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How Did Matt LeBlanc Stop Lisa Kudrow From Quitting Friends? ( Photo Credit – Instagram )

Picture this: Friends without Phoebe Buffay. Yeah, no “Smelly Cat,” no banana phone, no “My eyes! My eyes!” Basically, a world none of us want to live in. But believe it or not, Lisa Kudrow almost called it quits after Season 3—and it took some Joey Tribbiani-level persuasion from Matt LeBlanc to change her mind.

By Season 3, Kudrow was running on fumes. She was playing the delightfully weird Phoebe on Friends and juggling her role as Ursula, Phoebe’s downright mean twin, on Mad About You. That double life? Exhausting. To make matters worse, her real-life sister Helena stepped in as Ursula’s stunt double for twin scenes, which only made things weirder. Imagine acting opposite “yourself,” but it’s actually your sibling? Yeah, not exactly a breeze.

“I was over it,” Lisa Kudrow admitted during an...

Lisa Kudrow is reflecting on her time on Friends and opening up about the scene that made her cry.

The No Good Deed star said that she hadn’t watched many of the episodes of the hit NBC sitcom but recently started watching it.

“God forbid, if anyone walked into my house and saw me watching my show, I’d be mortified,” Kudrow said on the Dinner’s On Me podcast. “There’s episodes I’ve never seen. I mean I was at the table read. I don’t know what the rewrites were for the other stories, you know?”

She continued, “There are episodes I just never saw, and still haven’t because I’m still deciding how to work my way through it. It’s like there’s a certain amount of anxiety around watching it.”

Kudrow revealed that one of the scenes that touched her was when...

Television has been a dominant medium for the American audience for quite some time. We have always enjoyed watching sitcoms with gripping storylines, punchline comedies, and amazing star casts. Over the years, many actors have made their careers from sitcoms and created a path for themselves in films. In fact, many of the shows became historical and popular in their own unique way.

A snippet from Friends | Credits: NBC

But have you ever thought about how much the sitcom actors have earned for their day-to-day job? Well, over the years, the actors have gone from earning thousands to millions including inflation. We have done some digging and curated a list of 10 sitcom actors who have been paid the highest. In this article, we have ranked the highest-paid sitcom actors based on their net worths.

10. Charlie Sheen – $3 million Net Worth

Charlie Sheen’s run as one of the highest-paid actors ended...

“The One with the Blackout,” the seventh episode of “Friends’” inaugural season, was notable for several reasons. It first introduced viewers to both the gang’s miserly broomstick-waving neighbor Mr. Heckles and Ross’ first rival for Rachel’s affections, Italian stallion Paolo. It apparently added the term ‘friend zone’ to the English lexicon as a result. And, as its title suggests, it formed part of an ingenious marketing strategy in which three NBC sitcoms were deliberately plunged into darkness.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this month (November 3), Blackout Thursday was the brainwave of Dan Holm, a promotional producer also responsible for the term ‘Must See TV.’ Alongside the comedy that would prove to be the network’s most successful, the programming stunt also included one of the many forgettable one-seasoners that failed to ride its coattails, the Dabney Coleman-starring “Madman of the People,” and the 12-time Emmy-winning “Mad About You.

All October long, Cracked is catching up with some of the greatest writers in Simpsons history to discuss the most beloved segments from the “Treehouse of Horror” series. From the cursed monkey’s paw to Krusto the Clown, we’re digging into the making of some real fan-favorites.

Here’s one more “The Simpsons did it first” moment for the pile: A month before Toy Story hit theaters, “Treehouse of Horror VI” featured a 3D Homer in the segment “Homer3,” an utterly mind-blowing feat back in 1995 and possibly the boldest thing the show had done up until that point.

Maybe more impressively, it was a feat pulled off by a couple of newbie showrunners, Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. They’d written on The Simpsons for several seasons already, but “Treehouse of Horror VI” was just their third episode at the helm — an episode that went on to be a classic.

Calling "Seinfeld" a success story is understating it. But Jason Alexander, who played George Costanza on the show in every episode except one, thinks the series' success might've had bad consequences for the TV industry as a whole. In a Charlie Rose interview from 1998 (the same year "Seinfeld" concluded), Alexander walked through the story of how he, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine), and Michael Richards (Kramer) fought for a raise about halfway through the show's run.

Alexander explained how, around season 5 of "Seinfeld," he, Louis-Dreyfus, and Richards felt "there was no upside" in staying on the show anymore. The success of "Seinfeld" could even be a double-edged sword since they'd be typecast as actors going forward. His fears ended up being founded; of the three, only Louis-Dreyfus has become more than her "Seinfeld" character to the larger public.

Initially, the three actors tried to get in on the show's syndication success. Syndication,...

Exclusive: Actor and comedian Paul Reiser is back behind the mic with Life, Death and Rice Pudding, a new stand-up special for Comedy Dynamics, which is his first in over three decades. Directed by Comedy Dynamics CEO Brian Volk-Weiss, the special premieres across platforms on November 19. Check out a trailer above.

