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The life of a full-time television actor, while it seems luxurious, is often precarious and risky. Leaning into the world of Hollywood glitz and glam can mean global acclaim and countless monetary rewards, but it can also mean a total lack of job security. With the threat of unemployment looming, the holy grail of success for a young actor is a lead role in a weekly sitcom, especially a successful one. In the best case scenario, a sitcom performer might never have to work again after securing this type of gig. Re-runs and syndicated TV rule the world, and shows like Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and The Office have proven that. The success of these three shows, however, pales in comparison to the broadcast TV dominance of NBC's Seinfeld.

Well, there’s something haunting about hearing a voice that quivers, falters, and trembles—especially when it belongs to a high-profile figure. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s (Rfk) voice, once strong and commanding, now carries a rasp, a tremor that’s impossible to ignore. But behind this unsettling change lies a much deeper story—a story not of weakness but of resilience, a story of a rare neurological condition that affects far more people than we might think.

Rfk Jr. | Credit Instagram @Rfk Jr Podcast

For those who have listened closely to Kennedy Jr. during his public appearances, it’s hard not to notice the strained, often shaky quality of his voice. To some, it might sound like a passing oddity; to others, it’s a reminder of the struggles that Rfk Jr. continues to face. It’s not just a sign of aging or fatigue, but a medical condition called spasmodic dysphonia.

This article contains Spoilers for Severance Season 2.

Events will reach a whole new level of weirdness in Severance Season 2, Episode 3. A teaser clip has Mark S. and Helly R. navigating a shrinking Severed hallway within Lumon Industries.

Mark S. and Helly R. will delve deeper into Lumon Industries' severed floor in Severance Season 2, Episode 3, "Who Is Alive?". The title is an easy callback to Season 1's cliffhanger finale, where Mark's innie discovered his outie's wife is Gemma, a.k.a. Ms. Casey. The show has yet to unravel that mystery thread, hinting she's linked to the Cold Harbor file Mark's innie was tasked to finish. The Season 2 premiere confirmed the original Mdr team is back, at least; the baby goats will also return to tug at heartstrings in Episode 3, per Apple TV.

Related Severance May Have Quietly Spoiled Its Big Villain

One major character from Severance Season 1 may prove to...

Has there ever been a more cursed comic strip than Dilbert? It started out as a drab time-waster for 9-to-5ers, and eventually became a crudely-drawn forum for its creator Scott Adams’ unabashed bigotry.

Even Diblert’s attempts to launch food tie-ins were hopelessly doomed, lest we forget about the “Diberito,” which attempted to cram an “entire recommended daily allowance” of vitamins into a single burrito, resulting in a foul-tasting fart factory that cost Adams “several million dollars.”

But one failed Dilbert endeavor that we know very little about is the live-action TV adaptation from the ‘90s. No, not The Drew Carey Show.

As of writing, no footage of the original Dilbert pilot has ever surfaced (possibly because the only copy was cast into the fires of Mount Doom). The live-action version actually preceded the animated show that lasted for two years on Upn.

According to a 1999 article in The Chicago Tribune,...

Often called "comics' original orange cat," Heathcliff is the surreal alternative to Garfield, routinely breaking with reality to deliver cerebral and strange jokes that have the ability to take even the most savvy readers by surprise. In publication for over forty years now, Heathcliff has grown steadily more unhinged as time has gone on – to the benefit of generations of readers.

Heathcliff is beloved by those who know the comic, but the strip arguably doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves. First published in 1973, at a time when Peanuts was at its peak, and Doonesbury was doing Pulitzer-prize winning work, Heathcliff was created and illustrated by George Gately until 1998; since then, it has been the product of his nephew Peter Gallagher.

While Heathcliff was always odd, it has become especially weird in the Gallagher years, which have grown increasingly absurd, keeping pace with the increasingly surreal style of internet humor.

Nicole Shanahan — the running mate to independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — is warning about a supposed luciferian influence on the national government.

Shanahan is a billionaire anti-vaxxer who, like Rfk Jr., is no stranger to conspiracy theories. But Shanahan has recently embraced language common to the QAnon crowd, as well as to some Christian nationalists, to describe supernatural forces at play in our politics.

The recent dog-whistling started in late May at the Libertarian Party convention. In a written address to the gathering that Shanahan posted to X,...

"Rick and Morty Vol. 2 #8 introduces hilarious pop culture parody of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with Kung Fu Godhood Stink-Stink Otters." "Rick and Morty's version of Dilbert in Council of Ricks #1 is demented and twisted, a Dilbert cartoon on acid." "Rick and Morty #23 features comical 'Terminators' as literal toasters, a hilarious parody of The Terminator franchise."

