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The Fine Bros. want you to film your own 'React' YouTube clip

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Everyone from teens to YouTubers to elders to kids have reacted through the Fine Brothers' successful, iconic series. You've seen these clips shared on Facebook—a nostalgic item is placed in front of children and they gawk at its decayed technology.

Now the company is opening up its popular shows to the world with the new enterprise, React World.

In an effort to expand the React franchise globally they are building a channel that allows people and companies to license their shows and create their own versions. If you've ever wanted to create your own version of React, legally, this is the way.

"Part of why we believe this initiative is important is due to witnessing many creators, ourselves included, having their shows and formats blatantly stolen by companies and people both online and on television," they said in their announcement video.

They use the concept of Britain's Got Talent and America's Got Talent as an example of global licensing, but explain that their model involves no upfront cost, and comes with help for creators to monetize, use graphics, and guide their productions. The resulting work will be part of React World.

They are including 11 shows and trademarks in the franchise. There is the React side that includes Kids React, Teens React, Elders React, Adults React, and React Gaming. They are also including Do They Know It, People Vs. Food, Lyric Breakdown, Try Not to Smile or Laugh, Opinions, and People Vs. Technology.

The Fine Brothers have more than 20 million subscribers to their channels, and are working on Sing It—a sitcom for the YouTube Red subscription service. They've also produced traditional TV shows like truTV's Six Degrees of Everything and ReactToThat for Nickelodeon.

Fans and creators can sign up for React World now.

H/T Variety | Screengrab via Fine Bros Entertainment/YouTube


Stephen Colbert gives all the other 2016 candidates their own Ben & Jerry's flavors

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After one of Ben & Jerry’s co-founders revealed an ice cream flavor just for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Stephen Colbert wanted the rest of the 2016 candidates to feel the (freezer) Bern.

Fresh off making promposals for Sanders and assigning Simon and Garfunkel songs to all the other presidential candidates, Colbert is now getting into the churning business. If Sanders gets a limited-edition ice cream flavor, argues Colbert, so should everyone else due to what he calls “ice cream equal time rule.”

Some names puns serve better than others (such as “Caramel Fiorina”), but we do know we’d have every one of those flavors.

Screengrab via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/YouTube

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard's vacation music video is one big 'Africa' homage

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Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard have upped the ante when it comes to sharing one's vacation online.

At some point before Bell and Shepard had their two children, they took a vacation to Africa (although they didn’t specify which country or countries). They figured that nobody would want to look at their photos, so instead they killed two birds with one stone by creating a music video of their vacation with an homage to Toto’s famous hit “Africa.”

“This was our last trip before having kids,” Shepard wrote in the video description. “Our sole objective was to rage hard and honor Toto properly. Hope you enjoy.”

It’s more than five minutes of pure, unadulterated goofiness, as Bell and Shepard lip sync to the song, pretend to strum on bamboo, and dance in the rain—while sometimes bringing a tour guide into the frame. We wouldn’t expect anything less.

While their fans loved it, they even managed to catch the attention of Toto’s Steve Lukather in the process.

Screengrab via Dan Shepard/YouTube

The online trial of Amy Schumer

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Comedian Amy Schumer continues to dominate headlines as more and more videos come out accusing her of joke theft. But in response, more and more comedians are coming out to support her. 

The outraged video clips and tweets are stacking up high against Schumer. One such clip shows comedian and magician Joseph Tran comparing a bit he did in a 2013 series called Reasons Not to Date a Magician with a sketch from a 2014 episode of Inside Amy Schumer in which Schumer beds a magician (played by Kyle Dunnigan) who twists a condom into a balloon animal—the same thing that happens in Tran’s video from a year earlier. The lead-up in both videos is very different, but in May 2014, Tran addressed the similarities in the original video. 

This clip was posted to vid.me by user Josh Smith (who has other alleged Schumer theft videos on his page, and a Twitter account heavy on anti-Schumer and anti-feminist rhetoric). Reached for comment, Tran pointed out the irony of that Josh Smith clip:  

Someone else took my video (along with Schumer’s) and created the comparison. There are additional pieces of info from the original video that was left out of the comparison video. Ironically, the video you saw was, essentially, stolen.  

We’ve reached out to Smith for comment and will update this story if he responds. 

Another video uploaded to Vimeo by user Dougie Huggins shows the similarities between two IAS bits from 2013 and 2008 sketches from MadTV and CollegeHumor, respectively, as well as a Daniel Tosh joke from 2010 that is similar in tone to one in a scene from Trainwreck. This isn't the first time someone haspointed out that the premise of the MadTV sketch and IAS sketch are similar. 

Huggins declined to comment about the video. We've also reached out to Comedy Central for comment. 

Three female comedians have now publicly accused Schumer of stealing bits, and all three used Twitter to initially lay out their claims, though two of them have now walked back their accusations.

For her part, Schumer has been attempting damage control, appearing on Jim Norton’s radio show to assert her innocence, saying she would “take a polygraph test and put it on my show this season and I promise, whatever the results are, I won’t let them cut. I will show that I had never, never seen Patrice do that bit.” (She’s referring to a Patrice O’Neal joke she’s also been accused of stealing.) 

In an era when the Internet won’t let things like joke theft slide, the accusations from fellow standups have started a brisk dialogue in comedy circles. 

