Burning Q’s: When to Boo & the Walk of Fame Game
What happens at a movie premiere if the movie just totally sucks? Is there awkward silence and booing? Thunder Wolf
People booed at the Berlin premiere of J.Lo’s bomb Bordertown. There was also cackling, but that was by me, when I read about it way back here in my office. Now, onward with your blistering Burning Q’s!
Why did Randy Quaid get a Walk of Fame star in 2003, but three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer didn’t get hers until 2007? More importantly, why did Randy Quaid get a star at all?Jen
The Walk of Fame is a publicity game. A movie studio or, sometimes, a fan club, applies for those plaques on the celebrity’s behalf. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce then meets in secret once a year to consider applications, and much of the selection process is also never disclosed.
Once the honorees are picked, the celebrities or, more likely, their studios or fan clubs, must pay a $25,000 “sponsorship fee” to the chamber before the star can be installed on the Walk of Fame. In other words, a celebrity’s level of achievement can easily be trumped by an ambitiousand richpublicity campaign.
Oh, and Randy Quaid? Got his first Oscar nom 16 years before Pfeiffer.
Do contestants on reality shows (specifically American Idol) receive any payment for, say, the Idol Tour?Jason
Yep.
Are Eric Stein and Jessica Hughbanks, who met last summer on Big Brother 8, still together and maintaining their long-distance relationship? Please update me about this cute couple. Kent
A Big Brother spokeswoman tells me this: “Some people tell me they’re not together, other people tell me they’re together.” That work for you? Yeah, me neither.
Would love to hear your remarkable insight about one of the most fabulous celebrities of all time, Elizabeth Taylor. Your thoughts?Tyra, Montgomeryville, Pa.
Wait, she’s that older version of Jennifer Lopez and Angelina Jolie, right? The one in the muumuus? Why do you ask? Has she adopted a Zimbabwean refugee child and tattooed its name on one of her million-dollar ankles as she poses in her cream-and-gold-leafed baby nursery for People while her man performs his feverishly rehearsed adoring gaze, terrified that he might get another shock stick to his eardrum if he fails? No? Then I have nothing to add.
Oh, and be my fan on Facebook, ’kay?
The Not Ready for Prime Time Players who made it to the big time: 1986-2006
As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies — Ever with numbers 20-11, we here at TV are also looking at television comedy, but with a slightly skewed difference. Last week, we took a look at the Saturday Night Live cast members from 1975-1985 that made it to the big time. This week, we focus on the SNL casts from 1986 to 2006.
Aside from the first season of Lorne Michaels’ return to the show he created and the 1994-95 season, this period was a very successful one for SNL, introducing a slew of characters and sketches that fans of the show still talk about today. It also produced a good number of Not Ready for Prime-Time Players who went on to bigger things in television and the movies (and some theater as well). Sometimes those bigger things were movies or television shows based on characters developed on SNL.
We here at TV have compiled a fairly lengthy list of those SNL performers who went onto bigger and better things after the ending credits rolled. Like last week a few caveats were added to provide an accurate list. First, the cast member could not have been successful prior to being on SNL. So, members like Randy Quaid, Anthony Michael Hall, Chris Elliott, Michael McKean and even Colin Quinn are all out. Second, they needed to hit it BIG somewhere during or after their SNL career — not just appear once in awhile in a cameo appearance in a B-movie or second-rate television show. Third, even though there were a ton of writers and behind-the-scenes people out there who went on to bigger things after SNL, I focused this list on those who appeared as full-time cast members or featured players. So, no Conan O’Brien on this list.
So, with all of that in mind…
1985-1990: Like Dick Ebersol the year before, Lorne Michaels packed his 1985-86 cast with known and unknown performers during his first year back. While Ebersol’s cast of bigwigs like Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal and Martin Short was a critical and fan success, Michaels’ cast of bigwigs like Anthony Michael Hall, Randy Quaid, and Robert Downey Jr. didn’t fare as well. In fact, NBC was ready to cancel the show at the end of 1986. To redeem himself Michaels went back to his old ways and filled the 1986-87 cast with comedy unknowns. The resulting cast, along with better writing, started a resurgence of the show that lasted well into the 90’s and made stars of many of the cast.
