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Posts Tagged ‘Oprah’

Television

The 10 Best ’30 Rock’ Guest Appearances

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First, the bad news: tonight’s episode of 30 Rock is a rerun. The good news came earlier this week, on Tom Hanks’s Twitter feed: “RadioMan delivers msg from T.Fey. Result? I’m on 30 Rock! Thanks, RMan Hanx.” Translation: “RadioMan” is Craig Castaldo, a homeless man who frequently pops up in New York-filmed TV shows and films, and is often found outside of David Letterman’s studio. Fey posed for a picture with Castaldo last week, and he apparently somehow brokered the deal for Hanks to make a 30 Rock guest appearance.

30 Rock fans often split on the show’s frequent use of guest stars; some say they’re too reliant on them, while others insist that Fey and her writing staff often find ingenious ways for celebrities to send up their own images or bring their comedic gifts to off-the-wall characters. We lean towards the latter point-of-view (with occasional exceptions — even we weren’t nuts about Jennifer Aniston’s episode). So with an eye on the upcoming Tom Hanks cameo, we took a look back at some of our favorite 30 Rock guest appearances. In the interest of brevity, we restricted ourselves to folks who only appeared once, so you’ll not find recurring favorites like Will Arnett’s Devon Banks, Jon Hamm’s Dr. Drew Baird, or Isabella Rosellini’s Biana Donaghy (“You know I love my big beef ‘n’ cheddar!”). Check out our picks after the jump, and add your favorites in the comments.

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Pop Culture

On My Own: Sidekicks Turned Heroes

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It sucks to be a sidekick. You do all the work, and somebody else gets all the glory. Even if you have a great situation, or a weird semi-homosexual relationship going on with your hero (we’re looking at you, Watson), it’s no life for a true go-getter. After reading this New York Times article on Gayle King’s escape from sidekick-land, we decided to take a look at all the sidekicks who have battled their way to the top, transitioning into their own heroes. Hopefully, any currently oppressed and depressed sidekicks out there will take this list as inspiration to be the heroes of their own lives — or, er, stories, at least. Click through for our list of now-famous sidekicks.

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Web

This Week in Buzz

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Editor’s note: Each Friday, our internet-savvy friends over at BuzzFeed curate a post for us that’s filled with links to some of their favorite items on the web that week. Enjoy!

This week at BuzzFeed, we were shocked when Oprah revealed that she has a half-sister in Wisconsin that no one knew about. We were thoroughly entertained by the President’s State of the Union address — or rather some of the interesting faces that it inspired. We took a look at what the posters for this year’s Oscar-nominated films would look like if they told the truth. We found 68 photos of Olivia Munn being attractive; 12 things you probably didn’t know about Mean Girls; and the top ingredients in Taco Bell’s mystery meat. We played with some Arrested Development paper dolls. We listened to the creepiest, most disturbing song ever. Lastly, the animated Confessions of a Disney Employee reassured us that it’s okay that we’ve never been.

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

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1. Fitness legend Jack LaLanne died yesterday at the age of 96. According to his New York Times obit, “At 60 he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat. At 70, handcuffed and shackled again, he towed 70 boats, carrying a total of 70 people, a mile and a half through Long Beach Harbor.”

2. The Razzie nominations were announced this morning, and The Last Airbender and Twilight: Eclipse lead the pack with nine nods each. Also of note: There’s a special category this year for “Worst Eye-Gouging Mis-Use of 3-D.” [via Vulture]

3. Kevin Smith, Adam Carolla, and Kevin Pollak are joining forces for a nightly online video series called AOL Late Night. The show will contain highlights from the trio’s existing podcasts: The Adam Carolla Show, Kevin Pollack’s Chat Show, and Smith’s SModcast. [via EW]

4. While watching the Bears game, Kanye tweeted that he’s dropping a new studio album this summer. He also confirmed that the video for “All Of The Lights” is due out next week, and Watch The Throne, in two months. [via Prefix Mag]

5. Today Oprah has said that she’s revealing “a major family secret” on her show. Lots of people thought it had something to do with her father, but her unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley says that she will be reunited with her half-sister, Bunny, who was given up for adoption as a baby. [via Perez]

Bonus link: Mark Twain, Now a Career for the Mustachioed

Books

Oprah’s Top Literary Scandals

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Oprah’s name signifies much more than the famous talk show host herself — it stands for character: lifting oneself up, striving for human decency, searching for philanthropy and constantly improving one’s self-awareness. Oprah often guides us “to live our best life” by showing us… what to purchase. In fact, the New York Times has called her “the most powerful endorsement in pop culture.” And, the pressure for Oprah’s “picks” to perform is most apparent when she reaches out to the literary world. According to Business Week, “Publishers estimate that her power to sell a book is anywhere from 20 to 100 times that of any other media personality.” With those odds and that much personal pull, something is bound to go awry. Here are a few titles she touched that turned to gold, but not without a dash of drama and controversy along the way.