“I hate how people say that she stole Patrice O’Neal’s stuff when A) both she and Patrice say that they’re talking about street jokes,” comedian Sarah Hartshorne told the Daily Dot. “You can’t steal street jokes; they’re like knock-knock jokes. B) She’s reframing them to put them in the women’s perspective, which is a horrifying one.”

On Monday, IAS writer Kyle Dunnigan posted his own rebuttal about the alleged theft of the magic sketch, saying, “Amy’s going to get backlash for the amazing year she’s had because building people up and tearing them down is the American way”: 

“Do I think Amy Schumer is a joke thief? Absolutely not,” said comedian Sue Smith. “Do I think that we’re inundated which so much information that it’s impossible to have completely unique thoughts? Totally.”

Remember the Fat Jew? After all the scrutiny around his Instagram account and its many stolen or uncredited memes, he recently debuted a new webseries, and people still apparently think he’s amusing. Admitted plagiarist Jonah Lehrer released a new book last year; Shia LaBeouf made a whole surreal side career out of his. 

“Even though I think it’s important to call attention to joke stealing, like with the Fat Jew and all the other blatant thieves on Twitter, etc., I think that the Amy Schumer accusations are way overblown,” said comedian Lynn Bixenspan. “The phrase ‘parallel thought’ gets thrown around a lot when explaining how people come up with the same joke, and I think there’s a little of that, but more of it is just her own take on certain existing concepts. … She’s in the spotlight, so everything she does is dissected. This is just another example.”

Schumer’s public persona preceded the term “Internet-famous,” but the Internet is whereherdissection has taken place. She, unlike the Fat Jew, has been a feminist, sex-positive, relatable voice for many women, which of course makes some men angry enough to obsess over her. Way back in 2010—a decade in Internet years—Dave Itzkoff pointed out something that still resonates: “The Web has given comedians an unparalleled real-time resource to determine if their material is being copied, but it has also provided would-be thieves with an almost infinite library to steal from. And it has made it easy to make public accusations of plagiarism that may or may not have merit without providing a forum to resolve these fights.”

Much like music, so much of comedy is at least having an ambient awareness of others’ material. But with YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, originators are often kicked a few rungs down as our brainspace constantly loads more and more data. Marc Maron addressed this and the anti-Schumer “onslaught” on his Jan. 25 podcast, starting around the four-minute mark: 

Comedians absorb what’s coming in, and they process it. We’ve all been in the rooms of standup comedy clubs for most of our lives, hours and hours. In order to vet a joke against the history of recorded comedy, on album or on television, it’s fucking impossible. And this is not an apologist position, this is just a reality. 

He goes on to relate that in his podcast’s earlier years, any time a female comedian was on, the comment section would be overrun with anonymous garbage dudes attacking them. He frames the current allegations in the same lens, implying that there is a targeted campaign attempting to bring Schumer down, not in the name comedy, but because of a more insidious agenda.  

What is happening with Amy has nothing to do with justice, it has nothing to do with comedy. What’s happening is that—this is the real pattern—is that she, through the Internet and through video, is literally being verbally career-raped by an army of unfuckable hate-nerds. 

Personalities like Gavin McInnes—co-founder of Vice Media—have also leveledcharges of theft at Schumer. McInnes has been featured as a talking head at Fox News, where he's regaled viewers with tales of overly emotional women voters, and claimed that women earn less because they choose to. On Jan. 20, the Twitter account Uncuck the Right called for the hashtag #AmySchumerStealsJokes to trend.

People have been unloading a lot of arguments over whether or not Schumer is a thief, and people in comment sections want everyone to know they never thought she was funny and now they have proof. But ultimately, what is the end goal? To make comedy better? Promote accountability? It's hard to tell where genuine concern for comedic integrity begins and where something more insidious might begin. 

Maybe Schumer can turn this all into a joke one day. 

Screengrab via Comedy Central/YouTube 

Tyler Oakley, Andrea Russett, others headed to Australia for Amplify tour

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America's favorite YouTubers are about to get their Aussie on as part of the 2016 Amplify Live Tour.

Stars like Tyler Oakley, Andrea Russett, Jc Caylen, and Kion Lawley are all announced as part of the initial lineup. It will also include New Zealander Jamie Curry and Australian Tyde Levi, Troye Sivan's brother. The tour will hit seven locations around Australia and New Zealand, including Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth.

Amplify Live is among the growing number of live YouTuber events, which range from the staple of VidCon in Anaheim, California, each year, to the DigiTour and London's Summer in the City. There are also tons of smaller versions specific to locations, looking to cash in on fans willing to spend money for time in the same room as their favorite stars, and even more for photo and autograph sessions.

YouTubers have taken trips down under in the past, but often as part of a single event, or on their own specific tours. Amplify Live will be a chance for Australian fans to see many of their favorites in one evening. The tour is sponsored by cosmetics brand Rimmel London, and will take place in April. The ticket prices and specific dates will not be released until Feb. 4, giving fans a week to get excited for their favorite YouTubers.

Screengrab via Andrea Russett/YouTube

Brooks Wheelan opens up about his alien abduction in 'Laughs in Translation'

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Brooks Wheelan—standup and former Saturday Night Live cast member—had no idea what to expect when he headed off to continental Europe to start filming his new webseries, Laughs in Translation. Not only had he not met the crew, but he also suddenly had to contend with the fact that when it comes to comedy, they do things a little differently.

