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      The Most Adventurous Comedy Right Now Is Also the Most Real

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      John Wilson, Eric Andre and others are drawing on unscripted encounters to elicit deeper laughs but also more vulnerable moments.At the start of the second season of the HBO series “How To With John Wilson,” the titular star, a stammering innocent, visits a mortgage broker to get a loan. Asked his occupation, he sounds stumped. “I’m an, uh, documentarian,” he says, struggling to categorize his work. “Like, uh, it’s kind of like memoir, essay, um.”Pity him. It’s not easy to define this singular show. But one tip-off comes when Wilson offers as collateral a collection of printed-out reactions (including a Mindy Kaling tweet) inside a folder labeled “good reviews.” The exasperated look on the face of the lender operates as a punchline.Wilson, who writes, stars and narrates this self-portrait of sorts, is the quietly radical auteur of a rapidly ascendant branch of comedy that uses the raw materials of unscripted slices of the real world to make jokes. The latest Dave Chappelle controversy or topical “Saturday Night Live” sketch get more headlines, but in a less heralded corner of comedy, a quiet revolution is taking place.Chris (Eric André), center, and Bud (Lil Rel Howery) ask a woman for advice in “Bad Trip.”NetflixThe best gross-out comedy of the year was Eric André’s “Bad Trip,” a movie that blended public interactions between actors and real people into its fiction. The most biting political film in recent memory was not made by Oliver Stone or Adam McKay. It was the 2020 sequel to “Borat.” And the most innovative portrait of New York was not cooked up by Martin Scorsese. It was the HBO series “How To With John Wilson.” I’m not sure if this group of documentary comedy artists, who have elevated a legacy still connected to lowbrow prank humor, can be considered a scene, but they are cross-pollinating and growing in ambition.At the top of this family tree is Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”), whose blockbuster comedies take planned narratives and weave in ridiculous interactions between his outlandish characters and unsuspecting, real people. His heirs includes Jena Friedman, one of the writers of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” who in her “Soft Focus” Adult Swim specials added savvy feminist punch to daring documentary comedy, integrating scenes with real frat boys and online gamers into a comic exposé of our sexist culture. Her recent follow-up is the superb spoof of murder documentaries, “Indefensible” on Sundance TV. “Bad Trip” (2021) belongs to a broader strain, tied to the raucous juvenile stunts of “Jackass,” whose co-creator Jeff Tremaine produced the feature.Sacha Baron Cohen and Maria Bakalova hit the streets in “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.”Amazon StudiosNathan Fielder, who has also worked with Baron Cohen, pioneered a more personal, emotionally tender strain in “Nathan for You” (which ended in 2017) playing a mild-mannered consultant who helps small-business owners achieve their dreams. His cringe comedy often began as a spoof of the hustle of American entrepreneurs, but invariably spun off into melancholy, oddly poetic moments. This set the stage for the most ambitious and cerebral example of the genre, “How To With John Wilson,” whose executive producers include Fielder.Wilson builds every episode around teaching some new skill before getting interrupted by a diversion that seems to stumble into a philosophical meditation on a broader theme. An episode on appreciating wine asks how to engage with society without becoming conformist; one about finding a parking spot is a brief for the virtue of boredom. (“Maybe life is just circling just waiting for a spot.”) It’s a show that gathers loose parts (a montage of shots of personalized license plates, say) and somehow turns them into wildly eccentric, oddly poignant comedy.Wilson, our intrepid guide, is incredibly smart at playing dumb, alert to moments of minor revelation, disturbing oddness and layered meanings. But unlike most of the great deadpan comics, he stays off camera, telling his stories through narration, interviews with strangers and carefully curated scenes of New York. The show shares elements with critical video essays by the likes of Matt Zoller Seitz and with Thom Andersen’s fascinating documentary “Los Angeles Plays Itself,” which also invites you to see a city through new eyes. But the new season of “How to,” written by a staff that includes the author Susan Orlean and the comic Conner O’Malley, is much more autobiographical. New York isn’t the main character, as the cliché goes, so much as shots of it are the language used to describe Wilson.Detours take us into his checkered early filmmaking career, including a disastrous early film, “Jingle Berry,” he has stashed away but can’t quite destroy, and brief video of old roommates and a girlfriend. The most surreal (and chilling) personal revelation is a story of organizing a failed rebellion in college when his a cappella group attended a conference hosted by Keith Raniere, the convicted sex trafficker who founded the cult Nxivm.All great comedy reveals the artist, but these intimate new episodes dig deeper, making Wilson more vulnerable than you’d expect. Wilson comes off as an anguished subject, anxious and afraid of confrontation but struggling to connect. This tension is reflected in the form: We only actually see him in quick glances in mirrors or old clips, but the stories are told entirely from the perspective of his camera. Most of his emotional reactions are illuminated by street scenes. When he talks about feeling shock, he shows an image of a Gothic building whose windows resemble a face with a mouth agape.The roots of this brand of comedy date to the pranks of “Candid Camera.” Another touchstone is the late-night talk show tradition of turning interactions with strangers into comedy, from Steve Allen in the 1950s to the literate remote segments by Merrill Markoe on “Late Night With David Letterman” in the 1980s. It’s a strain of comedy that inspired artists like Billy Eichner. The recent documentary comedy examples stretch the canvas created by their forerunners, offering a wider emotional landscape and more complicated ideas.