi Noem’s Takes on Immigration

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      “We’re going to have to take you out of U.S.A.,” the “Daily Show” host said after the homeland security chief couldn’t correctly define habeas corpus and suggested a game show for citizenship.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.Flunking OutPop quiz time — what’s the definition of habeas corpus? The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, fumbled the answer to this question during congressional testimony on Tuesday, and “The Daily Show” was not about to let it slide.“If Kristi Noem was just a random person on the street, I’d get it if she was, like, ‘Habeas corpus? That’s a Harry Potter spell, right? Makes you invisible?’” Ronny Chieng said.“But the secretary of homeland security should know that habeas corpus prevents the president from deporting you without due process, not that it lets the president deport you without due process. That’s the opposite of what it means! And I didn’t know you could have dyslexia for laws.” — RONNY CHIENG“A reality TV show for citizenship is somehow the most un-American and most American thing I’ve ever heard of. Although we already have a contest to prove who’s the most American, and it’s called the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. What’s more American than eating until your colon explodes and then going bankrupt from medical bills?” — RONNY CHIENG“It might be a nicer way to get deported. Instead of I.C.E. agents disappearing you up in unmarked vehicles, Ryan Seacrest walks into your living room with a TV crew, and is, like, ‘Carlos, we’re taking you out of the U.S.A.” — RONNY CHIENG“Kristi Noem, you still don’t know the basics of American law, so I’m sorry to say, we’re going to have to take you out of U.S.A.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Big, Beautiful Edition)“Right now, Trump’s little Republi-buddies are on Capitol Hill trying to figure out a bill, but they’re coming close to fisticuffs over his heartless, tax-cutting boondoggle, which he’s been calling his [imitating Trump] ‘big, beautiful bill.’ It really sounds less like legislation, and more like the husky guy at a male strip club. ‘OK, ladies. Coming up on the main stage is Big Beautiful Bill! You know him, you love him, the dad-bod Adonis! He’s going to eat a whole potpie with his bare hands. Grab onto those handles, ladies, before he runs off to Home Depot!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They’re trying to get Republicans to fall in line with what he keeps calling his ‘big, beautiful bill.’ And now, he somehow has got all the dummies around him calling it that, too. Big Beautiful Bill would be a good wrestling name, right?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’ll take food out of the mouths of millions of hungry children who get SNAP benefits, and it contains a provision to eliminate a sales tax on gun silencers. It will make what they call suppressors more affordable, to which I say, it’s about time. One thing I think we can all agree on is the gun violence in this country is too loud.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I read that Americans who are anxious about tariffs are skipping the salon and opting for at-home beauty treatments. Yeah, and after people cut their own bangs, tariffs will be the least of the their problems. ‘Summer’s ruined!’ Hey, here’s my advice: If you want a hot stone massage, just put your phone on your body and open five apps at once.” — JIMMY FALLONWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What if Making Cartoons Becomes 90% Cheaper?

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      “Fear not! For I shall lead ye to riches beyond your wildest dreams!”Inside a tiny recording booth in downtown Los Angeles, John Peck waited for a verdict from the voice-over engineer: Did the line sound pirate-y enough?Try again, the engineer suggested, perhaps with more throaty emphasis on “wildest.” It might make the animated character Mr. Peck was voicing — a buccaneer with a peg leg — a tiny bit funnier.Mr. Peck, 33, cleared his throat and gave it a whirl, prompting chuckles from the production team. A couple of clicks on a laptop later, and an artificial intelligence tool synced Mr. Peck’s voice with a cartoon pirate’s mouth movements. The character was destined for an episode of “StEvEn & Parker,” a YouTube series about rapscallion brothers that attracts 30 million unique viewers weekly.Just a few years ago, lip-syncing a minute of animation could take up to four hours. An animator would listen to an audio track and laboriously adjust character mouths frame by frame. But Mr. Peck’s one-minute scene took 15 minutes for the A.I. tool to sync, including time spent by an artist to refine a few spots by hand.Toonstar, the start-up behind “StEvEn & Parker,” uses A.I. throughout the production process — from honing story lines to generating imagery to dubbing dialogue for overseas audiences. “By leaning into the technology, we can make full episodes 80 percent faster and 90 percent cheaper than industry norms,” said John Attanasio, a Toonstar founder.“This is how you build the next generation of hot intellectual property,” Mr. Attanasio added excitedly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      George Wendt’s Norm Made Every ‘Cheers’ Entrance Feel Fresh

