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    Seth Meyers on Elon Musk’s US takeover: ‘A billionaire coup’

    Late-night hosts spoke about the damage being caused by Donald Trump’s new right-hand man as well as the president’s unconvincing attempts to show off his Christian side.Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers started by saying that despite the recent election, “the real president is Elon Musk”, who has shown he is in control despite being “very unpopular” with voters.He said the billionaire has been launching a “de facto takeover of the federal government” with his “team of unaccountable hatchet men”.Recent polls have shown that Americans are unhappy with Musk’s increased control but Trump has been defending him during typically hard-to-understand rambles, resembling “a real-time version of Mad Libs”.Musk has been frantically figuring out what to keep and what to cut within the government, with Meyers showing that he ultimately wants a “wholesale removal of regulations”.Meyers called it “a billionaire coup”.Musk has been busy dismantling USAid, with elected senators recently being blocked from entering the agency’s headquarters. “I’d be so embarrassed if I was a senator and I couldn’t enter the building based on something called Doge,” he said.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also criticised Musk and his “crew of teenage mutant incels” who are busy trying to “tear apart 250 years of democracy like seagulls fighting over a bag of french fries”.They are trying to fire many people within the federal government and part of that has seen the White House ordering the CIA to send an unclassified email with the names of all employees hired over the last two years.Colbert calmed viewers by saying that according to an official, the people would be protected as the list only included the first names and first initial of the last name. “Well then we’re fine,” he said. “That is an uncrackable code.”He then joked that no one would be able to figure out who he was targeting if he said that it would be funny and good for the US if “obvious fascist Elon M got his junk stuck in a four slice toaster”.Colbert then said “Trump’s goons are also doing increasingly useless things just to scour the government clean of any trace of DEI” including taking down any reference to diversity or inclusion on walls or desks. “No federal agency is safe from the anti-compassion cyberdorks,” he said.They have also been ensuring that bathroom signs comply with Trump’s ruling. “What a waste of time,” he said. “The only bathroom signs that should be taken down are the confusing ones in theme restaurants.”He then continued by saying that “it’s not all bad news, some of it is also scary” as he spoke about a second bird flu strain that has now infected cattle. “This can mean only one thing: the birds are having sex with the cows,” he said. “Please no one tell the bees, they’re going to feel so betrayed.”Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host spoke about this weekend’s Super Bowl, “also known as ‘get drunk at a friend of a friend’s weird living room’ evening”.Kendrick Lamar is the half-time performer, which means that it will lead to the “largest group of people ever to see anyone call Drake a bitch ever”.Trump will be in attendance and Kimmel joked that “he said he’s gonna let Elon pick the winner this year”.This week also saw the president attend the National Prayer Breakfast because he “doesn’t like it when people worship anyone but him”.He added that “of all the unbelievable things about Donald Trump, religious people believing he is also a religious person might be the toughest one to understand”.Kimmel said that if Trump met Jesus, “he’d call him a loser, he’d tell him to get a haircut and put a shirt on”.He also said the only reason he is going to the Super Bowl is because “he can’t stand to have even one day when he’s on TV less than Taylor Swift”. More

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    Kris Jenner Puts the ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ House Up for Sale

    The six-bedroom home in Los Angeles, where the family’s reality TV show was filmed for more than a decade, is being listed for $13.5 million.A slice of television history is hitting the market: Kris Jenner, momager and matriarch of the Kardashian family, is selling the clan’s longtime family home. Viewers who have kept up with the lives of Kim, Kylie, Kendall, Kourtney and Khloe (and sometimes Rob) will instantly recognize its iconic foyer with its black-and-white checkered floor; the backyard that hosted their extravagant Christmas parties; and the kitchen table where so many La Scala chopped salads were consumed over more than a decade of episodes of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”The home is full of custom upgrades. The family’s longtime real estate agent estimates the Kardashian-Jenner clan spent millions on design and renovation alone.Wayne FordThe six-bedroom, eight-bath home, which sprawls more than 8,000 square feet and sits on more than an acre of land in the exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood of Hidden Hills, is being listed for $13.5 million.“I’ve shared so many unforgettable memories in this incredible home with my family, and I’m excited to see it start a new chapter with its next owners,” Ms. Jenner told The New York Times in a statement.Ms. Jenner bought the home in 2010 with the media personality and retired Olympic athlete Caitlyn Jenner, who was then her husband and known as Bruce Jenner. They needed space: The couple each had four grown children from previous relationships, plus their daughters — Kylie and Kendall — who were teenagers and still living at home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ Is Getting a Four-Episode Revival on Disney+