“How To With John Wilson” turns to Quick Evic to get advice about tenant-landlord relations.HBOBut a dark undercurrent remains, one that exploits the humiliation of unsuspecting foils for cheap laughs. Wilson is clearly aware of this and even cops to it. The first episode of this season begins with him buying a building from his landlord. Describing his online real-estate hunt, he says: “You feel like the invisible man. Getting to be a voyeur without any consequences.” His self-awareness doesn’t erase the smirking pleasures of his show, which emerge in the handling of characters like the person who claims to be the reincarnation of President John Adams or the businessman who makes car-shaped caskets. But Wilson rarely mocks. And he isn’t aiming for quick laughs as much as compassionate consideration. His camera treats the figures it encounters with loving attention and usually a lack of judgment.His shows are a reminder of how rarely you see banal details of city denizens doing their jobs on prestige television: The unglamorous everyday of real estate agents, construction workers, commuters. Wilson balances the mundane with the extraordinary (every episode has a moment or two that you can’t believe really happened), heavy subjects with light jokes. He introduces us to people who look like targets (a fan group of “Avatar” obsessives) and makes us see the beauty in their community. This isn’t a show of heroes and villains, but quick portraits of real, complicated people, and its foundational faith is that they are funnier than anything performed by actors. There’s plenty of evidence.Consider a recent viral video of the Fox host Laura Ingraham having a frustrated conversation with a guest talking about the Netflix show “You.” Every time he mentioned the show, she thought he was referring to her, and the dialogue came to seem like a cable-news update of an Abbott and Costello routine. Almost immediately, this minute-long misunderstanding went viral with people of all political stripes retweeting and praising it. One of the only dissents came from Andy Richter, who tweeted: “The fact that people are actually laughing at that Laura Ingraham thing makes me feel like I’ve wasted the last 35 years of my life.”Why did people love this? It was delivered with spot-on comic rhythm, and of course, people love to laugh at cable hosts embarrassing themselves. But part of the reason it worked is because it seemed like a genuine moment, a true burst of spontaneity in a media climate filled with predictable narratives. As soon as the participants confessed it was fake, the interest online vanished.To take another example, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedies that forgo unscripted encounters with real people, “The Dictator” and “The Brothers Grimsby,” did not have the urgency and verve of his documentary comedies.Authenticity has been rightly picked apart by critics, who argue that it’s easily manufactured and so vaguely defined as to be meaningless. And yet, its power and influence on audiences remains undeniable. Authenticity is part of the popularity of stand-up, with comics performing in characters bearing their names and likenesses. And when a standup does something that seems at odds with his persona, the public’s fascination is intense. See John Mulaney, a squeaky-clean comic who recently became a staple of tabloid coverage after drug rehab, divorce and news of a new girlfriend and baby on the way. “You know your life has gone a little downhill when you announce that you’re having a baby, and you get mixed reviews,” he joked at a recent show.Wilson gets at the enduring power of the real in an origin story of sorts in which he describes being denied entry into a Dungeons and Dragons group as a kid and rebelling against fantasy. “When I watched fiction, I could never suspend disbelief and fully immerse myself in the world.” I suspect he’s not the only one.And yet, in the same episode, he tries to change, searching out the value in fantasy (“If you only think about stuff that already exists, the world will never change”) and even recording his dreams. One is of a laundromat where the washers and dryers are replaced by stoves. In one oddly magical coup de théâtre, he actually builds this business, then trains his camera on New Yorkers cracking up and marveling at this bizarre new addition to the neighborhood.It’s a bizarre stunt, proudly random, but also, what a perfect joke for this boundary-blurring genre: Actually making your dream come true. More

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      Best Comedy of 2021

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      The return of indoor shows brought comedy closer to normal, and there were plenty of specials from Bo Burnham, Tig Notaro, Roy Wood Jr. and others.From left, a scene from Tig Notaro’s HBO special “Drawn,” Susie Essman in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Tiffany Haddish in Netflix’s “Bad Trip.”From left: HBO; John P. Johnson/HBO; Dimitry Elyashkevich/NetflixComedy got dangerous in 2021. Not cancel-culture dangerous (though after creating one of the loudest controversies of the year with his Netflix special “The Closer,” Dave Chappelle might disagree). More like “I might contract Covid at this show” dangerous. After a (hopefully) once-in-a-lifetime shutdown of live performances, audiences returned to indoor shows, and comics picked up where they left off. These are some of the highlights.Best Punch Line Inside a Club to Defuse Covid AnxietyOne night at the Comedy Cellar, Dave Attell told a guy in the crowd: “I’m glad you’re wearing a mask because we need a survivor to tell the story.” But in the basement of the West Side Comedy Club, Bill Burr took down the elephant in the room even quicker: “I’m happy to be down here working on a new variant.”Best Experimental ComedyTig Notaro is not the first stand-up to turn herself into a cartoon, but her “Drawn” HBO special was the most ambitious attempt, using a different animated style for each bit — realistic one moment, whimsically fantastical the next, veering from the perspective of the audience to a cockroach. Imagine if Pixar did stand-up.A scene from “Drawn,” an animated HBO special from Tig Notaro, which uses a different animated style for each bit.HBOBest Musical ComedyThis was the year that visual humor caught up to the verbal kind in comedy specials. Bo Burnham invented a new comic vocabulary with his Netflix hit “Inside,” a filmic meditation on isolation, the internet and ironic distance itself. It was so tuneful and thematically well made that a blockbuster musical is surely in his future.Best Opening BitIn “Imperfect Messenger,” a Comedy Central special packed with refined comic gems, Roy Wood Jr. begins by discussing things that are not racist but feel racist. Things that have, as he puts it while rubbing his thumb and his fingers together as if he’s grasping at something, “the residue of racism” — like when white people use the word “forefathers,” or when you go somewhere and there’s “too many American flags,” which he calls “too much freedom.” He rubs his fingers and thumb again and asks: “How many American flags equal one Confederate flag?”Roy Wood Jr. in his Comedy Central special “Imperfect Messenger.”Sean Gallagher/Comedy CentralBest DirectingWith a jangling horror soundtrack, claustrophobic close-ups and the menacing humor of a Pinter play, the movie “Shiva Baby” offers a modern spin on the postgraduate angst of “The Graduate.” Its director, Emma Seligman, is the most promising cringe-comedy auteur to come along in years.Best MemoirIn the Audible original “May You Live in Interesting Times,” Laraine Newman describes studying