Dennis Miller — One of only three cast members to remain after the 1986 season ended (the other two were Nora Dunn and Jon Lovitz), Miller’s claim to fame was his stint as anchor on Weekend Update, which he used to deliver his hilarious, yet sometimes metaphorically confusing, take on the week’s news. After he left SNL in 1991 he took his style of comedy and made it successful with Dennis Miller Live in 1994. The 30-minute HBO talk show aired 215 episodes and lasted until 2002. During his stint on the talk show Dennis also became a color commentator for ABC’s Monday Night Football, which lasted from 2000 to 2002. Lately he has been seen hosting game shows such as Grand Slam and the recently canceled Amne$ia, and can also be heard via your local radio station (and on the web) on The Dennis Miller Show.
Damon Wayans — Damon is more famous for something he shouldn’t have done on SNL than what he had done on the show during his short time there as a featured player. After appearing as a flamboyant gay cop in a scene that required him to play a straight cop, Wayans was let go from the show. This didn’t stop him from continuing his career in sketch comedy, though. Four years later he joined several members of his family in the FOX sketch comedy series In Living Color. It was there that he established such famous characters as Homey D. Clown, Tom Brothers and Blaine Edwards. He also starred in a number of fairly successful movies such as The Last Boy Scout (with Bruce Willis), Mo’ Money, Blankman, and Major Payne. He returned to network television in 2001 with the ABC sitcom My Wife and Kids, which lasted until 2005.
Phil Hartman — Out of all of the cast members from SNL during the late-80s and early-90s Phil Hartman is probably one of the most loved and most missed. In addition to portraying characters such as Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton on SNL Hartman was voicing characters attorney Lionel Hutz an Troy McClure on The Simpsons. After leaving Saturday Night in 1994, Hartman remained in television and took a role in the NBC sitcom NewsRadio, where he played newsman Bill McNeal. He remained on the show until his untimely death on 1998 at the hand of his wife.
Mike Myers — One of the most successful SNL cast members to come out of the 1986-1990 grouping. Joining as a featured player in the winter of 1989, Myers created such memorable characters as Dieter, Linda Richman and Wayne Campbell (actually, Wayne evolved from another character Myers created during his days at the CBC). It was the character of Wayne, along with Dana Carvey’s Garth Algar, that catapulted Myers into the world of movies with the full-length motion picture version of Wayne’s World. After that came a series of movie successes with both the Austin Powers and Shrek trilogies. He also dabbled in non-comedic film roles, like Steve Rubell, the owner of Studio 54, in the movie 54. This year we can look for Myers as a new character in the movie The Love Guru.
Ben Stiller — I kid you not! I had to double-check two sources, because Wikipedia can be somewhat inaccurate at times, but it turns out that Stiller was a featured player on SNL starting in the winter of 1989. Granted, it was only for five episodes, but he was a featured player nonetheless. We know what happened to Ben after that, don’t we? The Ben Stiller Show on FOX; directing the movies Reality Bites, The Cable Guy, and Zoolander; starring in a number of ’nice guy’ films like Flirting With Disaster, There’s Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Keeping the Faith, Madagascar, and Night at the Museum. The last two have sequels planned for this year and 2009.
1990-1995: Of the seven new cast members that joined SNL for the 1990-91 season, five of them went on to the big time in either movies or television. They, along with the cast members that remained from the 1986-1990 seasons, would help the show reach one of its more creative and critical peaks. Yet, as they say, what goes up must come down. And, as the show reached the middle of the 1990s both fans and critics were once again panning the program, setting the stage (literally) for a brand new cast.
Chris Farley — Like his predecessor John Belushi, Chris Farley’s career and life after SNL ended all too soon. After creating such Saturday Night favorites as motivational speaker Matt Foley, Superfan Todd O’Conner, one of the “Gap Girls” and a Chippendale’s dancer, Farley moved over to the big screen. His first major film roles, Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, paired Farley with fellow cast member David Spade. After that he appeared alone in Beverly Hills Ninja. His last projects, Almost Heroes and Dirty Work were completed after Farley’s untimely death at the end of 1997.
Adam Sandler — For some, Sandler is one of the greatest comedy actors of our generation. For others, his baby-voice makes their heads explode. Either way, there’s no doubt that Adam has had a very successful career. After leaving SNL at the end of the 1994-95 season, Sandler jumped right into movies and had an immediate hit with Billy Madison. After that he starred in Happy Gilmore and Bulletproof. In 1998 he starred in two of his biggest movies — The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy. Since then, in addition to more comedic fare like Big Daddy and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Sandler has appeared in a number of dramatic roles. His first, Punch-Drunk Love, provided him with a Golden Globe nomination. His most recent dramatic roles have been in Spanglish, Click, and Reign Over Me.