“When we got over there and started going at it, I realized that there’s a lot of universal [facets] of comedy everywhere,” Brooks told the Daily Dot via phone, “but each country has some weird, small tics that make them stand out.”

And that’s the point of the series, showcasing the things that are comic in their homeland but to us may seem somewhat perverse. Like Denmark’s BonBon-Land, replete with dog fart rollercoasters and statues of mice gorging on feces. Or Leipzig’s German Institute of Humor which nourishes a bucket of stereotypes as it endeavors to teach the zing-challenged Teutons how to crack wise, one flow-chart at a time.

All good fun, but a trip to Canal+’s YouTube sketch channel in the outskirts of Paris was a joke too far for Wheelan. Corralled into a bizarre skit—“the farmer takes the sperm in his face”—by the director, Mr Octopus, after a brief negotiation as to how much “butt” he would show, the standup found himself on a slab, surrounded by aliens, and, as described by M. Poulpo, “with some stuff inside [him].”  

“Oh yeah, when I was being raped?” recalled Wheelan. “Those guys were weird. I think they were literally just fucking with me. It was a prank that they did where [aliens] abducted a guy and raped him. And in the sketch he was doing a press conference and everyone was laughing at him. It was just, literally, insanity. It was an insane sketch about aliens sexually assaulting humans. And I was not super into it. But my thing was what’s funnier than going along with a sketch that you don’t believe in?”

Well, maybe the fact that after all of that, he didn’t even make the final edit?

“Yeah, they cut me out of it!” said Wheelan. “But honestly, I’m very pleased that I got cut out of it because I was worried that that sketch would come out before this series and people would think, ‘That's what Brooks has been up to—in France doing sketch comedy.’”

With currently just the three episodes produced by the comedy site Above Average—“this is really just a pilot situation to show that we can do it”—Wheelan has big plans for the series, keen to roll it out worldwide. “We’re talking to different people about producing more,” he said. “Places like South Korea, Nigeria, Japan, China, Russia, Poland, Greece, I’d love to get deep into South America. Get to some weird spots that are way different to Western Europe.”

It’s a long list of potential targets, but any place that a Francophonic alien could emerge seems suspiciously absent. What, no chance of a visit to Benin, Haiti, or Côte d'Ivoire? “French people have a weird sense of humor. Which we found out,” said Wheelan, wearily. “They’re odd. I could get behind Germany’s comedy, I could get behind Danish comedy, but I couldn’t get behind France’s comedy. Like that’s the one where I had to be like ‘look, my integrity is being [questioned].’ I didn’t think it was funny. But I did it. What are you going to do?”

Photo via Above Average

Interactive map compares real UFO sightings to 'X-Files' episodes

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Makers of the pop culture phenomenon X-Files were apparently dedicated to getting it as close to the real deal as possible. A new map showing where the series was filmed in relation to where actual UFO sightings were recorded proves to be strikingly correlated.

The interactive map available on CartoDB shows UFO sightings from 1993 to 2002 (years in which the original show aired) with pulsing, green lights. The locations where X-Files episodes were filmed are marked with purple and orange Xs. The map changes as the timeline progresses.

Rebooted this month after 14 years off the air, X-Files is rooted in government conspiracy and the paranormal. The science fiction classic continues next week with the third episode of this six-part miniseries. 

H/T CartoDB  | Photo via Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

Following international merger, Collective Digital Studio becomes Studio71

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As 2016 kicks off, one digital entertainment brand is looking forward globally with a name change that compliments its 2015 merger with a German company.

Last year multi-channel network Collective Digital Studio merged with ProSiebenSat.1, one of Europe's largest independent media organizations. The Studio71 rebrand is part of the company's efforts to unify operations under a single banner globally.

Studio71's talent is far-reaching across digital platforms, from Snapchat star Shonduras and Vine icon Logan Paul, to YouTube staple Good Mythical Morning

“With the merger we instantly became a global player, now we are focused on dynamic growth so operating together under the Studio71 banner will make us even more impactful,” said Christof Wahl, managing director ProSiebenSat.1 Digital and responsible for Digital Entertainment, via press release.

The company's first global production is the film Natural Born Pranksters, starring VitalyzdTV, Roman Atwood, and Dennis Roady, released this spring by Lionsgate. It will also produce James Patterson's young adult fantasy franchise Maximum Ride, and a film with Vine star Matthew Espinosa

Illustration by Jason Reed


Pharma-bro Martin Shkreli releases video dissing Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah

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The man who's so very easy for the Internet to despise was arrested by the FBI last month on a securities fraud charge, but that hasn't stopped Martin Shkreli from continuing to talk. And, for that matter, to make enemies with the rap group he reportedly loves.

On Thursday, Shkreli released a video dissing Ghostface Killah of Wu-Tang Clan and demanded an apology for his recent insult of Shkreli.

Shkreli—who became well known to and hated by the public when his pharmaceutical company, Turing, hiked up the AIDS drug, Daraprim, by more than 5,000 percent—also purchased the lone copy of Wu-Tang Clan's latest album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, for $2 million.

But when Wu-Tang discovered Shkreli's reputation (he bought the album before raising the price of Daraprim), the group was quick to distance itself from him. Ever since, there's been a slow-burning feud between Shkreli and the Clan.