    The return of “Malcolm in the Middle,” which aired from 2000 to 2006, will follow Malcolm as he helps his parents celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, Disney+ announced.One of America’s wackiest families is making a comeback.“Malcolm in the Middle,” the hit television show from the early 2000s, will get a revival on Disney+ with four new episodes, the company announced on Friday. Frankie Muniz, who played Malcolm Wilkerson, helped tease the comeback in videos posted on Disney+ social media accounts.“I have been waiting for this moment for 18 years,” Muniz said in one video, referring to the show’s finale in 2006. “Let’s find out where Malcolm and his family are now.”The post also featured videos of Bryan Cranston, who went on to star in “Breaking Bad,” and Jane Kaczmarek, who will be reprising their roles as Malcolm’s parents, Hal and Lois.“What a delight that I get to yell at that kid again,” Kaczmarek said. “We are very, very excited about coming back together.”According to Deadline, Linwood Boomer, the show’s creator, will be a writer on the four episodes. Ken Kwapis, one of the directors of the original show, will direct all four episodes.The new episodes follow Malcolm’s return home with his daughter to help his parents celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.It’s unclear whether Christopher Kennedy Masterson, Justin Berfield and Erik Per Sullivan, who played Muniz’s brothers on the show, will reprise their roles. Sullivan, who played the youngest brother, Dewey, left Hollywood after the show ended.“Malcolm in the Middle,” which aired on Fox from 2000 to 2006, tracked Malcolm, a young genius, navigating life with his dysfunctional family of scheming, bickering brothers and unconventional parents.In just its second week, the show became the most-watched comedy on television at the time, drawing 23.2 million viewers, The New York Times reported in 2000.Unlike other sitcoms at the time that were filmed with multiple cameras in front of a studio audience, “Malcolm in the Middle” was produced like a movie and used a single camera for a more realistic look. It also lacked a laugh track.But beyond aesthetics, “Malcolm in the Middle” was built on a cast of characters that were unpredictable and funny, with Malcolm often serving as the narrator and speaking directly to the camera.The show was nominated for 33 Emmys and won seven times in categories including outstanding directing for a comedy series and outstanding writing for a comedy series.Muniz largely stepped away from acting after the show ended and went on to become a professional racecar driver. But in interviews over the years, Muniz teased about the possibility of a “Malcolm in the Middle” reunion, saying his co-star Cranston was working on reviving the show.Variety reported that a premiere date has not been set. More

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    On ‘S.N.L.,’ Luigi Mangione Is Busting Out All Over

    As Chris Rock hosts, the man charged in the UnitedHealthcare shooting dominates this week’s riffs on the news.The 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” continues to provide the show with opportunities to revive many of its long-running characters. Last week, it was the Church Lady; this week, it was Nancy Grace, the TV personality and frequently outraged true-crime commentator, who has been frequently impersonated on “S.N.L.” over the years by cast members including Ana Gasteyer and Amy Poehler.On this outing, Grace was played by Sarah Sherman as she commented on the outpouring of online support for Luigi Mangione, who was charged in the fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson.“What is going on in this country?” Sherman declared. “Y’all, this man is not a sex icon, OK?”She added, “And yet, folks online are posting things like — am I reading this right? — ‘Luigi got that BDE.’ Really? I hope ‘BDE’ stands for Behavior Dat’s Evil.”Sherman went on to interview guests including Kenan Thompson, playing a regular customer at the Pennsylvania McDonald’s where Mangione was arrested.“Well, Nancy, I’ve been eating McDonald’s every day for three years,” Thompson said. “I got Type 10 diabetes. Blue Cross? Bitch, I got blue foot. You know what my health insurance plan is called? Hoping it goes away.”Asked if he had ever tried alternative medicine, Thompson replied in the affirmative, “When they tell me how much the procedure costs, I go, ‘what’s the alternative?’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Can We Make Pop Culture Great Again?