with Marcel Marceau, dating Warren Zevon and farting in front of Prince. She gives you what you want in a “Saturday Night Live” memoir, but what makes her audiobook excel is her nimble voice, impersonating a collection of characters, none more charismatic than her own.Best Documentary“Mentally Al” catches up with the unsung comic Al Lubel when he’s near broke, disheveled and struggling with an impossibly dysfunctional relationship with his mother. Onstage, however, he’s consistently hilarious, even when the audience doesn’t think so. After countless documentaries about how a really funny person became a star, there’s finally a revelatory one exploring why one didn’t.Best Political ComedySometimes the most powerful punch is a jab. In “Oh God, an Hour About Abortion” — an understated, humane and deeply funny examination of the experience of having an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion — Alison Leiby uses observational comedy to reframe a political question at a critical moment for reproductive rights.The comedian Alison Leiby performing at Union Hall in Brooklyn in September.Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesBest Keystone Cops UpdateNot since Chaplin has running from the police been as funny as Tiffany Haddish in “Bad Trip,” a scripted movie on Netflix that includes unscripted scenes, such as Haddish emerging from under a prison bus dressed in an orange jumpsuit, forcing a male bystander into an uncomfortable decision.Best SpecialThere’s never been a better year for handsome comics making jokes about their fraying mental health. Along with Bo Burnham unraveling onscreen and John Mulaney describing the depths of his addiction in live shows, the British comic James Acaster delivered his masterwork, “Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999,” on Vimeo. It’s a nearly three-hour show, wildly funny and deeply felt, that mocks how easily mental struggles can be turned into entertainment before doing just that.Best Arena SpectacleThere were prop missiles, shining diamonds and a massive sign that announced “World War III” in lights. I’m still not sure what the battle was about, but as soon as the born entertainer Katt Williams charged into the Barclays Center, yellow sneakers a blur, it was clear he had won.Best Netflix DebutNaomi Ekperigin is a natural — a comic that can make you laugh at just about anything: summing up Nancy Meyers movies, vaccines, clichés (why L.A. sucks), the way she says “OK.” In a half-hour set, as part of the collection “The Standups” that will be released on Netflix on Dec. 29, she even has two different jokes about the color beige that earn laughs. It’s a delight.Naomi Ekperigin performs in Season 3 of “The Standups,” coming to Netflix on Dec. 29.Clifton Prescod/NetflixBest Grand Unified TheoryIn describing how the porn industry pioneered everything on the internet, from user-generated content to diversity casting, Danny Jolles, in his endearing and far too overlooked Amazon Prime Video special, “Six Parts,” finds a new way to describe the fragmentation and filtering of the news: fetishes. All news, he argues, has become “kink news,” catering to our narrow, even perverse whims.Best Inside Comedy ParodyLast year ended with the release of “An Evening With Tim Heidecker,” a parody of edgy stand-up comedy that was a bit too vague to really resonate. Now, Heidecker hit the bull’s-eye with his recent YouTube spoof of The Joe Rogan Experience; its 12-hour running time (really one hour on a loop) is its first joke. So precise, so meticulously sensitive to the details, to the cadence and lingo of that podcast, his conversation with two sycophantic guests (played with pitch-perfect smarm by Jeremy Levick and Rajat Suresh) is a master class in sounding absolutely earth-shattering while saying precisely nothing.Best Argument for the Staying Power of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’No comedy that started in 2000 should still be this funny. Part of the reason for this feat is the consistently elite supporting performances, none more important than Susie Essman, who shined this year. Famous for her volcanic fury, she can do dry and understated just as well. I have not laughed louder at a television show this year than after hearing her say the word “caftan.”Susie Essman, left, plays Susie Greene in the long-running HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”John P. Johnson/ HBOMost Underrated Star ComicJim Gaffigan has put out so much material for so long that he’s easy to take for granted. The fact that he’s family friendly probably doesn’t help his press either. His dynamite new special, “Comedy Monster” (premiering Tuesday on Netflix), may be his best, showing Gaffigan at his most dyspeptic. It suits him. Who would have thought that he would so satisfyingly eviscerate marching bands and parades? Or have the most unexpected prop joke of the year (keep an eye out for a grand piano). More

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      Seth Meyers Wants Fox News to Stop Saying ‘Big Meat’

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      As Fox hosts went after President Biden over rising prices, Meyers found their choice of words a little distracting.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.Where’s the Beef?On his last “Closer Look” of the year, Seth Meyers tackled some Fox News coverage of President Biden’s response to inflation — specifically, rising meat prices.“Recently, the White House said the blame for rising meat prices rests in part with meat conglomerates, and then Fox News decided to repeat a term for those companies to deride Biden that — well, let’s just say the term was a little distracting,” Meyers said on Thursday.That term? “Big Meat.”“Why are they saying ‘Big Meat’ so much? Is this ‘Fox News After Dark’?” — SETH MEYERS“They sound like they’re on a press tour for a porno about a pizza delivery guy.” — SETH MEYERS“The worst part of that segment came when Rudy got confused and accidentally Googled ‘Big Meat.’”— SETH MEYERS“Maybe they’re just sticking up for Big Meat because that was Trump’s Secret Service code name.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Thong Edition)“If you fly Spirit, that’s the oxygen mask that drops down in an emergency.” — JIMMY FALLON, on a United Airlines passenger who wore a red thong on his face to protest mask requirements (and who later compared himself to Rosa Parks)“A few minutes later, an air marshal walked over and gave him a mouth wedgie.” — JIMMY FALLON“Rosa Parks? My man, don’t be so modest — you’re more than Rosa Parks. If anything, you’re the Martin Luther King of white dudes comparing themselves to Black heroes for no reason.” — TREVOR NOAH“You know, for real, sometimes I think conservatives are right: America shouldn’t be teaching the history of racism in schools, because then at least white people wouldn’t know who to compare themselves to when they get kicked off airplanes for doing dumb [expletive]. ‘I’m exactly the same as — huh, I can’t think of anybody, you know? Maybe I’m just a [expletive] wearing panties on my face. I need to re-evaluate my behavior.’” — TREVOR NOAH“And, by the way, can we all agree there’s no way this dude just starting sniffing thongs during the pandemic? I bet you he’s been going around for years like, ‘Looks like I got kicked out of the dorm because I’m once again the Rosa Parks of my sister’s friend’s underwear drawer.’” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingScarlett Johansson tells Jimmy Fallon about meeting Judge Judy (she was star-struck).Also, Check This OutOlivia Rodrigo, members of the cast of “Reservation Dogs” and a scene from “Sanctuary City.”Clockwise from left: Mat Hayward/Getty Images; Jeremy Dennis for The New York Times; Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesOlivia Rodrigo and the cast of “Reservation Dogs” are among the breakout stars of 2021. More