Rob Schneider — I had to think about this one for a bit. Sure, he hasn’t been the star like Adam Sandler has been in the movies, but Rob Schneider has had enough success, and steady work, that he could be considered a cast member that hit it big. It’s not like he was cast in B-movies once he left SNL. He had some pretty decent parts in movies like Judge Dredd and Demolition Man (both starring Sylvester Stallone) and Down Periscope. Then there was his breakout hit, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, followed by The Animal. Plus, add in all of his appearances in the various Adam Sandler films. On the television side, Schneider had sitcom success on Men Behaving Badly. Unfortunately, that success was short lived after two of the co-stars left after the first season.
David Spade — While he made his mark fairly quickly in the movies co-starring with Chris Farley in Tommy Boy and Black Sheep, Spade actually made more of an impression in television once he left SNL. In 1997 he joined the cast of the NBC sitcom Just Shoot Me!, where he remained for seven seasons. After that he joined the cast of 8 Simple Rules after John Ritter’s untimely death. Currently, he stars in the CBS sitcom Rules of Engagement.
Chris Rock — While Rock has had his share of movie roles during and after his time on SNL, his claim to fame has been his numerous HBO comedy specials. His second special, Bring the Pain, won him two Emmy Awards while his commentary on the 1996 presidential race for Politically Incorrect (then on Comedy Central) garnered him a nomination. He won a third Emmy for his HBO talk show The Chris Rock Show. Since 2005 he has been the narrator and executive producer of Everybody Hates Chris.
1995-2006: Despite the amount of talent that crossed the stage of Studio 8H between 1995 and 2006 only a few of the Not Ready for Prime-Time Players of that era really made it to the big time. One possibility was that they were so burnt out after spending many years on the show — a good many of the cast members remained on the show for 7 seasons or more. Another possibility was, even though they had the talent, there was never a strong platform for them to grab onto once they left the show.
Will Ferrell — Out of the three SNL cast members who made it big out of this era I think Will Ferrell is the one who has had the longest streak of big success. After portraying characters on Saturday Night like George W. Bush, Gene Frenkle and Alex Trebek, Ferrell jumped right into the movies with A Night at the Roxbury in 1998, which wasn’t the success it was supposed to be. He really hit it big after he left SNL with movies like Old School, Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Blades of Glory. In 2006 audiences were introduced to Ferrell’s dramatic side in the movie Stranger Than Fiction.
Tina Fey — While Will Ferrell has had the box office and fan success, I think Tina Fey has had more critical and award winning success during and after her time at SNL. Becoming the first female head writer on the show, Fey struck it big even before she left the show by writing and co-starring in the film Mean Girls. In 2006 Tina became the star and executive producer of 30 Rock, one of the two ’inside the sketch show’ shows on the network schedule — the other being Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. While Studio 60 faltered, 30 Rock became a success winning an Emmy Award for Best Comedy as well as a Peabody Award. On Friday, Fey will join SNL cast member Amy Poehler in the movie Baby Mama.
Tracy Morgan — If your thinking of The Tracy Morgan Show as the venue that rocketed the SNL cast member to stardom, think again. It has been his role as Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock that escalated him to big time status.
30 Rock: MILF Island - VIDEO
(S02E11) “When you Google ’class A moron’, my name comes up first now…so step aside Randy Quaid.” - Jack
Is this a happy day or what? No more writers strike, no more hiatus, no more repeats, no more Thursday nights spent crying, wrapped up in a blanket on the couch, eating tons of chocolate, depressed that new NBC Thursday comedies are nowhere on the horizon. Sorry, I may have just told you a little too much information there.
Anyway, 30 Rock is back! It’s almost as if this was the season opener, but it’s actually the 11th episode of the season (four more new episodes to follow this season), and it features a call back to a joke in an episode from earlier this season.
This is actually an ambitious episode, because the main plot (Liz trying to keep Jack from finding out that she was the one who accidentally told The New York Post’s Page Six that he was a “class A moron” and that he could “eat my poo”) runs parallel to the actions on the season finale of the NBC reality hit MILF Island (I’m not going to spell it out for you but you probably know what it is), which the cast is watching on TV screens around the NBC studios. All except Pete, that is, in a weird plot we’ve seen used on many sitcoms: he gets his arm caught in a vending machine trying to get a free Soy Joy bar (they’re also the sponsor for MILF Island: “Sponsored by Soy Joy - Fortified with Optimism!”).
