Lonely Island member 'feels terrible' about letting Tom Hanks down with “SNL” song about his testicles

Lonely Island member 'feels terrible' about letting Tom Hanks down with "SNL" song about his testicles

NBC They didn't have their eye on the ball. One of the better things aboutThe Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcastis that these are guys who recognize that when you work in the comedy mines as long as they have, you don't always find gold. On the most recent episode,Meyersand the Lonely Island comedy trio —Andy Samberg,Akiva Schaffer, andJorma Taccone— reflected on the simple-but-sillyNeil Patrick Harris-led "Doogie Howser Theme"Saturday Night Livedigital short, in which the recognizable synthesizer ditty is blown out with a full rockin' orchestra. Taccone wondered what Harris, who finally had the kid physician role in his rear view, thought of the bit because, he said, "Sometimes I feel like we let people down." Which reminded him ofTom Hanks' testicles. The digital short "My Testicles" from 2006 is, and we say this with great love and respect for all the fine people involved, far from the collective's finest hour. The premise is that Hanks and Samberg are a Right Said Fred-like Europop duo, and their newest song is about how they do not want people to damage their gonads. That's... that's pretty much it. It doesn't even have a catchy melody, which, weirdly, other Lonely Island hits like "Jizz in My Pants" and "Jack Sparrow" kinda do. "I just saw Tommy Hanks recently," Taccone sighed, "and I was just immediately feeling terrible that we let him down so hard with the short." Dana Edelson/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Sign up forEntertainment Weekly's free daily newsletterto get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more. Before the gang could get into it much further, Samberg playfully slipped Taccone a solid diss by asking, "Hey, Jorm, did you break your foot dropping that name so hard?" Meyers clarified that Taccone (beloved to those with true taste as Cha-Ka from the criminally underratedLand of the Lostmovie) saw "Tommy" Hanks because he was watchingForrest Gump. "Oh, I see, he was just watching him on the silver screen," Samberg joked. Amusingly enough, the notion of "letting down" heroes with lackluster sketches has come up before on this podcast. Indeed, in one ofthe earliest episodes, which has even more about "My Testicles," the gang confessed that before they "let down" Hanks, they whiffed it (so they believe) withSteve MartinandAlec Baldwin. "My Testicles" was originally called "Sexy Song," making it an even more direct spoof on the British group Right Said Fred and their global 1991 phenomenon "I'm Too Sexy." The dance track was a No. 1 hit in the US, Australia, and several European countries. Know-it-alls like us love to point out that the little guitar break was actually based on the Jimi Hendrix instrumental "Third Stone From the Sun," though the late American guitarist was not credited as one of the songwriters. (The Hendrix estate and Right Said Fred apparently handled this oneout of court.) Josh Brasted/WireImage To hear the entirety of the latestThe Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcastepisode, which is not completely gonad-focused, click below. Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly

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May 09, 2025

Lonely Island member 'feels terrible' about letting Tom Hanks down with “SNL” song about his testicles

Lonely Island member 'feels terrible' about letting Tom Hanks down with "SNL" song about his testicles NBC They didn't...

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Bravo Clarifies Status of “Real Housewives of New York” Series amid Cancelation Rumors

Bravo Clarifies Status of "Real Housewives of New York" Series amid Cancelation Rumors

Bravo A spokesperson for Bravo has denied the cancellation ofThe Real Housewives of New York City The second-longest-running franchise had a major cast shakeup in 2023 RHONYpremiered in 2008 and recently wrapped its 15th season Bravo is clearing up confusion regarding a rumor that theReal Housewives of New York Cityseries would be going off the air, with no word on when it might return. "Nothing is official. The show hasn't been cancelled," a Bravo spokesperson told PEOPLE Friday, May 9. Gavin Bond/Bravo The statement came afterPage Sixreported the network "decided to takeRHONYoff the air, with 'hopes' to reconfigure it." "We're trying to figure that show out," an insider told the outlet earlier Friday. "We want to figure it out. We think there's still life in it." Cast member Sai De Silva also responded to the rumors. Sai De Silva/Instagram; Jocelyn Prescod/Bravo "I just heard thatRHONYis going off the air. Is that true?" she showed as a received text message in a screenshot posted to her Instagram Stories. The photo also contained a screenshot of an article addressing the report. "It's just fake news," De Silva, 44, added to the post. Her season 14 cast membersJenna Lyons, Jessel Taank, Ubah Hassan, Lizzy Savetsky and Erin Dana Lichy joined the long-running franchise ina 2023 shakeup. Aside from the original,Real Housewives of Orange County, no otherHousewivesentry has run as long as theReal Housewives of New York City.The series was led byBethenny Frankel, Jill Zarin, Alex McCord,Ramona SingerandLuann de Lessepswhen it premiered on March 4, 2008. Mei Tao/Bravo After a tumultuous 13th season that madeRHONYhistory fornot ending with a reunion, there was a recast. Ahead of her season 14 debut, De Silva spoke exclusively to PEOPLE in October 2022 calling the then-upcoming season "a nice fresh start." Earlier in the year, franchise executive producerAndy CohentoldVariety, "You know that we're at a crossroads forRHONY." Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "We've spent a lot of time figuring out where to go. And the plan that we've come up with, I think, is a real gift to the fans," he told the outlet in March 2022. "This is a major casting search. We're going to be casting all over Manhattan and the boroughs." Season 15 of theReal Housewives of New York Cityfinished airing in February. Read the original article onPeople