Rick and Morty is famous for its pop culture references and parodies, with at least one in almost every episode of the Adult Swim animated series. However, with how expansive Rick and Morty’s continuity has become - with adaptations/continuations in comics, anime specials, and video games - fans of the cartoon are only seeing a small portion of Rick and Morty’s hilarious parodies.

In fact, most of the cleverest and really on-the-nose pop culture parodies don’t even exist in the animated show, but rather the hit comic series published by Oni Press.

Matt Groening's and David X. Cohen's animated sci-fi comedy series "Futurama" debuted on March 28, 1999. Only a few months earlier, on January 31, Seth McFarlane's animated sitcom "Family Guy" also premiered. They were both primetime animated sitcoms on the same network, and both were part of a wave of "Simpsons"-adjacent shows that tangled the airwaves for years. "Futurama" had the advantage over all the others, however, as it was co-developed by "Simpsons" creator Groening himself. 1999 also saw the release of the "Dilbert" animated series, "Home Movies" on the Upn, "Mission Hill" on the WB, and the stop-motion series "The PJs," as well as "SpongeBob SquarePants," "Batman Beyond," and "Ed, Edd n Eddy." It was a banner year.

As such, "Futurama" and "Family Guy" were often mentioned as a unit in conversations. Many fans of one watched the other, even though one was a sci-fi slapstick program and the other was a crass,...

Labour action is brewing behind-the-scenes at “Saturday Night Live”.

According to Variety, the post-production editors on the sketch show have voted to strike during the upcoming April 1 episode, unless an agreement is struck with NBCUniversal.

Read More: ‘SNL’ Hilariously Roasts ‘Dilbert’ Cartoonist Scott Adams Over Racist Tirade

Between 12 and 20 editors work on the show and have reportedly vowed to disrupt the show if bargaining sessions remained stalled.

On 4/1, our crew will have either a contract or a picket line at #SNL. pic.twitter.com/LmizNyKamG

— Mpeg (Editors Guild) (@MPEG700) March 9, 2023

The workers, who organized as part of IATSE Local 700 with the Motion Picture Editors Guild, first voiced their intention to negotiate a new contract in October.

Bargaining has taken place, but has apparently stalled over several points, including on the issue of health benefits.

Members of the editing team also asking for high pay rates, which are currently well below industry standards.

Everything seems like it’s going great at Fox Corporation, except for the fact that everything seems like it isn’t.

While speaking at an investor conference Thursday, Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch praised his family’s decision to sell off a large swath of cable and studio assets to Walt Disney Co. in 2019, a move that left Fox significantly smaller and focused largely on live TV, mainly news and sports. He even brought up a reference to the 1979 comedy “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” in which a small combatant unencumbered with armor or muscle is able to survive a colosseum fight after his larger opponent suffers a heart attack.

“We are the little guy,” said Murdoch. “We are going to be the one that survives.”

Many interested observers may not be so sure.

Fox Corp. expects to go to court in April to defend itself in a $1.6 billion defamation...

“Dilbert” is being dumped from dozens of newspapers throughout North America after the comic strip’s creator, Scott Adams, went on a racist rant during a recent podcast when the Trump-supporting cartoonist cited a poll in which 53 per cent of Black Americans agreed with the statement “It’s Ok to be white,” which led Adams to define Black people as “a hate group.”

He continued by declaring, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people, just get the f**k away … because there is no fixing this.”

After numerous newspapers announced they were getting rid of “Dilbert”, Adams double down by complaining about being “cancelled… because I gave some advice everyone agreed with.”

Dilbert has been cancelled from all newspapers,...

The centerpiece of “Saturday Night Live’s” March 4 “Weekend Update” segment was a skewering of “Dilbert” comic creator Scott Adams, who went on a racist rant last month that spurred dozens of newspapers to drop his long-running syndicated cartoon strip.

Michael Che, co-anchor of “Update” with Colin Jost, interviewed the cubicle-dweller himself, the cartoon character Dilbert, in an effort to understand how Adams could have gone so off the rails in suggesting that white people are under threat from Black people.

Over the course of a controversial YouTube video posted Feb. 22, Adams described how he purposely moved to a community with no Black residents and urged white viewers to “get the hell away from Black people.” He also called the Black community a “hate group.”

On “Weekend Update,” Che chided Jost about Adams: “So he lives in your community, huh?”

The portrayal of the pupil-less Dilbert character fell to “SNL” featured player Michael Longfellow,...