Reiser’s new hour comes on the heels of Paul Reiser: 3 ½ Blocks from Home and Paul Reiser: Out on a Whim, which were respectively released in 1991 and 1987. In it, he discloses the secret to successful downsizing, explains why the whole “Do unto others” thing doesn’t work in marriage, and why boiling pasta naked is never a good idea. And for absolutely no additional charge, you will come to understand why finding raisins in rice pudding underscores the very meaning of life.

Volk-Weiss and Reiser exec produced alongside Cisco Henson, Michael Pelmont, and Doug Edley.

“I had so much...

For a few years in the '90s, it seemed like Helen Hunt was destined to be a mainstay on the big and small screen alike forever. The actor landed her earliest movie role in 1977, playing a teenager in the disaster movie "Rollercoaster," which featured a singularly weird plot about a man trying to bomb an amusement park ride. Hunt continued to act over the next decade, taking roles in films like "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" and "Peggy Sue Got Married," plus the popular doctor drama "St. Elsewhere." But it wasn't until the '90s, when Hunt earned a trifecta of great, memorable roles, that she truly became a household name.

Hunt's big break came from "Mad About You," a 1992 sitcom in which she played one half of a New York City newlywed couple opposite Paul Reiser. Plotlines for the show mined married life for humor, but they...

For Richard Kind, joining “Only Murders in the Building” Season 4 in the role of West Tower resident Vince Fish didn’t take too much convincing.

“They offered it to me. They said, ‘We’ll give you money if you play the part.’ I said, ‘Good, that’s good enough for me’,” the veteran actor of TV, film and theater told TheWrap in an interview when asked what drew him to the role. “If a show that’s produced by Dan Fogelman and John Hoffman, starring Marty Short, Steve Martin and Selena Gomez says they want you to work with them. You drop everything and you do it. I don’t care if they had me on the toilet reading the Yellow Pages. You do it. I am drawn to these creative people and I trust them because their talent cannot be contained to a page. They’re just spectacular.”

Kind...

Julie Bowen didn’t think she was funny enough to land Modern Family, the actress said this week.

“I was like, ‘I can’t tell a joke, I’m not funny,” Bowen recalled during an appearance on The Three Questions with Andy Richter.

The actress played Claire Dunphy on Modern Family, which ran for 11 seasons from 2009 to 2020 and is widely regarded as one of this century’s best sitcoms. As a result, Bowen is well-known for her comedy chops today.

Nevertheless, the actress almost didn’t audition for the role. At the time she told her team, “Don’t give me those three-jokes-a-page kind of things.”

Luckily, her managers pushed back and told her, “You know what? Helen Hunt isn’t funny.” Hunt charmed audiences as Jamie in Mad About You, which ran for seven seasons in the 1990s and then returned for an eighth in 2019.

“I said, ‘[Helen Hunt] just won like five Emmys,...

Lisa Kudrow found worldwide fame and critical acclaim when she portrayed the character of Phoebe Buffay in the iconic 1994 sitcom Friends. Her character became a pop culture phenomenon for years.

Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay on Friends | Credits: Warner Bros. Television

Portraying somewhat of an oddball, the world fell in love with Phoebe’s antics. Well, this wasn’t the first job that the actress had auditioned for since she had to audition with the same director for two different roles!

Frasier Director Had “No Notes” For Lisa Kudrow!

Frasier was an American sitcom that premiered in 1993 (one year before Friends was released). The series dealt with a psychiatrist and the people close to him as Frasier ran for a whopping 11 seasons.

Lisa Kudrow in Time Bandits | Credits: Paramount Television Studios

Lisa Kudrow was all set to portray the role of Roz Doyle (later portrayed by Peri Gilpin). However, the...

Sting has officially brought his new trio to the United States, kicking off the North American leg of his “Sting 3.0” tour on Tuesday at The Fillmore in Detroit.

Joined by guitarist and longtime collaborator Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas, the former Police frontman delivered a set nearly split down the middle between Sting tunes and Police favorites. The trio opened with “Message in a Bottle” and went on to perform classics like “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” and “Roxanne,” as well as his recently released solo single “I Wrote Your Name (Upon My Heart).”

Get Sting Tickets Here

The accomplished bassist and songwriter will continue the “Sting 3.0” tour with a string of multi-night stints, starting with his second concert in Detroit tonight. He’ll then head to Toronto for three nights, followed by runs in Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and more before wrapping up in Los Angeles.

Before "Austin Powers," "Johnny English," and "Top Secret!" there was "Get Smart," the 1960s spy sitcom that mined the genre for laughs when the James Bond and "Mission: Impossible" franchises were still in their infancies. Co-created by comedy legends Mel Brook and Buck Henry, "Get Smart" ran for five seasons from 1965 to 1970, earning seven Primetime Emmys and plenty of other accolades along the way.