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May 09, 2025

Bravo Clarifies Status of “Real Housewives of New York” Series amid Cancelation Rumors

Bravo Clarifies Status of "Real Housewives of New York" Series amid Cancelation Rumors Bravo A spokesperson for Bravo has denied t...

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Is the Southern accent fixin' to disappear in parts of the US South?

Is the Southern accent fixin' to disappear in parts of the US South?

Growing up in Atlanta in the 1940s and 1950s, Susan Levine's visits to New York City relatives included being the star of an impromptu novelty show: Her cousin invited over friends and charged 25 cents a pop for them to listen to Levine's Southern accent. Even though they too grew up in Atlanta, Levine's two sons, born more than a quarter century after her, never spoke with the accent that is perhaps the most famous regional dialect in the United States, with its elongated vowels and soft "r" sounds. "My accent is nonexistent," said Ira Levine, her oldest son. "People I work with, and even in school, people didn't believe I was from Atlanta." The Southern accent, which has many variations, is fading in some areas of the South as people migrate to the region from other parts of the U.S. and around the world. A series of research papers published in December documented the diminishment of the regional accent among Black residents of the Atlanta area, white working-class people in the New Orleans area and people who grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. More than 5.8 million people havemoved into the U.S. Southso far in the 2020s, more than four times the combined total of the nation's three other regions. Linguists don't believe mass media has played a significant role in the language change, which tends to start in urban areas and radiate out to more rural places. Late 20th century migration surge affects accents The classical white Southern accent in the Atlanta area and other parts of the urban South peaked with baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 and then dropped off withGen Xersborn between 1965 and 1980 and subsequent generations, in large part because of the tremendous in-migration of people in the second half of the 20th century. It has been replaced among the youngest speakers in the 21st century with a dialect that was first noticed in California in the late 1980s, according to recent research from linguists at the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and Brigham Young University. That dialect, which also was detected in Canada, has become a pan-regional accent as it has spread to other parts of the U.S., including Boston, New York and Michigan, contributing to the diminishment of their regional accents. In Raleigh, North Carolina, the trigger point in the decline of the Southern accent was the opening in 1959 of the Research Triangle Park, a sprawling complex of research and technology firms that attracted tens of thousands of highly educated workers from outside the South. White residents born after 1979, a generation after the Research Triangle's establishment, typically don't talk with a Southern accent, linguist Sean Lundergan wrote in a paper published in December. Often, outsiders wrongly associate a Southern accent with a lack of education, and some younger people may be trying to distance themselves from that stereotype. "Young people today, especially the educated young people, they don't want to sound too much like they are from a specific hometown," said Georgia Tech linguist Lelia Glass, who co-wrote the Atlanta study. "They want to sound more kind of, nonlocal and geographically mobile." Accents change for younger people The Southern dialect among Black people in Atlanta has dropped off in recent decades mainly because of an influx of African Americans from northern U.S. cities in what has been described asthe "Reverse Great Migration." During the Great Migration, from roughly 1910 to 1970, African Americans from the South moved to cities in the North like New York, Detroit and Chicago. Their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have moved back South in large numbers to places like Atlanta during the late 20th and early 21st centuries and are more likely to be college-educated. Researchers found Southern accents among African Americans dropped off withGen Z, or those born between 1997 and 2012, according to a study published in December. The same researchers previously studied Southern accents among white people in Atlanta. Michelle and Richard Beck, Gen Xers living in the Atlanta area, have Southern accents, but it's missing in their two sons born in 1998 and 2001. "I think they speak clearer than I do," Richard Beck, a law enforcement officer, said of his sons. "They don't sound as country as I do when it comes to the Southern drawl." New Orleans 'yat' accent diminished Unlike other accents that have changed because of an influx of new residents, the distinctive, white working-class "yat" accent of New Orleans has declined as many locals left following the devastatingHurricane Katrinain 2005. The accent is distinct from other regional accents in the South and often described as sounding as much like Brooklynese as Southern. The hurricane was a "catastrophic" language change event for New Orleans since it displaced around a quarter million residents in the first year after the storm and brought in tens of thousands of outsiders in the following decade. The diminishment of the "yat" accent is most noticeable in millennials, who were adolescents when Katrina hit, since they were exposed to other ways of speaking during a key time for linguistic development, Virginia Tech sociolinguist Katie Carmichael said in a paper published in December. Cheryl Wilson Lanier, a 64-year-old who grew up in Chalmette, Louisiana, one of the New Orleans suburbs where the accent was most prevalent, worries that part of the region's uniqueness will be lost if the accent disappears. "It's kind of like we're losing our distinct personality," she said. Southern identity changing While it is diminishing in many urban areas, the Southern accent is unlikely to disappear completely because "accents are an incredibly straightforward way of showing other people something about ourselves," said University of Georgia linguist Margaret Renwick, one of the authors of the Atlanta studies. It may instead reflect a change in how younger speakers view Southern identity, with a regional accent not as closely associated with what is considered Southern as in previous generations, and linguistic boundaries less important than other factors, she said. "So young people in the Atlanta area or Raleigh area have a different vision of what life is in the South," Renwick said. "And it's not the same as the one that their parents or grandparents grew up with." ___ Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky:@mikeysid.bsky.social.