Recently, Dilbert creator Scott Adams had his comic strip dropped by its distributor, Andrews McMeel Syndication, and newspapers across the country when he went on a racist rant on his Real Coffee with Scott Adams program.

Adams, who’s morphed into a right-wing conspiracy theorist in recent years, was responding to a poll from Rasmussen Reports about the phrase, “It’s okay to be white,” which has been tied to the white supremacist movement. The cartoonist took issue with how only 53% of Black respondents agreed with the saying, prompting him...

Hasan Minhaj began his week of guest hosting “The Daily Show” on Monday night with a prediction: if a wealth tax existed, people like J.K. Rowling might be more conscious of what they say.

Minhaj’s suggestion came while discussing Scott Adams, the creator of the “Dilbert” comic strip, who recently went on a tirade against Black people on his podcast. As a result, the “Dilbert” comic has been pulled from papers across the country, and Adams has been dropped by his publisher. And really, Minhaj is amazed that Adams caused this headache for himself when he could just “be happy” that he “got rich off doodles.”

“I’ve noticed one thing about a certain type of rich person. When they don’t have problems of their own, they have to just make up problems just to make their lives interesting,” Minhaj joked. “Right? They’re just like, sitting at...

Hundreds of newspapers — including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and the entire USA Today network — have dropped the syndicated comic Dilbert following racist remarks made by the strip’s cartoonist Scott Adams.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer were among the first to drop the office place-based comic Saturday, with editor Chris Quinn writing in a letter to readers, “Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, went on a racist rant this week on his Coffee with Scott Adams online video show, and we will no longer carry...

The syndicator of Dilbert said that they are dropping the comic strip following racist remarks made by its creator, Scott Adams.

The publisher of Adams’ non-Dilbert books also has terminated an upcoming project, according to The Wall Street Journal. Adams wrote on Twitter that the publisher also canceled his backlist.

“Still no disagreement about my point of view. My book agent canceled me too,” Adams wrote.

But newspapers across the country dropped the Dilbert comic after Adams, on his YouTube show, in which he referred to Black Americans a “hate group.” “The best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people.” Adams had been talking about a Rasmussen poll on the use of phrase, “It’s Ok to be white.” According to the poll, 26 of Black Americans disagreed with that statement and another 21 percent said that they were not sure about the statement.

Andrews McMeel Universal, the distributor of Scott Adams‘ Dilbert comic strip, announced Sunday that it was cutting ties with the cartoonist after he referred to people who are Black as members of a “hate group” that white people should “get away” from on his YouTube show Real Coffee with Scott Adams.

Here’s Scott Adams’ racist rant, in case you didn’t already see it. pic.twitter.com/x6NcQRO1U5

— Jon Cooper (@joncoopertweets) February 25, 2023

The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and other major newspapers across the U.S. have publicly stated that they would no longer publish the comic strip.

Adams began by commenting on the results of a poll run by Rasmussen Reports that asked, “Do you agree or disagree with this statement, ‘It’s Ok to be white’?”

The poll found that 72% agreed, including 53% who are Black. About 26% of Black responders disagreed...

The “Morning Joe” team had much to say Monday morning about “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams’ recent racist remarks and the professional fallout he’s experienced in the days since – but it mostly amounts to one sentiment: Good riddance.

“I’ve seen people who have spoken out against cancel culture repeatedly,” co-host Joe Scarborough began, addressing panelist Rev. Al Sharpton. “You and I have actually, as well, on many occasions have spoken out against the wokeness of this cancel culture. But, I mean, this is – even some people who are really intensely fighting cancel culture are saying, ‘This ain’t cancel culture, this is just racism being called out.’ People don’t want to be associated with a guy that says, ‘I’m gonna stay away from Black people.'”

On Wednesday, Adams shared a video in which he ranted about a recent Rasmussen poll that determined only a narrow majority...

Workplace comic strip Dilbert is being pulled from newspapers across the country this week, following creator Scott Adams' statements on his YouTube channel. In comments reacting to a Rasmussen Reports poll in which 53% of black surveyees agreed with the statement, "It's okay to be white," Adams stated that, "if nearly half of all blacks are not okay with white people ... that's a hate group." Adams continued "the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people ... because there's no fixing this, this can't be fixed."

As reported by The Washington Post, newspapers across the country are pulling Dilbert from their pages following Adams' vlog episode 'AI Goes Woke, I Accidentally Joined A Hate Group, Trump, Policing Schools.' The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, and hundreds of papers under the USA Today network are ceasing publication of the comic strip,...