Stand-up comedian Don Adams starred as Maxwell Smart, the sometimes inept top-secret agent who regularly held the fate of the world in his hands ... and often almost fumbled it. By his side was the beautiful, super-cool Agent 99 (Barbara Feldon), who loves Maxwell despite his clumsiness and penchant for messing up missions. The central trio was rounded out by Edward Platt's The Chief, the supportive leader of the intelligence agency Control, which employed both Agent 99 and Maxwell.

"Get Smart" inspired a follow-up film, sequel TV show,...

Sitcom crossovers usually make some kind of sense — Laverne and Shirley lived in the same Milwaukee as the Happy Days gang. Lisa Kudrow starred on both Friends and Mad About You. The Simpsons and Family Guy were both animated. But none of that prepared us for the time Ray Barone showed up on The Nanny.

About the only thing those two shows had in common were that both aired on CBS during the 1990s and both featured characters who lived in New York state. So no one saw it coming during Season Five of The Nanny when Fran attended her high school reunion and ran into an unexpected classmate. Standing in the buffet line, she asks a guy in a suit to hand her a piece of quiche. He turns around, and what do you know? It’s Raymond.

The jokes are as corny as the quiche. “You know, Raymond,...

“Remember who you are. Remember.” This is one of the most iconic lines coming from one of the most iconic voices in pop culture. For nearly 70 years, James Earl Jones made a mark on the screen, stage, and television. Many know him as the iconic voice behind Darth Vader of the Star Wars saga and Mufasa of The Lion King franchise.

But there is a lot more storied history from the world-famous gravel voice that brought the entire galaxy to its knees and that led a boy to be king.

Humble Beginnings

Born on the 17th of January 1931 in Mississippi, James Earl Jones found his passion in poetry and acting to overcome his stutter, making him embrace his deep voice. It is truly amazing how overcoming a disability led him to be one of the most recognizable voices in film.

He then ventured into theater, eventually debuting in 1957 on Broadway...

Exclusive: Comedy Dynamics, the world’s largest independent stand-up comedy production and distribution company, has launched a 24/7 free ad-supported TV channel dedicated to stand-up on Amazon Freevee.

The Stand Up Channel will be carefully curated by the Comedy Dynamics team, and feature new and classic stand-up comedy specials, Amazon original specials, and new acquisitions as they become available. Among the comics you can expect to see highlighted are Jim Gaffigan, Tiffany Haddish, Tom Segura, Jeff Dunham, Eddie Griffin, Iliza Shlesinger, Jimmy O. Yang, Bill Hicks, Maria Bamford, Larry the Cable Guy, Anjelah Johnson, Lavell Crawford, Russell Peters, Kathleen Madigan, Gary Owen, Whitney Cummings and more.

Comedy Dynamics launches its new Fast channel following success with the Comedy Dynamics channel, the company’s first Fast channel, which similarly showcases their vast stand-up comedy library to Amazon customers. All Fast channels available on Freevee can be accessed through the Freevee app, as...

The competition is hot and heavy this year for the Emmy for guest actor and actress in a comedy series. Will Maya Rudolph win her third Emmy in this category for NBC’s “Saturday Night Live?” Or will Jamie Lee Curtis win her first Emmy for her powerful turn in “The Fishes” episode of FX’s “The Bear”? Veteran Christopher Lloyd is looking to receive his first Emmy in 32 years for his role as Larry Arbuckle on Max’ “Hacks.” While Bob Odenkirk, who won two writing Emmys over 30 years ago, may finally earn one for acting as Uncle Lee on FX’s “The Bear.”

Over the years everyone from Colleen Dewhurst (“Murphy Brown”), Carol Burnett (“Mad About You”), who at 91 is up for the Emmy for supporting actress in a comedy series for “Palm Royale,” Jane Lynch (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), John Cleese (“Frasier”) and Mel Brooks, who received the...

Maybe Matt Groening was saying “boo-urns.”

Back in the 1990s, comedy shows collaborating to make crowd-pleasing crossover episodes was all the rage. Friends and Mad About You connected their comedy universes via Phoebe’s twin sister Ursula. Steve Urkel from Family Matters crashed the Tanner household in a Full House episode. The Jeffersons appeared on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air twice — that’s double the visits of Will’s dad. While these kinds of very special episodes may not have been the most artistically inspired publicity stunts, these marketing department’s delights certainly weren’t anything worthy of shame or derision, let alone a full-scale press tour from either show’s creator as they disowned the project like it’s a nefarious failson who committed treason against the crown. That is, unless you ask Groening.

Leading up to the airing of the iconic Season Six Simpsons episode “A Star Is Burns,...

Exclusive: Kecia Lewis, who won a Tony Award this year for her featured portrayal of Miss Liza Jane in the Alicia Keys Broadway musical Hell’s Kitchen, has signed with Paradigm Talent Agency.