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      ‘And Just Like That’ Recap, Episode 3: A Week of Discovery

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      Miranda ponders new directions while Carrie is drawn back into the orbit of an old rival.Season 1, Episode 3: ‘When in Rome’It turns out Miranda doesn’t need red hair to be spicy.If you picked up on a bit of flirtation between her and Che right after their decidedly uncute meet in Episode 2, you might have been onto something. At the very end of Episode 3, after she, Carrie and Charlotte take in the live comedy set Che is recording for Netflix, Miranda fibs to her pals that she’s headed home but instead sneaks back in to see her new friend at the after party.Showing a bit of nerves, Miranda is a chatterbox and can’t keep herself from fawning over Che, who tells her to breathe. Oh, Miranda breathes. In a sexy, showstopping move, Che shotguns a drag of weed smoke into Miranda’s mouth, nearly kissing her, and quite possibly shaking her to the core.How did we get here?Well, Miranda told us long ago, in the original “Sex and the City” series, that her husband Steve Brady (David Eigenberg) isn’t a “core-shaker.” He and Miranda were more congenial than amorous, and in “And Just Like That,” this still seems to be the case.Miranda and Steve haven’t had sex in years, she reveals to Charlotte over coffee, somewhat casually. She wonders if they’re even still a couple, or just “roommates with ice cream and a kid.”Che’s act offers an exciting counterpoint to such humdrum domesticity. It is a raucous, LGBTQ+-centered party filled with jokes that feel more like rallying cries, with the comedian telling the crowd that confusion is a good thing — a notion Miranda realizes she relates to — and that if there’s something they don’t like, whether it’s their shirt or maybe even their identity, they can change it. Could Miranda be ready to upset her settled life in favor of a personal revolution? And if so, might it alleviate the need she feels to carry mini bottles of vodka around in her backpack?The ‘Sex and the City’ UniverseThe sprawling franchise revolutionized how women were portrayed on the screen. And the show isn’t over yet. A New Series: Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte return for another strut down the premium cable runway in “And Just Like That,” streaming on HBO. Off Broadway: Candace Bushnell, whose writing gave birth to the “Sex and the City” universe, stars in her one-woman show based on her life. In Carrie’s Footsteps: “Sex and the City” painted a seductive vision of Manhattan, inspiring many young women to move to the city. The Origins: For the show’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Bushnell shared how a collection of essays turned into a pathbreaking series.The wisdom layered within Che’s rowdy, raunchy set isn’t lost on Charlotte either, who takes mental notes between chuckles on how the message relates to her own life. Rose, her youngest, has just confessed that she doesn’t always feel like a girl. Charlotte isn’t quite sure how seriously to take this at first, nor is her best friend Anthony, who basically tells her to ignore it.But during Che’s show, the vibe of acceptance and self-love pulsing through the crowd encourages Charlotte to follow her instincts and ensure that Rose feels supported. She calls Rose after the performance just to say “I love you.” Like a typical teen, Rose just wants to go back to playing Mario Kart.For Carrie, Che’s event is mostly an escape from a week otherwise filled with heartache and humiliation. Natasha Naginsky (Bridget Moynahan), a.k.a. the “idiot stick figure with no soul,” reappears and, to my own personal delight, so then does nutty, neurotic Carrie.Early on in the episode, in the reading of Big’s will, Carrie finds out that her late husband has left a cool million to Natasha, his ex-wife. Carrie can’t help but wonder — no, completely obsess over — why.Carrie spirals (classic Carrie) and becomes convinced that Big and Natasha were still in touch before his death — perhaps they even were having an affair.She roots through her and Big’s apartment for clues and is taunted by a photo she finds in his wallet of Gogi, an old dog she never knew about. What else doesn’t she know? It’s an urgent question that seems to have only one answer: that Natasha was really the love of Big’s life, and he regretted choosing Carrie over her.Despite Miranda and Charlotte’s reassurances, Carrie has to hear from the woman herself whether this is true. She emails Natasha but gets stonewalled. She messages her on Instagram but gets blocked. So Carrie concludes that the logical next step is to show up unannounced at Natasha’s office.In a demoralizing sequence of events, Natasha’s assistant lies to Carrie’s face, saying Natasha is in Rome as a means of shooing her out of the lobby, only for Carrie to see Natasha moments later in her office window. Worse, Natasha sees Carrie on the sidewalk, pointing up at her like a deranged stalker. As if that weren’t mortifying enough, a few days later Carrie walks in on Natasha using the bathroom at a coffee shop.They are both so startled that Carrie spills her hot drink and badly burns her hand. Despite not wanting to engage with Carrie, Natasha takes pity on her in a scene that harkens back to the moment in the original series when she caught Carrie sneaking out of her and Big’s marital abode.During that scene, Natasha injures herself, and Carrie takes care of her. Now it is Carrie who needs the first-aid, and Natasha owes her one. She gives Carrie ice and some desperately needed closure, telling her that she and Big haven’t been in contact since their divorce. Natasha has no idea why he would leave her money, and she doesn’t want it. There was no affair, and no love lingering between her and her ex-husband.Carrie reasons that the gift was probably Big’s way of apologizing to Natasha, something Carrie feels compelled to do as well. They part ways cordially with a promise not to bother each other on social media.Big not alerting his wife to the loaded line item in his will was wildly inconsiderate, which happens to be his signature trait. Even from beyond the grave, he still has the power to knock Carrie off balance and worse, make her feel like she isn’t enough.Which is to say that Big is still classic Big, even when he’s dead. More