Newspapers across the country are pulling the “Dilbert” cartoon after a podcast racial rant from creator and author Scott Adams.

Adams said on his his Coffee with Scott Adams online video program that white people should “get the hell away from Black people,” labeling Blacks as a “hate group.”

The Dilbert cartoon is a satire on office politics and has been around for more than three decades. It has spawned a media empire featuring dozens of books, a video game, an animated television series, and thousands of coffee cups and related merchandise. In 1997, Adams received the National Cartoonists Society Reuben Award, its highest honor.

Update: On Saturday, Adams suffered a major blow.

Boom! This action by the @Usatoday Network means that racist Scott Adam’s “Dilbert” comic strip will no longer appear in more than 200 newspapers across the country.

On Monday, Fox News host Dan Bongino opened his daily podcast on a topic that seemed like old news: Covid-19 vaccines. He brought them up after first complaining that fellow conservatives had gotten “bogged down” in the story about classified documents seized from President Biden‘s Delaware home and former Washington, D.C., office, “because the left are absolute experts at misdirection,” he said.

Instead, Bongino wanted to focus on what he sees as a growing sense of distrust among those who had received vaccines and boosters. “I’m sensing an enormous cultural shift here,...

Exclusive: Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, the executive producers and showrunners of the breakout comedy Ghosts, have signed a three-year overall deal with CBS Studios.

Ghosts, which Port and Wiseman developed for CBS from the British series of the same name, ranked as the number one new series of the 2021-22 season and ending the year tied with Young Sheldon as the No. 1 broadcast comedy among adults 18-49. Ghosts is also a streaming standout, ranking as the No. 1 comedy on Paramount+, which recently became the show’s exclusive streaming home.

“The entire company has been so supportive of the show, right from the start. CBS took a really big swing, one that most broadcast networks at the time wouldn’t have done. And they marketed the hell out of the show. Seeing a Ghosts ad during a Steelers game was probably my career highlight thus far,” said Port.

“From George Cheeks...

Six top TV casting directors will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with 2022 Emmy Awards contenders. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Tuesday, May 17, at 4:00 p.m. Pt; 7:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Joyce Eng and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.

RSVP today to our entire ongoing Emmy contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

This “Meet the Experts” panel welcomes the following 2022 contenders:

As We See It (Amazon Prime)

Synopsis: Three autistic roommates find a way to live together and strive for similar things in life.

Bio: Cami Patton is an Emmy winner for “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific.” Other...

Paul McGuire, a respected veteran PR executive, is leaving the world of corporate communications after 33 years. Known for his professionalism, honesty and sense of humor, McGuire is not retiring and says he plans to open his own shop, aptly named Last Resort PR.

For the past 10 years, McGuire was at Warner Bros, serving as SVP Worldwide Corporate Communications. He became the studio’s go-to person for crisis management, handling lawsuits, internal investigations and any kind of controversies involving the studio, handling even unseemly matters with grace.

McGuire, a longtime favorite of trade journalists, had been mulling a departure for quite a while and made his decision to leave early this year.

His association with Warner Bros dates back to 2001 when he became EVP Network Communications for the studio’s broadcast network, the WB. He led the net’s communications department until the CW and Upn merged into the CW in...

“Dilbert” creator Scott Adams made a fearful prediction about the 2020 presidential election on Twitter on Wednesday, telling his Republican followers that if Joe Biden is elected to the White House, “there’s a good chance you will be dead within the year.”

“Republicans will be hunted,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet, later adding, “Police will stand down.”

The comic strip creator has been outspoken about his political views both on Twitter and on his blog, where he previously endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016 and accused the Hillary Clinton campaign of stoking “violence against police, violence against Trump supporters, and death threats to bloggers such as me.”

Also Read: 'Dilbert' Creator Scott Adams Says His Upn Show Was Canceled Because He Was White

As actor James Urbaniak noted in response to Adams’ tweets, the threat of violence against Republican voters in response to Democratic electoral victories is a recurring theme in Adams’ political commentary.

Jake Tapper talks to CNN viewers all week, but Sunday is when he knows he can have a longer conversation.

In July of 2016, David Brown, the police chief of Dallas, came to Tapper’s weekend program, “State of the Union” for an exchange about five police officers killed during an act of domestic terrorism. Their interview took place over three segments and nearly 40 minutes.

“One of the gifts of the Sunday show is that you can really talk for an extensive period of time with somebody and do a very long interview,” says Tapper, who engaged in his own sizable discussion with Variety earlier this week. “You don’t have to do 30 guests for three minutes each. You can do one, and I think that the best shows we’ve done are when we really give somebody the time.”