Hell’s Kitchen is Lewis’ 10th Broadway show following performances in Leap Of Faith, Children Of A Lesser God, The Drowsy Chaperone and Once On This Island, among others. She started her career in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls.

On television, Lewis was a series regular on the Fox series The Passage and the 2019 reboot of Mad About You opposite Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt. She has recurred on Wu-Tang: An American Saga, Law & Order: Svu and The Blacklist. She recently appeared in …And Just Like That.

In film, Lewis played Jodi Turner-Smith’s mother in The Independent.

Lewis continues to be represented by Jed Abrahams at The Rosenzweig Group.

Robert Downey Jr. could be about to join an exclusive actors club by becoming just the fourth person to win both an Oscar and an Emmy for acting in the same calendar year.

Downey Jr. won Best Supporting Actor at this year’s Oscars for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss in “Oppenheimer.” That Christopher Nolan biopic, which also won Best Picture, followed Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and depicted the scientist’s creation, and later guilt, of the atomic bomb. Downey Jr’s Strauss was a politician who was once an ally of Oppenheimer only to become his rival. Downey Jr’s portrayal of Strauss, the film’s villain, made him the obvious choice for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and that remained throughout awards season. He won the BAFTA, Critics Choice, Golden Globe, and SAG awards before he eventually won the Academy Award, beating fellow Oscar nominees Sterling K. Brown...

A while back, Stranger Things and Ghostbusters: Afterlife actor Finn Wolfhard made his feature directorial debut with a horror comedy called Hell of a Summer, which he directed alongside Billy Bryk, who also appeared in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. JoBlo’s own Chris Bumbray had the chance to watch the movie at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and gave it a 5/10 review than can be read at This Link – and now, Variety reports that Hell of a Summer has secured a U.S. distribution deal with Neon, which sent Longlegs and Cuckoo out into the world. The company is planning to give Wolfhard and Bryk’s film a theatrical release sometime in 2025.

Months before Hell of a Summer was officially announced, Wolfhard said that he was planning to make his feature directorial debut with “a horror-comedy-slasher movie that takes place at a camp.” Sure enough, that’s what this movie is.

“Stranger Things” and Ghostbusters: Afterlife star Finn Wolfhard is the co-writer, co-director and star of the upcoming horror-comedy slasher movie Hell of a Summer, and distributor Neon (Longlegs) has announced that they’re bringing the film to theaters in 2025.

No exact release date has been provided. Stay tuned.

Finn Wolfhard wrote and directed the upcoming movie alongside Billy Bryk (Ghostbusters: Afterlife), with both actors also starring in the film. The cast also includes Fred Hechinger (Fear Street 1994), as well as D’Pharaoh Woon-a-Tai (“Reservation Dogs”), Abby Quinn (“Mad About You”), and Pardis Saremi (“Career Opportunities in Murder and Mayhem”).

Meagan Navarro wrote in her festival review for Bloody Disgusting, “Slasher riffs and parodies date back nearly as long as slashers themselves, dissecting the enduring tropes and familiar formulas. In Hell of a Summer, first-time directors/writers Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk frame their slasher riff as a buddy comedy from the perspective of teens,...

With her 23rd Emmy nomination coming 62 years after she was first nominated for “The Garry Moore Show” in 1962, Carol Burnett has now been nominated for 14 different shows. The one she’s best known for is “The Carol Burnett Show,” her long-running and wildly popular variety show that ran from 1967 until 1978.

But there were also variety specials, dramas and comedies. And now, at the age of 91, one of the most beloved entertainers of the television age has been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the Apple TV+ comedy “Palm Royale,” in which she steals more than a few scenes as Norma Dellacorte, a rich society dame who spends a third of the season in a coma and then another big chunk of it conscious but unable to talk except in grunts and squawks.

The show’s 11 nominations include lead actress Kristen Wiig, who plays a desperate social...

Lionsgate has extended longtime CEO Jon Feltheimer’s contract for another five years through July 31, 2029.

Feltheimer signed a new deal in 2020 that aimed to keep him at the studio through Aug. 2025. On Aug. 8, Lionsgate’s compensation committee approved a new employment agreement with the studio head to keep him as CEO for another five years, the studio said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Wednesday.

Feltheimer has served as CEO of the Hollywood studio since March 2000 alongside vice chairman Michael Burns, and that followed a nine-year run at Sony Pictures where he worked on popular shows like Mad About You, The Nanny, Dawsons Creek and Party of Five.

The latest deal replaces Feltheimer’s current employment agreement, which was amended on Aug. 12, 2022 to run through to 2025. The new contract has him earning an annual base salary of $1.5 million and being eligible for an annual performance bonus.

The first...

Seinfeld fans already know that NBC treating George Costanza as if he were less important than Ted Danson was a bad omen for the show, but did you know that, in real life, the network caused an industry-wide panic by pretending that Paul Reiser was a full $400,000 more valuable than Jason Alexander?