Ghostface Killah recently called Shkreli a "shithead" and said he should release Shaolin to the public.

Shkreli didn't appreciate the suggestion.

Ghostface responded by making fun of Shkreli's nose and comparing his looks to those of Michael Jackson.

Thus, Shkreli decided to try to beat the rapper with a war of words. It goes a little something like this, via TMZ.

I assume—and yes, that's probably a big risk—that there's no chance Shkreli is serious here. The nice sports coat, the snifter filled with what's probably way-out-of-your-league brandy, the stereotypical goons (who likely are fellow hedge-fund buddies underneath the masks) drinking liquor straight from the bottle and cursing Ghostface Killah's name. It's a two-bit pro wrestling angle from the 1980s.

Hell, it's like Shkreli is the second coming of Ted DiBiase. It has to be fake.

But it's not, so it's finally time to wonder the real question in all of this madness: What's taking Bill Murray so damn long

H/T TMZ | Screenshot via ABC News

Donald Trump vs. Donald Trump is the 2016 GOP debate we've been waiting for

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Stephen Colbert is giving the Internet the Donald Trump debate it deserves.

The Republican frontrunner stuck to his guns and skipped Thursday night’s debate after Fox News refused to sideline moderator Megyn Kelly and sent Trump a taunting statement. Although he held a rally for veterans at the same time, he was still the talk of the debate. But the people want what they want, so Colbert and his staff edited a Trump debate with the toughest person he knows: Donald Trump.

If there’s anyone in this election who could go up against himself in a debate, spew contradictory statements and opinions at at every question, and still rise in the polls, it’s Trump.

Screengrab via The Late Show with Stephen Colbert/YouTube

Ewan McGregor tells Jimmy Kimmel about his surprise 'Star Wars' cameo

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens had plenty of big cameos, but one of the biggest ones surprised fans who never expected to hear a certain character again.

J.J. Abramsrevealed last month that Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel trilogy, recorded a line for the scene that launched a thousand theories. You can hear him toward the end of Rey's vision, triggered by Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. As McGregor told Jimmy Kimmel Thursday night, it was a team effort.

McGregor, who expressed interest in returning to Star Wars if there were an Obi-Wan movie set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, said he’d been waiting for the call from Abrams for two years. When he went in to record the dialog, he even got to see some of the film before anyone else.

“The line is, ‘Rey, these are your first steps,’” McGregor explained. “But they got Alec Guinness to do ‘Rey,’ which is extraordinary because he’s not alive anymore. They got a line of him as Obi-Wan Kenobi saying ‘afraid’ and cut the ‘A’ and the ‘D’ off. So Alec Guinness is saying ‘Rey,’ and I’m saying ‘These are your first steps.’”

Screengrab via Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube

Rooster Teeth's 'Lazer Team' is a promising first entry in YouTube's original content play

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The world is facing certain destruction from alien forces. But instead of a specially trained super soldier wielding the Earth’s most powerful weapon, a ragtag foursome of unlikely heroes each controls a single aspect of humanity’s last hope.

They are the Lazer Team, and they’re fighting two equally difficult battles: one against a powerful alien race, sure, but a separate front against assumptions about what a movie birthed on YouTube can be in 2016.

The film is among the first efforts of YouTube’s original content push ignited by the 2015 launch of its paid subscription-based service, YouTube Red, but it has roots that go much deeper into the YouTube community.

The project was initially funded via Indiegogo, where it surpassed its initial $650,000 goal within a day and ultimately set a record of more than $2.4 million as the site’s most funded independent film. During a 2014 VidCon session, creator Burnie Burns spoke of the power of only 37,493 individual backers to be able to realize a film project. He also pointed out that if that same number were the view count on one of his team’s videos on YouTube, they’d think something was wrong; the channel hits at least 100,000 views on every single video, often racking up over 1 million views per video. But by translating that level of devotion from view counts to monetary support, Rooster Teeth, an Austin-based production house behind Web hits like Red vs Blue and RWBY, has been able to produce a film that rivals any independent production—and even Hollywood.

“We take the power away from the studios who are just regurgitating or taking the lowest risk projects and greenlighting them,” Lazer Team star Alan Ritchson, who has experience in Hollywood blockbusters like the Ninja Turtles reboot, told the Daily Dot earlier this year. “The scope of what a team like this is able to do rivals what these suits are spending $75 million to do… It just goes to show the power of people, and that people these days can drive quality content.”

On that front, Lazer Team delivers. The attitude of the film is reminiscent of the surreal sci-fi flick Mars Attacks, a late ’90s gem that infused humor into the idea of alien invasion while other blockbusters like Independence Day took a much more serious approach to extraterrestrials. Lazer Team is decidedly more low-budget than a Tim Burton picture, but the feeling of the film is far from amateur.

Lazer Team isn’t in the realm of an Oscar contender, but it’s not a up for a Razzie either.

Acting-wise the cast is talented, and the script is entertaining if not exactly groundbreaking. It hits the tropes of Top Secret Mission movies, and the bumbling comedy ones as well, and soundly fails the Bechdel Test with its most prominent female character being mostly celebrated for her good looks in a sea of dudes. That’s not to say the dudes aren’t doing well in this film, with Rooster Teeth regulars like Burns and Gavin Free confident in their roles and a standout funny performance from Key and Peele’s Colton Dunn, who is currently on NBC’s primetime series Superstore. The special effects are impressive for their budget, with a good dose of explosions, spaceships, and hologram alien visitors; they could always have benefited from another million or two in crowdfunding, but the heart and soul of the film is enjoyable and on par with any ambitious beginner filmmaker in the sci-fi comedy realm.

