Today is Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl’s 46th birthday. I’ve been a fan of Dave for as long as I can remember and it seems like the rest of the world has caught up with me given the seeming ubiquitous popularity of the Foo Fighters generally and Grohl specifically. He honestly just seems like a solid dude. I often said that I have little desire to meet most celebrities that I like out of fear that they would be a disappointment, but I would make an exception for Grohl. I’m pretty confident that what you see is what you get with him, and what you see is all sorts of awesome. I’m pretty giddy that I’m finally going to see him perform live this year and the concert isn’t even until July. That’s a lot of giddiness seven months ahead of time. I’m even going into the belly of the beast – Fenway Park – to see him. If that doesn’t denote commitment, I don’t know what does.
So I’m dedicating this week’s pop culture roundup to the celebration of Grohl’s birth. 46 years ago, the world became a little cooler. Put on your favorite Foo Fighters or Nirvana song in his honor and get caught upon all the pop culture that you might have missed in the last seven days. It’s what Dave would want you to do. 🙂
- Alice Cooper performed with the Foo Fighters at Dave Grohl’s birthday concert.
- This is not a drill – Game of Thrones returns April 12th.
- Stephen Colbert takes over The Late Show on September 8th.
- The new season of Community debuts March 17th! Oh happy day!
- The beginning of the end…..
- Bob’s Burgers has been renewed for a 6th season.
- There will be no Walter White or Jesse Pinkman in the first season of Better Call Saul.
- For people like me who want to catch up on Jane the Virgin after the Golden Globes, all the episodes are now on Hulu.
- CW renewed the show for a second season. It also renewed Flash.
- Academy Award nominations will be announced tomorrow.
- Bonnaroo announced their lineup. Boston Calling (which I went to last year) also unveiled their artists.
- The original cast is returning for Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer series (yup – even Bradley Cooper)
- Woody Allen is making a TV series for Amazon.
- Ben Affleck, Gillian Flynn and David Fincher are remaking Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. I’m cautiously optimistic about this.
- Gillian Flynn hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a Gone Girl sequel.
- Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee will be back for another season.
- Late Night with Seth Myers had a special guest in the audience:
- Brad Pitt, Christian Bale and Ryan Gosling are attached to the adaptation of Michael Lewis’ The Big Short.
- Showtime has renewed Shameless, orders Happyish to series.
- Two of my favorite things are joining forces: Idris Elba and Edgar Allan Poe.
- Kyle MacLachlan will be back for the Twin Peaks follow-up.
- Comedians imagined modern day Friends episodes.
- Here’s Matthew McConaughey audition tape for Dazed and Confused:
- Robert Armitage is heading to NBC’s Hannibal.
- Ben and Jerry’s did a Reddit AMA.
- Fox has given a pilot order to a Minority Report TV show.
- Not a surprise – CBS will make Supergirl a crime procedural.
- Nancy Grace and 2Chainz had a debate last night about pot.
- Unless a new deal can be struck, Netflix will be pulling most of their BBC shows.
- Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese got together to do an ad for a casino:
- If fans can make it happen, Gillian Anderson would do another season of The X-Files.
- Dave Matthews Band announced their summer tour dates; negotiations have already begun as to what shows we’re going to.
- A writer from Lost confirms all our suspicions.
- Taylor Swift helped pay off a fan’s student loans.
- Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) may join Tina Fey’s Taliban Shuffle.
- Guillermo Del Toro is developing a steampunk vampire TV series.
- All evidence points to *possible spoiler alert* one of the Avengers meeting his/her demise in Avengers 3.
- Derek Hough won’t be back for the next season of Dancing with the Stars.
- In case you were wondering, that was not Bob Newhart refereeing the NCAA national championship game. There was a definite resemblance though:
- John Travolta’s doppelganger is a dog:
- Travolta is returning to TV in Ryan Murphy’s American Crime. He’ll play Robert Shapiro from the O.J. Simpson trial.
- A series based on Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes is in development.
- The Purge 3 will commence in July 2016.
- George Lucas originally planned to direct Star Wars: Episode VII before selling Lucasfilm.
- Lando Calrissian will appear in an upcoming episode of Star Wars Rebels.
- The Jack and Triumph Show will debut on Adult Swim February 20th.
- A Brazilian fan made a replica of Monica’s apartment on Friends out of paper.
- Alec Baldwin, Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Sudeikis join Alexander Payne’s Downsizing.
- Lenny Kravitz will join Katy Perry at the Super Bowl halftime show.