Well, that’s not exactly what Alexander said when he discussed his salary on the talk show Charlie Rose in April 1998, mere weeks before the airing of the soon-to-be infamous Seinfeld finale. However, the brilliant acting talent behind one of TV history’s most petty and envious a-holes did tell the journalism giant that the Seinfeld pay structure for which he, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards fought bitterly with NBC to secure destroyed the TV economy by ensuring that Reiser could command a $1 million paycheck per episode of the significantly less impressive sitcom Mad About You.

By the end of Seinfeld,...

It’s part of TV comedy history that Joe Rogan replaced an actor named Greg Lee in the sitcom NewsRadio, making Rogan a household name and setting the stage for Fear Factor and eventual world domination. It would be easy to point an angry finger at Lee, who actually starred in the NewsRadio pilot, for not holding onto the job that would give Rogan a fame foothold. But there was a third comic actor who was cast before Lee. And if Ray Romano could have done a better job of impressing producers, we’d live in a very different timeline.

Yep, it was the future Everybody Loves Raymond star who was first cast as the electrician on NewsRadio. Romano auditioned and got the part in 1994 — only to get fired two days into rehearsals.

What was the problem? Producers felt like Romano’s sleepy line delivery was slowing down the show’s rapid-fire comic pace.

Gold Derby can exclusively reveal that Carol Burnett is entering the “Palm Royale” episode “Maxine Shakes the Tree” as her 2024 Emmy Award submission for Best Comedy Supporting Actress. “Maxine Shakes the Tree” aired on April 3 and is the fifth episode of the first season of the Apple TV+ series.

In this episode, Norma (Burnett) has awaken from her coma but is unable to pronounce words, engaging in conversations through lots of mumbling and groaning. Maxine interprets one of Norma’s murmurs to mean she should confront Douglas (Josh Lucas) about his past engagement to Linda (Laura Dern), so she brings Norma along in a wheelchair. A flashback reveals that Norma was the one who helped Douglas run away to Chattanooga for Maxine and ditch Linda at the altar. At the end, Linda tells Norma that it’s over and tosses her Rolodex’s contents into the fire while all Norma can do is groan.

Lisa Kudrow is obviously doing quite well right now, considering that she’s starring in the new Time Bandits show on Apple TV+ and presumably has a Scrooge McDuck-esque vault full of Friends royalty checks.

But there was a time when Kudrow was still a struggling young actor, and had to grapple with the pain of losing out on a role in one of the ‘90s most successful sitcoms that in no way involved singing about malodorous cats.

While guesting on the SmartLess podcast, Kudrow chatted about how she was hired, and promptly fired, from Frasier after being cast as Frasier’s sassy, relentlessly-shamed producer Roz Doyle. “It was devastating to get fired,” Kudrow revealed, recalling that she was told by director James Burrows “this isn’t working,” while performing the pilot’s run-through, and let go shortly afterwards.

“I think they did make a casting mistake,” the Friends star reasoned,...

Less than a year after winning her seventh career Emmy for producing her own birthday special, “90 Years of Laughter + Love,” Carol Burnett is on the verge of making even more TV academy history. Having just secured a Best Comedy Supporting Actress nomination for Apple TV+’s “Palm Royale,” she has a clear shot at not only conquering her fifth unique Emmy category but also becoming the organization’s very first nonagenarian acting champion.

Set in 1969, “Palm Royale” is the first non-sketch series on which Burnett has ever played a regular role. She appears throughout the inaugural season as Norma Dellacorte, an initially comatose Florida socialite who, like all of the women in her circle, harbors some rather heavy secrets. The show is up for a total of 11 Emmys, including Best Comedy Series and Actress (Kristen Wiig).

The current record for oldest acting Emmy winner belongs to Betty White, who was...

Lisa Kudrow famously played Phoebe Buffay for 10 years on “Friends.” But before that, she was fired from another classic NBC sitcom: “Frasier.”

Kudrow was originally cast in the iconic role of Dr. Frasier Crane’s radio producer Roz Doyle, who would ultimately be played by Peri Gilpin. Kudrow said she was told “this isn’t working” by “Frasier” director James Burrows during the run-through of the pilot episode.

“I didn’t film it. I got fired from ‘Frasier,'” Kudrow said on the “SmartLess” podcast hosted by Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes. “I was trying to like [ask], ‘What can I do?’ But I think they did make a casting mistake because I went to the network with Perri Gilpin. I think they were just correcting a mistake, because Peri should have always been Roz.”

Kudrow had appeared on “Cheers” and later went on to guest star on “Mad About You,...

Lisa Kudrow looked back at her television career, opening up about getting fired from Frasier, the sitcom role that changed her trajectory, and being the only Friends cast member to audition.

In a new interview, Kudrow revealed that she was cast as Roz Doyle in the Frasier pilot that ultimately Peri Gilpin portrayed during its 11-season run on NBC.

“I didn’t film it. I got fired from Frasier,” Kudrow told Sean Hayes on the SmartLess podcast, also co-hosted by Jason Bateman and Will Arnett.