Tapper has been at the helm of “State of the Union” for five years,...

Why so serious? While some filmmakers get their start making cheaply made B-movies or horror films, there’s a new crop of directors emerging who previously cut their teeth making classic comedies. And while most haven’t abandoned their sense of humor entirely, they’ve finally been recognized at both the box office and awards circuit by veering into prestige pictures. The latest example is Todd Phillips, the director of “Joker,” which as the darkly disturbed origin story of the iconic Batman villain is no laughing matter. Here are some other directors who have re-emerged as more than just funny men.

Preston Sturges – Comedy Classic: “The Lady Eve”/Dramatic Turn: “Sullivan’s Travels”

Preston Sturges, one of the signature directors of Old Hollywood, would likely still be admired today based solely on the success of his screwball comedies like “The Great McGinty” and “The Lady Eve.” But he took a...

Comedian and two-time Emmy and Grammy winner Kathy Griffin has signed with Apa for representation in all areas.

Griffin, known for her unfiltered, racy comedy, has won two Primetime Emmy Awards for her hit reality series, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, which aired for six years on Bravo. The show was Emmy- nominated every year of its run, and also garnered the GLAAD Media Award for Best Reality Program. As an actress, Griffin’s credits include a series regular role on NBC’s Suddenly Susan, as well as guest spots on Seinfeld and Law & Order: Svu. She has also lent her voice to animated characters in Shrek Forever After, as well The Simpsons, American Dad and Dilbert.

Griffin had a 10-year run as co-producer and co-host of CNN’s New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper, and also served as co-host of The Billboard Music Awards Live,...

Given that today’s “funnies” aren’t found in the papers so much as they are Twitter threads and listicles, a cartoon like Scott Adams’ workplace satire Dilbert probably isn’t something you’re still following. And, if Miles Wray’s new piece for The Awl is any indication, this is a very good thing. Sure, we knew that…

Read more...

Today, Homes For Our Troops (Hfot), a nonprofit that provides adapted homes for severely injured post-9/11 Veterans, announced its Veterans Day Celebrity campaign lineup.

Homes For Our Troops Veterans Day Celebrity Auction

Cher, George Clooney, Ben Stiller and Jake Tapper are among the notable celebrities bringing their star power together to support Hfot’s noble cause. Offered through eBay for Charity, bidding for this special online event will go live on November 4, 2017 and close on November 14, 2017 at eBay.com/homesforourtroops. 100% of the proceeds will benefit Homes For Our Troops.

The eBay for Charity campaign will give shoppers the opportunity to bid on once-in-a-lifetime experiences, luxury items and autographed memorabilia from various movie stars, musicians, and sports figures, while helping the nonprofit’s mission to build adapted homes for injured Veterans.

To amplify the reach of this auction, the celebrity participants are harnessing their influential networks by rallying the support of close friends,...

What About Bob? is another hilarious Frank Oz film being remade with female stars. Unlike the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels remake starring Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway, the new version of What About Bob? is being made for television, not for theaters. The NBC comedy, titled What About, Barb?, hails from writers and executive producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, who worked on Dilbert and The It Crowd. Below, learn […]

The post NBC Orders Gender-Swapped ‘What About Bob?’ Reboot appeared first on /Film.

Wesley Mead Jan 2, 2017

As the New Year arrives, we salute a few favourite TV episodes depicting this momentous time of year...

New Year is a time for reflection on the past and resolution for the future, an opportunity to consider what you’ve achieved and what you’re yet to work on. It’s also a time to stay up well past midnight, partying the night away with friends and family, potentially embarrassing yourself in the process. That dichotomy ensures that the New Year is fertile ground for television, and the finest comedies and dramatic series use the moment to allow for contemplation amidst the alcoholic excesses. Here are twenty New Year episodes that offer an entertaining take on the aeons-old celebration - from emotional character pieces to geeky genre takes and old-fashioned barrages of seasonal comedy.

See related Iron Fist: see some images from Marvel's next Netflix show Jessica...

Today, composer Danny Elfman turns 62. Elfman is one of the most brilliant and prolific film composers of our time (if not The most), so to celebrate his 62nd birthday, let’s take a look at his greatest hits: •Ever heard of a little show called “The Simpsons”? Well, Danny Elfman composed the music for that show, as well as for all “Simpsons” movies and video games. •”Silver Linings Playbook” is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion. Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, David O’Russell; these are the names credited for this remarkable film. The truth is, “Silver Linings” might have fallen flat if it weren’t for Danny Elfman, who worked as score producer on the greatest film of 2012. •Without the score composed by Danny Elfman, “Desperate Housewives” would be just a bunch of housewives lying to each other, housewives killing people, housewives just being overall desperate. Inject...

