So Whoopi Goldberg was suspended for two weeks from THE VIEW. Why wasn’t she fired? UPDATE: You guys have pointed out some great reasons why she shouldn't be fired. You convinced me. Thanks.
Forget Super Bowl tickets. You’ll have to mortgage your house just to pay for parking. Hey, it’s on TV.
I never knew Howard Hesseman but everyone who did loved him. In the early ‘70s I used to watch him perform in an amazing improv group called The Committee. They performed at the old Tiffany Theatre (now defunct) on the Sunset Strip. Other cast members included Gary Goodrow, Valerie Curtain, Paul Willson, Peter Bonerz, Richard Stahl, Carl Gottlieb and a few others. I used to take dates there and get a drink at Dino’s (Dean Martin’s club -- now defunct... as are my relationships with all those dates).
The Bengals should wear a patch to commemorate Hesseman. After all, he was Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnati.
Does anybody even remember there’s a baseball lockout? A couple of years ago during the start of the pandemic the players and owners couldn’t come to an agreement on how to structure the season. And they were on the same side. Good luck with this labor stalemate. We might see MLB baseball again in 2034.
Note to my podcast listeners: There's been a technical issue this past week getting it placed on Spotify, Google, iHeart, etc. They're working on it and hope to have it resolved this week. You can always listen by clicking on the big gold arrow above.
I've been watching the Bill Cosby documentary on SHOWTIME. He’s a loathsome hideous monster, and what a horrible world we live in that there are at least five people I hate more. Oh wait, I forgot Joe Rogan.
THE TENDER BAR is a sweet little movie. And thankfully never gets too sweet. Kudos to director George Clooney and actor Ben Affleck. Both still have careers after playing Batman.
I’m glad that Mayim Bialik is back hosting JEOPARDY. And my favorite segment is when she interviews the contestants. They’re supposed to share the single most interesting thing about themselves. A recent example: “I fell off a bike in two States.”
Oh wait — the Winter Olympics are this year, right?
Just knowing that Rachel Maddow is taking a hiatus — I miss her already.
How typical Hollywood is this? Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen signs with CAA. Maybe they can get her to host THAT’S MY JAM.
Big excitement today. Will we have six more months of winter (it used to be six weeks but now with climate change)? And the Washington football team is going to announce its new name. Oh boy. A breathless nation has waited too long. I pushed for the Washington Irvings. I think I’ve got a shot.
And finally, I continue to post cartoons on my Instagram page. Follow me at Hollywood and Levine.
51 comments :
For no particular reason, I'd like to take this opportunity to say, "there is NOTHING I don't love about Ken Levine." That is all.
Maybe I missed what offense Whoopi committed that would warrant firing. Would you enlighten me? All I saw was her statement that the Holocaust was not about race, which, unless you have a different definition of the term as it is officially used, is absolutely true. Now if you take the Nazi view that there is an Aryan Race and non-Aryans are separate races, I guess she was wrong.
Totally agree that the Bengals should pay tribute to the good Doctor. He was great. And I didn't know Carl Gottlieb and Valerie Curtain were also in The Committee. Gottlieb wrote the screenplay to JAWS and I'm a big Valerie Curtain fan. Loved her appearance on FRASIER ("I'm so sick of being positive!"). As for Rachel Maddow, good riddance to that Hillary Clinton apologist pushing the debunked Russia-gate lie for five years and counting! Hillary's hubris and her lousy campaign got us Trump! I'll take Joe Rogan over Rachel Maddow any day. He may be boorish at times but he doesn't pretend to be a journalist. And it took them TWO YEARS to come up with Washington Commanders? That is literally less time than it took Francis Coppola to shoot APOCALYPSE NOW. Sorry, Ken, but I guess ranting can be contagious.
BTW - Happy 2.2.22.
Hesseman can be glimpsed as a longhair recording engineer in CISCO PIKE. He's more visible as a crooked mayor with short slicked-back hair in STEELYARD BLUES. Then there's RUBIN & ED...
Don Sturdy RIP.
I know Howard Hesseman will always be Dr. Johnny but I loved him as Pete Lassard in Police Academy 2.
My wife is a Sabra, her parents and brother are holocaust survivors,I take this matter seriously. Ms. Goldberg's comment demonstrated gross ignorance about a hugely important subject but it wasn't malicious nor was it intended to disparage the Jews. She didn't deny the holocaust, she misunderstood its nature. She has been set straight and has acknowledged her lack of insight. Firing her would send the message that you should never articulate your thoughts because of you are ever wrong about something significant you're gone, there can be no redemption. Her suspension was an appropriate response.
Howard Hesseman was in Billy Jack, too!
Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of "Late Night with David Letterman" and to celebrate, the current host of the "Late Night" program-Seth Meyers-had him on as a guest. Can't believe Letterman still wore that beard! Seth showed that clip of the elevator races which also had a young Bob Costas doing commentary. And Dave did a hilarious anecdote about his now 18-year-old son with him using a goofy voice for that! And to top it off, the musical guest was the lead singer of Counting Crows reprising his "A Warm December" on solo piano. Great ep!
I said this yesterday, but my favorite Howard Hesseman role was Mr. Charlie Moore on Head of the Class.
I'm not a Rachel Maddow fan (nor am I a hater), but being a perfectionist, hearing her pronounce her last name "mad-o" in the audiobook version of the Beastie Boys Book has led me to say it that way, even though she once said in interview with that she'd accept "-ow."
I tend to put more effort into watching the Summer Olympics than the Winter ones. I will probably see the games in Beijing via highlights more than live or on DVR. I just hope Team USA wins more medals than Russia.
Vincent, I host a Wednesday night radio show on my college alma mater's public radio station, called Instrumental Invasion. In tonight's show (which I recorded back in December), not only do I mark 2/2/22 by playing six pairs of songs that share a title, but I give a shout-out to Ken after playing Ahmad Jamal's rendition of the theme from M*A*S*H.
Oh, wow, tavm, I'm going to watch that right now on the Late Night YouTube channel. I didn't start following Dave until his jump to CBS. I met Rupert Jee in the Hello Deli in December 2000 after a trip to the MoMA and then went to Late Show taping four years later. Kristen Johnston and Tom Dreesen were his guests and the Top Ten list was sung by carolers. During one of Kristen's segments, I saw Paul Shaffer frantically wave over a technician to troubleshoot an issue.
Whoopi can spend her two weeks reading any number of good books about the Nazi period. I recommend Victor Klemperer's memoir "I Will Bear Witness." Klemperer was a professor who considered himself an assimilated German; the Nazis didn't because their definition was racial, not religious (Klemperer practiced no religion). He survived the entire period thanks to his gentile wife, who refused to divorce him, and the bravery of a few friends. Everyone should read his books.
The Washington football team is now the Commanders. Or is it the Commodores? Oh no that was Lionel Richie‘s group back in the day. Actually I think The Commandos would’ve been more interesting. “Hey are you wearing underwear?” ”No I’m going commando!”
More Wednesday ephemera: The Pam & Tommy series starts today on Hulu. Actors portraying Hugh Hefner, Jay Leno and Tommy's chatty penis appear in this sure to sicken most look at one of the more dubious couples of the century.
Tim Reid wrote a very nice tribute to Howard Hesseman in Variety.
The whole naming-the-sports-team bit has gotten crazy. Lawyers file trademark applications for every conceivable name and then demand compensation. Then there's social media, which gave us the Seattle Kraken. I liked the Washington Football Team, because it harkened back to the early 20th century when teams had no official nicknames, and the press gave them one based on the star player or the coach or whatever. Problem with D.C. is that with Dan Snyder owning the team, most of the nicknames that come to mind are uncomplimentary.
I have very little difficulty understanding why a black woman with deep personal experience of black-on-white racism might at first see anti-Semitism as white people versus white people and therefore not racism. There was a recent book about just this Jewish issue. She has accepted she was wrong.
wg
Here is the link to Tim's tribute. If my HTML code didn't work, what I said was "here is the link to Tim's tribute": https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/howard-hesseman-dead-tim-reid-wkrp-cincinnati-1235169388/
Thanks for mentioning that movie. I'll check it out and then determine if Ken was being sarcastic.
Freedom of Speech is a thing. I now know who she is. Let people talk their asses's off. Then we will know who they are. No Censorship.
Whatever affectionate semi-insulting nickname Washington NHL fans use for their Commanders, it will certainly be more clever than the first one that comes to my mind: C-Men.
Hey, my HTML code worked!
Jeff, I grew to like Washington Football Team because of its similarity to association football (soccer) clubs going by "[city] FC." There's some of that in the MLS here in North America. Commanders works for me, and if you think about it, the head coach could be considered the commander-in-chief, a relic of the old problematic (never thought I'd use that word) team name.
I agree with those who say there was no malice behind what Whoopi said, just ill-informed notions.
In stark contrast is Republican Brownshirt Lauren Boebert who asked a group of Jews who were recently visiting Congress if they were there on a "reconnaissance" mission.
There's also Marjorie "Jewish space laser" Taylor Greene.
I call them the Magda and Eva of the Republican party.
Sorry, but Mayim Bialik gets the silver medal for JEOPARDY hosting. She's fine, there's nothing wrong with her, but Ken Jennings should be the permanent host. Mayim isn't as good at the halftime chitchat; she's not as gentle at saying "No" when a contestant is wrong. At the times on the show when she's not reading the questions--the introduction and the segues--she seems like a high school student trying too hard to emote.