To put it plainly, Lazer Team isn’t in the realm of an Oscar contender, but it’s not a up for a Razzie either. Instead, it’s a great indication that YouTube production companies can, with much less money than is normally invested in a sci-fi project, turn around a quality project. It also helps buck the trend on what a YouTube-to-mainstream project can look like.

Many previous YouTube-to-movie transitions have focused on singular personalities or duos reconstructing their YouTube schtick: Smosh’s Smosh: The Movie, teen-centric fare like Jenn McAllister and Lauren Luthringshausen’s Bad Night, or Nash Grier and Cameron DallasThe Outfield. For the majority, the format is a documentary, a peek behind the curtain that reads like an extended YouTube video, like Tyler Oakley’s Snervous or the Janoskians’ mockumentary Untold and Untrue. Even on television, the leaps from YouTube to the traditional screen have followed the YouTube format, from Grace Helbig’s non-traditional talk show on E! to RocketJump’s behind-the-scenes series for Hulu. While other ambitious projects like 2014’s Camp Takota were narrative trailblazers, Lazer Team is kicking off the era of YouTube is placing a premium, quite literally, on original content.

Lazer Team will be part of YouTube Red’s first slate of originals content, launching alongside Lily Singh’s documentary, A Trip to Unicorn Island, and Dance Camp, a teen-centric musical film from Awesomeness Films. The film industry got an advance look at the upcoming content at Sundance, which will all be available on Red “sometime next month,” according to Variety. While Dance Camp is slated to be the first film on Red, Lazer Team also got a theatrical release starting Jan. 27 in 34 theaters nationwide.

Lazer Team has the benefit of two modes for making a splash. Rooster Teeth can hope to convert fans at the traditional box office, and it can additionally bank on carving out a piece of YouTube Red’s $9.99 monthly subscription, thanks to the length of the project and hopefully high view counts. It’s already got a head start, with $1 million in pre-sales via Tugg, a platform that allows users to demand films in their areas and spark interest to ticket sales minimums to bring an independent film to their local cinema. If things go well, the film leaves room for a sequel and the chance for the Rooster Teeth community to prove that its support was more than a flash in the pan—that it’s something that could sustain the future of filmmaking and YouTube content.

Screengrab via Rooster Teeth/YouTube

Josh Gad and Johnny Galecki made out while they were both dressed as Donald Trump

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Turning what could be a simple lip-sync performance into a spectacle is par for the course on Lip Sync Battle, but Josh Gad raised the stakes—and may have sparked some nightmares along the way—with a Donald Trump–inspired performance.

Dressed as Trump, Gad performed “I Touch Myself,” and it was as self-obsessed and over-the-top as you can imagine. He reaches out to a mirror, caresses his reflection, has a line of Trump dancers to copy his every move, and even pulls a Miley Cyrus by hopping on a wrecking ball wearing a toupee.

But he (ahem) trumps himself by bringing out Kaley Cuoco’s Big Bang Theory co-star Johnny Galecki for the big finish. If Trump can debate himself, then why not kiss himself?

Screengrab via Lip Sync Battle on Spike/YouTube

Meet the man who believes every Adam Sandler film is connected

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First, there was the Ice Cubiverse. Now there's the Sandlerverse. 

L.A.-based comedian and creator Shawn Kohne lays out his theory in a nearly nine-minute video simply titled "The Sandlerverse," in which Kohne has repurposed a corner of a room in his home or office and set up a True Detective-esque shrine to unraveling the connected universe of Adam Sandler movies. He said the project took a little over two weeks, and it all started, as the video explains, with 50 First Dates

"The thing about these kind of projects, I will always reach a point where I sit back and think, 'What in the heck am I doing this for?'" he told the Daily Dot. "But I just keep pushing through because I believe in the idea. It normally works out for the best to keep going."

In the explainer, a wild-eyed Kohne, who possibly grew his frazzled beard in the process of unraveling the Sandlerverse, uses several points of entry: Billy Madison, Rob Schneider, Saturday Night Live, a talking goat. 

At times, he appears on the verge of a breakdown (or, perhaps, a breakthrough), as if the weight of this much knowledge might literally crush him. Perhaps he was encouraged forward by a mantra repeated often in the Sandlerverse: "You can do it."

Kohne says Sandler hasn't personally responded yet, but his video did catch the eye of Tim Herlihy, a writer and actor on several Sandler films. 

"I knew when I published the video I had not found all the connections between movies," Kohne said. "That's why the ending is an open call for others to continue the work I have started on The Sandlerverse. The really cool thing, for me, is that not even Tim Herlihy knew about the stuffed duck! That is what's awesome about doing videos like this." 

Indeed, this isn't the first time Kohne has done some very important work. Last July, he released a compilation of Jim Carrey falling down. 

"When I was growing up it was Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey, those were the comedy guys," he said. "[T]hese video tributes are my way of getting to work with them in some regard, as I may never really get to work with them. Both actors had such an influence on who I am as a human being, so if I have a fun idea to show them I appreciate what they do I'm gonna at least try to make the concept work." 