Game Over

Showcase Inventory

Created by David Sacks

Produced by Carsey-Werner Productions

Aired on Upn for 1 season (6 episodes, 1 unaired) from March 10 – April 22, 2004

Cast

Patrick Warburton as Rip Smashenburn

Lucy Liu as Raquel Smashenburn

Rachel Dratch as Alice Smashenburn

Elizabeth Daily as Billy Smashenburn

Artie Lange as Turbo

Show Premise

This is a show that, similar to Disney’s Wreck It Ralph, asks the question, “What do video game characters do outside of the video game?” Unlike the film however, this series focuses on an average family of video game characters known as the Smashenburns. The family is made up of father Rip, a Grand Prix race car driver from an unspecified racing game, mother Raquel, a Lara Croft type from an artifact scavenging adventure game, daughter Alice, who is an activist that sometimes goes boy-crazy, son Billy, who is trend-obsessed with becoming a rapper, and lastly Turbo, their talking purple...

I’m a fossil. I know it. Proof positive: I read the daily newspaper. Not on a pad or tablet or my computer, I go out and actually buy the blamed thing. I read it during breakfast. Yes, I still get a certain percentage of my news from the computer and/or Jon Stewart and The Daily Show but I like having the physical newspaper, just as I prefer actual books to an e-reader. If I don’t get to read the paper, I get cranky. Or crankier.

I think I got that from my father, Joel W. Ostrander Sr. He was always the first up in the morning but, during my high school years, I was up second. We’d both be at breakfast and we would read the newspaper. I’d get the sections he was done with; that’s where I learned to be possessive about my newspaper.

The I.T Crowd is something of a British institution. It is a beloved TV comedy from the pen of the incredibly talented Graham Linehan (Father Ted), which follows the slightly surreal, completely hilarious escapades of some technical support workers at a large corporation. Ultimately comprising four 6 episode seasons and a one-off ‘special’, the show aired in the UK from 2006 to 2010, with its single, triumphant return hitting screens to great acclaim in 2013. It helped launch the careers of its three main cast members – Chris O’Dowd (Dinner For Schmucks, Bridesmaids, This Is 40), Richard Ayoade (Submarine, The Watch, The Double) and Katherine Parkinson (Sherlock, The Honourable Woman), and also its main supporting player, Matt Berry (Moon, Snow White And The Huntsman). In the UK, it is widely held as the gold standard for TV comedy, and now, NBC have committed themselves to a Us pilot of the show, from Scrubs creator,...

Comedy writers-exec producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, who are coming off an overall deal at 20th Century Fox TV, have closed a two-year overall pact at CBS TV Studios to develop and supervise projects. Under the 20th TV pact, the duo served as executive producers on the studio’s Fox comedy New Girl and most recently worked on CBS’ The Crazy Ones. Repped by UTA and Myman Greenspan, Port and Wiseman met while they were both assistants on the 1999 Upn animated comedy Dilbert and went on to serve as story editors on NBC’s multi-camera Just Shoot Me. They also worked on NBC’s 1600 Penn as writers and exec producers, were co-exec producers on NBC’s Perfect Couples and consulting producers on The Office.

I devoured anthologies of comics when I was a kid; I burned through every Calvin & Hobbes, Foxtrot, Dilbert, and Far Side collection I could find, and still have a few of them on my shelf. That said, I’m glad that all but one of these has never been adapted into an animated format (even though the 1-panel format of Far Side wouldn’t really work anyways). Just like with any book where the reader creates their own voices for the characters within their head, the same holds true for comic strips. In the case of Dilbert though, it’s not so much that the voices feel kind of off (as Daniel Stern and Chris Elliott do a pretty great job voice acting without ever pulling you out of the story as you think ‘Hey, that’s the Home Alone guy!’). Nor is it that the stories feel different from...

Stephen Amell calls out Russian homophobia, The X Factor cancelled, Woody Allen and Dylan Farrow continue public fight

Congratulations to Ben McKenzie, who has been cast as the young Commissioner Gordon in the Fox drama Gotham. The show won’t feature Batman, but will have a young Bruce Wayne.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana has put hundreds of HIV patients in limbo after a decision to reject all third party checks to help pay premiums for the Affordable Care Act, including checks from the Ryan White Program, which is transitioning patients from Medicare to the Affordable Care Act. Bcbs says it’s just acting on direction from the government o avoid fraud, but the feds say that said guidance was never meant to apply to the Ryan White Care Program. As someone who benefited briefly from the Ryan White Program while I was unemployed, this hits close to home.