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      Chris Noth Peloton Ad Pulled After Sexual Assault Allegations

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      The online ad, a response to the “Sex and the City” reboot, was removed after The Hollywood Reporter published an article in which two women accused the actor of sexual assault.Peloton pulled down a popular online ad featuring the actor Chris Noth on Thursday after The Hollywood Reporter published an article in which two women accused him of sexual assault.The article detailed the accusations of two women, identified with pseudonyms, who claimed Noth — who played Mr. Big on “Sex and the City” and stars in its new reboot — sexually assaulted them in separate incidents in 2004 and 2015. In a statement, Noth called their accusations “categorically false.”After the allegations surfaced, Peloton, the stationary-bike maker, removed a widely viewed online ad featuring Noth. It had quickly put up the ad after the first episode of the “Sex and the City” reboot — the HBO Max limited series, “And Just Like That” — depicted Mr. Big dying of a heart attack after riding a Peloton bike.“Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously,” Peloton said in a statement. “We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot.”One woman told The Hollywood Reporter that Noth, 67, raped her in 2004, when she was 22, after inviting her to his apartment building’s pool in West Hollywood; the woman said that after the assault, a friend took her to the hospital, where she received stitches. Another woman said he assaulted her in 2015, when she was 25, after a date in New York City.“The encounters were consensual,” he said in the statement. “It’s difficult not to question the timing of these stories coming out. I don’t know for certain why they are surfacing now, but I do know this: I did not assault these women.”Noth, who also had roles in “Law & Order” and “The Good Wife,” is best known for his role as Mr. Big, the central love interest and eventual husband of Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) in “Sex and the City.” His death in the reboot shocked fans and set social media ablaze. Peloton’s stock dropped the day after the episode became available.Three days after the episode debuted, Peloton tried to make the most of the ill-fated product placement by releasing the parody ad, which features Noth lounging with his Peloton instructor, extolling the health benefits of the exercise machine while he flirted with her. In the clip, Mr. Noth suggestively raises an eyebrow, seemingly glancing back toward the bedroom, and asks, “Shall we take another ride? Life’s too short not to.”Then, after the sexual assault allegations surfaced, Peloton’s post on Twitter that included the video disappeared. In a statement, the company said it had archived social media posts related to the video and stopped promoting it while it sought to “learn more” about the allegations.HBO declined to comment. More

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      The Breakout Stars of 2021

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      In a year that offered glimmers of hope across the world of arts, these performers and creators rose to the occasion.Olivia Rodrigo, members of the cast of “Reservation Dogs” and a scene from “Sanctuary City.”Clockwise from left: Mat Hayward/Getty Images; jeremy Dennis for The New York Times; Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesThe cultural world began to sputter back to life this year, and in turn, so did many of us — slipping out of our sweats and into movie theaters, clubs and Broadway shows. Even for those who were less confident rubbing (or bumping) elbows in public, artists brought us plenty of joy in the safety of our home. It may not have been the beforetimes, but in 2021, these artists and creators from across the arts gave us a fresh outlook.Pop MusicOlivia RodrigoFor those of us over 30, Olivia Rodrigo seemed to come out of nowhere with her colossal debut single, “Drivers License,” a heartbreak ballad that dropped in January and stayed at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 for eight weeks. But for a younger audience, Rodrigo, 18, was familiar from her time as a Disney child star. Despite that pedigree, she didn’t drag along a squeaky clean image.Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic at The New York Times, called “Sour,” her debut album from May, “nuanced and often exceptional,” deploying “sweet pop and tart punk equally well.” He called Rodrigo, a California-raised Filipino American, “an optimal pop star for the era of personalities, subpersonalities and metapersonalities.”As Rodrigo told GQ magazine in June, “Something that I learned very early on is the importance of separating person versus persona. When people who don’t know me are criticizing me, they’re criticizing my persona, not my person.”Olivia Rodrigo’s colossal debut single, “Drivers License,” stayed at the top of the charts.Mat Hayward/Getty Images for IheartmediaTelevisionLee Jung-jaeBlood-drenched, brutally violent entertainment is rarely synonymous with nuanced, complex performances. But in Netflix’s “Squid Game,” a dystopian thriller from South Korea that became a global streaming sensation, Lee Jung-jae, 49, pulled off just that. As the protagonist Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict who is deeply in debt, he gives a wrenching and surprisingly subtle performance as he battles his way through unspeakable horrors.But Lee, a model-turned-actor who has starred in several hit Korean films like last year’s gangster drama “Deliver Us From Evil,” doesn’t play Gi-hun as a hero or a villain, a bumbling fool or a savvy con man. “Gi-hun’s emotions are very complicated,” Lee told The Times in October.