On this day in comedy on March 27, 2015, Get Hard was released by Warner Bros.
This buddy comedy starring Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell was the directorial debut of Etan Cohen. The critics savaged it, but as usual what do critics know when it comes to popular taste. The film about an accused white collar criminal tutored by a guy who said who spent time behind bars raked in $90.4 million domestically, $21.3 million internationally for a worldwide total of $111.7 million on a $40 million budget.
Ferrell plays a hedge fund manager with an ideal life. He’s engaged to his boss’ daughter and has a bright future. He’s cheap which is evident by the two-dollar tip he gives his car washer, (Hart), but during a party Ferrell is arrested for embezzlement and given 30 days to get his affairs in order before going to prison for 10 years. He freaks out. Cutting off his ankle monitor, he tries to swoop up his fiancée to run away with him, but the cops bust him again and as they’re taking him away he asks Hart how did he deal with prison? Of course, Hart would have to know – he’s Black. Hart is also crafty. He makes a deal to instruct Ferrell on how to survive for $30,000. Deal!
The normally scary, Hart puts the unsuspecting and scared Ferrell through the rigors of penitentiary life. He peppers sprays him, mad dog faces him, gets him into fights at the park and has a mock prison riot to toughen him up (where Ferrell gets stabbed in the forehead with a homemade shiv). Thinking his once future father-in-law is on the up and up Ferrell tells him he’s getting help and he’ll be okay. That was the wrong thing to say to the actual embezzler. Ferrell’s almost pappy thinks Ferrell is onto him and tells his hit man to take care of Ferrell immediately.
Meanwhile Hart has been convinced that Ferrell is no criminal and certainly not tough so they go in another direction. Hart tells Ferrell he has to learn how to give head or be killed. They even go to a gay hang out, but Ferrell can’t go through with the fellatio. So, Hart tries to get Ferrell into his cousin’s gang so he’ll be protected in prison. No luck. They try a white supremacist gang, but Ferrell is not a convincing racist and they try to kill him thinking he’s a cop. With time running out they figure it was the father-in-law. They get his computer records and have him dead to rights. Ferrell’s fiancée was also in on it and the hitmen are about to handle him and Hart when the US Marshals show up because Ferrell’s ankle monitor went off. After a short hitch behind bars for having an unregistered gun (Ferrell had it hidden up his butt – “kestering”) he is released without incident. His almost pappy didn’t fare as well in the joint. Speaking of – in the end, Hart gets his carwash business and Ferrell gets his life back. Yay!
Get Hard also features the talents of Craig T. Nelson, Alison Brie, T. I., Edwina Findley, Shad Gaspard, Paul Ben-Victor, Ron Funches and Jimmy Fallon and John Mayer as themselves. Christophe Beck composed the music. The screenplay was done by Jay Martel, Ian Roberts and Etan Cohen from a story by Martel, Roberts and Adam McKay.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On this day in comedy on March 26, 2003, Wanda at Large premiered on Fox!
Created by and starring comedienne, Wanda Sykes, this sitcom ran for two seasons. It was initially a 6-episode interim show for Fox. The premise was Sykes is a standup comedian doing correspondence work for a political talk show. She’s not particularly their cup of tea and her bosses (Ann Magnuson and Phil Morris) barely tolerate her and her antics. While trying to ignore them, Sykes juggles her domestic life with her sister-in-law (Tammy Lauren) and her two kids (Robert Bailey, Jr. and Jurnee Smollett).
The show was set in Washington, DC and premiered after Fox’s mega-hit, American Idol. Following a second season renewal and a decline in ratings, Wanda at Large was moved to the Friday night death spot of 8:30pm and aired its last episode on November 7, 2003.
Wanda at Large was nominated for the BET Comedy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and a Teen Choice Award for Choice Breakout Show. Wanda Sykes received nominations for Best Actress by the BET Awards, Teen Choice and Satellite Awards.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On This Day In Comedy on March 25, 2005, Bernie Mac’s Film ‘Guess Who’ Was Released!