Now, what would happen if Ice Cube and Adam Sandler were in a movie together? 

Screengrab via Shawn Kohne/YouTube | Remix by Max Fleishman

Lauren Graham confirms new episodes of 'Gilmore Girls' headed to Netflix

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For the past few months, rumors have been circulating that there was a Gilmore Girls reunion secretly percolating. Fans have since waited on the edge of their seats to see if their favorite mother-daughter duo would return to Stars Hollow. 

With a joyous tweet late Friday, Lauren Graham confirmed that Gilmore Girls will be back.

If, for some reason, you feel like you cannot trust Lorelai Gilmore herself, Netflix confirmed the news with a tweet of its own. 

As for what the plot of the new episodes will be, nothing has been released yet. I know that Jared Padalecki is busy on another mega-successful TV show, but let's hope for a Rory-Dean reunion. 

Update 9:11pm CT, Jan. 29: Apparently, Scott G. Patterson will be involved in the series reboot:

Photo via Lauren Graham/Twitter


Pantera singer Phil Anselmo caught on video screaming 'white power'

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Phil Anselmo is the lead singer of the now-defunct heavy metal thrash group Pantera, and he might or might not be a racist. That's depending on whether you believe his latest explanation for why he was giving the Nazi salute and yelling "white power" at a show last week to honor the memory of late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell.

Here's the video taken from the end of the show, which also featured Dave Grohl, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo, and former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo.

So, yeah, that doesn't look good. But here was Anselmo's explanation. Commenting on the YouTube video under the handle Housecore Records, Anselmo writes, "Ok folks, I'll own this one, but dammit, I was joking, and the 'inside joke of the night' was because we were drinking fucking white wine, hahaha... Of all fucking things. Some of y'all need to thicken up your skin. There's plenty of fuckers to pick on with a more realistic agenda. I fucking love everyone, I fucking loathe everyone, and that's that. No apologies from me. PHA '16 "

This isn't the first time Anselmo, who's currently the singer of the group Down, has been accused of racism.

More from Metal Hammer:

In March 1995, during a Pantera show in Montreal, the then 26-year-old Anselmo told the crowd that while “Pantera are not a racist band” and that he and his bandmates had friends “of all colors and all kinds," he had a problem with rap artists “pissing all over white culture." Furthermore, Anselmo continued, pleas from the African-American community to end ‘Black on Black crime’ should be interpreted as “it’s okay to kill white people." white people, the singer insisted, needed to take more pride in who they are.

“Tonight,” Anselmo concluded, “is a white thing.”

The singer later apologized for his rant, and the “harmful words that may have racially offended our audience," but the controversy dogged him for years. In recent years, in his more reflective moments, Anselmo—a thoughtful man, for all his bullish, anti-intellectual John Doe bravado—was not slow to acknowledge the power of symbolism and speech to propagate hatred and division.

But Anselmo's explanation isn't good enough for Machine Head's Robb Flynn, who posted his own video in response. Though he admits to throwing around the N-word in his past, Flynn eviscerates Anselmo.

Either way, here's hoping Anselmo doesn't make a spectacle of himself again and instead just focuses on selling the least heavy metal products he can possibly hawk.

H/T Classic Rock | Photo via MarkScottAustinTexas/Flickr (CC BY SA 2.0)

The 20 best movies to get you through winter

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Everybody knows that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, but the hangover is anything but. January and February can be cold and depressing—a time that’s less “Netflix and chill” and more “stay inside and avoid the fact that it gets dark at 5pm.”

If you’re feeling a bit of seasonal cabin fever from being trapped inside by a record blizzard or freezing temperatures, you may as well make the best of it. To help fight your Seasonal Affective Disorder, the Daily Dot compiled 20 comedies that will help brighten up your dreary winter.

Watch these picks—now streaming online—and bask in the warmth of summer, right in front of your TV screen. After all, who needs a light box when you’ve got Wet Hot American Summer?

1) 9 to 5 (Amazon Prime)

If you love Dolly Parton, you have 9 to 5 to thank. Parton’s only previous appearance was playing herself on an episode of Captain Kangaroo, and Colin Higgins’ 1980 megahit turned the country singer into a crossover superstar. The title track was Parton’s first No. 1 hit, while 9 to 5 grossed over $100 million (a flat-out amazing sum at the time).

Three-and-a-half decades after its release, this gay cult classic—about three women (Parton, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin) who kidnap their sexist boss—remains just as diabolically delightful as ever.

2) Barbarella (Netflix)

Can a movie be both technically terrible and utterly delightful in every way? Barbarella is here to answer that question.

Directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim, and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, the film stars Jane Fonda as a barely clothed intergalactic vixen who has a habit of twirling in zero-gravity for your slow-motion titillation. (The opening credits, which are akin to a strip ballet funded by NASA, are worth the price of admission alone.) This 1968 T&A treasure is a camp miracle, featuring hot blind space angels and a villain named Dr. Durand Durand—yes, like the 1980s new wave band.

3) Bridget Jones’s Diary (Netflix)

This 2000 box-office hit doesn’t sound like it’s something you’ll like: Based on Helen Fielding’s novel, Bridget Jones’s Diary is about a chatty chainsmoker with a slight drinking problem who likes to complain to her journal about the men in her life. The log line is a bit like Pride and Prejudice as a Cathy cartoon.