“Squid Game,” he went on, “is not really a show about survival games. It’s about people.”TheaterThe Authors of ‘Six’In October, “Six” became the first musical to have its opening night on Broadway since the pandemic shutdown in March 2020, at the Brooks Atkinson Theater. An exuberant and cheeky pop musical about the wives of Henry VIII, it brought much-needed fun and noise to the stage — thanks to Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss, who wrote the book, music and lyrics. (Moss also directed the show with Jamie Armitage.)The hit show is “a rollicking, reverberant blast from the past” that “turns Henry VIII’s ill-fated wives into spunky modern-day pop stars,” as Jesse Green, the theater critic at The Times, and Maya Phillips, a critic-at-large, put it. Think Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj, whom the leading divas were in some ways modeled after.Marlow came up with the idea for “Six” while daydreaming during a poetry class at Cambridge University, where he and Moss, now both 27, became fast friends. “This,” Moss told The Times in 2019, “is obviously the craziest thing that’s ever happened to us.”MoviesAunjanue EllisIn 1995, The Times called Aunjanue Ellis an up-and-comer for her role in the Shakespeare Festival production of “The Tempest” in Central Park. Ellis “projects nearly as much force offstage as she does in character as Ariel,” the article read. That fire hasn’t wavered in the years since, whether on film —“Ray,” “The Help,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” — or on TV in “When They See Us” and “Lovecraft Country,” both of which earned her Emmy nominations.Now, in the movie “King Richard,” Ellis delivers a megawatt performance as Oracene, the mother of Venus and Serena Williams (opposite Will Smith as Richard) — turning a supporting role into a talker and generating Oscar buzz.In an interview this fall, Ellis, now 52, talked about what makes her say yes to a role: “Can I do it and not be embarrassed and stand by the fact that I’ve done it?” she says she asks herself. “Is it fun to play and am I doing a service to Black women?”.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-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;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-1kpebx{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-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{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-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.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;}Classical MusicEun Sun Kim“An artist is never satisfied,” said Eun Sun Kim after the San Francisco Opera’s production of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” on Oct. 14 — despite an extended ovation and shouts of “Bravo!” from the audience.After all, Kim — the first female music director of a major opera company in the United States and the first Asian to take on such a role, a monumental appointment that became official in August — has a lot on her plate. Not only is she grappling with the company’s financial fallout from the pandemic, she inherited the opera’s previous problems, like declining attendance.“It’s a hard job, it’s a big job, whether you’re a woman or a man,” she told The Times in October. “I want to be seen just as a conductor.”Kim, 41, whose conducting debut in the states was in 2017 with the Houston Grand Opera production of “La Traviata,” is aiming to broaden the art form’s appeal in the digital age. The company hopes her appointment will do the same; there were advertisements featuring her image with the words “A new era begins” around the city.“Opera is not boring or old,” she said in October. “It’s the same human beings, the same stories, whether it was 200 years ago or nowadays.”Eun Sun Kim, the first female music director of a major opera company in the United States, at the San Francisco Opera in October.Kelsey McClellan for The New York TimesArtJennifer PackerLast year, Jennifer Packer, 37, a painter who depicts contemporary Black life through atmospheric portraits and still lifes, told The Times that she’s driven by thoughts of “emotional and moral buoyancy in the face of various kinds of impoverishment and de facto captivity.”Now, that perspective is on display in her biggest solo exhibition, “The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing,” on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The show includes about 30 of her works from the past decade, including the painting “A Lesson in Longing,” which was featured in the 2019 Whitney Biennial — as well as works that speak to Black lives lost to police brutality. Her largest painting, “Blessed Are Those Who Mourn (Breonna! Breonna!),” referring to Breonna Taylor, was created during the 2020 pandemic lockdown.In reviewing Packer’s Whitney exhibition for The Times, Aruna D’Souza wrote that no other artist right now is doing as much as Packer “to make those who have been rendered invisible — on museum walls, in public culture, in political discourse — visible.”MoviesCooper HoffmanIn “Licorice Pizza,” the new comedy-drama-romance from Paul Thomas Anderson, Cooper Hoffman plays an unlikely teenage hero. Cooper, 18, is the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Anderson’s muse before the actor’s death in 2014. Before this movie, Hoffman had never really acted, except with Anderson in something akin to home movies, he said during a press event in November. “It was on a very lower scale, with an iPhone and his kid,” Hoffman joked, referring to Anderson’s child. “I would always play the bad guy, and his kid would beat me up, and it was good fun.”In her review of the film, Manohla Dargis, co-chief movie critic at The Times, said that Anderson’s love for Cooper’s character, Gary, is special — “as lavish as that of an indulgent parent.” His affection for Gary, she continued, “is of a piece of the soft nostalgic glow he pumps into ‘Licorice Pizza.’”Cooper plays opposite Alana Haim, who also had no acting experience before “Licorice Pizza.” The pair had met briefly through Anderson several years ago, she told The Times, never thinking their paths would cross again. As soon as they read together, though, Haim recalled, “It was like, oh, we’re a team. We can take on the world together.”Cooper Hoffman, foreground, stars in “Licorice Pizza,” which was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.Melinda Sue Gordon/MGMDanceLaTasha BarnesLaTasha Barnes — a leader in the dance forms of house, hip-hop and the Lindy Hop — bridged worlds this year. Barnes is “a connector, or a rather a re-connector,” Brian Seibert wrote in the Times. In particular, she works to reconnect Black audiences and Black dancers (like herself) to their jazz heritage. To watch her dance, Seibert said, “is to watch historical distance collapse.”Barnes, 41, has been admired in dance for years, but it was her showing in “The Jazz Continuum” (the show she presented at Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum in May and later at Jacob’s Pillow) and her appearance in “Sw!ng Out” (the contemporary swing-dance show that debuted at the Joyce Theater in October) that caught the attention of many. In November, she won a Bessie Award for Outstanding Performer.Discouraged by dance teachers at a young age because of her body type, Barnes pivoted to gymnastics and track and field; at 18, she enlisted in the Army. She later weathered athletic injuries, as well as a broken hip, back and wrist after being hit by a car. Despite it all, her zeal for dance continued.