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It's time for a new Saturday Night Live season to start up, which among other things means we have to deal with who got canned and replaced for the next season. This year the casualties are relatively light, as we're only losing Casey Wilson and Michaela Watkins (and not Bobby Moynihan, apparently, though we should), but it's always sad when these things happen. Remember Jerry Minor? Probably not, but I miss that guy! Anyway, in the wake of this (semi) tragedy, let's review where these ladies may have gone wrong, shall we?
Well, to be honest, I had all these great things to say about the Michael Jackson memorial, but then the sight of his young daughter sobbing into a microphone just completely knocked the snark out of me. Honestly, that poor kid. My god. It's going to take me a while to get over that. But the blog must go on! And since this was the biggest televised event in the history of televised events, let's run down some of the highlights and lowlights of Hollywood's tribute to the biggest star the world has ever known.
As we are all regrettably aware, last week was the worst, in terms of celebrity welfare. We lost Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett, then Michael fricking Jackson, then late night infomercial titan Billy Mays suddenly died yesterday. That is so sad! I don't know why, but it's really freaking me out to think that Billy Mays will never shout me to sleep at 4 AM on a Sunday morning with a new infomercial ever again. What am I going to unwisely buy in the middle of the night now? Pizza? I can't secure a bookshelf to the wall without screws or brackets with a pizza like I can with all that Mighty Putty I bought that one time. Can't do it with Proactive either. See what I mean? Billy Mays was an important part of my life!
As you've no doubt heard by now, Michael Jackson has died. And while he wasn't really a television star, he was pretty much the biggest celebrity on the planet, and did rule the music video landscape for a while, and it just felt weird not to pay any tribute to him on the site. So, we decided to round up a few television stars' Twitter responses to the sudden loss and either praise or make fun of them (usually with typos). A stretch, we know, but grief makes you do crazy things. Tell 'em that it's Human Nature. (I'm so sorry.)Sadly, former Tonight Show fixture Ed McMahon, who played second fiddle to Johnny Carson for 30 years, passed away earlier this week. We weren't sure we could pay tribute to such an icon of television, but luckily, Conan O'Brien did it for us, with a selection of his funniest Tonight Show moments, which you can see below.
Beloved actress Bea Arthur died this weekend, and while most people remember her for her roles in Maude and Golden Girls, I remember her best as Ackmena, the cantina bartender from The Star Wars Holiday Special. The CBS special holds a unique place in the world of Star Wars, because it's quite possibly the most awful piece of Star Wars-related entertainment ever made, and has been condemned by George Lucas himself, who had no involvement with it. Because of this, it has only been aired in its entirety once (in 1978) and has never been officially released on VHS or DVD. So anyone under the age of 30 who can speak with knowledge about Boba Fett's first appearance (in the special's animated segment) or Chewbacca's grandfather's love of holographic pornography has likely seen one of the millions of bootlegs in existence, all copied from the original TV broadcast. And while most of the original Star Wars cast members make brief appearances, Bea Arthur stands out as a symbol of the high caliber of guest stars the producers roped in to appear in this disaster.
After spending the hours since last night's 24 mourning the tragic passing of my beloved silver fox Bill Buchanan, I got to thinking about the other 24 deaths that have made my jaw drop over the years. I'm counting Bill as the first one because it's the most recent, plus I had to limit these to major to majorish characters or we'd be here all day. While it was very sad that girlfriend Debbie drank poison tea on Day 4 and that that kid's dad got sent to nuclear bomb junction by Kumar on Day 6, deaths like that aren't on here because of my short attention span. You understand. And, one last time before we begin: R.I.P. Bill -- no one could work a mock turtleneck quite like you.
This week of nostalgia-filled Late Night with Conan episodes finally concluded last night, and while it may not have been as full of surprises and craziness as I expected, it was a nice and sincere farewell to the show that made us all fall irreversibly in love with Conan O'Brien.
And the cancellations begin! As much as I've been enjoying weecapping My Own Worst Enemy for all you nice people, not to mention watching Christian Slater do some sexy kung fu movies every week, quite often shirtless, after the way the show dropped off in entertainment value since the pilot, I'm fine with it being canceled. At this point, it's unclear whether Monday's episode will be pulled from the schedule, or if NBC will decide to show the remaining five that have been shot. Either way, the series has wrapped for good after shooting only nine episodes, due to crap ratings. Sigh, I will miss seeing Christian Slater every week. Can we work on getting him a better series, Hollywood? Now, on to Lipstick Jungle. Search thousands of recaps and more
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