This comedy remake of the classic Sidney Poitier film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, stars Bernie Mac, Ashton Kutcher and Zoe Saldana. Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan it tells the story of a Black father who discovers his daughter is in love with a white guy. Mac (the Black father) doesn’t like it. He tries to take Kutcher (the white guy) to a hotel, but they’re all full and so he allows Kutcher to sleep in his basement and to make sure he stays there Mac sleeps with him. Meanwhile Mac is having Kutcher investigated to dig up some dirt to discredit him in Zaldana’s (the daughter) eyes.
The occasion of Mac and Kutcher ever meeting is Mac’s 25th wedding anniversary. Zaldana wants to surprise the family with her engagement announcement. It was such a surprise that Mac ends up running Kutcher off by exposing him as a liar. Turns out Kutcher quit his job and didn’t tell Zaldana. Busted trust, but when Mac finds out that the reason Kutcher quit was because his boss didn’t approve of interracial relationships, he tracks him down and brings Kutcher back to Zaldana. And cut!
Written by Peter Tolan and Jay Sherick, Guess Who got mixed reviews. The cast, which also included Sherri Shepherd, Hal Williams, Judith Scott, Kellee Stewart, Ronreaco Lee, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Niecy Nash and Mike Epps, got positive notices, but by 2005 the topic of interracial love was hardly the searing hot button it was in 1967 when the original was made. Regardless, on a $35 million budget the film grossed $68,915,888 domestically and $32,950,142 internationally for a grand total of $101,866,030 worldwide.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On This Day In Comedy on March 24, 1995, Damon Wayans’ Film ‘Major Payne’ Was Released!
Written by and starring Damon Wayans, this satire of military films is a hilarious remake of an old 1955 Charlton Heston film, The Private War of Major Benson. Didn’t try to hide that fact either. Wayans’ character name is Major Benson Winifred Payne. Directed by Nick Castle, Major Payne co-stars Karyn Parson, Orlando Brown, Albert Hall, William Hickey, Michael Ironside and Steven Martini
In the film, Wayans plays a veteran of the Marines whose hit the glass ceiling. After a big deal drug mission, he is still passed up for Lt. Colonel, so he gets an honorable discharge and retires mentally from fighting anymore battles for the Corps. Once out he joins the cops. That lasts as long as it takes him to knock out a domestic violence suspect on his first call. Payne is put in jail. Fortunately, a friend bails him out and arranges for him to instruct youngsters at a military school; youngsters with disabilities, like deafness and heart conditions.
Payne’s new job is to train the cadets. He overzealously treats them like hardened grown men and soon gets the wrath of the cute lady school counselor. Payne doesn’t care – he wants his new recruits to win the Military Games that hasn’t been won by the school ever. They are always last. Well not again if Payne can help it. He tells his troops that he wants that trophy. So, they sneak over to the school that has it and tries to steal it, but Payne drops a dime on them and the cadets from the rival academy ambush his boys.
After their defeat, Payne makes a deal. If his guys can win the trophy legit he will leave. They go all out in their training to accomplish that goal. It looks like they’re ready, but Payne gets called back into the service to go to Bosnia. Morale is down, but the boys compete anyway. Even though he’s gone anyway, they’re fire up to win just to win. However, Payne feels he let them down and returns just in time to route his squad on to victory and they . . . win. Throughout the experience, Payne himself has gotten more sympathetic, but not totally. In the final scene when a new blind recruit mouths off Payne shaves him and his seeing-eye dog bald.
Major Payne got mixed reviews, but was an audience pleaser coming in at #2 on its opening weekend and taking in a worldwide gross of $30.1 million.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Bill Cosby’s trial on sexual assault charges ended without a verdict Saturday after jurors failed to reach a unanimous decision in a case that helped destroy the 79-year-old comedian’s image as “America’s Dad.”
Jurors deliberated more than 52 hours over six days before telling a judge they couldn’t agree on whether “The Cosby Show” star drugged and molested Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. The judge then declared a mistrial.
Prosecutors said they would retry Cosby, who remains charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault.
The comedian’s career and good-guy image were already in tatters by the time his chief accuser took the stand and described how Cosby gave her pills and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay paralyzed on a couch, unable to tell him to stop.
But the jurors clearly struggled with their verdict, telling the judge on Day 4 they were at impasse. Judge Steven O’Neill instructed them to keep working toward a unanimous decision. On Saturday, they came back and told O’Neill they were hopelessly deadlocked.
It was the only criminal case to arise from allegations from more than 60 women that cast Cosby — married more than 50 years — as a serial predator who gave drugs to women before violating them.
He did not take the stand in his own defense, leaving it to his attorney to argue Cosby and Constand were lovers sharing a consensual sexual encounter. Lawyer Brian McMonagle told jurors that while Cosby had been unfaithful to his wife, he didn’t commit a crime.
“We’re talking about all the man’s tomorrows,” said McMonagle, urging acquittal of an icon in the twilight of life.
Cosby broke barriers as the first black actor to star in a network show, “I Spy,” in the 1960s and created the top-ranked “Cosby Show” two decades later, starring as kindly Dr. Cliff Huxtable. He found success with his “Fat Albert” animated TV show and starred in commercials for Jello-O pudding.
But it was his reputation as a public moralist who urged young people to pull up their saggy pants and start acting responsibly that prompted a federal judge to unseal portions of an explosive deposition he gave more than a decade ago as part of Constand’s civil lawsuit against him.
In the deposition, released in 2015 at the request of The Associated Press, Cosby said he obtained several prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s and offered the now-banned sedatives to women he wanted to have sex with.
He also said he gave Constand three half-tablets of the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl before the “petting” began. Prosecutors suggested he drugged her with something stronger.
Constand, 44, initially went to police about a year after she said Cosby assaulted her, but a prosecutor declared her case too weak to bring charges.
A decade later, a new district attorney reopened the investigation after Cosby’s lurid testimony about drugs and sex became public, and dozens of women came forward against one of the most beloved stars in all of show business. He was charged shortly before the statute of limitation was set to expire.
McMonagle, in his closing argument, pointed out that Constand telephoned Cosby dozens of times after the alleged assault. Constand told the jury she was merely returning his calls about the women’s basketball squad at Temple University, where she was director of team operations and he was a member of the board of trustees.
“This isn’t talking to a trustee. This is talking to a lover,” McMonagle said of one call that lasted 49 minutes. “Why are we running from the truth of this case — this relationship? Why?”
He also tried to sow doubt about Constand’s story, saying it had evolved during her interviews with police.
But Steele, the district attorney, said it was no accident that some of Constand’s memories were faulty.
“There are some things in this case that should be fuzzy. Why? Because he drugged her to do this,” the prosecutor told jurors. “She spent a lot more time trying to forget what happened than trying to remember that night.”
Before going on trial, Cosby expressed hope he could eventually resume his career. But TV networks had long since scrapped plans for a comeback and pulled reruns from the air after his lurid deposition testimony became public.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.
On this day in comedy on March 20, 1987 Hollywood Shuffle was released by The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Produced, directed, and co-written by Robert Townsend, this film is a satirical attack on Hollywood’s systematic stereotyping of blacks in the media. Townsend financed the indie with his own credit cards and used the storyline of a struggling black actor interspersed with vignettes to illustrate his point. There’s scenes of slavery, popular films, movie reviewers and more as Townsend’s character’s imagination lets us in on his conflict in being an underused and often degraded minority in the world of entertainment.
Hollywood Shuffle is about Bobby Taylor (Townsend) having to decide to take a cooning part in a black gang film. His grandmother is against it. His mother supports him, but she is also against cooning. His co-workers and boss couldn’t care less if he coons or not. They don’t think he’ll ever make it as an actor anyway and he needs to keep his mind on his job at Winky Dinky Dog. They’re wrong. He gets the coveted role and finds out he can’t do it. It’s too much cooning. So, he takes his grandmother’s advice and gets a job working for the post office. He does a commercial for USPS.
This comedy classic was co-written by Keenan Ivory Wayans and co-produced by Dom Irrera, Hollywood Shuffle features Anne-Marie Johnson, John Witherspoon, Brad Sanders, Helen Martin, Eugene Robert Glazer and Paul Mooney.
The film was a critical and box office success. It won the 1987 Deauville Film Festival Grand Special Prize Critics Award and Coup de Coeur LTC Award for Robert Townsend and made $5,228,617 on a $100,000 budget.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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OPn this day in comedy on March 19, 1951, Actor and Dancer, Fred Rerun Berry was born in St. Louis, MO
Berry was best known as ‘Rerun’ from the ABC sitcom, What’s Happening!! (1976-1979). He was a breakout character. With his red beret and suspenders, Rerun was immediately identifiable and this notoriety made Berry a millionaire by the time he was 29 years old.
Fred Berry had cut his show business teeth as a break dancer with The Lockers from Los Angeles. The popular troupe appeared on Saturday Night Live, Soul Train and toured internationally. This appeal led to television. Berry’s chubbiness was perfect for his cuddly character, but once What’s Happening!! went off the sir Berry found he had been typecast and that getting work would be difficult. So, he embraced his Rerun alter ego and appeared in commercials and made personal appearances as Rerun.
Typecasting wasn’t Berry’s only problem. He also fought drug addiction and alcoholism. So, when the show was revived as What’s Happening Now!! Berry was glad to return. That joy was short-lived. As with What’s Happening!! Berry didn’t feel he was getting paid what he deserved, since to him people watched the shows mainly to see him. So, in both cases he stalled in contract re-negotiations and he walked. In the latter case, he walked after one season.
The remainder of Berry’s life was spent trying various ways to maintain his celebrity. He was a preacher at a Baptist church. He was a public speaker. He made appearances in low budget films and music videos. He even toured with the UniverSoul circus as Rerun. The man stayed active until he passed away on October 21, 2003 in Los Angeles, California while recovering from a stroke.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On this day in comedy on March 17, 1927 Comedian, Recording Artist, Actor, Dancer, Musician, and Filmmaker, Rudolph Frank Moore (aka Dolemite) was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas
Moore was known as the “Godfather of Rap” based on his numerous comedy albums featuring dirty rhymes and jokes. He went by the stage name of Dolemite, a character in his films who was part-pimp, part gangster.
Moore got his start as a preacher in Milwaukee. He expanded his flair for entertaining as a dancer / singer in nightclubs, known by the name of Prince DuMarr. His Army buddies changed that name to the Harlem Hillbilly when Moore shipped out to Germany as part of their entertainment troupe. He sang country songs with an R&B feel. He also got turned onto comedy. Once out of the Army he moved to Los Angeles, got back in nightclubs and got discovered. Dootsie Williams recorded Moore’s songs under 5 different labels from 1955-1962. In 1959 Moore recorded his first comedy album, Below the Belt, followed by The Beatnik Scene (1962) and A Comedian Is Born (1964). He was making a living, but not living it up.
Then came Dolemite. He’d heard stories about the character from a guy while Moore was working at a record store in 1970 and decided to become that character for his own persona. He recorded the comedic tales in natural settings; like his own home with friends over drinking and getting high as Moore told jokes, sang songs and did nasty rhymes. He was an instant hit.
Moore was one of the titans of “party records”; recordings labeled XXX by most of their distributors. Many of these albums were sold under the table at record stores and had to be given to the patron in a brown paper bag so the suggestive covers of naked women were obscured. In rapid succession Moore released Eat out More Often, This Pussy Belongs to Me and The Dirty Dozens.
It was through those recordings that he could finance his first film, Dolemite (1975). That low budget hit became known as one of the greatest Blaxploitation films of all time and spawned sequels: The Human Tornado, The Monkey Hustle, Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil’s Son-in-Law and The Return of Dolemite. . Moore was ghettofabulous and traveled extensively as Dolemite as his stage act and his fans adored him. He could do no wrong with them. On the road, his merchandise sales often tallied more than the fee he received to perform.