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      George Wendt of “Cheers,” who died on Tuesday, could walk into a bar and imply his character’s entire life outside it.Man walks into a bar.It’s the starting point for a million jokes. And for season after season on “Cheers,” some of the best of those were delivered by George Wendt, who died on Tuesday at age 76, as the long-suffering Norm Peterson.We knew him, above all, from his entrances, throwing open the door of the show’s namesake tavern, greeted with a hearty — all together now — “Norm!” You could say that he was the character whom the show’s theme-song lyrics (“Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name”) were about.Making his way in the world today, Wendt’s performance suggested, took everything Norm had got. A bedraggled accountant (later unemployed, later a house painter), Norm spent his days getting the stuffing kicked out of him by life, then returned to Cheers to replace that stuffing with beer.“Cheers” did not take place entirely within the bar that gave the sitcom its name, but it mostly did. The setting was a place people came to escape somewhere else. And that meant that the actors portraying those suds-drinking refugees had to portray that somewhere-else entirely through the strength of their performances.Wendt was the champion of that. His stage entrances — tie loosened, top collar button open, drawn to his bar stool as if it were a magnet — implied everything that he was hustling to get away from, every trouble he wished to drown. His wife, Vera, existed almost entirely offstage, but Wendt made their relationship real with his cheerful griping. You didn’t see his work day, but you saw how eagerly he washed down the aftertaste of it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      George Wendt, Who Played Norm on ‘Cheers,’ Dies at 76

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      A burly, easygoing Chicago native, he became a staple of living rooms across the country for more than a decade as one of America’s favorite barflies.George Wendt, who earned six consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his role as the bearish, beer-quaffing Everyman Norm Peterson on the enduring sitcom “Cheers,” died on Tuesday morning at home in Studio City, Calif. He was 76.His death was confirmed by his manager, Geoff Cheddy, who did not specify a cause.Over more than four decades, Mr. Wendt racked up about 170 film and television credits. But he was best known for “Cheers.” He appeared on every episode of the sitcom during its 11-year run on NBC, which began in 1982. His streak of Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series began in 1984.Mr. Wendt, a native of the South Side of Chicago, started his entertainment career in inglorious fashion, sweeping the floors at the Second City, the famed improvisational comedy club in his hometown that helped launch the careers of generations of stars, including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.In 1974, he became part of the Second City’s touring production and resident company. “I had no acting experience in my background,” he said in a 2013 interview with The Democrat and Chronicle newspaper of Rochester, N.Y., “but something just clicked.” He remained with the company until 1980.With his easy charm and lunch-pail demeanor, Mr. Wendt headed for Hollywood to appear in the pilot for an NBC show called “Nothing but Comedy․” He later popped up on popular television shows like “Taxi,” “Alice” and “Hart to Hart” before becoming one of America’s favorite barflies on “Cheers.”He later said that his pronounced girth was key to the role, making Norm the relatable guy that viewers would feel like sidling up next to at their neighborhood bar.“One nice thing about being fat for a living is that you don’t worry about losing weight or dieting,” Mr. Wendt once said. “I don’t know how much I’d have to lose before it was noticeable. Anyhow, if I lost 100 pounds people would say, ‘Oh, no, not another fat comedian wanting to be a leading man!’”While the Norm character felt natural to who he was, he said, there were definitely differences between fiction and reality.“The Norm you see in ‘Cheers’ has been years in the making,” he said. “I have some characteristics in common with him besides our fondness for beer. But I think I’m a lot happier than Norm.”He added: “I was a beer drinker long before ‘Cheers.’ When I put a couple of six packs on top of my grocery shopping cart, people are pleased. I tell ’em I’m taking them home to rehearse.”A complete obituary will be published soon.Ash Wu More

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      Los Angeles Mayor Seeks to Lure Filming Back by Cutting Red Tape

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      With film and TV production in Los Angeles down by roughly one-third in recent years, Mayor Karen Bass took steps to make it easier to shoot at top locations.Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said Tuesday that she was taking steps to make filming in the city easier as local, state and federal officials have grown concerned about the exodus of film and television production to other states and nations.The mayor issued an executive directive to streamline city processes, lower the costs of filming in the city and make it easier for productions to shoot at well-known city-owned locations like the Griffith Observatory. The mayor also reaffirmed her support for a massive funding increase for the state’s film tax credit program.“We are going to fight now,” Ms. Bass said at a news conference on Tuesday morning. “While we push for the tax credits to be passed in Sacramento, we need to do what we can today to impact building in Los Angeles.”Though the specific changes detailed in the directive are somewhat technical, the move by Ms. Bass represents a signal of her support for the film industry at a time it faces something of a existential crisis. Filming in the region is down roughly a third in recent years, lured away by massive subsidies in other states and other countries, which often offer cheaper labor. The exodus has left tens of thousands of middle-class union workers without jobs.At the news conference inside SAG-AFTRA’s headquarters, Ms. Bass — flanked by more than a dozen members of the film and television industry — also reiterated her support for a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to dramatically increase the size of the state’s tax credit program for film and television to $750 million annually from $330 million.Lawmakers in Sacramento are expected to finalize the state budget next month. Mr. Newsom’s plan appears to have wide support, but exactly how much money lawmakers will ultimately allot to Hollywood at a time the state faces a $12 billion deficit is unclear.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Pernille’ Is a Brilliant Norwegian Dramedy

