Paul Reubens, Pee-wee Herman Actor, Dies at 70 After Private Bout of Cancer - Variety

Paul Reubens, the actor best known for portraying the irrepressible, joyfully childlike Pee-wee Herman, died Sunday night after a private bout of cancer. He was 70.

“Please accept my apology for not going public with what I’ve been facing the last six years,” wrote Reubens in a statement posted to Instagram after his death. “I have always felt a huge amount of love and respect from my friends, fans and supporters. I have loved you all so much and enjoyed making art for you.”

The Pee-wee Herman character was known for his bright red bowtie, grey suit and flattop haircut, and delivered his well-known catchphrases like “I know you are, what am I?” in a distinctive squeaky, high-pitched voice.

“Last night we said farewell to Paul Reubens, an iconic American actor, comedian, writer and producer whose beloved character Pee-wee Herman delighted generations of children and adults with his positivity, whimsy and belief in the importance of kindness,” wrote Reubens’ estate in the caption. “Paul bravely and privately fought cancer for years with his trademark tenacity and wit. A gifted and prolific talent, he will forever live in the comedy pantheon and in our hearts as a treasured friend and man of remarkable character and generosity of spirit.”

Reubens began his career in the 1970s after joining the Los Angeles live comedy troupe the Groundlings as an improvisational comedian and stage actor. In 1980, he launched “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” a stage production centered on a fictional character he had been developing for years. As Pee-wee became a cult figure, Reubens’ show ran for five sold-out months, and he landed a special at HBO. Reubens also committed to the character in his interviews and public appearances.

In 1985, he teamed with Tim Burton on “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” the character’s feature film debut, which was a critical and commercial success. Reubens returned three years later for a follow-up film, “Big Top Pee-wee,” helmed by Randal Kleiser. The character transitioned to television from 1986 to 1990, on CBS’ weekend morning show “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”

Influenced by vintage kids’ shows like “Captain Kangaroo,” the artistically groundbreaking “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” won several Emmys and featured colorful postmodernist set design and music from New Wave icons like Mark Mothersbaugh, Cyndi Lauper and the Residents, along with guest stars including Laurence Fishburne, Natasha Lyonne and Jimmy Smits.

Reubens had already decided to end “Pee-wee’s Playhouse” when his image as a beloved childhood hero was tarnished in 1991 after he was arrested for indecent exposure at an adult movie theater in Sarasota, Fla. At the center of a national sex scandal, Reubens backed away from Pee-wee and began doing press as himself. In the aftermath of the arrest, he did receive support from his fans and other celebrities, and appeared at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards, receiving a standing ovation. “Heard any good jokes lately?” he said to the crowd.

He wouldn’t again reprise the iconic role until 2010, when he revived “The Pee-wee Herman Show” on Broadway and made several other appearances, on “WWE Raw” and in a couple of digital sketches for Funny or Die. In 2016, Reubens co-wrote and starred in Netflix’s “Pee-wee’s Big Holiday,” a sequel to 1988’s “Big Top,” which would serve as Reubens’ final film role before his death.

Throughout his career, Reubens starred in a variety of other projects as well, including Kinka Usher’s superhero comedy “Mystery Men” and Ted Demme’s biographical crime drama “Blow.” He also appeared in “Batman Returns,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Matilda,” and his television credits include “30 Rock,” “The Blacklist,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Hercules,” “Rugrats,” “Reno 911!” and “What We Do in the Shadows.”

In 2002, after turning himself in to the Hollywood division of the Los Angeles Police Department, Reubens was charged with misdemeanor possession of obscene material improperly depicting a child under the age of 18 in sexual conduct. A self-proclaimed collector of erotica, Reubens disagreed with the city’s classification of pornography. His child pornography charges were dropped in 2004 after he agreed to plead guilty to a lesser misdemeanor obscenity charge.

In an interview with NBC News’ Stone Phillips, Herman said in 2005: “One thing I want to make very, very clear, I don’t want anyone for one second to think that I am titillated by images of children. It’s not me. You can say lots of things about me. And you might. The public may think I’m weird. They may think I’m crazy or anything that anyone wants to think about me. That’s all fine. As long as one of the things you’re not thinking about me is that I’m a pedophile. Because that’s not true.”

Before his death, Reubens was developing two Pee-wee Herman projects, one a black comedy titled “The Pee-wee Herman Story” and the other a family adventure film called “Pee-wee’s Playhouse: The Movie.”

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Elon Musk reactivates Kanye West’s Twitter account following X rebrand - CNN

CNN  — 

X, formerly known as Twitter, has reinstated Kanye West’s account on the social media platform. West will not be able to monetize his account, and no ads will appear next to his posts, the company told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

The musician’s account was suspended in December for violating the platform’s rules on inciting violence. The suspension followed multiple antisemitic comments made by West – who has legally changed his name to Ye – including a threat to “Go death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” Those statements led to a swift disintegration of multiple business deals, including partnerships with Adidas and luxury fashion house Balenciaga.

Although CNN at the time was unable to determine which tweet had been the final straw, the day before his suspension West tweeted an altered image of the Star of David with a swastika inside.