But 15 years later, Sharon Maguire’s ode to thirtysomething singletons remains one of the most warm and wonderful romantic comedies ever made (despite a too-on-the-nose soundtrack). A never-better Renée Zellweger plays the title character, who is just as bumbling as she is completely adorable. She’s an appallingly bad public speaker and a terrible cook, but you can’t help but love her—just the way she is.

4) Clueless (Netflix)

As far as unlikely literary adaptations go, Clueless remains the gold standard of greatness. Writer/director Amy Heckerling also drew inspiration from Jane Austen, reimagining Emma as a Southern California-set comedy of manners about an airheaded do-gooder (Cher, played by Alicia Silverstone) with a Visa card and a great wardrobe (at least for the ‘90s).

Heckerling’s incredibly witty script—a reminder that comedies about stupid people don’t have to be stupid—only gets funnier and more incisive with the passage of time. In a personal favorite moment, Cher is penning a passage from Shakespeare as a love letter to help match-make two of her teachers (Wallace Shawn and Twink Caplan). Cher’s best friend, Dionne, asks if she wrote it, and Cher is appalled: “Duh, it’s like a favorite question.” “From where?” Dionne inquires. Her answer? “Cliff’s Notes.”

See also: Legally Blonde, now streaming on Netflix. 

5) Flirting With Disaster (Netflix)

David O. Russell has made a second career for himself chasing Oscar gold with studio prestige pics (The Fighter, American Hustle), but to paraphrase Woody Allen, I prefer his early, funny movies.

Flirting With Disaster comes from Russell’s late-'90s/early-2000s screwball era, a period that also brought us the underrated I Heart Huckabees. But this 1996 road comedy—about a soon-to-be-married man (Ben Stiller) searching for his adoptive parents with his wife (Patricia Arquette) and their caseworker (Tea Leoni)—remains his finest comedic achievement. For a director that’s dabbled in nearly every genre (from boxing movies to war epics), Flirting With Disaster proves David O. Russell is at his best when he’s channeling Preston Sturges.

6) Frances Ha (Hulu, Netflix)

Noah Baumbach is having an incredibly prolific late career—churning out Greenberg, The Squid and the Whale, Mistress America, Margot at the Wedding, and While We’re Young in an amazing decade-long stretch.

During that span, he also made Frances Ha, a riff on Annie Hall as seen through the lens of Godard, Truffaut, and the masters of the French New Wave. Instead of watching a couple slowly drift apart, Baumbach tracks the dissolution of a best friendship between Frances (Greta Gerwig, in her star-making role) and Sophie (Mickey Sumner). It’s not only a lovely Woody Allen homage but one of cinema’s best portraits of millennial disaffection to date.

See also: Kicking and Screaming, now streaming on Hulu. 

7) Hot Fuzz (Netflix)

Edgar Wright fans might debate which entry in the Cornetto trilogy was his best. The fan favorite remains the slacker zombie spoof Shaun of the Dead, but I vastly prefer Hot Fuzz, Wright’s second entry in the saga starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

A deft send-up of Michael Bay movies and buddy-cop flicks, Hot Fuzz is at its best when it gets downright weird in its inspired third act. The British comedians—who, this time around, play mismatched police officers—go Rambo on a stuffy British village that may or may not be a front for a cult.

8) How to Marry a Millionaire (Amazon Prime)

Jean Negulesco’s How to Marry a Millionaire is as frothy as a champagne flute—and about as deep. This effervescent comedy stars Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall as a trio of women who set out to marry for the money and accidentally find love on the way to the altar.

Cast in her usual straight-man part, Bacall is typically good—playing the impeccably named Schatze Page—but the film really belongs to Monroe, who makes the best use of her bubbly screen persona as Pola Debevoise, a severely near-sighted gold-digger. Because “men aren't attentive to girls who wear glasses”—a paraphrased Dorothy Parker quote—Pola can barely see her own mark. It’s a literal sight gag that gets funnier every time I watch it.

See also: Charade, now streaming on Netflix. 

9) In a World... (Hulu)

The late Roger Ebert once wrote, “Until actors are matched to the right role, we can never quite see them clearly.” He was talking about Emma Stone’s breakout role in Easy A, but the same could be said for Lake Bell. The 36-year-old had a string of throwaway supporting roles in forgettable rom-coms like What Happens in Vegas, No Strings Attached, and Over Her Dead Body—aka that weird movie where Eva Longoria haunts Paul Rudd. Her parts could have been played by a desk lamp, and it would have barely changed the movie.

Bell finally got a chance to shine when she was allowed to write and direct her own movie: 2013’s In a World..., a sharply observed comedy about a voiceover artist trying to make her name in a male-dominated business. Film critics compared her to Carole Lombard, but her debut feature in the director’s chair proved that she has a distinctive voice all her own. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

10) Me and You and Everyone We Know (Netflix)

Miranda July isn’t to all tastes. Her sophomore feature, The Future, is partially narrated by a self-absorbed couple’s talking cat. Me and You and Everyone We Know heavily features a 6-year-old’s pre-sexual fetish involving an elaborate defecation ritual. “You poop into my butt hole and I poop into your butt hole... back and forth... forever,” he helpfully explains.