Ken seems more genuinely friendly, more relaxed, not overdone. He's better at tossing in little lagniappes every now and then to expand the information in the answer. Amy Schneider said he should be the permanent host and that she didn't automatically think that before she started on the show. Of course, he was hosting when she won $1M+ so maybe that influenced her.
I've never had a problem with his "lite" voice. If DJs and baseball broadcasters can be successful with a non-baritone, so can game show hosts. And finally, he's the G.O.A.T. on JEOPARDY. He's part of the family and should get the job fulltime.
The Whoopi "blunder".
THis morning I heard her brief statement on NPR - I understood what she said and found some insight in it. Fundamentally, it was statement about classes and categories:
(the class of "jews" only marginally intersects the vaious classes of "race").
Whoopie was not "looking for a fight" (was she?) - but apparently "critics" were and are spoiling for one.
Whoopie is not necessarily well-informed about "the holocaust" and NAZI atrocities - but she may have landed on a crucial point with "man's inhumanity to man".
I have often wondered how extensive that atrocity was. Off to wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims
The "thesis statement" (at the top):
Holocaust victims were people targeted by the government of Nazi Germany based on their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, or sexual orientation.
A sidebar lists 5-6 million Jews killed.
Add up all the other "categories" the grisly total numbers 16-20 million.
Whoopi wasn't fired because she's black and "progressive." If she was white and/or conservative and said the same things not only would she have been fired, but she probably would be blacklisted from any other work as well.
M.B.
-- I saw The Committee on a "Flip Wilson Show" episode. The sketch involved buying clothes that a recently deceased person would be buried in, and they brought the dead body into the store for fitting, a la "Weekend at Bernie's". Inventive stuff.
-- Washington's team should've been named the "Redtails", which IIRC pays tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen, but some patent troll grabbed that. (Same thing with Cleveland's baseball team, where another troll grabbed the historically relevant "Spiders".) "Commanders" is a decent Plan B. And the name of Seattle's NHL team turned me off of that league completely ... and I live in Seattle.
-- I'm gearing up for the Winter Olympics, although I think it should have been delayed a year because of the pandemic, and I hate having it in China given their nasty regime. However, boycotting an Olympics always backfires; the host country never changes it behavior, and you end up alienating the athletes who get their Olympics dreams yanked. (I've met Vicky Persinger, one of the USA curlers who'll be in her first ever Games; if we had boycotted, all those tournaments, qualifications and flying from her Alaska home to play with her Midwest-based teams would've been for nothing.)
I think you and I double dated to see The Committee a couple times. They were great.
Wow, so, "Whoopi wasn't fired because she's black and "progressive"?!" Give me a break.
Tucker Carlson is white and neanderthal. He spews racist, misogynist, treasonous, homilies on every single one of his seditious "Tucker Carlson Tonight".
As far as I know, he hasn't been fired or blacklisted yet.
Unfortunately.
I am almost certain that the National Hockey League will survive the Seattle Kraken, and go on for another 100-odd years.
Oh, and Ted Cruz has said nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court is offensive.
Just another day in the RepubliKKKan party.
@Kent, your summary was perfect. And Ken, props to you for having a mind open to change and learnung, just like Whoopi.
I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned Groundhog Day - the holiday or the movie.
Sadly, a weather-predicting groundhog from New Jersey who isn't as well known as Phil, died before the ceremony:
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/famed-new-jersey-groundhog-meteorologist-milltown-mel-dies-just-ground-rcna14385
Fever was so cool!
One of those late 70's stars I liked as a kid, Hawkeye, Jack Tripper, Jill Munroe...
@ Frederic
"Race"- any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry
Race is not exclusively about skin color.
Darn, I thought they'd go with the Washington Logjams.
It's worth noting that movie producer Jerry Bruckheimer is a co-owner of Seattle's NHL expansion team, and the team name Kraken doubles as a nifty product placement for Bruckheimer's "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie franchise, where "The Kraken" is its resident CGI sea monster.
Since you mentioned Joe Rogan, just wondering if you have the same amount of scorn for Bill Maher, since his comments about vaccines have been more extreme and and steely than anything Rogan has said. I tend to think Rogan is a convenient scapegoat, considering no one quotes what he's actually said about vaccines (I watch his show and his vaccine comments aren't that harsh.) Does Maher get a free pass because he's on a major network? Curious about your thoughts.
Thanks
syracuse.com today ran a piece on Dan Hoard, who not only calls Bengals games, but the (football) Bearcats too: https://www.syracuse.com/mets/2022/02/from-syracuse-chiefs-to-mind-boggling-trip-to-super-bowl-dan-hoard-is-on-the-call.html. All in all, a great autumn in Cincinnati, making the 5-way at Skyline Chili even more flavorful.