Twitter has long been embroiled in questions surrounding moderation, with the platform’s CEO Elon Musk describing himself as a “free speech absolutist.” After agreeing to buy the company last October, he said Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and “be very cautious with permanent bans.”

But after West was suspended, Musk tweeted “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence.”

Elon Musk onstage during conference at Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, on June 16, 2023.

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Twitter's rebrand is the next stage in Elon Musk's vision for the company. But does anyone want it?

In April, Twitter’s safety team launched a new content enforcement strategy called “Freedom of Speech, Not Reach,” which focused on “restricting the reach of Tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable.”

This approach, in part, requires the team to “proactively prevent ads from appearing adjacent to content” labeled as violative.

In an update earlier this month, the safety team reported that these labeled tweets “receive 81% less reach or impressions” than non-restricted ones, and that “more than 99.99% of Tweet impressions are from … content that does not violate our rules.”

Twitter’s Violent Speech Policy prohibits inciting and glorifying violence, wishing harm on other people, and threatening others. But it makes some exceptions, including for “figures of speech, satire, or artistic expression when the context is expressing a viewpoint rather than instigating actionable violence or harm.”

“We make sure to evaluate and understand the context behind the conversation before taking action,” the policy states, adding that if a user believes their account was wrongfully suspended, they can submit an appeal.

It’s not clear whether West submitted an appeal, or if something else prompted his account’s reactivation. The musician has yet to post on the platform. CNN has reached out to Twitter and a representative for West but has not received a response.

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Cardi B throws microphone at concertgoer who tossed drink at her onstage - New York Post

She did not Like It.

Cardi B hurled her microphone at an unruly concertgoer who launched a drink at the rapper during a performance in Las Vegas on Saturday, becoming the latest artist to have an object thrown at them while onstage.

The New York native had been performing “Bodak Yellow” at Drai’s Beachclub in Las Vegas when a fan raised a white, decorated cup and tossed liquid in the 30-year-old rapper’s direction.

The rapper, at first startled and visibly in disbelief, transformed into a fastball-throwing southpaw and launched the microphone at the woman.

Security quickly intervened while Cardi B yelled from the stage before the microphone was returned to her and she resumed her show, according to a video shared on Cardi B’s social media page.

It is not immediately known if any charges were filed against the concertgoer.

The night before, the rapper, whose real name is Belcalis Marlenis Almánzar Cephus, had thrown a microphone at the DJ at Drai’s nightclub, after she kept getting cut off during her performance, according to a TikTok video.

The rapper was performing “Bodak Yellow” at the time.

j_blizzyy/TikTok

A fan raised a white, decorated cup and tossed liquid at the 30-year-old rapper’s direction.

j_blizzyy/TikTok

The video of Cardi B’s mic throw has generated over 25 million views on Twitter as they threw their support behind the “I Like It” hitmaker.

“Now they know, of all celebs, to not try that with Cardi B. Cardi was locked in!!!!” one TikTok comment said.

“I need to see all angles. Lmaoooo she F’D around and found out,” another comment read.

Cardi B was at first startled and visibly in disbelief.

j_blizzyy/TikTok

But the rapper quickly transformed into a fastball-throwing southpaw and launched the microphone at the woman.

j_blizzyy/TikTok

“Love her lol that’s exactly how she should’ve responded,” a third wrote.

Cardi B threw her microphone at a concertgoer after they threw their drink at her on Saturday in Las Vegas.

j_blizzyy/TikTok

Cardi B is the latest performer to be struck on-stage over the past few months, where fellow musicians have been hit with phones, sex toys and human remains.

Last month, Bebe Rexha was hit by a phone during a NYC concert on June 18.

The night before, the rapper had thrown a microphone at the DJ at Drai’s nightclub, after she reportedly kept getting cut off during her performance.

WireImage

The Grammy-nominated singer was left with a black eye and stitches following the attack, while accused thrower Nicolas Malvagna was arrested for assault aggravated harassment, attempted assault, and harassment.

Singer Pink was “mortified” when a fan threw their mother’s ashes on stage at the British Summer Time festival.

Earlier this month Lil Nas X had a sex toy thrown at him while performing a set at European Lollapalooza in Sweden.

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See photos of Taylor Swift performing at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Were you there? - Sacramento Bee

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1. See photos of Taylor Swift performing at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara. Were you there?  Sacramento Bee
2. Taylor Swift tour breathes new life into South Bay tourism businesses  KPIX | CBS NEWS BAY AREA
3. Taylor Swift played these surprise songs on night one of the Eras Tour in Santa Clara  Sacramento Bee
4. Taylor Swift breaks curfew at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara  San Francisco Chronicle
5. Taylor Swift fan with genetic disease secures ADA seats for Levi's show after social media plea  KTVU FOX 2 San Francisco
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‘The Beanie Bubble’ nostalgically looks back at the ‘Babies’ boom that went bust - CNN

CNN  — 

Movies and TV have enjoyed a fertile run of rise-and-fall business stories, from Theranos to WeWork to Chippendales. Add to that list “The Beanie Bubble,” a nostalgia-infused look back at the plush-toy craze that swept America, turned collectors into “investors” and abruptly went as flat as a doll with the stuffing knocked out of it.