- NBC relives the 90s with a mini-Will &Grace reunion on The Mysteries of Laura.
- ABC may make a sitcom about Mark Wahlberg’s childhood.
Time to take a break for some trailers….
- New Avengers:
- Better Call Saul:
- New Comedy Central series, This is Not Happening:
- Melissa McCarthy and Jason Statham in Spy:
- A trailer for a new The Venture Bros. special:
- Season two of Penny Dreadful:
- Unfriended on MTV:
- A new Fifty Shades of Grey trailer:
- iZombie on CW:
- House of Cards season 3:
- A trailer for the new Sons of Anarchy video game:
- The Last Man on Earth:
- A new season of Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver:
- Bradley Whitford will appear on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
- The trashcan scene from the season premiere of Empire was based on real events.
- Snoop Dogg will turn up on a future episode.
- Sienna Miller will replace Emma Stone in Cabaret.
- Now that Cabaret is closing, will Alan Cumming appear in a revival of Kiss of the Spider Woman?
- Gibson sent a custom Mouse Rat guitar to Chris Pratt.
- This infographic shows that the girls on Girls couldn’t afford their lifestyles.
- Meet you’re The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore correspondents.
- AC/DC, Madonna and Ed Sheeran will all perform at the Grammys (just not together).
- The Simpsons paid tribute to Charlie Hebdo on Sunday’s episode:
- Eminem visited a terminally-ill teen.
- A fan of 24 legally changed his name to Jack Bauer….and attacked a cabbie with a knife.
- Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 3 is in the works.
- The Disney Channel is doing an Adventures in Babysitting reboot.
- Randy Jackson’s America’s Best Dance Crew is returning.
- I may have to pop in this Space Jam inspired art exhibit next time I’m in the city.
- Did you know Neil Degrasse Tyson was an amateur wrestler?
- Liam Neeson played a pretty great prank on Maggie Grace’s ex-boyfriend:
- Stephen R. McQueen will no longer be a series regular on The Vampire Diaries.
- Charlize Theron leveraged the Sony hack into a $10 million raise.
- Stan Lee will appear in an upcoming episode of Agent Carter.
- Who caught the Iron Man 2 Easter Egg in the pilot of Agent Carter?
- A Jack Black/Tim Robbins comedy comes to HBO this summer.
- Comedy Central has cancelled Brickleberry.
- HBO renewed Real Time with Bill Maher for two more seasons.
- Macklemore dropped by Sesame Street:
- John McCain will drop by Parks and Recreation.
- Tumblr of the week: Larry David Lynch
- If/Then will close in March.
- Selena Gomez will join Paul Rudd in the adaptation of Jonathan Evison’s The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving.
- Sofia Black-D’Elia has joined the Ben-Hur remake.
- This sounds like a Mad Lib headline, but it’s not: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a book about Sherlock’s brother.
- Jennifer Hudson will make her Broadway debut.
- This Instagram photo has sparked speculation that Beyoncé is pregnant:
- Former Destiny’s Child member Michelle Williams denies the Beyoncé pregnancy rumor.
- The CW may do two more shows based on DC Comics.
- A SNL exhibition is coming to Midtown Manhattan.
- Spike Lee’s new movie will debut on VOD a month before it hits theaters.
- A ranking of rap’s best one-hit wonders of the last decade.
- Kelly Clarkson dropped a new single:
- There will be a Friday the 13th video game.
- New Sleater-Kinney and Belle & Sebastian albums are streaming online.
- A new Death Cab for Cutie LP will drop on March.
- Someone hijacked a LA traffic sign for a noble purpose:
- Last week I mentioned Jamie Lynn Spears’ knife wielding exploits; now there is security footage of the incident.
- Usher is allegedly engaged.
- Zooey Deschanel is expecting her first child.
- Actor Taylor Negron passed away at 57.
As always, we end with the mashups and supercuts……
- A Clockwork Orange in Grand Theft Auto:
- For no apparent reason, here’s Beyoncé mashed up with the Night Court theme:
- Think all country music sounds the same? This mashup makes a strong case for that argument:
- The MacGyver into without music is just weird:
- Here’s an hour of Angela Lansbury having epiphanies on Murder, She Wrote:
- A supercut tribute to Ben Wyatt’s butt on Parks and Recreation:
- And finally, here’s the Bruno Mars/Macho Man Randy Savage mashup that you didn’t know you needed but will now wonder how you lived without it:
