On this day in comedy on February 21, 1929 Comedian, Actor, Screenwriter, Director, Playwright, Songwriter, Author, Roberto Gómez Bolaños, aka “Chespirito” was born!
Highly regarded as one of the most recognized Spanish-language comedians of the 20th Century, Chespirito gained international renown for being the creative force behind the television hits, Chespirito (1968), El Chavo del Ocho (1973) and El Chapulin Colorado (1973). He wrote, directed and starred in each. His shows were so popular that El Chavo del Ocho still receives viewership of over 91 million.
Born in Mexico City, Chespirito got his stage moniker writing plays and film dialogue. It means “Little Shakespeare”. The artist of many hats was discovered as an actor while waiting in line for a job as a writer. He initially wrote and starred in children’s comedy shows where he was able to introduce a variety of enduring characters for Mexican network, Televisa. Those shows aired in 124 countries.
Chespirito’s influence was felt throughout the artistic community. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpson said “Bumblebee Man” was a take-off of a character on Chespirito’s El Chapulin Colorado. Chespirito was an accidental composer. He began writing music as a hobby and developed into an accomplished composer. He’s written songs for film, television and theater. The prolific talent published three books and received numerous awards; both from the creative community as well as national honors.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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On this day in comedy on February 20, 1984 Comedian, Host, Actor, Trevor Noah was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Initially known in America as Jon Stewart’s successor on The Daily Show, Noah has always carried more weight than most. When his Swiss/German father and Xhosa/Jewish mother ended their illegal relationship due to apartheid (she was jailed and he moved back to Switzerland), Noah was raised by his mother and grandmother. That is until his mother married, got divorced and then was shot in the face by her jealous ex for getting engaged to another man. Noah was also threatened with death and moved from Johannesburg to Los Angeles, California in 2011.
Prior to relocating Noah had made his mark in Africa where themes of race were basic to his material. He broke onto the public scene at the age of 18 in 2002 starring on the South African soap opera, Isidingo. He hosted his own radio show (Noah’s Ark) on YFM, a leading youth radio station; hosted an educational show on SABC2; a gossip show and a sports show on SABC 1 and a dating show called The Amazing Date. Noah hosted the South Africa Film and Television Awards, The Axe Sweet Life (a reality competition show), his own show, Tonight with Trevor Noah and he was a spokesperson for one of the largest cellular providers in South Africa, Cell C. He’s performed all over South Africa, toured with Gabriel Iglesias and taped multiple standup comedy specials. He was the first South African comedian to perform stand up on The Tonight Show in 2012 and the first to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman in 2013. He’s been the subject of a documentary, a Roast Master on Comedy Central and a recurring contributor on The Daily Show.
So when Comedy Central announced Jon Stewart’s replacement in March 2015 they were confident the seasoned Trevor Noah was ready. Yet despite the fact the takeover wasn’t going to happen until September, the internet was abuzz about how Stewart was irreplaceable and that this guy Noah had no right to be in a successor conversation. Haters trolled YouTube looking for incriminating evidence to support their case and he had some. They uncovered several jokes of his that did not work. Social media was aghast. A comedian who has bombed before. Unheard of! He was called anti-Jewish even though he is part Jewish, but fortunately the network ignored the firestorm and Noah made his debut. His self-described politically progressive style fit right into The Daily Show mindset. Though it took a moment for the audience to get used to the new host, Noah drew his crowd to him and the long running signature program kept bringing in viewers. So much for irreplaceability.
Trevor Noah speaks more than a half dozen languages fluently and has won the 2012 South African Comic’s Choice Comic of the Year Award and the 2015 MTV Africa Music Award for Personality of the Year.
By Darryl “D’Militant” Littleton
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A new hilarious viral video is helping to bring awareness to “what is so very precious in [the black] community: Our edges.”
In the one-minute clip above, posted by Centric TV, black celebrity women including Jordin Sparks, Tatiana Ali, Jazmine Sullivan, Tinashe, and Eva Marcille somberly share stats on the state of black women’s edges today.
“One out of three black women will face dwindling edges in their lifetime,” the stars declare.
There are, of course, many ways to lose one’s edges (the hair around the hairline), from wearing braids too tight to listening to the latest Beyoncé
album. But the video insists that awareness and prevention is the key:
“Save them for our sisters, mothers, aunties, daughters” actress Tatiana Ali pleads in the clip. “Save them for the babies … baby hairs.”
For more info on how to save your edges, check out SaveMyEdges.org.
Source: The Huffington Post
NBC was originally scheduled to air the season two premiere of “The Carmichael Show” early – on Tuesday, March 8 at 10:30 p.m. – ahead of its regular 9 p.m. Sundays timeslot beginning March 13. However, the network has made one change.
The preview date is now Wednesday, March 9 at 10 p.m., followed by a repeat episode at 10:30 p.m. The strategy of back-to-back airings was used successfully to build the audience for season 1.
“I think it worked to our advantage,” said the show’s star Jerrod Carmichael at the recent TCA Press Tour. “Ideally everyone wants the must-see spot, right? Growing a new show, I think that the marketing plan worked, and it grew an audience and allowed people to receive enough of the content to gauge whether or not they like the show.”
In the season two premiere, Cynthia (Loretta Devine) spots her Reverend cheating on his wife, prompting the family to discuss cheating and its consequences. Jerrod is shocked when this family discussion reveals that his girlfriend Maxine (Amber Stevens West) is no stranger to infidelity.
Source: EURWEB
Over the last couple of days we have heard from several sources who have told us that the comedian known as Earthquake, who has a hit afternoon drive time show in New York on WBLS 107.5 has gone off the air.
According to those same sources, we heard that Quake’s House went silent due to contract negotiations and our sources tell us that Quake is probably moving to bigger and better things! That’s right, we heard that Quake is in the process of moving his show to a NATIONAL syndication show, and in most cities it will be on to compete with the DL Hughley Show which is also syndicated and on during the same drive time.
No official word yet on what the outcome is from WBLS in New York, but this story is still developing!
On July 3, 2015, Quincy Jones (no, not that one), a 32-year-old Los Angeles-based comedian was diagnosed with stage-four Mesothelioma and told that he has one year to live. Mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer where the tumors develop inside the protective lining of vital organs. Unless caught incredibly early, radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery aren’t able to help much. All cancer is bad, but Mesothelioma is one of the worst. So dealing with the fact that he doesn’t have much time left, Quincy Jones thought about his greatest fear: not leaving anything behind when he goes. So with the help of a fellow comedian named Nicole Blaine and her husband, Jones is raising money to fight that fear and to leave something behind—like a one-hour stand-up special.
They set a goal of $4,985. As of this moment, the project has raised $19,431, and the outpouring of support has been huge and breathtaking. Nicole posted on her Facebook about the shocking speed with which the campaign met (and exceeded) its goal, as well as what the excess funds will go towards:
Sometimes people can do beautiful things. If you’d like to donate to the campaign, go to Kickstarter. If you’d like to donate exclusively to Quincy’s medical care you can do that too at a GoFundMe page.
Source:GQ
The year was 2002. It was the blackest Academy Awards in history. And that record-breaking blackness boiled down to the number four. Just four African-Americans, and that year’s Oscars was talked about like it was the NAACP Image Awards. Denzel Washington won best actor forTraining Day. Halle Berry won best actress for Monster’s Ball. Sidney Poitier received an Honorary Oscar for a lifetime of being Sidney Poitier. (Why that took until 2002 is worth a Michael Moore full-length documentary.) And the whole evening was hosted by Lady EGOT herself, Whoopi Goldberg. And yes, like a late-night infomercial, there was more. Will Smith was nominated for Ali, and … Well, actually, I think that was pretty much it, unless I’m missing a black sound effects editor or something. But the conventional wisdom coming out of that tiny tsunami of blackness was that this was the beginning of a sea change. We were led to believe that once the Oscars went kinda-black that they could never go all the way back. But go back they did. The following year, the only hint of blackness was Queen Latifah’s best supporting actress nomination for the musical Chicago — and also the film that won for best foreign-language film called Nowhere in Africa, a German film that was in no-way about Africans. (Of course it was about white people in Africa.)
And let’s be absolutely clear, even the two wins that we got that night are kind of a problem. If you want to start a fight at a black family reunion, all you need to do is yell out, “What y’all think about Denzel winning an Oscar for Training Day and Halle winning for Monster’s Ball?” Well before you can say, “Bill Cosby innocent!!!” you will have turned that happy gathering into a live Facebook thread.
Black Mama says, “Why does Denzel have to win an Oscar for not only playing a corrupt cop but for playing the most corrupt cop of all the corrupt cops? And why did I like it so much?”
Black Grandmama says, “And poor Halle. Why would they let Billy Bob Thornton do that to her?”
Poitier accepted his Honorary Oscar (having previously won one).
But even though we weren’t all unified about how we felt about the roles they played, we had to celebrate. For me, Denzel winning that Oscar was like Michael Jordan winning the NBA championship. It was just confirmation of what I already knew: Denzel Washington is the greatest actor of all time. Period. And there are few things in Hollywood harder than being a working black actress. Halle Berry deserves all the awards just for that. I was proud of her even if in the middle of the Monster’s Ball the black Grandmama in me yelled out, “No, Billy Bob! NOOOOOOOO!”
Black people rarely get to win for roles of quiet dignity like Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln or Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. We’re too busy rising above black archetypes like Denzel Washington inGlory or playing unrewarded nuanced roles … like Denzel Washington in Philadelphia. It is indicative of black people’s feelings on this that Halle Berry did win an NAACP Image Award in 2002, but it wasn’t for Monster’s Ball. It was for her role as “woman who is smarter than Hugh Jackman but also happens to have nice breasts” in Swordfish.
There was no sea change after 2002. Just like clearly there was no sea change after 12 Years a Slave won in 2014. Here we are again two short years later rebooting #OscarsSoWhite. And all of this is in preparation for the “Great Nate Parker-ing of 2017,” when his film The Birth of a Nation is sure to be lauded as the beginning of a new era of the Academy’s acknowledgment of diversity in film. And I don’t see that happening, not without a rebellion similar to the one shown in his film.
And while we are talking diversity and Oscar winners, despite the fact that many words have been written about how the fastest path to Oscar gold is playing a person with disabilities, every time that Marlee Matlin is by herself, she is having a reunion of every living actor with disabilities who has ever won an Academy Award. The other person is dead. Damn.
Goldberg earned mixed reviews as host.
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“Y’ALL THREW US A BONE”
In the year of #OscarsSoWhite, it might seem preposterous to think of a time when there were jokes about the prevalence of African-American actors nominated for Academy Awards. But it happened at the 2002 Oscars. In her opening monologue, Whoopi Goldberg — hosting for the third time — cracked of the Oscar campaigning, “So much mud has been thrown this year, allthe nominees look black.”
But what was hailed as a historic moment for African-Americans in the movie industry was rightly met with some skepticism. Here, figures behind the telecast and some of Hollywood’s top black stars and creators recall the night that was supposed to change everything.
AUNJANUE ELLIS (Actress, Quantico) Halle Berry was incredibly brave in what she did. To get validated by that Oscar win, it felt affirming.
COURTNEY KEMP (Executive producer, Power) That was a transformative moment for me as a black woman because she talked in her speech about the shoulders she stood on. It was wonderful.
DANIELLE NICOLET (Actress, The Game) As a young actress, it meant everything to see someone who looked like me winning an award that wasn’t for playing a slave or a housekeeper. To see Halle Berry up there for that movie — which was so dark and so outside of what you normally see African-American actors playing in films — was inspiring.
BRUCE VILANCH (Writer, Oscar broadcast) Going into the show, Russell Crowe was kind of favored to win for A Beautiful Mind. I think he had some incident — [he got into a physical altercation with a BBC executive after the BAFTA awards] — and it may have tilted in Denzel’s favor.
LEEZA GIBBONS (Co-host, Oscar preshow) Denzel said in the media room he wasn’t thinking of his victory in terms of history, but his win created a touching moment where everyone could sense how far things had come and how far they had to go.