Serving notice from the get-go that the Apple TV+ movie takes considerable liberties with its truth-based underpinnings (culled from a book by Zac Bissonnette), the film is told from the perspectives of three women connected to Ty Warner, the founder of the company behind Beanie Babies, played by a near-unrecognizable Zach Galifianakis (of “The Hangover” renown) in a pretty jarringly straight dramatic role.

Jumping back and forth in time in the 1980s and ’90s, that trio consists of Robbie (Elizabeth Banks), who helped Warner, then a struggling toy salesman, launch the business; Maya (Geraldine Viswanathan), whose savvy about the then-nascent Internet and auction sites like eBay helped him grow it by creating demand; and Sheila (“Succession’s” Sarah Snook), a single mom to two girls who became involved with Warner, only to see him reveal a darker side after the great lengths to which he went in wooing her.

The narrative structure actually recalls “The Bad and the Beautiful,” the classic 1952 Hollywood tale about a producer who changed the lives of three people who passed through his orbit, here with a more feminist bent. Yet all of that is steeped in the improbable rise of Beanie Babies as a must-have item – turning them into “little plush Lotto tickets” – bidding up what became a billion-dollar enterprise during the Clinton years before just as quickly going kaput.

The Clinton connection seems an especially apt point of reference, since the movie is written by Kristin Gore (“Saturday Night Live,” “Futurama”), the daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, who co-directed with her husband, musician Damian Kulash, Jr., in their feature directing debut. Gore places the story very much in that historical moment, but also wisely expands the lens to provide a not-so-subtle commentary about the enduring obsession with the Next Big Thing.

Apple TV+ recently tackled similar terrain with the movie “Tetris,” not to be confused with another project that followed a rags-to-riches-to-rags arc with roots in that era, “Blackberry.”

Despite its satirical tone, “The Beanie Bubble” largely plays things pretty straight – indeed, a little too straight, when a bit more humor and whimsy would have helped – with Galifianakis portraying Warner as the kind of self-absorbed, ruthless narcissist who’ll say anything to get what he wants (or really, needs) without necessarily possessing the savvy or discipline to hold onto it.

As noted, “The Beanie Bubble” is merely the latest addition to what’s been a boom time for such stories. When it comes to combining nostalgic pop-culture staples with the content-hungry appetites of the streaming age, that bubble, at least, has shown no signs that it’s going to burst.

“The Beanie Bubble” premieres July 28 on Apple TV+. (Disclosure: Lowry’s wife works for a division of Apple.)

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Quake it off: Taylor Swift fans generate seismic activity during Seattle shows - The Guardian

Taylor Swift’s Eras tour performances at Lumen Field in Seattle on 22 July and 23 July generated seismic activity equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake, according to seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach.

A local seismometer detected activity generated by dancing fans comparable to the famous 2011 “Beast Quake”, when Seattle Seahawks fans erupted in response to running back Marshawn “Beast Mode” Lynch scoring a touchdown in an NFC wild card game against the New Orleans Saints.

Swift sold out both nights in Seattle, with 72,171 fans at the Saturday show breaking a venue record of 70,000 set by U2 in 2011. Swift’s Eras Tour is one of the most expensive ever, costing an estimated $100m or more.

Concerts have been known on occasion to register seismic activity, such as a 2011 Foo Fighters concert in New Zealand attended by 50,000 fans and a 2022 Garth Brooks concert at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. But seismic magnitudes on the Richter scale were not provided from those concerts.

Caplan-Auerbach, a geology professor at Western Washington University, told CNN she saw the Swift comparison in a Pacific north-west earthquake group she moderates, so compared seismic data from both concerts and the 2011 NFL event.

“I grabbed the data from both nights of the concert and quickly noticed they were clearly the same pattern of signals,” she told CNN. “If I overlay them on top of each other, they’re nearly identical.”

She noted the difference between the NFL event and the Swifties dancing was just 0.3, but said the Swift fans still beat out Beast Quake.

“The shaking was twice as strong as ‘Beast Quake’. It absolutely doubled it,” she said.

The earth-shaking cheer after the Seahawks touchdown lasted for just a moment, Caplan-Auerbach said, while the dancing and cheering at the concert, and music from both nights, comprised of around 10 hours of data, massive energy driven into the ground, generating the seismic activity.

Swift’s Seattle concerts came toward the end of the US leg of the Eras Tour, her first in five years. Shows in California are lined up next, with the international part of the tour beginning on 24 August in Mexico City.