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May 09, 2025

Is the Southern accent fixin' to disappear in parts of the US South?

Is the Southern accent fixin' to disappear in parts of the US South? Growing up in Atlanta in the 1940s and 1950s, Susan Levine's vi...

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Denise Alexander, “General Hospital” Star, Dies at 85

Denise Alexander, "General Hospital" Star, Dies at 85

Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/Alamy Denise Alexander has died at the age of 85. The actress was best known for her role as Lesley Webber onGeneral Hospital.Lesley was the mother ofGenie Francis Laura. The actress died on Wednesday, March 5, perVarietyandSoap Opera Digest. PEOPLE reached out to ABC for further comment. General Hospitalshowrunner Frank Valentini announced her death on Friday, May 9, viaX. "I am so very sorry to hear of Denise Alexander's passing. She broke barriers on-screen and off, portraying Dr. Lesley Webber - one of the first female doctors on Daytime Television - for nearly five decades," he wrote. Hecontinued, "It meant so much to have her reprise her role in recent years and I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with her. On behalf of the entire General Hospital family, I extend my heartfelt sympathies to her family, friends, and longtime fans. May she rest in peace." Alexander was born in New York City in 1939. She began working as an actress on the radio at the age of 6. "There was television, there was radio, I did theater, I did everything there was to do, and it seemed natural," she toldWe Love Soapsin 2010. "Now when I look back, I think, 'How lucky was I?' — because a lot of people didn't have those experiences." ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Her father, who worked as an agent, moved the family to Los Angeles, and she continued to work on TV and radio;The Press Courierwrote in 1968 that she had already made 5,000 radio and 500 TV appearances. Her film debut came in 1956'sCrime in the Streets, starring John Cassavetes. On the radio, she appeared on several soaps, but her first on-screen soap opera role came in 1960'sThe Clear Horizon, playing one of the astronauts' daughters. She told We Love Soaps, "There was an older teenager, and I played the younger teenager in the family, just discovering boys and getting into trouble." The show was canceled in 1962. NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Four years later in 1966, she joinedDays of Our Lives. She knew the show's writers, Ted Corday and Betty Corday. They offered her a part without an audition in 1965, before the show premiered. "When you're an actor and you get a call and don't have to audition, it's like a high point in your life, and you're going to remember that," she told We Love Soaps. She turned them down, as she wanted to finish her studies at UCLA. In 1966, they called again with an offer to play Susan Hunter Martin. She wasn't sure she wanted to keep acting, but she trusted them. "I thought I'd give it a try," she told theSchenectady Gazettein 1971 of the role onDays. "Now I'm thankful I did." She said working on a soap opera removed "the barriers of fear, frustration and insecurity you so often" experience on sets where actors don't know where their next job will come from. "No one is worried about not having a place to work the next day," she explained. Universal Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty She stayed with the show until 1973, when she and the network fought over her contract. ABC executives heard about the issue and offered her a massive contract for General Hospital, hoping her star power could help save the show. She took it, and they wrote her in as a new character, originally named Lesley Williams, who was later revealed to be the mother of a then-teenage Genie Francis' Laura. Alexander's performance as Lesley was a hit, and the show ultimately put her in a love triangle with Chris Robinson's Rick Webber and Leslie Charleson's Monica Quartermaine. "When it was Chris and me, Rick and Lesley were the Luke and Laura of their day," Alexander toldWe Love Soaps, referencingthe show's massive super couple. "General Hospitalwent to number one for the first time during the Rick and Lesley and Monica triangle storyline." In 1976, Alexander received a Daytime Emmy nomination for her work. ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Her fans were passionate. "It's not necessarily that soap opera breeds bigger stardom than movies do," she toldThe Hourin 1977. "It's just that the public feels closer to afternoon stars than to the movie types. After all, we are with them daily, and they feel they know us. You'd be surprised how personal my fan mail is — and I don't mean erotic personal. Our lives on the shows supersede their own lives, become part of their daily living." She stayed withGHuntil 1984, leaving because of another contract dispute. The series controversially killed her off;The New York Timesreported that about 75 fans picketed the studio in protest. Jean-Paul Aussenard/WireImage Alexander jumped toAnother World, playing Mary McKinnon, one of the show's matriarchs. But she didn't like commuting from Los Angeles to New York, where the show filmed. She left the series in 1989. Alexander returned toGHin 1996 as Lesley was brought back from the dead. "I was sad when I left the show," she toldWe Love Soaps. "When you have played a character that long and had fun with it, you can feel the fan's sorrow. I missed the character, and it's a fun thing for me she came back to life. It's a character I know, and there's still a few people I know there." Craig Sjodin /American Broadcasting Companies via Getty She appeared onGHon a recurring basis until 2009. She returned in 2013 for the show's 50th anniversary, and in April 2019, she returned to celebrate its 59th anniversary. She returned once more in early 2021. Alexander also appeared on the soap operaSunset Beachfrom 1997 to 1998. In addition to her acting, Alexander was an accomplished photographer. Talking toThe Pittsburgh Pressin 1978 about her hobby, she said, "There is a tendency for a lot of actors and actresses to feel like professional lightweights. The attitude may be stupid, but it is a matter of dressing up in your mother's clothes and playing make-believe. Most of us have an urge to do something more grown-up." Paul Hebert /American Broadcasting Companies via Getty Alexander was married to director and producer, Richard A. Colla, who died in 2021. She worked as a producer on many of his projects. Read the original article onPeople