Beau McBoatfais: From what I read, Rogan has become more conspiracy-minded since joining Spotify. I used to listen to some of his podcasts before, when they were openly available, and some were really good - the long-form interview let people like Lawrence Lessig, Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, others develop their thoughts in detail. My original interest was an interview he did with Jeff Novitsky, the guy who investigated the steroid-promulgating lab BALCO.
Ironically, in mid-March 2020, Rogan did one of those long interviews with Michael Osterholm, who delivered a tutorial on the pandemic and what was coming that couldn't have been bettered. I've always been grateful I heard it, and I know I made better decisions because of it. Osterholm said recently on Twitter he wished Rogan would get him back so he could correct some of the misinformation the podcast has more recently spread.
Whichever producer or executive thought it was a good idea to get the morally bankrupt, crooked, treasonous, ugly, corrupt, evil piece of shit Rudy Giuliani for The Masked Singer needs a smack in the face.
When scumbags like Giuliani, Sarah Palin and Sean Spicer appear on entertainment shows, the nature of the medium, coupled with the platform of the shows, function as image rehabilitation to easily swayed and gullible viewers. Without turning this into an essay, there's a long history of corrupt and rotten politicians or businessmen successfully hoodwinking the public by using the propagandist power of light entertainment to create the phony image of the crooked individual as being "down to earth" or possessing a sense of humor, as though putting on a fucking costume and singing somehow ameliorates their crimes.
All you have to do is read the comments by people after the likes of Palin and Spicer appeared on Dancing with the Stars. There was the predicable chorus of idiots saying it had changed their perception of them and made them look more human. Yeah, that's the whole point, you rubes, and you fell for it.
It's only because I don't want to smash my phone that I haven't checked the online reaction to Guiliani but I'm sure there are those who only have to see a controversial asshole on a shiny floor TV show and say "Hey, he's alright!"
Some synapse went south inside Bill Maher during the pandemic. He's not getting any free pass as far as I can see. His show often gets recapped or quoted on CNN or Yahoo and then just as often gets torn apart. It used to be appointment viewing for me but it's no longer funny, informative or entertaining. Certain long time guests that come on are taken aback, take issue at the right time and then you can see resignation set in. I can think of Andrew Sullivan in particular. We are now getting a growing list of unwatched Real Times on our DVR because we just can't bring ourselves to watch.
The cumulative effect of this whole thread is getting to me - not quite in the way I'd have thought.
I've come to detest the word woke - because I can apply it to all sides.
Not "both sides"; these days there are more political sides than a dodecahedron (and that may be a lowball estimate).
We have a new national pastime: taking offense.
And everybody can play - and does ...
Bill Maher? I remember what happened with Dennis Miller ten years ago.
The more things change ...
I just realized that I have no idea where I'm going with this, and so I'll stand down.
Just one old Johnny Carson joke:
People are asking me who's going to win this election.
I'll tell you who I think is going to lose:
US!
... or has that already happened? ..
Intent is everything. I am not a fan of Whoopi Goldberg. I have never found her funny or entertaining. I still can't believe she won a Oscar for Ghost. Wasn't she just being herself? But she was innocently ignorant. She should have known better. She was mistaken and has apologized. This not the same as Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Ted Nugent, or Trump. They know exactly what they are saying and they are proud of their warped views.
Wendy... From what you've read, he's become more conspiracy minded. But that's just what you've read. I still watch when his guests are interesting. Joe has become less into the conspiracy stuff over time. He's still a good conversationalist.
Darwin's Ghost, The earliest example of that was when presidential candidate Richard Nixon appeared in the second season premiere of "Laugh-In" and said, "Sock it to me?" In comparison, opponent Hubert Humphrey refused and look what happened. Executive producer George Schlatter regrets Nixon's appearance to this day while I'm sure head writer and Richard's speechwriter was thrilled when his boss was elected...
Disney fired Gina Carano for Holocaust/Nazi comments much more benign.
Now they have given a pass to Whoopi, who is mad because they asked her to humiliate herself and pretend she was just ignorant of the Holocaust, and they suspended her anyways.
Whoopi is of the position that you cannot be racist against white people.
The ADL had a similar definition of racism on their website, and now they are in the process of editing it.
Disney also fired Gregg Easterbrook from ESPN's Page 2 for complaining about violence in Hollywood with the comments that Jews have suffered so much violence they should be taking the lead in stopping these depictions of violence in movies and TV.
Howard Hesseman, kind of had that George Carlin type persona.
Now Rogan is apologizing for videos online of him using the N word. Anyone surprised? What will it take for him to get fired? I guess as long as he makes them money he will be fine.
The Washington Irvings was a good name. I wanted them to be the Washington Gridlock because team names that can't end in "s" sound like they should stand out, and it's also a great political joke without it being political (so I can now see what it was never an option). Also the Washington Groundhogs in honor of the name being revealed on Groundhog Day.
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