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Celebrity

Celebs, They’re Geeks Like Us: Libraries of the Rich and Famous

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Celebrities may live glamorous lives, but at the end of the day, we’d like to think that a good number of them curl up at home with a good book. And that’s why it’s so gratifying to learn that a completely unexpected famous person possesses a ton of books. We gained newfound respect for Karl Lagerfeld, for instance, when the Observer published a photo of his enormous (and, of course, gorgeous) home library. Curious to find out which other celebrities are bookworms behind closed doors, we rounded up ten photos of famous bookshelves, from Woody Allen and Oprah to Greta Garbo and Michael Jackson.

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News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

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1. Public service announcement: Despite what you may have heard, Owen Wilson and Eddie Murphy are both still alive. [via NY Daily News]

2. Defense attorneys for Dr. Conrad Murray, who stands accused of Michael Jackson‘s murder, will argue that the King of Pop committed suicide, according to prosecutors on the case. [via AP]

3. Grant McCune, the special effects artist who created the shark in Jaws and won an Academy Award for his work on Star Wars, has died of pancreatic cancer at age 67. The model maker also contributed to other geek classics, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Spaceballs, and Caddyshack. [via Digital Spy]

4. Chris Brown and Raz B are having a Twitter war over — sigh — Rihanna. Following a string of tweets praising Rihanna, Raz B wrote, “I’m just sittin here thinking how can n—as like [Eric Benet] and [Chris Brown] disrespect women as intelligent as Halle Berry, Rihanna.” Classy as ever, Brown responded with some homophobia and then freaked out over the suggestion that he’s homophobic. [via MTV]

5. When Oprah Winfrey‘s OWN network debuts on Saturday, it will be available in 85 million homes. That’s five million more than its predecessor, Discovery Health, but 15 million less than the original Discovery Channel. [via WSJ]

Bonus link: Muppets with People Eyes

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

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1. The 2011 Golden Globes nominations have been announced, and Black Swan, Glee, The Social Network, and The Kids Are All Right all scored multiple nods, while The King’s Speech leads the pack with seven. View the full list here.

2. Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter — who play a brother and sister on Showtime’s Dexter, which has always kind of creeped us out — are filing for divorce after nearly two years of marriage. [via EW]

3. George Clinton says that his signature was forged to clear a sample for two tracks by the Black Eyed Peas, and is now seeking millions in damages for copyright infringement. [via Guardian]

4. Ethan Hawke is in talks to star in a new show on FOX. “Described as a high octane procedural, Exit Strategy centers on a team of five experts associated with the CIA who are deployed when a CIA operation goes bad to extract the ones involved before it’s too late. Hawke would play the team leader, the architect of exit strategy who also empathizes with the people they extract and would rather die than let them get hurt. Each episode would tackle a different crisis in a different country.” [via Deadline]

5. After an attempt to make a grand entrance via harness went bad, a bleeding Hugh Jackman was removed from the set of Oprah in Australia earlier today. But he’s OK! He later returned and carried on with his scheduled interview segment. [via THR]

Bonus link: Top 25 Gawker Passwords

Television

Oprah Tells Barbara Walters She’s Not Gay

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Tomorrow night before ABC airs Barbara Walters’ “Most Fascinating People of the Year” special (which we’ve already discussed here) they’re running her hour-long sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. According to Walters, it’s probably the most personal interview with O that you’ve ever seen. They even tackle those longtime Oprah/Gayle relationship rumors: “I’m not a lesbian,” says Oprah. “I’m not even kind of a lesbian. And the reason why it irritates me is because it means that somebody must think I’m lying. That’s number one. Number two, why would you want to hide it? That is not the way I run my life.” Click through to check out the teaser clip after the jump, but be warned: there are Oprah tears.

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Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

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Today at Flavorpill, we wished The Atlantic a happy 153rd birthday. We decided that only Oprah was powerful enough to reunite the daytime talk dream team of Ricki Lake, Phil Donahue, Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Montel Williams. We were depressed by how little today’s teens know about drugs. Or correct grammar, for that matter. We wondered if growing up on a street named after a Super Mario video game character would make you a geek for life. We looked at the five best and the five worst movie posters of 2010. We were kind of sad to hear that Gene Shalit is retiring from the Today Show after almost 40 years of making horrible puns about movies. We were unimpressed by Canada’s answer to The Jersey Shore. We met 18 dogs that look like Chewbacca. We loved the attention to detail in this Kill Bill-inspired cake. And finally, we couldn’t get the Hungry Hungry Hippos jingle out of our heads. And now it’s in yours!

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