The following is a list of all comic books, graphic novels and specialty items that will be available this week and shipped to comic book stores who have placed orders for them.

3D Total Publishing

Sketching From The Imagination An Insight Into Creative Drawing Sc (not verified by Diamond), $29.99

Abrams

Star Wars Frames Hc, $150.00

Abrams Comicarts

Tintin The Art Of Herge Hc, $45.00

Alternative Comics

Look Straight Ahead Gn, $19.95

Amigo Comics

Rogues #5, $3.99

Amp! Comics For Kids

Snoopy Cowabunga Tp (not verified by Diamond), 9.99

Amulet Books

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid Volume 8 Hard Luck Hc, $13.95

Andrews McMeel

Dilbert I Sense A Coldness To Your Mentoring Tp, $12.99

Get Fuzzy The Fuzzy Bunch Tp, $12.99

Antarctic Press

Ghost Cop #1 (Of 3), $3.99

Last Zombie The End #5 (Of 5), $3.99

Steampunk Halloween 2013 #1, $3.50

Arcana Studio

Devil Is Due In Dreary Tp, $12.99

Steam Engines Of Oz #3, $3.99

Steam Engines Of Oz Volume 1 Tp, $19.95

Archie Comic Publications

Afterlife With Archie #1 (Francesco Francavilla 2nd Printing...

In a very competitive situation, NBC has landed Joe & Joe & Jane, a multi-camera comedy from writers-executive producers Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, with a pilot production commitment. I hear the 20th Century Fox TV-produced project also has a series penalty behind it to rank as one of the biggest comedy sales this season. Loosely based on the relationship between Port, Wiseman and Wiseman’s wife, Joe & Joe & Jane centers on a conflict-avoidant children’s book author caught in an ongoing tug of war between two needy, flawed people: his wife and his co-author/ best friend. It’s not about a couple, it’s about a trouple. Last season, another Port/Wiseman comedy with semi-autobiographical roots, spec Rebounding, which was inspired by Port’s real-life experiences, was picked up to pilot by Fox with Steve Levitan executive producing, Jason Winer directing and Will Forte starring. The year before, the duo also...

The Platonic ideal of the comic is precisely balanced between art and words, each as exquisite and precise and lovely as the other. And there might actually be one or two comics that come within spitting distance of that, but not much more: it’s an ideal because it really doesn’t happen. Every comic, like every work of art in any medium, has its strengths and weaknesses, and what good cartoonists do is to work to their strengths.

Scott Meyer’s strength is his writing: he’s witty, writes great dialogue, and has a enviable eye for the situations in his own life that can be turned into comics. His art is serviceable but a bit bland: he rotoscopes (or “traces”) over photographs, reusing the same poses (and, one suspects, the same art) repeatedly, and this means his cast is inherently limited and their poses equally limited. (It’s...

June 3: Game-show host Chuck Barris ("The Gong Show") is 83. Singer Ian Hunter is 73. Singer Eddie Holman is 66. Bassist Too Slim of Riders in the Sky is 64. Singer Suzi Quatro is 62. Singer Deniece Williams is 61. Singer Dan Hill is 58. Actor Scott Valentine ("Family Ties") is 54. Guitarist Kerry King of Slayer is 48. Singer Mike Gordon of Phish is 47. Newsman Anderson Cooper is 45. Country singer Jamie O'Neal is 44. Singers Ariel and Gabriel Hernandez of No Mercy are 41. Actor Vik Sahay ("Chuck") is 41. Actress Lalaine Dupree ("Lizzie McGuire") is 25.

June 4: Actor Bruce Dern is 76. Singer-actress Michelle Phillips (The Mamas and The Papas) is 68. Bassist Danny Brown of The Fixx is 61. Actor Parker Stevenson is 60. Singer El DeBarge is 51. Singer Al B. Sure! is 44. Actor Scott Wolf ("Party of Five") is 44. Ron Huebel ("What to Expect When You're Expecting") is 43. Comedian Horatio Sanz ("Saturday Night Live") is 43. Actor Noah Wyle ("ER") is 41. Bassist...

Let's upgrade the corporate killjoy.