Kudrow said getting fired from Frasier was “devastating” and that director James Burrows said, “This isn’t working,” during the pilot’s run-through.

“I was trying to like [ask], ‘What can I do?’ But I think they did make a casting mistake because I went to the network with Perri Gilpin,” Kudrow said. “I think they were just correcting a mistake. Cause Perri should have always been Roz.

HBO is working on a two-part documentary about comedy legend Mel Brooks.

Judd Apatow is directing the untitled doc with Michael Bonfiglio after the pair directed George Carlin’s American Dream together. It is now in production.

The docu is an “expansive yet intimate look at one of comedy’s most hilarious and influential minds, whose work has had audiences around the world laughing for more than 70 years”, per HBO.

It comes from HBO Documentary Films and Apatow Productions with Kevin Salter exec producing and Joe Beshenkovsky editing.

It marks the latest Mel Brooks doc to air on HBO; the network aired Mel Brooks: Unwrapped, originally a BBC production, in 2020.

“I went into comedy because of my love for Mel Brooks. This project is the dream of a lifetime,” said Apatow.

It is the latest documentary for Apatow, who directed Bob and Don: A Love Story and The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling.

Carol Burnett has become the oldest female nominated for an acting Emmy Award at the age of 91. For her portrayal of Norma Dellacorte in the Apple TV+ period dramedy Palm Royale, Burnett competes in the category of “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series.”

Former record holders include Cecily Tyson, who at 93 was recognized by the TV Academy under the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her work in ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder; and Ernest Borgnine, 92 in 2009, was recognized for his work in NBC’s ER under the “Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series” category.

Before this latest distinction, the legendary Burnett received 24 Primetime Emmy nominations which includes 7 wins. Notable recognitions include Outstanding Variety Series-Musical for her eponymous series in 1972, 1973 and 1975; “Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series” in 1997 for Mad About You; and “Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) for Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love last year.

At 91, Carol Burnett has become the oldest female comedy acting Emmy nominee for her performance in Apple TV+’s Palm Royale.

The star landed a nomination for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series on Wednesday, recognized alongside Liza Colón-Zayas (The Bear), Hannah Einbinder (Hacks), Janelle James (Abbott Elementary), Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary) and Meryl Streep (Only Murders in the Building).

Dick Van Dyke, at 98, currently holds the record for the oldest person to earn a Daytime Emmy Awards nomination. Cecily Tyson was nominated in 2018 for guest acting in How to Get Away with Murder (she was 93), Ernest Borgnine received a guest acting nomination in 2009 for ER (he was 92).

Burnett herself has been nominated for an Emmy 24 times and won seven times, including outstanding guest actress in a comedy series in 1997 for Mad About You, and most recently won in 2023 for producing her Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laugher + Love special.

“Twister” was the second highest-grossing film at the box office in 1996, so its enduring popularity shouldn’t be a shock. But still, the profound nature of its impact over time — there’s a museum dedicated to the film in its shooting location of Wakita, Oklahoma; a noted uptick in meteorology majors in the late ’90s directly attributed to the film; and stormchasers paying tribute en masse to star Bill Paxton upon his death in 2017 — astounds even its director, Jan de Bont.

“It’s amazing how that happened,” the Dutch filmmaker told IndieWire in an interview timed to the release of the film on 4K Uhd Blu-ray. “And how quickly it happened. I think ‘Twister’ simply made people more interested in weather phenomena and it’s even why there are so many more weather shows on TV.”

Couple that with the increasing focus on climate change in the 28 years since the...

The writer of Jurassic Park. The director of Speed. The star of Mad About You. The quaint Clinton-era notion that a major action blockbuster could be produced with, as the major antagonist, an atmospheric condition and not swarthy terrorists from the Middle East or France. Twister is so 1990s it hurts, but the pain isn’t as exquisite as revisiting a movie you once, for any number of pubescent reasons, loved as a child and now realize is a whirling roar of detritus.

When Twister came out, the traditional ’80s model blockbuster appeared to be on its last legs. Films like John McTiernan’s The Last Action Hero and Kevin Reynolds’s Waterworld made the idea of a central masculine anchor, be he mountainously monolithic or sensitively willowy, seem as ruinous as letting a young Turk hotshot direct your studio’s big epic did in the early ’80s during the...

Friends. South Park. Frasier. Family Guy. Some of TV’s longest-running sitcoms premiered in the 1990s, and remain relevant and beloved if not still producing new episodes today. But a decade is a long time, executives try a lot of ideas to fill their schedules, and since broadcast TV programming is kind of a zero-sum game, far more sitcoms premiered than ever found an audience. The question is: which ones deserved better?

A word on methodology here: I took the term “forgotten” very literally. That means I didn’t consider any ‘90s sitcom that’s streaming on a legitimate pay or subscription platform; any ‘90s sitcom that lasted more than one season; and any of which only the pilot is available to watch — illegitimately, since pilots have to jam in so much exposition that judging a show’s quality by that episode alone doesn’t offer an accurate picture of where it aspires to go.