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May 09, 2025

Denise Alexander, “General Hospital” Star, Dies at 85

Denise Alexander, "General Hospital" Star, Dies at 85 Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch/Alamy Denise Alexander has died at the age of 85....

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King Charles' New Great Seal of the Realm Unveiled in Final Stage of Transition to His Reign

King Charles' New Great Seal of the Realm Unveiled in Final Stage of Transition to His Reign

Press Association via AP (2) King Charles' office is sharing a brand new royal symbol commemorating the last stage in the transition to his reign. After midnight on May 10, local time, Buckingham Palace unveiled King Charles' new Great Seal of the Realm. The engraving on the face of the seal shows the King, 76, seated on a throne, and the reverse depicts the Royal Arms designed by Heraldic artist Timothy Noad. A statement said that this delivery "marks the final stage in the formal transition to His Majesty's reign." It was designed in silver and struck by The Royal Mint, continuing an honor it has held for centuries. It adds to the suite of national symbols produced by the Royal Mint, which makes the U.K.'s coins, including the King's new effigy and coinage. The Great Seal of the Realm is a rich tradition for the sovereign, one that the British royal familytraces backto the reign of Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. The emblem is traditionally fixed to official State documents to indicate royal approval and is esteemed as a symbol of sovereign authority. Press Association via AP Every monarch has a unique seal created especially for them during their reign, and King Charles approved his insignia during a Privy Council meeting this week. Continuing tradition, the King struck the old seal with a hammer during the council meeting to represent that emblem's destruction, but it wasn't thrown away! The symbolically defaced seal was saved for historical record. Press Association via AP Can't get enough of PEOPLE's Royals coverage?Sign up for our free Royals newsletterto get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more! Photos were released of King Charles viewing the new Great Seal of the Realm to accompany the announcement, as well as shots of the seal in production. King Charles acceded to the throne in September 2022 upon the death of his mother,Queen Elizabeth. The late Queen was the longest-serving sovereign in British history upon her death at age 96 and had reigned for a record 70 years, with her son's accession sparking an extensive transition of coins,stamps,ciphersand more to reflect his new reign. Read the original article onPeople

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May 09, 2025

King Charles' New Great Seal of the Realm Unveiled in Final Stage of Transition to His Reign

King Charles' New Great Seal of the Realm Unveiled in Final Stage of Transition to His Reign Press Association via AP (2) King Charles...

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