Since 2002, seven black actors have won Oscars (Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker, Jennifer Hudson, Mo’Nique, Octavia Spencer, Lupita Nyong’o and Morgan Freeman), and 12 Years a Slave, a movie with a black writer and a black director, won best picture in 2014. But more than ever, the 2002 event seems like an aberration.
ADRIENNE MOORE (Actress, Orange Is the New Black) I remember watching it, and there was an undertone of, “Y’all threw us a bone so we won’t complain.”
JOE MORTON (Actor, Scandal) I was very happy all of that happened, but I remember the next day I went to the store and the woman behind the counter said, “It was a great night for you people last night.” And I said, “I don’t know about ‘us people,’ but it was a great night for those four individuals.”
KEMP The diversity controversy isn’t just about this year — it’s about a whole bunch of years and movement.
SIDNEY POITIER (Actor) You have to understand what an important moment it was. We are all still looking for fundamental acceptance.
This story first appeared in the March 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Creed’s” Michael B. Jordan is starring in MGM’s second remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
The reboot is in early development stages and has no producer, writer or director attached. Jordan teamed with MGM on “Creed,” which was distributed by Warner Bros. and performed well with $172 million worldwide.
The original “Thomas Crown Affair,” directed by Norman Jewison, was released in 1968. Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway starred in the film in which McQueen’s character masterminded a Boston bank robbery of $2.66 million without meeting any of the four thieves. Dunaway played the insurance investigator who realized that Crown had orchestrated the heist.
Director John McTiernan’s 1999 remake starred Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. The film was a solid hit, grossing $124 million worldwide.
Jordan came to Hollywood’s attention as a drug dealer in “The Wire” and in the indie drama “Fruitvale Station.” He starred as Adonis Creed, son of Apollo Creed, in “Creed.”
Source: Variety
It’s not likely to put a dent in the ratings for the Oscars, but the symbolism can’t be ignored. Russell Simmons’ All Def Movie Awards has struck a deal for a highlights special to air Sunday on the Fusioncabler opposite ABC’s telecast of the 88th annual Academy Awards.
The event produced by Simmons’ All Def Digital venture was born in response to the uproar over this year’s all-white roster of Oscar acting nominees, the second consecutive year that minority actors were left on the sidelines of filmdom’s most coveted kudos. Tony Rock, brother of Oscars host Chris Rock, will emcee the All Def ceremony. Fusion, moreover, is jointly owned by ABC parent Disney and Univision, although Univision is in the process of buying out Disney’s stake in the cable channel that launched in October 2013.
“The All Def Movie Awards are meant to fill a generational and cultural void — just as the MTV Movie Awards did,” said Sanjay Sharma, president-CEO of ADD. “Fusion is the perfect partner to celebrate the un-celebrated, and use comedy to encourage honest dialogue and action.”
The All Def kudos feature a mix of traditional categories for best picture, actor, actress and such along with such distinctive competitions as “Best Helpful White Person” and “Best Black Survivor in a Movie.” The public is invited to vote online on best picture nominees “Beasts of No Nation,” “Chi-raq,” “Concussion,” “Creed,” “Dope” and “Straight Outta Compton.”
ADD is considering the possibility of an All Def TV kudos to recognize small-screen fare.
Fusion, which is available in about 40 million homes, and ADD previously partnered last year on a multimedia project that examined the nation’s juvenile justice system.
Source: Variety
Here is an interview the Humor Mill conducted on the red carpet of The American Black Film Festival Honors Awards that is set to be broadcast on BET with super Producer Will Packer. If you are not familiar, Packer has produced such hit films as Think Like A Man (1 & 2), Ride Along (1 & 2), Straight Outta Compton, and Takers just to name a few. Packer now has several upcoming projects on the table such as a new ABC comedy titled Uncle Buck with Mike Epps, Nia Long, and Tony Roberts, a new remake of the hit cult classic Roots, and a new films titled A Meyers Christmas with David E Talbert.
Packer talks about all of those projects and most importantly, the career path he has in store for comedian Tony Roberts who he cast in the new Uncle Buck series. Since Packer has been one of the instrumental pieces behind Kevin Hart, is Tony Roberts the next comedy rock star?
Watch the interview below;