“I was always looking at myself as the perpetual outsider,” she told The Times, “without realizing that it was actually the reverse.”The dancer LaTasha Barnes works to reconnect Black audiences and Black dancers to their jazz heritage.Cherylynn Tsushima, via The BessiesTelevisionThe Cast of Reservation Dogs“Reservation Dogs,” a dark comedy about four teenagers living on a Native reservation in Oklahoma, is a game-changer. That’s how one of its stars, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, described it, and he wouldn’t be alone. The series, from FX on Hulu, is the first on TV with an entirely Indigenous writer’s room and roster of directors. That backbone allows the undeniable synergy among its core cast members — Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Lane Factor and Paulina Alexis — to flourish.On previous sets, Jacobs said she was “literally the only Native person for miles.” The industry “should feel embarrassed that 2021 is a year for firsts for Indigenous representation,” she went on.For Alexis, her acting dreams once felt so impossible, she felt embarrassed to tell anyone about them, she told The Times. “There was no representation on TV. I didn’t think I would make it.” Now she has a role in “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” and will star in a second season of “Reservation Dogs,” which was renewed in September.The stars of “Reservation Dogs,” a groundbreaking show from FX on Hulu: from left, Paulina Alexis, Lane Factor, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Devery Jacobs.Jeremy Dennis for The New York TimesPop MusicMickey GuytonAfter Mickey Guyton was nominated for three Grammys in November, she told The New York Times, “I was right.” She was referring to her instinct for the direction of “Remember Her Name,” her debut full-length release. “This whole album came from me and what I thought I should release,” she said, “and that’s something I’ve never done.”In January, alongside major players like Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton, she will have three chances to win: for best country album, best country song and best country solo performance (for the title track). Last Grammys, she became the first Black woman to be nominated for a solo country performance award for the track “Black Like Me.”Guyton, 38, is also an outspoken activist in Nashville, with song titles like “Different” and “Love My Hair.”“What’s being played on country radio has been played on country radio for the last 10 years — I can’t do that,” she told Jon Caramanica of The Times in September. “I can’t do it spiritually. I can’t write songs that don’t mean something.”The country singer Mickey Guyton, performing in New York in December, is also an outspoken activist in Nashville.Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty ImagesTheaterSharlene CruzIn September, amid theater’s reopening, “Sanctuary City,” a play from the Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok, resumed Off Broadway at the Lucille Lortel Theater. Like much of Majok’s work, it takes on the “plight of undocumented immigrants, with a glowering side-eye cast on the rest of us,” as Jesse Green of The Times put it in his rave of the play.Sharlene Cruz brings to life the smart, impulsive G — performing opposite Jasai Chase-Owens as B, both playing undocumented teenagers. Cruz, who is in her 20s, renders her character smartly, impulsively and with a lot of subtext. “Impulsiveness can just seem stagy — youth, a caricature,” Green told this reporter, but Cruz gets the rhythm right and is disciplined enough to put that quality in service of the character’s goals.As those goals change — G ages a few years in the play — Cruz convincingly shows how that impulsiveness hardened into hotheadedness, and youth into something that’s not quite maturity.Sharlene Cruz, left, and Jasai Chase-Owens play undocumented teenagers in “Sanctuary City” at the Lucille Lortel Theater in New York. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesArtPrecious OkoyomonPrecious Okoyomon, 28, a multidisciplinary artist and poet who has only been exhibiting for a few years, creates massive site-specific installations using organic materials. “I make worlds,” Okoyomon, who won the Artist Award at Frieze New York this year, told The New York Times Style Magazine. “Everything, every portal I make, is its own ecosystem.”Okoyomon, who lived in Lagos, Nigeria, as a child before moving to Texas and then Ohio, added: “I attach myself to materials such as earth, rocks, water and fire because these are things I can’t control on my own.”As part of the Frieze win, Okoyomon conceived and presented a performance-based installation at the Shed titled “This God Is A Slow Recovery,” which focused on communication or the lack thereof. “It’s about destroying our language, building it up, crashing the words into each other,” Okoyomon said. “How do we create the language to get to the new world?”This month, Okoyomon won a Chanel Next Prize, a new award from the French fashion brand established to nurture emerging talent, nominated by a group of cultural figures and selected by the jurors Tilda Swinton, David Adjaye and Cao Fei.DanceKayla FarrishIn September, the dancer and choreographer Kayla Farrish — teaming up with the jazz, soul, and experimental musician Melanie Charles — transported Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn to a vivid scene of grace and power.The performance — as part of the platform four/four presents, which commissions collaborations among artists — was “sweeping and robust work braiding music and spoken word with choreography” that encompassed the best of technical dance and athletic drills, said Gia Kourlas, the dance critic at The Times.The result turned its five dancers — Farrish, 30, was joined by Mikaila Ware, Kerime Konur, Gabrielle Loren and Anya Clarke-Verdery — into a vibrant union of musicality, tenderness and power,” Kourlas wrote. 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      Stephen Colbert Holds the Republican Caucus in Contempt

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      Colbert noted that the House voted to hold Mark Meadows in criminal contempt, “and the rest of us can just keep holding him in regular contempt.”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.Consequences, ConsequencesOn Tuesday night, the House voted to hold Mark Meadows, who served as chief of staff to former President Donald J. Trump, in criminal contempt for refusing to cooperate with its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.“Yes, hell yes! Criminal contempt — and the rest of us can just keep holding him in regular contempt,” Stephen Colberts said on Wednesday.“The consequences are severe. Meadows could be sentenced to a year in prison, or even worse, another month working for Trump.” — JIMMY FALLON“Of course, Meadows needs a good lawyer, so the first thing he did was pull up Rudy Giuliani’s number and delete it.” — JIMMY FALLON“The Republican caucus is an accessory to this coup, and we recently got more evidence of that in the form of text messages to Mark Meadows, like this one received on Jan. 7 from a Republican lawmaker: ‘Yesterday was a terrible day.’ Well, I mean, at least we can all agree on that.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT‘We tried everything we could in our objection to the six states. I’m sorry nothing worked.’ Oh, so he regrets not being able to drown Lady Liberty in a bathtub. It’s like sending a sympathy card that says, ‘My deepest condolences that you lived. I was rooting for the tumor!