    When “Wicked” and “Gladiator II” debuted together late last month, there was a painful attempt to call their shared box office success “Glicked” — a reference to the portmanteau of “Barbenheimer” that described the joint cultural triumph of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” in the summer of 2023.It was painful because the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon was a genuine old-fashioned Hollywood success story: Two unusual and vivid and original stories (based, yes, on real history and a famous doll, but no less creative for all that) from directors working near the peak of their powers that managed to be culturally relevant and open for interpretive debate.Whereas “Wicked” and the “Gladiator” sequel are conventional examples of how Hollywood makes almost all its money nowadays — through safe-seeming bets on famous brands and franchises that can be packaged into just-OK-enough cinematic entertainments. Neither is as egregiously mediocre as “Moana 2,” the other blockbuster of the season: The musical numbers in “Wicked” and Denzel Washington’s Roman scenery-chewing lend energy that’s absent in the Disney empire nowadays. But neither are anything like the expression of mass-market creativity that we used to call The Movies.I’ve been writing lately about how American politics seem to have moved into a new dispensation — more unsettled and extreme, but also perhaps more energetic and dynamic. One benefit of unsettlement, famously adumbrated by Orson Welles’s villainous Harry Lime in “The Third Man,” is supposed to be cultural ferment: “In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”There are certainly signs of ferment out there, in technology, religion and intellectual life. But I’m worried about pop culture — worried that the relationship between art and commerce isn’t working as it should, worried that even if the rest of American society starts moving, our storytelling is still going to be stuck.Or maybe not stuck so much as completely fragmented, with forms of creativity that are all intensely niche, like the podcast-splintered marketplace of news consumption.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Seth Meyers: ‘Trump’s fake populism was a con and it couldn’t be any clearer’

    Late-night hosts talk Joe Biden’s act of clemency and Donald Trump becoming Time’s Person of the Year.Seth MeyersSeth Meyers could only laugh on Thursday evening at the image of Trump, just named Time magazine’s Person of the Year, ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.The incoming president looked delighted – or, as the Late Night host put it, “like a Make-A-Wish kid who faked being sick until he got what he wanted”.“Before he was elected he toured the country telling grandpas in folding chairs he was just like them,” he added, “and as soon as he wins he’s on a fucking marble balcony on Wall Street rocking a bell like he just ate a 72-ounce steak in under an hour.”As for the cover, Meyers had concerns. “My only issue is this glamour shot of Trump in a pose I’ve literally never seen him take before,” he said. “I’ve only ever seen him screaming or hunched over, so apologies if I’m not buying Donnie Contemplation over here.”Moreover, “this guy has pretended for over a decade to be a populist champion of the working class and now he’s on literal Wall Street, getting pats on the back from the richest people in the country,” he said. “The only way that Trump’s hypocrisy could be any more on the nose is if he started doing campaign events with actual fat cats.”Case in point: though Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign to lower grocery prices, he told Time that “it’s hard to bring things down once they’re up … You know, it’s very hard.”“Fuck me, I can’t believe we really have to spend the next four years watching this idiot relearn how hard it is to be president,” said Meyers. “Yeah man, we know it’s hard. Everyone knows.”“Trump’s fake populism was a con and it couldn’t be any clearer,” he added. “The second that he won he started rubbing elbows with his rich Wall Street buddies and admitting that his promises were all BS.”Jimmy KimmelIn Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel also lamented Trump’s Time magazine cover. “Sadly there’s no one left to roll it up and spank him with it,” he quipped. “Maybe Elon will do it for him? I don’t know.”According to Time, the Person of the Year distinction is bestowed on the person, group or concept that had the biggest impact for good or for ill. “Well, that’s him all right,” said Kimmel. “It was a no-brainer in every sense of the word.”As for Trump’s appearance at the New York Stock Exchange, “he jammed his little finger on that bell like it was the Diet Coke button in the Oval Office,” Kimmel joked.Kimmel also touched on Joe Biden’s last-minute act of clemency, commuting more than 1,500 criminal sentences. “Before this, the biggest act of clemency was on election night on November 5,” said Kimmel.“Joe Biden is handing out pardons like they’re Werther’s Originals,” he added. “He has no more malarkey to give right now.”Stephen ColbertAnd on The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also noted Biden’s clemency, in which he also pardoned 39 people. “Wow, I did not know he had 39 sons,” the host joked.The mass commutation is a tradition for all outgoing presidents, but Biden committed the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. “I believe that is an empathetic and generous act of forgiveness and hope – that will be knocked out of the headlines as soon as Trump threatens to bomb Manila because he cut himself on one of their envelopes,” said Colbert. “That’s coming. You know that’s coming.”Colbert also laughed at Pornhub’s year in review, which revealed generational trends, such as the fact that 18-to-24-year-olds spend, on average, 76 fewer seconds than any other age group on videos. “I guess young folks today don’t have the attention span,” Colbert quipped. “Back in the 90s, if you wanted to see boobs on your computer, you had to listen to this,” he added before a dial-up tone.The site also provided a map highlighting the most distinct searches in each state, such as Tennessee’s “chubby milf”, Delaware’s “mature” (“I assume in honor of Joe Biden,” Colbert joked), Maryland’s “girlfriend” (“dorks!”) and Pennsylvania’s “naked women”. “That’s clearly Amish teens on rumspringa getting their first crack at a computer,” Colbert noted. More

