Misc-takes

Thanks again to everyone for your nice comments about yesterday’s Larry post. I didn’t want his words to live forever. I wanted HIM to live forever.

Anyway, onwards and sidewards…

Replacing Paula Abdul with Ellen DeGeneres was a great move. So what if she knows nothing about music? She’s funny and won’t sleep with male contestants. And Portia will kill her if she flirts with female hopefuls.

I miss John Madden already.

James Schamus, the producer and screenwriter of TAKING WOODSTOCK said this to reporters at the Cannes Film Festival: “The biggest challenge was to get extras who were skinny but who were not working out all the time. And who still had pubic hair.” I hope no one told director Ang Lee he couldn’t use a crane because they went over budget on merkins.

The JAY LENO SHOW marks the end of NBC as a competitive primetime network. They should retire the peacock and just use Jeff Zucker making a deposit at a cash machine as their corporate symbol.

This isn’t too confusing. There are two movies coming out this fall. NINE and 9. 9 is animated and supposedly great. NINE is based on the musical and I don’t even know if the musical is great. And then there’s CLOUD 9 about an overweight 67-year-old woman having an affair with a 76-year old man and the movie is filled with nudity, explicit sex, and close ups. So it's a horror movie.

Meanwhile, 67 year-old Harrison Ford wants to do another Indiana Jones chapter. Let’s see how CLOUD 9 does at the boxoffice first.

Registration is still open for THE SITCOM ROOM. It’s either a great learning tool to put you ahead of the pack or a comedy writing fantasy camp for those who always wanted to experience just what it’s like in a writing room. They tend not to let the general public come into the BIG BANG THEORY room and just pitch jokes and eat their food.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle last Friday suggested that ANIMAL HOUSE as a comedy will not stand the test of time. I disagree.

Maura Tierney: Get well soon.

Hey, Circus Vargas is still around! This is an old-time traveling big top circus complete with hilarious clowns (who are undoubtedly sad in real life), animals (that failed the Ringling Brothers audition I suppose), and of course the Willy Family’s “Sphere of Death”. It was very cool to have an actual circus come to my neighborhood when I was a kid. I never ran away with them although my parents were pushing me to.

Why did SNL fire Michaela Watkins? She was the funniest cast member on that show?

The quality of late night fare on premium movie channels has really gone downhill. Where are those fabulous “women in prison” movies? I once heard a producer of one take offense that his film was considered “exploitive” and “gratuitous” and then I watched the movie. There’s a scene where all the inmates with naked, together in the shower, reading their mail.

La Toya Jackson thought Michael looked “fabulous” at the funeral. She especially liked that he wore pearls.

Sorry to hear about Patrick Swayze. Watching the movie GHOST will be particularly eerie now.

Members of THE TRANSFORMERS crew, in an open letter, have branded Megan Fox as “Dumb-as-a-rock” and “Classless Trailer Trash”. But they do admit she has nice eyes.

And yet the asshole of the year trophy MUST go to Kayne West. Talk about classless. Interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech on the MTV Video Music Awards to say Beyonce deserved the award instead was nothing short of reprehensible. Or, as Pink so succinctly put it on her Twitter page: "Kanye West is the biggest piece of shit on earth. Quote me." I did. On the other hand, Beyonce, forfeiting her acceptance speech later on to let Taylor have her moment was the height of class.

Favorite recent HuffPost headline: Hugh Hefner: I Waited A Decade To Divorce For The Kids.

Not that we’re too litigious or anything but a personal chef is suing Simon Cowell, accusing him of stealing or throwing away her shoes. I hope this one goes all the way to the Supreme Court.

Happy birthday to Cliff Levine this week. I love you, dad.