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      The series, about an endearingly ordinary woman who works in child welfare, is a lot like Pamela Adlon’s spirited FX dramedy “Better Things.”The Norwegian dramedy “Pernille” (in Norwegian, with subtitles, or dubbed), on Netflix, is about as lovely as shows get, endearing but mercifully resistant to treacle.Henriette Steenstrup created and stars in the show as Pernille, a single mom to two of the most ungrateful — realistic — teens on TV. She is reeling from her sister’s death six months earlier, and she still leaves her sister voice mails, sometimes chatty and sometimes wrenching.Pernille’s older daughter, Hanna (Vivild Falk Berg), is histrionic and capricious and suddenly dragging her feet about a long-planned gap year in Argentina. The younger, Sigrid (Ebba Jacobsen Oberg), is a ball of rage, surly beyond measure but still young enough to be read to at night and get tucked in sometimes. Pernille’s nephew, Leo (Jon Ranes), is also living with them while his father recovers from the accident that killed his mother. The show kicks off with Pernille’s widower dad (Nils Ole Oftebro) announcing that he is gay and ready to live his truth.The show is, in all the good ways, a lot like Pamela Adlon’s FX dramedy “Better Things,” which was also about a single mom, her aging parent and her indulged, difficult daughters. The heroines share a life-animating sense of duty, as well as a prickly, spirited humor and brilliance. They both have drip exes whose intermittent fathering is a grave disappointment, and they both have robust social support and sexually encouraging friends.The biggest difference between the shows is that Adlon’s character, Sam, is situated as uniquely, dazzlingly bohemian, a fount of outsider art, sumptuous recipes, dark eyeliner and arty pals. Pernille is more squarely ordinary. She sings in a community choir and spends a lot of time texting, and she gets star-struck just meeting a guy who works on Nick Cave’s tour. This isn’t to say Pernille isn’t special. She is, of course, once you know her, which is exactly what the show accomplishes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Late Night Is Concerned About (the Truth Behind) Biden’s Health

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      “They used to say it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up, but it’s starting to feel like politics is all cover-up,” Jon Stewart said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Our Sympathies, but …The news that former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer naturally spurred late-night discussion on Monday.On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart mocked those professing sympathy for Biden while at the same time using his condition to score political points. “They used to say it’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up, but it’s starting to feel like politics is all cover-up,” Stewart said.“Don’t news people have to tell you what they know when they find it out? Isn’t that the difference between news and a secret?” — JON STEWART“That’s what’s so hilarious about politicians: The cover-up doesn’t work when everyone knows you’re lying.” — JON STEWART“The tell is when you’re so over-the-top about what you don’t want to tell the truth about.” — JON STEWART“It’s clear Biden wasn’t running the country. Hell, he couldn’t have run a dishwasher, and they knew that.” — GREG GUTFELDThe Punchiest Punchlines (Games We Play Edition)“‘The American.’ Do you know what that is? It’s the idea of [Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem to have a new reality show where immigrants compete against each other to win American citizenship. She said, ‘It’s not like “The Hunger Games,” even though it sounds exactly like ‘The Hunger Games.’” — BILL MAHER“Anyone who thought about it for six seconds would say, ‘Oh, wait, no — this is “The Hunger Games.”’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I know that sounds dystopian, but, to be fair, that’s how citizenship has always worked. In fact, my great-grandfather actually won the first season of ‘So You Think You Can Dig the Erie Canal.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The Knicks eliminated the Boston Celtics to advance to the next round, and after the game, things got crazy. Rowdy Knicks fans went down to Penn Station and caused $3 million worth of improvements.” — JIMMY FALLON“SAG-AFTRA filed an unfair-labor charge against Fortnite, after the game revealed an A.I. Darth Vader that can talk back to players. Great idea, Fortnite, let gamers make Darth Vader say stuff. Because if there’s one thing I know about gamers, they are super polite and respectful.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSONThe Bits Worth WatchingJohn Oliver dissected the ways in which President Trump shapes coverage of his presidency, including using lawsuits and the F.C.C. as leverage, on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightAmid conspiracy theories circling about his photo of seashells appearing to be a threat against the president, the former F.B.I director James Comey will surely set the record straight on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”Also, Check This OutWith Sarah Sherman, left, Ariana Grande, Marcello Hernández, Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim, “Saturday Night Live” generated an unlikely viral hit in October with a sketch about a seducer named Domingo. Will Heath/NBCNow that the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” is at an end, here are its most memorable moments, from political satire to straight-up silliness. Domingo! More