Hiram Kasten, a comedian well-known across the New York comedy club circuit and in shows such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, has died. He was 71.

Kasten died in his home in Batavia, New York, after seven years of fighting several illnesses, including prostate cancer and Crohn’s disease, an obituary in his local paper The Batavian reported.

Kasten was a regular comedian at New York’s Comic Strip, where he met then-mc Jerry Seinfeld and the two eventually became friends.

He also made regular appearances at Catch a Rising Star, The Improv, The Comedy Cellar and Caroline’s throughout the 1970s and 1980s. At Dangerfield’s, he ran his own show on Sunday nights for many years.

In the late 1980s, Kasten moved to Los Angeles and eventually appeared in shows such as Mad About You, Everybody Loves Raymond, Curb Your Enthusiasm, 7th Heaven,...

Hiram Kasten, a comedian/actor who was part of the New York comedy club scene in the 1970s and 1980s, had a long relationship with Jerry Seinfeld and appeared on Seinfeld, died today at his home in Batavia, NY. He was 71.

He endured seven years of fighting through multiple illnesses including prostate cancer, according to his wife, Diana Kisiel Kastenbaum. He died hours after their 38th wedding anniversary.

Born Hiram Z. Kastenbaum in the Bronx, N.Y., Kasten dreamed of becoming an actor. After a few years of bouncing around the theater scene, he decided he would try his hand at stand-up comedy.

He set his sights on The Comic Strip, where the Mc was Jerry Seinfeld, who passed Hiram on his first audition. He soon became a regular at the club. The two struck up a friendship that lasted for 45 years. It was also where Hiram met his soon-to-be lifelong friends,...

“If you’re lost, you can look and you will find me / Time after time / If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting / Time after time.”

Those are some of the lyrics from Cyndi Lauper’s iconic song “Time After Time.” Co-written by Lauper and Rob Hyman, it was the second single from the singer’s debut album, “She’s So Unusual.” And 40 years ago this month, “Time After Time” became her first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Lauper had actually come very close to topping the chart earlier that year. Her debut single, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” made it to number-two in March 1984.

The soulful “Time After Time” knocked “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” by Deniece Williams from the Billboard top spot. “Time After Time” would remain there for a second week, but its “Time” was up when Duran Duran...

Before the 2024 Oscars ceremony took place, three of the four eventual acting winners had already filmed TV performances that now put them in contention for the upcoming Emmys. If Emma Stone, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Robert Downey Jr. all end up achieving TV academy recognition this year, they will set a record as the first set of three concurrent acting Oscar recipients to appear on the same year’s Emmy ballot.

Randolph, who scored an Oscar in March for her supporting turn in “The Holdovers,” is seeking her first career Emmy notice for reprising her comedic guest role of Detective Donna Williams during the third season of Hulu’s “Only Murders in the Building.” According to Gold Derby’s odds, she comfortably ranks as her show’s strongest guest acting candidate, even outpacing first season nominee Jane Lynch.

Having just won her second Best Actress Oscar for “Poor Things” against...

Less than a year after winning her seventh career Emmy for co-producing her own birthday special, “90 Years of Laughter + Love,” Carol Burnett is preparing to make even more TV academy history. The small screen legend is on the verge of earning her first Best Comedy Supporting Actress nomination for Apple TV+’s “Palm Royale,” which would also be her first bid for a regular role on a non-sketch series. If she succeeds on this possible outing, she will set a new record as the first nonagenarian winner of any acting Emmy.

Set in 1969, “Palm Royale” features Burnett in the role of Norma Dellacorte, an initially comatose Florida socialite who, like all of the women in her circle, harbors some rather heavy secrets. Although she has so far been exclusively credited as a special guest star on the show, she does not presently qualify for guest category placement since she appears...

Quite a few of your favorite television performers have plenty of Emmy Awards on their shelves… Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Allison Janney, Cloris Leachman, Tina Fey. Other TV legends like Henry Winkler and Bob Newhart just picked up their first and only statuettes in recent years. But how about the many others still waiting for their trophy? Tour through our photo gallery above featuring the Top 30 greatest TV stars who have never won an Emmy (arranged in alphabetical order). We only chose people with long-running television careers without reaching this one singular achievement. Congratulations to Jason Bateman for finally getting off of our list in 2019!

Several people in our gallery are still actively working, with some of them on this year’s Emmy ballot seeking another shot at the gold. Those names include Tim Allen (“Last Man Standing”), Kristen Bell (“The Good Place”), Steve Carell, Don Cheadle (“Black Monday”), Lauren Graham (“Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist...

Cyndi Lauper will have her last bout of fun, announcing her farewell tour more than four decades after launching her debut album, She’s So Unusual.

