Pop Culture Roundup – Post Thanksgiving Edition

Hopefully by now all the effects of the massive amounts of turkey everyone consumed over the holiday weekend have worn off. It’s funny – I only had two days off from work for Thanksgiving, yet it felt like a lifetime. It feels weird to be back to work and be putting in a full week.

While I readjust to life in the office, check out the usual roundup of some pop culture nuggets from the last two weeks.

• RIP Larry Hagman. J.R. Ewing goes down in the record books as a great TV villain. Hagman was one of the best things about the Dallas reboot on TNT. A handful of episodes for the second season have already been filmed, but his death will be addressed on the show.

• A family has named their baby Hashtag. I hope they started a fund for that kid’s therapy.

• The only thing surprising about this is the timing, since I’m guessing the show won’t be back after this season – Chevy Chase has quit Community.

• Discovery Channel has cancelled Dirty Jobs.

• Even NBC is having a tough time believing that they won November sweeps.

• Travelex has created a map of the filming locations of IMDB’s top 250 movies.

• Monday night I let my nerd flag fly as I went to a lecture by famed documentarian Ken Burns. He was being recognized by the NYS Achieves and it is no exaggeration to say that I was definitively the youngest person in the room. Between this and Lincoln, I’m spending a lot of time with octogenarians recently. I am a big fan of Ken Burn’s Baseball anthology, so I was interested to hear what he had to say. He was great and even gave the audience a sneak peek at his 2014 documentary The Roosevelts.  He’s also working on a documentary on the history of country music.

• Fiona Apple has cancelled several tour dates to be with her dying dog. As a pet owner, I totally get it; as a concert goer, I’d be kind of annoyed.

• I don’t know what is in the water over at Two and a Half Men, but it apparently makes their cast act erratic. Angus T. Jones (the half man from the title) made a video in which he refers to the show he stars on is “filth” and has encouraged people to stop watching it. (Side note – Angus T. Jones sounds more like the name of an Old West Sherriff than a child actor). Yesterday he issued a statement apologizing for the remarks. Jon Cryer – your move.

• Curious what happened to some of The Real World cast members?

• Speaking of erratic – Charlie Sheen reportedly gave Lindsay Lohan $100,000 to pay off a tax debt.

• This makes me very sad – Wyatt Cenac is leaving The Daily Show.

• AMC has ordered pilots for two more historical dramas.

• Ninjas are headed for extinction in Japan. Or maybe they are just hiding really, really well.

• If you’ve got an hour to kill, check out Conan O’Brien’s interview of Judd Apatow.

• The band Slayer has is now selling their very own “ugly Christmas sweater.” Seriously.

• I plan to check out the new BBC America show Ripper Street.

• The allegations toward former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash continue – a third alleged victim has come forward.

• Since it looks like I’m not going to make it to the 12-12-12 Sandy relief concert at MSG, I’m glad I can still see it on cable.

• For some reason this makes me happy – John Stamos and Bob Saget spent Thanksgiving together.

• Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino are reuniting for Martic Scorsese’s new film, I Heard You Paint Houses. The title isn’t promising, so hopefully this isn’t another Righteous Kill.

• Neil Patrick Harris’ new webseries, Neil’s Puppet Dreams, has debuted:

 

• FX has ordered more episodes of Brand X (Russell Brand’s show) and Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell. Not a Brand fan, but I have been meaning to check out Totally Biased. Glad I’ll have the chance.

• The Boy Meets World sequel, Girl Meets World, has officially signed Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel to appear.

• A 90s TV reunion that apparently isn’t happening? Kenan and Kel.

• Bad news Sherlock fans – season 3 may not air until 2014 stateside.

• Lenny Kravitz is attached to play Marvin Gaye in an upcoming biopic.

• I love this headline from Gawker comparing Halle Berry’s life to an episode of Maury. Not a big fan of her, but I do feel for her daughter.

• If NBC’s Hannibal fails, it won’t be from lack of star power. And yes, Hannibal refers to Hannibal Lecter of Silence of the Lambs fame.

• A Hip-Hop Tribute to The Goonies? Kind of terrible and kind of awesome all at the same time.

 

• If you’ve got some spare change lying around, the piano from Casablanca is up for auction at Sotheby’s next month. (Better use of your money – sending it to you favorite pop culture blogger).

• Though the Candy Corn Oreos eluded me, I finally found Ben and Jerry’s Cannoli flavored ice cream. It was OK – I’d be hard pressed to think any ice cream is bad – but probably wasn’t worth the months of searching.

• Hugh Laurie is in talks to play Blackbeard form NBC.

• Is Joseph Gordon-Levitt going to be the new Batman?

• Portlandia will air a special winter episode on December 14^th on IFC and season 3 will premiere on January 4^th. An impressive list of guest stars is lined up for the new season.

• Alicia Keys stopped by Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to sing a very special song:

PS. Did everyone else know that Alicia Keys was on The Cosby Show? She is the second little girl in this clip:

 

• Those scamps over at The Onion tricked a Chinese newspaper into believing they had really named dictator Kin Jong Un the “sexiest man alive.”

• NBC has ordered a period drama from the creator of Downton Abbey.

• Speaking of Downton Abbey, it has been renewed for a 4^th season, but perhaps without a key character returning.

• Paramount has released the official synopsis for the new Star Trek movie, Star Trek Into Darkness. I wasn’t a fan of the original series or movies, but really enjoyed the reboot.

• Moonrise Kingdom won best picture at the Gotham Independent Film Awards on Monday, which could be a sign that it may get a nod come Oscar season. Or it could mean absolutely nothing.

• The Independent Spirit awards have released their list of nominees.

• Florence Welch will use her time away from The Machine to write a musical.

• This Guy Fieri sketch for SNL was done in dress rehearsal, but never made it to air:

• I quite enjoyed the horror movie Insidious, so I’m happy there will be a sequel.

• NPR did a story on Chuck Lorre, producer of The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly and Two and a Half Men. I only consider one of those shows watchable, but you can’t argue that all three are successful.

• It’s the beginning of the end – the cast of Breaking Bad is receiving scripts for the first episode of the final season. I will probably cry when this show ends – it is one of my all time favorites.

• Anna Nicole Smith’s 6-year-old daughter will model for Guess, following in her mother’s footsteps.

• Liz & Dick actually didn’t do as well as I thought; it only scored a modest 3.5 million viewers.

• CeeLo teamed up with the Muppets for a music video:

 

• HBO’s Beyoncé documentary will premiere February 16^th. You think that woman isn’t powerful? Microsoft Word just autocorrected the spelling of her name to include the acute accent mark.

• My freshman year of college I would hang out with some of the guys in our dorm lounge to watch CHiPs re-runs in between classes, so this Star Wars/ CHiPs mashup made me smile:

• As an avid fan of all things The Wire, I couldn’t pass up this interview with Dominic West (McNulty).

• Coldplay is planning a long hiatus.

• Killer Karaoke and Wives with Knives? Real shows.

• These Game of Thrones figurines are far too cute for what most of these characters are up to.

• Want proof of the power of a laugh track? Watch Game of Thrones reimagined as a sitcom:

 

• And finally, The Shining: The Musical:

Much more creative than Oklahoma and Grease, both of which my high school did.

Happy Wednesday!!