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Ariana Grande’s Rumored Boyfriend Ethan Slater Officially Filed For Divorce From His Wife Amid Reports She Was “Blindsided” And Feels “Abandoned” - BuzzFeed News

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1. Ariana Grande’s Rumored Boyfriend Ethan Slater Officially Filed For Divorce From His Wife Amid Reports She Was “Blindsided” And Feels “Abandoned”  BuzzFeed News
2. Ariana Grande's New Beau Ethan Slater Files For Divorce From Estranged Wife (Reports)  Access Hollywood
3. Ariana Grande's new love interest Ethan Slater reportedly files for divorce  Yahoo Entertainment
4. Ariana Grandes heartfelt birthday tribute to best friend Liz Gillies  Geo News
5. Ariana Grande's Boyfriend Ethan Slater Files for Divorce from Wife Lilly Jay  TMZ
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Netflix hiring AI manager with $900K salary amid entertainment industry strikes - NJ.com

Netflix is hiring an AI product manager with a salary range of up to $900,000 to boost the company’s internal use of artificial intelligence.

The posting, which was initially discovered by The Intercept, states that the successful applicant will receive a salary of $300,000 to $900,000 and will be based at Netflix’s Los Gatos, California, headquarters or remotely on the west coast.

The job listing comes as the Writer’s Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, are on strike.

One of the concerns both labor union groups voiced was the use of machine learning in television and film production.

According to the job posting, the successful candidate will be in charge of Netflix’s “strategic vision” for AI through its machine learning platform.

It is unclear whether or not this role will be directly involved with or impact content creation. Netflix already uses AI to customize user experience, such as selecting the thumbnail art or curating users recommendations based on their specific tastes.

The company also uses AI in data analytics to determine which programs are successful.

Netflix declined to comment on the product manager role advertised on their website.

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The Strike’s Side Effect: A Cash Hoard for Studios - Hollywood Reporter

The ongoing actors and writers strikes are creating a paradox for major studios and streamers, one that will become more apparent over the coming months, when each company reports quarterly earnings. As the impasse wreaks havoc on the entertainment economy, the companies that SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America are striking against will see their cash flows rise and their profit margins (or losses) improve.

It makes sense, after all: With the vast majority of film and TV sets shut down, the companies are keeping cash in their treasuries that normally would be funding those productions. And with Wall Street analyst firm MoffettNathanson estimating that total media industry content spend in 2022 was nearly $135 billion, there’s going to be a lot of cash sitting idle.

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“In the short term, every media company will benefit from preserving cash and right-sizing talent deals,” MoffettNathanson’s Luke Landis wrote in a May 3 report. “Longer term the strike could cement the pendulum swing away from Peak TV to its antithesis: An age defined by a dearth of English-language-scripted content rather than a glut.”

Illustration By Eric Yahnker

In fact, the impact of the strikes on corporate balance sheets already was visible when Netflix reported its quarterly earnings July 19. The company had previously told investors that it expected 2023 free cash flow to be about $3.5 billion. Thanks in part to the strikes, it raised that figure to more than $5 billion.

“If the strikes are extended, there is likely further upside in ’23 FCF,” Morgan Stanley analyst Ben Swinburne wrote July 19. “This is not necessarily good news, as Netflix is in the business of producing TV shows and films. If the strike lasts for an extended period of time, 2024’s slate will be impacted even if it is relatively better off versus the competition.”

For other companies, like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and NBCUniversal — which have spent billions in pursuit of streaming hits but so far have come up short — near-term cash boosts could nudge them closer to profitability, even if that quarterly improvement is just a mirage, with the long-term impact of the strikes on the content pipeline not to be felt until next year.

And to be clear: the strikes, if they continue on much longer, will be very bad for the entertainment giants. “The consequences of a very long strike could prove bothersome and even dire, under certain circumstances, for the many media companies along the food chain that rely on the entertainment content studios produce and that have minimal diversity, minimal sports rights and news programming, or lack adequate replacement content and financial flexibility,” Moody’s senior vp Neil Begley wrote in a July 17 report.

Take Netflix’s latest earnings report, in which the guidance on free cash flow was accompanied by co-CEO Ted Sarandos telling analysts about growing up in a union household and his desire to cut a fair deal with the guilds. Netflix’s focus is on “creating a steady drumbeat of must-watch shows and movies” for its users. If that drumbeat slows, or stops altogether, there will be consequences for Netflix and any other company that relies on a steady stream of content for growth.

And for the owners of broadcast and some cable networks, the economic pain will be felt sooner, as fall schedules get impacted by a lack of scripted programming. That in turn will cause more pain in an already strained advertising market. 

NBCU, for example, says that it closed its upfront deals the week of July 17 with cash commitments “in line with last year,” driven largely by sports and tentpole events. But if its entire schedule is impacted (or even its planned 50th-anniversary celebration for Saturday Night Live, which NBCU says more than 30 advertisers have already inquired about), the strikes’ pain will far outstrip the gains. “With actors and writers both striking for the first time since 1960 and an approaching broadcast season, we believe profitability could be impaired in 2H23 due to lower advertising,” JPMorgan’s Phil Cusick wrote in a July 18 note.

In other words, for companies that own broadcast networks, those short-term gains may be very short term indeed.