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    Labor Board Classifies ‘Love Is Blind’ Contestants as Employees

    The National Labor Relations Board’s case against the Netflix hit could have ripple effects across the reality TV industry.The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the hit reality show “Love Is Blind” on Wednesday in which it classified the show’s contestants as employees, opening a case that could have ripple effects across the reality television industry.The complaint by the labor board’s regional office in Minnesota says that the show committed several labor violations, including unlawful contractual terms related to confidentiality and noncompete provisions.By classifying the cast members — who date and sometimes marry other singles on the show — as employees with certain federal legal protections, the complaint opens the door to possible unionization. It is one of the labor board’s first forays into reality television and a major development in the effort by some onscreen personalities to change the industry through the legal system.Several contestants on “Love Is Blind,” which streams on Netflix and has been one of the buzziest dating shows since its debut in 2020, have come forward in lawsuits, in interviews and on social media with objections to the restrictions outlined in their contracts.One contestant, Renee Poche, got into a legal dispute with the show after she publicly accused the production of allowing her to get engaged, in front of TV cameras, to a man “who was unemployed with a negative balance in his bank account.” She said in court papers that after she had made “limited public remarks about her distressing time on the program,” one of the companies behind the production initiated arbitration proceedings against her, accusing her of violating her nondisclosure agreement and seeking $4 million. (Her suit said she had earned a total of $8,000 on the program.)Two “Love Is Blind” participants — Poche and Nick Thompson — submitted complaints to the labor board, resulting in an investigation into the policies and practices of the production companies behind the show, which include Kinetic Content and Delirium TV.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie Revisit ‘The Simple Life’

    The celebutantes-turned-businesswomen are rebooting the show that provided a blueprint for the past 20 years of reality TV.How would two troubled Los Angeles heiresses manage as members of the Bible Belt working class?The answer helped revolutionize reality TV and legitimized the careers of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. In 2003, the pair of 22-year-olds debuted in Fox’s “The Simple Life,” which documented their move to Altus, Ark. to live with a family on their farm and try out blue collar jobs.Hilton and Richie brought rich-girl haughtiness and high jinks to mundane tasks like cleaning hotel rooms and, in one memorable episode, serving burgers at a Sonic Drive-In. The result was a quotable megahit — with heart. “Their fish-out-of-water ineptitude serves as a social leveler that gives them their comeuppance and preserves the dignity of their rural hosts,” Alessandra Stanley wrote in a review for The New York Times. Unlike the other popular reality programs of the time, like “Big Brother” and “Survivor,” the allure of “The Simple Life” didn’t come from a wild premise or shocking competition: The personalities of and friendship between Hilton and Richie were the drawing card. That recipe has been built upon in subsequent reality franchises like “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” “Jersey Shore” and “The Real Housewives.”More than two decades later, the two are appearing in “Paris & Nicole: Encore,” a three-part reboot which is primarily set in L.A. and involves activities and outings a bit closer to home. It will air on Peacock beginning Thursday. Though the show centers on the pair’s staging of an opera based on “sanasa,” a made-up word which fans might remember as a mainstay joke on the original, Hilton and Richie also revisit Altus, Sonic and the friendship that made their show riveting TV.“There was nothing really to compare it to,” Hilton said of “The Simple Life.” “So we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.”Jerod Harris/Getty Images for VultureAhead of the “Encore” premier, we talked to Hilton and Richie about how reality TV has changed since “The Simple Life,” the impact of social media on the genre and the shows they’re enjoying now.Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.You were some of the first reality TV stars, and now it is an oversaturated industry. How do you think the landscape has changed since “The Simple Life” first aired?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More