"It Just Sucked the life force out of my body," says Scott Adams of his old cubicle at Pacific Bell. Luckily for him, that ennui inspired the megahit Dilbert comic strip. But for the rest of America's 40 million cube dwellers, there's little to love about the walled-in work space, whose average size has plummeted to just 75 square feet. Big-name design firms such as Knoll and Herman Miller are already working to modernize the '60s classic, adding features that emphasize comfort and collaboration. So we tapped their top minds -- and chose a few of our own -- to imagine a better one. After all, says James Ludwig, head of design at Steelcase, "my work space should reflect the way I work."

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Plant life Those who work near plants -- and,...

As I mentioned in the feature about my trip to Sony Pictures Animation, I am a voice-actor geek. As a result of watching far too many animated movies and television shows when I was younger, names like Mel Blanc, Paul Winchell, Tress MacNeille, John Kassir, Frank Welker, Hank Azaria, Billy West and Peter Cullen have always stuck with me. Certainly deserving of being included on that list is Tom Kenny, who many might know for voicing Spongebob Squarepants and Wheelie and Skids from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but has other amazing credits including Rocko.s Modern Life, Dilbert, The Powerpuff Girls and Dexter.s Laboratory. I.ve been a fan of his work for years now and needless to say, it was an incredible experience when I got to interview him a few weeks ago for Winnie The Pooh. Visiting the Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, CA, myself...

Every week my browser gets cluttered up with tabs for stuff that I stumble across and figure I might be able to use as a Question of the Day or a Wtf Thought for the Day or grist for some other post. And inevitably, I end the week with most of that material unused. But there's no reason to let this stuff go to waste: I can still share it with you, for your amusement, and start the new week with a clean slate. Herewith this week's leftover links, in no particular order: Duke Nukem Forever "Slaps" Up Controversy On Its Portrayal Of Women How to Make a Girl Cooperate After You've Abducted Her [re Duke Nukem Forever] 'Dilbert' Creator Scott Adams Compares Women Asking for Equal Pay to Children Demanding Candy Scott Adams (Dilbert), deleted post Ethical Quandary for Social Sites...

Wonder Woman has been through a lot lately. J. Michael Straczynski — the writer best known for the universally-beloved Spider-Man: One More Day — signed on in the last half of 2010 for a storyline that completely revamped the Amazon princess’ origins. But after the success of Superman: Earth One, the original graphic novel that saw Jms completely break out of his comfort zone by revamping the Last Son of Krypton’s origins, he decided to focus on the sequel and leave Wonder Woman to Phil Hester. But now Hester is leaving, too, unable to resist the temptation of working on the hotly-anticipated 2012 relaunch of Marville for the other guys.

But Diana of Themyscira is in good hands with Dave Sim, the self-publishing legend and creative force behind the eight million-page Cerebus the Aardvark saga, writing and drawing her monthly adventures starting with April’s issue #401. And if that weren’t enough, cartoonist Scott Adams of Dilbert fame,...

A week after posting — and subsequently deleting — a blog post about “men’s rights,” Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams continues to be criticized for comparing society’s treatment of women to the coddling of children and mentally handicapped persons, while lamenting the unfair treatment of men. In his lengthy post (which you can read here), Adams writes:

“The reality is that women are treated differently by society for exactly the same reason that children and the mentally handicapped are treated differently. It’s just easier this way for everyone. You don’t argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn’t eat candy for dinner.

Michael Bolton got voted off Dancing With the Stars the other night. I know, tragedy. But he’s being a little petty about a comment from out judge Bruno Tonioli, who called Bolton’s jive the worst he’d seen in eleven seasons. Bolton wants an apology, but the producers say it would be silly of them to force an apology from a judge for being judgmental. Plus, could you imagine what Simon Cowell would have do if this were precedent?

I’ve never paid a lot of attention to Dave Navarro, at least not after Rockstar: Inxs. But he seems like a good guy – he supports PETA, and he’s written an open letter to gay, bi and transgender teens that shows him to be fond of humans as well as animals. Count me in as a fan of the man, Dave Navarro.

Scott Adams is the master of...

It’s often a bitch to explain new media. None of this stuff makes much sense if you don’t use it—and if you resist it. It’s as irritating as it is opaque. Technology in the way it reduces and simplifies is, let’s face it, vulgar. I usually explain Newser by saying, in more highfalutin language, there’s all this free stuff out there, it’s crazy not to use it (key the harrumphing of the traditional news community, who believe I’m a bastardizer, opportunist, and thief). I wish I could explain it better. I’m grateful that Scott Adams—Dilbert’s creator—does. One can only hope for a dedicated user like Adams who is, he said Tuesday in a blog post, “psychologically addicted” to Newser, feeling a need to check it “twenty times a day,” for reasons that seem to confound him. “Wtf,” he declares.