As was the case during the COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020, many of these companies will find themselves with extra cash, raising the question: What do they do with it? The simplest answer would actually be a repeat of the 2020 shutdowns: Hoard it.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, companies desperately sought to shore up their cash reserves, unsure of how their businesses would be impacted. The concern isn’t the same in 2023, but there is one key similarity: Once the strikes are over, the productions will resume, and fast.

While companies may look to exit some projects or deals in search of long-term cash savings, they also will be going from a dead stop to a sprint when it comes to restarting films and series halted by the strikes.

“In Q3 and then further in Q4, we hope to start ticking up our cash spend on content again and doing it in a healthy way,” Netflix CFO Spencer Neumann told analysts on the company’s earnings call, adding that the disruptions will create “some lumpiness” in the company’s content spend. “So we think we’ve got a lot more we can spend into a big opportunity, but we want to do it responsibly.”

If the picketing drags on, companies may look to put their cash to use in other types of content, perhaps reality or unscripted shows or international productions not impacted by the strikes.

But there are other options. A big one is returning cash to shareholders via dividends or stock buybacks. Disney already has said that it hopes to bring back its dividend by the end of 2023 after eliminating it during the pandemic, and Netflix recently told shareholders that it expects “to increase our stock repurchase activity in the second half of 2023,” citing its excess cash.

Of course, there’s also the M&A question. While high interest rates and an aggressive FTC and Department of Justice could pose issues for megadeals, there is still an appetite for dealmaking. Just look at the feverish speculation over selling off Disney’s linear TV businesses, including ABC, following Bob  Iger’s declaration that they “may not be core” to the company. Or Lionsgate, which is splitting its studio business and Starz business later this year, potentially making each ripe for acquisition.

And with its cash hoard only growing, and a relative dearth of legacy IP to build off of, Netflix is frequently cited as a possible buyer of assets. “Some of those assets are stressed for a reason,” Sarandos said when asked if any troubled entertainment companies could be an acquisition target for Netflix. “But if there are opportunities that give us access to pools of IP that we could develop into and against that could be super interesting.”

The future may include lower overall spending on content as the irrational exuberance of content spend in search of a profitable streaming business.

For the major Hollywood players, the need to balance that uncertainty with what is likely to be some extra cash is a difficult equation to solve. Every entity except the already consistently profitable Netflix wants to make gains, but it needs to be sustainable: Short-term profit in favor of long-term pain won’t cut it. The actors and writers will make up a piece of that puzzle and likely will get more than they had previously, though if content spending falls overall, the strikes may very well be the death knell of peak content.

A version of this story first appeared in the July 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe. 

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‘Barbie’ Director Greta Gerwig On Backlash From The Political Right-Wing & The Ryan Gosling ‘SNL’ Sketch That Gave Her Kenergy - Deadline

Barbie is a box-office success and has been receiving positive reviews for its diversity, inclusion and positive message. However, certain political circles have taken aim at the Greta Gerwig-directed film and the director is giving her take on the backlash.

“Certainly, there’s a lot of passion,” Gerwig told The New York Times about the negativity from the political right-wing. “My hope for the movie is that it’s an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of the things that aren’t necessarily serving us as either women or men.”

She added, “I hope that in all of that passion, if they see it or engage with it, it can give them some of the relief that it gave other people.”

Gerwig also opened up about casting Ryan Gosling to play Ken opposite Margot Robbie. The filmmaker said she saw Gosling in a Saturday Night Live sketch that gave her all the Kenergy to have the actor portray “Beach Ken.”

“You know those actors you can… just sort of feel that they know what’s funny, and I always felt that about him,” Gerwig said during an appearance on the SmartLess podcast. “And then I’m a big fan of all of his SNLs, I always thought he was great on SNL… He did ‘Guy That Just Got a Boat’ on ‘Weekend Update,’ and it’s so good.”

Gerwig was referencing Gosling’s appearance in 2017 when he played “Guy Who Just Joined Soho House” alongside Alex Moffat as “Guy Who Just Bought a Boat” during SNL’s “Weekend Update” segment.

Gerwig revealed that she wrote the Ken part with Gosling in mind adding, “We wrote his name into the script and everything… and [Gosling’s name] was everywhere. And then when we handed them the script, the studio was like ‘Oh, it’s so wonderful that you know Ryan.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know Ryan. I’ve never met Ryan, I have no idea.'”

Relive the SNL sketch in the video posted below.

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Jim Gaffigan’s ‘Dark Pale’ Special Is His Best Yet - The New York Times

He’ll still joke about fast food. But on “Dark Pale,” his 10th stand-up special, his evolution as a comedian is apparent.

Have we gotten Jim Gaffigan wrong all along?

A Midwestern-born father of five, Gaffigan is known for clean, family-friendly stand-up on the most inoffensive subjects (kids, food). He’s safe enough to open for the Pope and regularly grouse on “CBS Sunday Morning.” But his consistently funny new special “Dark Pale,” his 10th, pushes against that vanilla image. The pandemic, he tells us, has made him question mortality, and in one wonderfully macabre bit, Gaffigan, dressed in a black suit and shirt, imagines his own funeral. He wants an open casket, with him sitting up, crumbs on his shirt, arms occasionally rising like a marionette while a recording of him says, “Don’t worry, I’m in a better place” before adding, “Just kidding. I’m here.”

