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“SNL” fans know Mikey Day as the guy who turns up in a bunch of sketches every week, maybe as the father who gets into traffic arguments that require lots of hand gestures and signs or in a longstanding impression of Donald Trump Jr.

Behind the camera, however, Day is increasingly known as someone who can help everyone from Kate McKinnon to Tom Hanks go viral — even if the average viewer of the long-running comedy showcase has no idea of his unique abilities.

Without Day and his writing partner, Streeter Seidell, there would be no David S. Pumpkins, the kooky Halloween figure who even made his way into an animated special at NBC, or Miss Rafferty, the strange woman who is often kidnapped by aliens. Last season, Day helped conceive of a sketch in which he played a man who looked a lot like the famous MTV cartoon figure — and...

The past several years haven’t been too great for Martin Short’s celebrity-interviewing alter-ego Jiminy Glick. After popping up in the canceled variety series Maya & Marty, Jiminy arguably hit an all-time low when he interviewed “Donald Trump,” as played by Jimmy Fallon, on The Tonight Show.

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But the Glick character rebounded in a big way this week, first with a lukewarm roast of Bill Maher, followed by an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! where the portly character hilariously questioned Bill Hader about the death of Willie Mays and life at Diddy’s pool house.

According to Short, he didn’t originally create Glick to parody bad journalists, but rather, to satirize “morons with power.” And to further immerse himself in the character, he donned an understandably controversial fat suit, inspired by a scene in the 1991 comedy Pure Luck, in which his character gets stung by a bee and swells up.

Queen Latifah expresses openness to making a sequel to the 2004 movie Taxi, which she starred in alongside Jimmy Fallon. Despite receiving poor reviews, Taxi was a commercial success, grossing $71.2 million against its $25 million budget. The possibility of Taxi 2 likely depends on Jimmy Fallon's schedule, as he has largely stepped away from scripted performances in recent years.

Queen Latifah has shared that she would consider making a Taxi sequel. The 2004 action-comedy movie starred Latifah as taxi driver Belle Williams, who gets mixed up in a high-octane adventure when she picks up Detective Andrew Washburn (Jimmy Fallon) and ends up helping him solve bank robberies. The movie was critically panned and currently stands at 9% on Rotten Tomatoes and 27 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Queen Latifah recently appeared on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. During their conversation, the topic of Taxi came up and the The Equalizer star marveled...

“I’m old!” moans Selena Gomez, on the verge of laughter. “I’m going to be 29 tomorrow!” Gomez is spending the day before her birthday needling her castmates Steve Martin and Martin Short on Zoom. Before launching into a conversation about their generation-gap comedy “Only Murders in the Building,” she is establishing just how grand the gap is. “Do you remember when you were 29, Steve?” Short asks.

“Another lifetime,” Martin muses in a tone that suggests a familiar rhythm has just clicked on.

“Wondering if the Jerrys were going to win the war,” Short continues, invoking the nickname used for Germans in both World Wars.

It’s a moment of levity for three stars who may be separated by decades but share a readiness to riff. Gomez, who’s been acting since childhood, calls herself a “sponge” around her co-stars, who’ve been cutting up since the 1970s. “I’ll just ask them random questions.

Tony Sokol Jan 17, 2020

Two of the Three Amigos bring true crime home with them looking for the third as Steve Martin and Martin Short reunite.

The True Crime genre may never be the same after Steve Martin and Martin Short search for clues on a new Hulu series. Co-created by Martin and John Hoffman, the as-yet-untitled series comes from This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman and 20th Century Fox TV. Martin and Hoffman will write the series and serve as executive producers, along with Fogelman, Jess Rosenthal and Short. Hulu has given it a straight-to-series order. The series will shoot in New York, where it is set and which is expected to play a character.

Hulu says the comedy will be about “three strangers who share an obsession with true crime and suddenly find themselves wrapped up in one.” They have not said who will be the third, although Chevy Chase...

Hulu had given a straight-to-series order to a serialized comedy starring Steve Martin and Martin Short. The half-hour project, involving true crime and mystery, hails from This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman and 20th Century Fox TV where he is under an overall deal.

The comedy is based on an idea by Martin, who had been pursued by television networks for decades as an actor and as a writer-creator. Aside from co-creating the 1984 comedy series Domestic Life and his 15 hosting turns on Saturday Night Live, Martin has largely stayed away from television for the past five decades. This is his first TV series starring role.

“When you’re lucky enough to have lunch with Steve Martin, and halfway through the meal he says ‘hey, I have an idea for a TV show’ – it’s a pretty good day,” Fogelman told Deadline. “This is as exciting as it gets.”

Co-created and...

With Our Cartoon President, co-creator R.J. Fried tried to do something that had never been done before, producing topical animation that could keep up with the relentless chaos and daily headlines surrounding the Trump administration.

Based on a popular recurring segment from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Showtime’s satirical animated series was conceived as a workplace comedy, where the workplace in question happened to be the White House—a heightened character study of Trump, his family, confidants, flunkies and more. Following conversations between Colbert, Late Show showrunner Chris Licht, producer Matt Lappin, and animator Tim Luecke, late-night veteran Fried was brought in to showrun, at the recommendation of Robert Smigel.

For both Colbert and Fried, it was important to approach the show with one idea in mind. “The thing that Stephen always said is that Donald Trump, for all the horrible things he’s doing, is the hero of his own journey.

Claire Foy already has an Emmy for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II. Will she earn a second statue for her Saturday Night Live hosting debut?

The English actress proved herself a rather excellent host as she presided over the third-to-last episode of 2018. She even got the chance to spoof her award-winning role in a good-natured Netflix ribbing that teased a Crown prequel series.

Following an understated monologue, Foy delivered some serious laughs as both a soldier’s wife and a mafioso mistress-turned-morning show host. But the episode itself was rather uneven, with nearly every decent sketch followed by one best forgotten.

Fox has handed out a straight-to-series order for an animated comedy titled “Bless the Harts,” Variety has learned.

The half-hour series will feature the voices of Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jillian Bell, and Ike Barinholtz. It follows a group of Southerners who are always broke as a joke, and struggling for the American dream of status and wealth. What they don’t realize is that they’re already rich, in friends, family and laughter.

Fox has ordered 13 episodes, with the series set to air during the 2019-2020 season.

The series was created by Emily Spivey, who will also serve as an executive producer alongside Chris Miller and Phil Lord. Spivey recently worked as a writer and co-executive producer on the Lord and Miller Fox series “The Last Man on Earth.” She also previously worked with Rudolph and Wiig, having written for both “Saturday Night Live” and Rudolph’s NBC variety show “Maya & Marty.