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So, who sent these messages? Well, the identity of these lawmakers was not being disclosed, so people on Twitter are now guessing names like Paul Gosar, Jim Jordan, Devin Nunes, Matt Gaetz, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley — and you can play the home version in the fun new game ‘Clue-less.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“These messages have the ring of unfiltered truth because they’re taken from Mark Meadows’ two personal phones — and nothing says ‘innocent’ like a second cellphone.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Holiday Parties Edition)“The White House is skipping their annual holiday parties because of Covid this year — and because Joe Biden goes to sleep at 4 p.m.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This is in stark contrast to the previous White House’s ‘Catch the holiday fever’ themed droplet jamborees.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The White House just announced, due to Covid concerns, instead of the traditional holiday parties, he’s inviting guests to come see the decorations on a 30-minute self-guided tour, which is just a fancy way of Biden saying, ‘Come if you want, but I ain’t gonna be there!’” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, a self-guided tour of a historic Washington building. That’s basically how Fox News described Jan. 6.” — JIMMY FALLON“The Democratic National Committee held its annual holiday party last night outside of the Hotel Washington, due to the spread of the Omicron variant. Meanwhile, the Republican holiday party just added more mistletoe.” — SETH MEYERS“President Biden attended the D.N.C.’s annual holiday party last night and gave a 10-minute speech in just under an hour.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee modernized “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” to show support for elves and their unions.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe longtime friends Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen will appear on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutThe author bell hooks in 1995. Her work, across some 30 books, encompassed literary criticism, children’s fiction, self-help, memoir and poetry. Monica Almeida/The New York TimesThe pathbreaking Black feminist writer bell hooks died on Wednesday. She was 69. More

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      Late Night Praises Fox News Hosts for Their Acting Skills

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      The news that Fox News anchors sent texts on Jan. 6 urging President Trump to speak out against the insurrection while blaming antifa on air was the talk of late night on Tuesday.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Stop the InsanityLate night was aflutter on Tuesday with the revelations that the Fox News commentators Brian Kilmeade, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham sent pleading texts to Mark Meadows on Jan. 6, asking President Donald J. Trump to speak out and stop the insurrection.Stephen Colbert joked that Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, “even got an Instagram post from Judge Jeanine’s box of wine.”“Gee, if only they had some sort of media outlet where they could have said that publicly.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This is like finding out the flight attendant who’s been telling you that it’s just a little turbulence is going back into the cockpit, like, ‘Doesn’t anybody know how to fly this thing? We’re all gonna die!’” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, it came out that Fox News hosts were begging for Trump to do something. And today Fox News hosts lit their tree on fire again just to change the subject.” — JIMMY FALLON“So, the Jan. 6 attack scared Laura Ingraham — and keep in mind, her side gig is appearing in your bathroom mirror if you whisper ‘Medicare for all’ three times.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The records show that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows also received a text from Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that said, ‘Please get him on TV. Destroying everything we’ve accomplished.’ That is a shocking revelation — they had to beg Trump to go on TV?” — SETH MEYERS“Trump was like, ‘If I replied to every text that said “What you’re doing is crazy,” I’d never get anything done.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump didn’t want to hear it. Not only did Trump ignore texts from Fox News, he also dropped them from his family cellphone plan.” — JIMMY FALLON“And I love that they were so concerned that this could ruin Trump’s legacy: ‘If he gets somebody killed today, no one will remember that time he told everyone to drink bleach.” — TREVOR NOAH“If one person at your network has no integrity, that’s a problem. If nobody has integrity, that’s a company policy.” — TREVOR NOAH“If you’re looking for some silver lining here, I don’t think we give the Fox News gang enough credit for their acting — it’s really good.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (What’s His Number Edition)“According to newly released records, Donald Trump Jr. texted then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during January’s Capitol attack, urging him to make President Trump condemn the violence. Then he texted again, saying, ‘Fine, I’ll tell him myself — just give me his number.’” — SETH MEYERS“Yeah, Trump ignored the advice of those closest to him and also Don Jr.” — JIMMY FALLON“And then this text: He said, ‘Dad, you have to stop this right now.’ He wrote back, ‘Who is this?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You cannot give Don that number. It’s too risky — he might give it to Eric.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Don Jr. texted Meadows, asking him to do something. Meanwhile, Eric Trump texted, ‘Does anyone know where my Paw Patrol slippers are?’” — JAMES CORDEN“Now clearly, Don Jr.’s texts didn’t work, which honestly I’m kind of glad about because the only thing worse than an insurrection would have been to thank Don Jr. for stopping the insurrection.” — TREVOR NOAH“Of course, Don Jr. has spent the last 11 months praising his father’s lack of action. And Eric — his son, Eric Trump, didn’t send any texts at all. He did not text Mark Meadows, because, well, in fairness he was stuck in a claw machine at a Dave & Buster’s in Silver Spring.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingWill Forte joined his friend and former “Saturday Night Live” co-star Seth Meyers for some day drinking on Tuesday’s “Late Night.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday Night“The Late Show” will celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Lord of the Rings.”Also, Check This OutJamie Mccarthy/Getty ImagesJohn Cameron Mitchell takes inspiration from New Orleans, modern fairy tales and Mavis Staples. More