It’s an unexpectedly creepy visual, and after telling you about cremation, Gaffigan adopts his signature second voice, a gravelly whisper that operates like a critic in the crowd, asking: “When is he going to do the food jokes?”

It’s easy to miss if you aren’t a fan, but Jim Gaffigan has been on a roll. Already prolific, he’s become more so, putting out five specials in six years, with this new one on Prime Video the best of the bunch. Instead of resting on his laurels, he’s getting more ambitious. There are still jokes about chain restaurants (he calls Starbucks “an upscale unemployment office”). But the bristling tone and intricacy of the jokes demand attention, if not revaluation. He’s telling us in the title (his third using the word “Pale”) that he’s got heavier things on his mind than fast food. After revisiting his deep trove of material released over the past couple decades, what’s clear is that he always did.

Gaffigan’s patient delivery was there from the start, but his early albums might surprise those who only know his famous persona. He cursed, talked about sex and came off more as an annoyed son than a grumpy family man. In a 2015 interview with Marc Maron, Gaffigan said his earliest acting experience was pretending to be happy when his dad came home. This hints at his most fertile theme: The endless American capacity for denial.

His tone had shifted by 2006, when he had his first special, “Beyond the Pale,” which included his signature bit complaining about Hot Pockets. This set the course for a career of food jokes, with so many of them about how the cheap pleasures of eating fast food overpower our knowledge that it’s bad for us. At its best, like his bit about McDonald’s (“Momentary pleasure followed by incredible guilt eventually leading to cancer”) he broadens his sights to make points about our disposable culture. When he applies his comic eye to hotels or hospitals, he sees the lengths we go to to ignore how the towels were used by thousands of strangers and the gowns worn by the countless deceased.

Gaffigan, now 57, can seem like Jerry Seinfeld (the pair are actually touring together this fall) in his sticky phrase-making — an elevator is a “casket on a string” — and the ordinariness of his subject matter. His focus on single subjects can be knowingly, preposterously long. Who else does 10 minutes on horses? There’s an element of showing off — look at how I can make foliage funny — but also the excessiveness, the stubborn commitment of it, gets its own laughs. Gaffigan’s comedy has always been meta. His new special starts with a moody nighttime landscape that pans back to reveal itself as being inside a picture frame.

He constantly interrupts his jokes to comment on them and plays with expectations through formal trickery. (In a stunt that could have shown up in an early Steve Martin bit, he had a piano onstage for his last special so he could fool us into thinking he could play it.) Another common move is saying he’s pandering before doing the opposite. My favorite of this genre is when he told the crowd in his reasonable moseying tone that he was salt of the earth before stating: “I just want a regular old private jet.”

Along with food, Gaffigan’s most consistent subject is religion. “Dark Pale” features an impression of a peevish, cocooned God shouting at his beleaguered assistant that his messages of climate disasters were not getting through (“I miss the days when you could send a plague and people would listen”). He sprinkles jokes about the Bible or Jesus into his specials. What he doesn’t do is organize them into a thematic, coherent hour, as if he’s making a grand statement. Gaffigan’s old-school act is allergic to anything that might seem pretentious, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t challenge himself. He plays with form by taking conventional bits that unravel into nonsense instead of building to a punchline and even turned his wife’s cancer diagnoses into material.

His new work reveals his move into more storytelling, elaborate act-outs and jokes built on deceptions (“My parents aren’t vaccinated. They’ve been dead for decades, but enough with the excuses!”). He’s also become slightly more political in the Trump era, even letting loose an uncharacteristic rant on social media addressing Trump supporters: “I’m sure you enjoy pissing people off, but you know Trump is a liar and a criminal.” His jokes make the point with a lighter touch, poking fun at how quickly we moved from panic to indifference over Covid. Gaffigan now performs the kind of interweaving jokes that only a seasoned comic could pull off. In his new special, he does bits about Starbucks, bells and diarrhea and then quilts them together. These are less like standard comic callbacks than variations on a theme. It’s the work of a pro.

The only time you see Gaffigan strain is in his personal material. When he moves into stories about his childhood in the second half of the special, you wish he had a director to draw him out. Then again, his buried anger is such a source of his comedy that you wouldn’t want him to go too deep.

In some ways, Gaffigan’s work gives you a better picture of the country than it does of himself. His comedy, rooted in a performance of buffoonish arrogance, is quintessentially American, a mixture of cynicism and innocence, cheerful salesmanship with an undercurrent of despair. Exploiting his wholesome image, he reserves his fiercest and most ridiculous anger for classic but mundane Americana. Last special, he raged against marching bands; This time it’s hot air balloons. If Gaffigan was a musical, he’s be a high-concept revival of “The Music Man” that teases out its bleaker themes.

In one bit that really resonates from this latest special, he considers a recent plane crash. He tells us that it took three minutes from nosedive to impact. In a minimum of words for maximum impact, Gaffigan places us inside the ill-fated aircraft, imitating the passengers screaming and screaming before pausing to wonder whether they could actually keep it up.