Dubbed the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour, Cyndi Lauper will kick it off in Montreal in mid-October, hitting the States in Detroit a week later and continuing through until December 5th, where she will conclude her touring career in Chicago.

Cyndi Lauper, who turns 70 this month, has no doubt earned a proper farewell. Her 1983 debut album featured the singles “Girl Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time”, both of which earned Grammy nominations in the same year she took home Best New Artist. She followed that up with 1986’s True Colors. And who can forget “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”, which we all know should have been nominated for an Oscar?

While Lauper’s wattage dimmed in the ‘90s, her...

Twister, action-packed iconic disaster film directed by Jan de Bont (Speed) will be available for purchase on 4K Ultra HD Disc and Digital for the first time on July 9. Twister will be available to purchase on July 9 on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc from online and in-store at major retailers and available for purchase Digitally from Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Fandango at Home and more. Twister stars Academy AwardÒ winner (As Good as It Gets) and four-time Emmy AwardÒ winner (“Mad About You”) Helen Hunt and Screen Actors Guild Award Winner Bill Paxton (Apollo 13). The film also stars Cary ... Read more...

Belt-tightening and cost-cutting continues across Hollywood as the Peak TV era has come to a close, and another legacy TV brand is being shuttered as a result.

Sony Television is shutting down its TriStar Television banner, which recently has been responsible for series like “Lucky Hank” (AMC), “The Afterparty” (Apple TV+), “On Becoming a God in Central Florida” (Showtime), “The Last Tycoon” (Amazon), and “Good Girls Revolt” (Amazon). In its heyday, TriStar TV produced and distributed “The Nanny,” “Mad About You,” and many more series.

A source says the decision is part of a larger shift around Sony Pictures Television’s boutique labels, not unlike the shuttering of the Gemstone brand several years ago, and that the hope is to weave all of TriStar’s values and goals into the bigger studio.

As THR first reported, TriStar TV’s active productions will be absorbed into the larger Sony Television operation,...

In the first few episodes of Apple TV+ series Palm Royale, Carol Burnett is entirely horizontal. And rightly so, since her character Norma Dellacorte in a coma. Fortunately though, Norma recovers in time to rip through some seriously juicy scenes with Kristin Wiig, who names Burnett, who turned 91 in April, as her career inspiration. “When they told me who was going to be in it,” says Burnett, “Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney and Laura Dern and Ricky Martin and Julia Duffy, I said, ‘I don’t care what it is. I want to be a part of it.’” From Burnett’s early days hosting long-running comedy-variety series The Carol Burnett Show, to films like A Wedding, Annie and Mad About You, to Better Call Saul, she has blazed a trail, garnering seven Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy along the way. Here, she recalls some favorite memories, picks her best...

At long last, Eddie Murphy is reprising his role as street-smart cop Axel Foley in the fourth instalment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, which is set to hit Netflix this summer. But, it isn’t easy being a middle aged action star. It’s been nearly thirty years since we last saw Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, and in a recent interview with People Magazine he admitted that the shoot was a “rough one”.“I did Axel Foley when I was in my 20s. I am not in my 20s anymore,” he said. At any rate, Murphy won’t be the only aged actor from the original to show up, with many of the classic Beverly Hills Cop cast members are set to join him in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley. Here’s everything we know about Beverly Hills Cop 4!

Who’s making it?

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley...

Sting took to the stage stage in Dresden, Germany on Saturday night to kick off his “Sting 3.0” power trio tour (grab tickets here), delivering a set of hits and deep cuts.

The “Sting 3.0″ tour sees the former Police frontman joined by guitarist and longtime collaborator Dominic Miller and drummer Chris Maas. Opening with the first live performance of The Police’s “Voices Inside My Head” since 2006, Sting immediately followed up with the band’s 1979 classic “Message In a Bottle.” From there, the set included more bust-outs, like “When the Angels Fall” (for the first time since 1992) and “Never Coming Home” (for the first time since 2012), as well as solo hits like “Fields of Gold,” and all The Police bops you’d like to hear, like “Every Breath You Take” and “Roxanne.”

Get Sting Tickets Here

Fan-captured footage of the performance show the trio sounding in fine form, filling out the songs’ arrangements with impressive umph.

Mel Brooks will receive this year’s Career Achievement Award at the 84th Peabody Awards, and Quinta will be honored with the Peabody Trailblazer Award. Both received a unanimous vote of the Peabody Board of Jurors and will be recognized at the June 9 awards ceremony in Los Angeles.

“Mel Brooks is not only one of the most beloved comedians of all time, but he literally set the standard for television comedy from its earliest days. Across TV, film, theater, and recordings, Mr. Brooks is in a league of his own. And Quinta Brunson has emerged as a refreshingly creative force in network television comedy,” said Jeffrey Jones, executive director of Peabody. “Peabody is proud to honor Mel and Quinta not only for their extraordinary contributions as storytellers, but particularly for their use of comedy to tell stories that matter, enriching the lives of so many.”

The Career Achievement Award is...