Of course, Liz tries to blame several of the other writers for the quote, but Kenneth actually heard her say it in the elevator to the reporter. Why didn’t she notice Kenneth was there? He was standing behind the life-sized cardboard cutout of a wrestler (at least I’m assuming it was a wrestler - I didn’t get a good look at the pic and I’m not up on my wrestling-type sports). I was actually a little disappointed in this plot. It had many funny moments, but I’m sure you guessed that Jack knew all along that Liz was the guilty party. You knew that the whole “stuttering in Massachusetts” story was a ploy to make Liz eventually confess her sin. But it was interesting to hear that Liz was born with a deformed extra foot coming out the side of one of her regular feet and that doctors think she might have eaten her twin before she was born. That has NBC reality show written all over it.
Choice Quotes:
“Tabora and Shana are facing off in Erection Cove!” - Jack, describing a MILF Island scene
“Shakespeare never had a confessional shower sponsored by Dove Pro-Age.” - Liz, about MILF Island
“Eating bugs for tampons?” - Liz about one of MILF Island’s challenges
“We no longer want to hit that. Get the hell off of MILF Island.” - the show’s catch phrase
“Your eyes look like my uncle’s after he drinks from the air conditioner.” - Kenneth, to an angry Liz
“Chocolate…chocolate…chocolate…ack!” - Liz, copied by the new Cathy comic strip
“Soccer moms, NASCAR dad, white pervs, and the obese.” - Jack, describing the demo that MILF Island appeals to
Debora (not to be confused with Deborah) wins MILF Island, and as her punishment for the quote, Liz has to write a new show for her. Jack is thinking about a talk show (and did you notice the credit at the end of MILF Island? “Produced by Jack Donaghy and Jerry Seinfeld”).
I don’t know if this episode would be in the top 10 of 30 Rock episodes so far, but even an 8 out of 10 for 30 Rock is a 10 out of 10 for any other sitcom on the air. I’m not even sure if that makes any sense, but math was never my strong subject.
Oh, and about that quote at the beginning. I did indeed Google “class A moron,” and Jack is actually the second result.
Amber Benson Biography
Pretty blonde performer Amber Benson racked up numerous film and television credits before rising to fame on the popular supernatural series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, Benson moved with her family to Los Angeles at age fourteen in 1991. By 1993 she had made the first of three “Jack Reed” TV-movies, “Jack Reed: Badge of Honor”, appearing as the daughter of the titular Chicago cop in this NBC entry as well as its 1994 and 1996 follow-ups. 1993 also saw the actress make her big-screen debut with featured roles in the teen thriller “The Crush” and Steven Soderbergh’s coming-of-age drama “King of the Hill”. Her relatively small but memorable parts in these very different features helped to launch the young performer’s career.
The following year she was featured in Anthony Drazan’s period drama “Imaginary Crimes” and had a pivotal supporting role in the social satire “S.F.W.”. Playing determined, pure-hearted and somewhat wise characters seemed to come easy to Benson, who brought a palpable intelligence to her powerful performances. She essayed the charmingly innocent daughter of divorced dad Randy Quaid in “Bye Bye, Love” (1995) and guest starred on an episode of the Fox series “Partners” the following year. Though her role as ‘Stoned Girl’ in the teen comedy “Can’t Hardly Wait” was drastically cut to earn a PG-13 rating, Benson soon became a familiar presence to the film’s target audience when she began appearing on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (The WB) the following year. Her 1999-2001 recurring role as the good witch who becomes more than just a friend to fellow enchantress Willow (Alyson Hannigan) saw the actress taking on controversial topics and earning the esteem of the notoriously hard-to-please “Buffy” fan base. When the series moved to UPN in 2001, Benson’s role was upgraded to that of a regular.
In connection with “Buffy”, the actress sought to broaden the scope of her talents, co-writing with novelist Christopher Golden the comic book WannaBlessedBe, based on her character on the supernatural series. Back on the big screen, Benson was featured in the festival-screened, controversy-plagued “Don’s Plum” (2001; filmed 1995-96) which was barred from domestic release as per a legal agreement mandated by the film’s stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, who allege the project was misrepresented. Taking over her own project, Benson proved a multitalented filmmaker and avid do-it-yourselfer as writer, producer, director and prime financer of “Chance” (lensed 2001), a dark comedy in which she also starred.