“Three minutes is a long time,” he said, his voice turning from yells to croaks to quiet. “You know someone on the flight rang the flight attendant button.” Then he impersonated a woman asking for a free drink before plummeting to her doom.

It’s a nice metaphor for how Americans handle crises. We scream for only so long, then we find ways to move on. Is this delusion or realism? Probably both.

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Jim Gaffigan’s ‘Dark Pale’ Special Is His Best Yet - The New York Times

He’ll still joke about fast food. But on “Dark Pale,” his 10th stand-up special, his evolution as a comedian is apparent.

Have we gotten Jim Gaffigan wrong all along?

A Midwestern-born father of five, Gaffigan is known for clean, family-friendly stand-up on the most inoffensive subjects (kids, food). He’s safe enough to open for the Pope and regularly grouse on “CBS Sunday Morning.” But his consistently funny new special “Dark Pale,” his 10th, pushes against that vanilla image. The pandemic, he tells us, has made him question mortality, and in one wonderfully macabre bit, Gaffigan, dressed in a black suit and shirt, imagines his own funeral. He wants an open casket, with him sitting up, crumbs on his shirt, arms occasionally rising like a marionette while a recording of him says, “Don’t worry, I’m in a better place” before adding, “Just kidding. I’m here.”

It’s an unexpectedly creepy visual, and after telling you about cremation, Gaffigan adopts his signature second voice, a gravelly whisper that operates like a critic in the crowd, asking: “When is he going to do the food jokes?”

It’s easy to miss if you aren’t a fan, but Jim Gaffigan has been on a roll. Already prolific, he’s become more so, putting out five specials in six years, with this new one on Prime Video the best of the bunch. Instead of resting on his laurels, he’s getting more ambitious. There are still jokes about chain restaurants (he calls Starbucks “an upscale unemployment office”). But the bristling tone and intricacy of the jokes demand attention, if not revaluation. He’s telling us in the title (his third using the word “Pale”) that he’s got heavier things on his mind than fast food. After revisiting his deep trove of material released over the past couple decades, what’s clear is that he always did.

Gaffigan’s patient delivery was there from the start, but his early albums might surprise those who only know his famous persona. He cursed, talked about sex and came off more as an annoyed son than a grumpy family man. In a 2015 interview with Marc Maron, Gaffigan said his earliest acting experience was pretending to be happy when his dad came home. This hints at his most fertile theme: The endless American capacity for denial.

His tone had shifted by 2006, when he had his first special, “Beyond the Pale,” which included his signature bit complaining about Hot Pockets. This set the course for a career of food jokes, with so many of them about how the cheap pleasures of eating fast food overpower our knowledge that it’s bad for us. At its best, like his bit about McDonald’s (“Momentary pleasure followed by incredible guilt eventually leading to cancer”) he broadens his sights to make points about our disposable culture. When he applies his comic eye to hotels or hospitals, he sees the lengths we go to to ignore how the towels were used by thousands of strangers and the gowns worn by the countless deceased.

Gaffigan, now 57, can seem like Jerry Seinfeld (the pair are actually touring together this fall) in his sticky phrase-making — an elevator is a “casket on a string” — and the ordinariness of his subject matter. His focus on single subjects can be knowingly, preposterously long. Who else does 10 minutes on horses? There’s an element of showing off — look at how I can make foliage funny — but also the excessiveness, the stubborn commitment of it, gets its own laughs. Gaffigan’s comedy has always been meta. His new special starts with a moody nighttime landscape that pans back to reveal itself as being inside a picture frame.

He constantly interrupts his jokes to comment on them and plays with expectations through formal trickery. (In a stunt that could have shown up in an early Steve Martin bit, he had a piano onstage for his last special so he could fool us into thinking he could play it.) Another common move is saying he’s pandering before doing the opposite. My favorite of this genre is when he told the crowd in his reasonable moseying tone that he was salt of the earth before stating: “I just want a regular old private jet.”

Along with food, Gaffigan’s most consistent subject is religion. “Dark Pale” features an impression of a peevish, cocooned God shouting at his beleaguered assistant that his messages of climate disasters were not getting through (“I miss the days when you could send a plague and people would listen”). He sprinkles jokes about the Bible or Jesus into his specials. What he doesn’t do is organize them into a thematic, coherent hour, as if he’s making a grand statement. Gaffigan’s old-school act is allergic to anything that might seem pretentious, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t challenge himself. He plays with form by taking conventional bits that unravel into nonsense instead of building to a punchline and even turned his wife’s cancer diagnoses into material.

His new work reveals his move into more storytelling, elaborate act-outs and jokes built on deceptions (“My parents aren’t vaccinated. They’ve been dead for decades, but enough with the excuses!”). He’s also become slightly more political in the Trump era, even letting loose an uncharacteristic rant on social media addressing Trump supporters: “I’m sure you enjoy pissing people off, but you know Trump is a liar and a criminal.” His jokes make the point with a lighter touch, poking fun at how quickly we moved from panic to indifference over Covid. Gaffigan now performs the kind of interweaving jokes that only a seasoned comic could pull off. In his new special, he does bits about Starbucks, bells and diarrhea and then quilts them together. These are less like standard comic callbacks than variations on a theme. It’s the work of a pro.