Moore remained active throughout his career. His popularity endured as rap artists; especially Snoop Dogg credit rap to Moore. It was his raw edged rhymes accompanied by music in the background that lent itself to his pioneer status. Even in his later years he was so revered rappers sought his collaboration on their tunes and he’s featured in many from Big Daddy Kane to 2 Live Crew.
Rudy Ray Moore was prolific. He released over 30 records, appeared in almost 20 films and lent his talent and expertise to other artists until he passed away on October 19, 2008 in Akron, Ohio from complications of diabetes.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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Jamie Foxx learns to be careful about choosing his dance partners on Thursday’s episode of Fox’s competition series “Beat Shazam,” as seen in an exclusive sneak peek.
After the host rewards the teams for correctly identifying Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded,” he decides to cut a rug with the show’s DJ, October Gonzalez. But Foxx wasn’t expecting October’s husband, NFL legend Tony Gonzalez, to suddenly make a surprise appearance.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Foxx says with a laugh, quickly putting an end to the dancing. “Tony Gonzalez, the greatest tight end to ever play football. I’m going to tell you, you all set me up right there.”
When October starts to give Foxx a hug, he quickly jilts her, and Tony jokingly steps in. “Back up, back up,” the former Kansas City Chiefs standout says. “Three feet!”
Foxx points out that Tony and October are an attractive couple, but that they might require a fair amount of prep time before leaving the house.
“How much good-looking is over there in the booth right now?” Foxx quips. “I bet y’all be in the bathroom, taking a long time.”
The Oscar-winning actor later adds that the couple “scared the hell out of me.”
“Beat Shazam” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.
Source: The Wrap
After days of sitting in court listening to his accuser and other witnesses give impugning testimony in the criminal trial over his alleged 2004 rape of Andrea Constand, Bill Cosby is thinking of taking the stand in his own defense, I’ve learned.
The potentially dramatic change in tactics for Cosby and his defense team comes after previous assertions by the 79-year-old actor that he would not testify in the trial that just wrapped its fourth day in a Norristown, PA courtroom. While there were discussions behind closed doors earlier today that Cosby could be sworn in and questioned Friday, the actor’s team is now holding off to see how things go in front of Judge Steven O’Neill tomorrow and early next week.
On Thursday afternoon during a break in the proceedings, The Cosby Show creator’s PR rep Andrew Wyatt told Deadline that his client was in a “good mood” about the trial. If found guilty by the jury of seven men and five women for three felony charges of second-degree aggravated indecent assault, the actor could face more than 10 years behind bars.
Cosby’s team did not respond to request for comment on his potential testimony.
Alhough Cosby has been accused by more than 60 women of drugging and sexually assaulting them, the trial in the Philadelphia suburb is the only criminal case against him. The statute of limitations has long since expired on all the known cases except the one involving former Temple University employee Constand.
Picking up on the 2005 case reopened by his predecessor Risa Vetri Ferman nearly two years ago, newly elected Montgomery County D.A. Kevin Steele charged Cosby just before the expiration of Pennsylvania’s 12-year statute of limitations on such sex crimes. The actor was arraigned on December 30, 2015 and released on $1 million bail without entering a plea. After months of unsuccessfully trying to get the case dismissed, he has since pleaded not guilty.
While Cosby has not taken the stand yet in the trial, his voice and words have been a big presence in the Keystone State courtroom. Today saw two local investigating police officers read out on the stand long portions of interviews and depositions by Cosby. On Wednesday, a taped phone conversation between Constand’s mother and Cosby was played for the courtroom. The jurors, judge, media and onlookers heard Cosby offer in 2005 to “set up something” like paying for graduate school for Andrea Constand after the ex-Director of Operations for Temple’s women’s basketball staffer told her family what she says Cosby did to her a year earlier.
A poised Constand testified under oath for almost 10 hours Tuesday and Wednesday. Previously, ex-William Morris assistant Kelly Johnson was in the courtroom recounting her allegations of being drugged and sexually assaulted in 1996 by Cosby at the Hotel Bel-Air.
Originally set to last at least two weeks, the trial now looks ahead of schedule and could wrap mid-next week.
Source: Deadline