The only time you see Gaffigan strain is in his personal material. When he moves into stories about his childhood in the second half of the special, you wish he had a director to draw him out. Then again, his buried anger is such a source of his comedy that you wouldn’t want him to go too deep.

In some ways, Gaffigan’s work gives you a better picture of the country than it does of himself. His comedy, rooted in a performance of buffoonish arrogance, is quintessentially American, a mixture of cynicism and innocence, cheerful salesmanship with an undercurrent of despair. Exploiting his wholesome image, he reserves his fiercest and most ridiculous anger for classic but mundane Americana. Last special, he raged against marching bands; This time it’s hot air balloons. If Gaffigan was a musical, he’s be a high-concept revival of “The Music Man” that teases out its bleaker themes.

In one bit that really resonates from this latest special, he considers a recent plane crash. He tells us that it took three minutes from nosedive to impact. In a minimum of words for maximum impact, Gaffigan places us inside the ill-fated aircraft, imitating the passengers screaming and screaming before pausing to wonder whether they could actually keep it up.

“Three minutes is a long time,” he said, his voice turning from yells to croaks to quiet. “You know someone on the flight rang the flight attendant button.” Then he impersonated a woman asking for a free drink before plummeting to her doom.

It’s a nice metaphor for how Americans handle crises. We scream for only so long, then we find ways to move on. Is this delusion or realism? Probably both.

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Touchy-feely Tom Brady seen caressing Irina Shayk's face after spending the night at his place - New York Post

Tom Brady’s still scoring touchdowns in retirement.

The future Hall of Fame quarterback and supermodel Irina Shayk are stirring romance buzz in new photos together.

Brady, who turns 46 in August, was seen picking up the 37-year-old Russian model from the Hotel Bel-Air on the evening of July 21, when she appeared to spend the night at his Los Angeles home.

The pair did not emerge from Brady’s house until 9:30 the following morning.

Shayk was also pictured in the same outfit while getting dropped off by Brady the next morning.

Other photos show the pair walking together and laughing and smiling while Brady was behind the wheel of a grey Rolls Royce — where he was spotted caressing Shayk’s face.

Brady and Shayk made headlines in June when sources told Page Six that she made “a beeline” for him at the buzzed-about wedding of Joe Nahmad and Madison Headrick in Costa Smeralda, Sardinia.

However, a rep for Shayk vehemently denied that account at the time.

Tom Brady was spotted picking up model Irina Shayk from a Los Angeles hotel.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

Brady and Shayk went to the ex-NFL star’s L.A. home.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

The pair was all smiles — and getting touchy-feely — in Brady’s car.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

“This story is completely false,” Cheri Bowen, a rep for Shayk at Society Management, told Page Six. “It is a totally malicious and fictional account of the evening.”

The photos emerged just weeks after Brady was linked to Kim Kardashian following their run-in at Michael Rubin’s Fourth of July white party in the Hamptons.

At the time, Page Six reported that the BRADY Brand founder and SKIMS creator are just friends, following reports that they were seen flirting at the star-studded bash.

Shayk was dropped off at the hotel the next morning in the same outfit.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

Brady drove Shayk back to her hotel.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

Shayk reportedly made a ‘beeline’ for Brady at a wedding in June.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

The Brady-Kardashian dating rumors started in May when Page Six reported that she was looking to purchase a vacation home in Brady’s exclusive Bahamian neighborhood — but a rep for Brady shut down the romance buzz at the time.

Both Brady and Kardashian settled their respective divorces around the same time last fall.

The Hulu star and rapper Kanye West came to a divorce agreement in November 2022, nine months after Kardashian was ruled legally single during a bifurcation hearing.

The ex-couple share four children: North, 10, Saint, 7, Chicago, 5, and Psalm, 4.

BRady was seen caressing Shayk’s face during their drive.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

The pair spent the night at Brady’s home — and didn’t leave until the following morning.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

Shayk was picked up from and dropped off to the Bel-Air Hotel.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen with their kids after the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl in February 2021.

Instagram

The seven-time Super Bowl winner and his ex-wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, announced in October 2022 that they finalized their divorce after 13 years of marriage. 

The former couple shares daughter Vivian, 10, and son Benjamin, 13.

Brady also has a 15-year-old son, Jack, with his ex, actress Bridget Moynahan.

Brady picked up Shayk in his Rolls Royce.

CPR/D.Sanchez / BACKGRID

Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk at the 91st Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood and Highland on February 24, 2019 in Hollywood, California.

WireImage

Bradley Cooper, Irina Shayk and their daughter Lea Cooper are seen out in Manhattan on June 2, 2021 in New York City.

GC Images

Shayk and her ex, actor Bradley Cooper — who share 6-year-old daughter Lea — split in 2019 after four years of dating.

The model previously dated soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo from 2009 to 2015.

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