You can’t watch Me and You and Everyone We Know with your grandmother, but July’s weird and altogether wonderful directorial debut proves that she’s just as skilled a filmmaker as she is a writer and visual artist. (For the bibliophiles among us, check out her short story “The Shared Patio.”) For those willing to go on the journey with her, walking off the beaten path is well worth it. 

11) Modern Times (Hulu)

When it comes to classic films, Hulu is a gift to humanity. The streaming service houses the entire Criterion Collection, which means you can screen Jacques Tati’s Mon Oncle and Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game literally any time you want. It’s truly amazing anyone ever gets anything done.

For those looking to dip their toes into the water, I suggest Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, one of the actor-director’s many appearances as his iconic Little Tramp character. It’s not as wistfully romantic as City Lights or as defiantly angry as the Hitler satire The Great Dictator, but Chaplin’s pointed satire of industrial capitalism would prove arguably his most influential work. Not only did Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir name their literary magazine after the film, but I Love Lucy’s most famous sequence—in which Lucille Ball struggles to keep pace with a factory conveyor belt—pays tribute to Chaplin’s flawless knack for physical comedy.

12) Monkey Business (Netflix, Amazon Prime)

Should you be looking for a perfect black-and-white comedy double feature, I suggest pairing Modern Times with Monkey Business, the Marx Brothers’ first comedy written directly for the big screen. The 1931 comedy finds the Marx Brothers up to their usual hijinx—after the quartet stows away on a ship headed for New York.

In typical Marx Brothers fashion, there’s not much of a plot—and any pretense to an actual narrative is purely an accident, I’m sure. Their proper screen debut (like many of their later films) was really just a chance to show off the comedians’ trademark mix of lowbrow slapstick and absolutely killer wit. Groucho Marx became known for his clever turns of phrase, and this movie features some of his best one-liners. For my money, I’ll take this guy for my tombstone quote: “Oh, I know it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at me. I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.”

13) Muriel’s Wedding (Netflix, Amazon Prime)

The late P.J. Hogan’s dramedy is one of the unlikeliest international hits ever, so much so that I’m nearly at a loss for words to describe it. Muriel’s Wedding is about a twentysomething ABBA-obsessed slacker who still lives at home with her parents and dreams of being accepted by the popular girls who rejected her in high school. She meets a free spirit, Rhonda (played by Six Feet Under’s Rachel Griffiths), who inspires her to explore life in the big city—after she steals her parents’ money and runs off.

However, Muriel’s Wedding might be the most feel-good movie ever made about a compulsive liar with self-esteem issues. Anchored by a then-unknown Toni Collette, it showcased her incredible knack for playing complex characters that are incredibly imperfect yet wonderfully relatable.

14) Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (Netflix)

If you need a movie to make you feel like a kid again, you’re never too old to re-watch Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. This was Tim Burton’s first full-length feature, following shorts like “Frankenweenie” and “Stalk of the Celery Monster,” and it has a sweetness and buoyancy to it that so many of Burton’s later, more mannered works lack (see: Alice in Wonderland).

Big Adventure reimagines Vittorio De Sica’s Italian neorealist classic Bicycle Thieves as a road comedy starring Pee-wee Herman, a goofy man-child popularized by Paul Reubens on his beloved early morning kids’ program. After his bike is stolen one morning, Herman goes on a journey across the country looking for it, meets Elvira, and finds nothing less than the soul of America along the way.

15) Radio Days (Amazon Prime, Hulu)

Of Woody Allen’s indisputably great movies, Radio Days is the most criminally unsung (although I’d also nominate Zelig, his only foray into mockumentary). Following a string of classics like Broadway Danny Rose, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Hannah and Her Sisters—arguably his best-ever—that was bound to happen.

But the good news is that it means that Radio Days is currently streaming for audiences to rediscover. A nostalgic love letter to the golden days of radio, the film is also notable for a number of odd cameos—including Larry David, director Todd Field (In the Bedroom), William H. Macy, and a very, very young Seth Green. If the impeccable evocation of a lost period doesn’t grab you, Radio Days is a great drinking game waiting to happen.

16) Sabrina (Hulu, Amazon Prime)

You might think Breakfast at Tiffany’s is your favorite Audrey Hepburn movie. In fact, you’re pretty sure that it’s definitely absolutely your favorite. No offense intended to George Peppard, but there’s an entire world outside of Holly Golightly’s Manhattan studio (that doesn’t involve Mickey Rooney in yellowface).

Hepburn had a long, varied career to explore—from Charade and The Children’s Hour to Wait Until Dark, a personal favorite—and I would start with Sabrina. The 1954 film, about a love triangle between the daughter of a chauffeur (Hepburn), a millionaire playboy (William Holden), and his business partner (Humphrey Bogart), is one of Billy Wilder’s absolute finest screen comedies. It’s stylish, romantic, and incredibly charming, the kind of movie it’s absolutely impossible not to like. Holly Golightly might run away with your pearls, but it’s Sabrina Fairchild who will steal your heart.

17) This Is Spinal Tap (Amazon Prime)

In the years since its release, Rob Reiner’s 1984 cult magnum opus has become universally beloved, recently topping Time Out London’s list of the funniest movies ever made. Filmmakers had toyed with weaving documentary and fiction since H.G. Wells’ infamous War of the Worlds broadcast and Luis Buñuel’s 1933 Land Without Bread. Spike Jonze’s Adaptation credited Fellini’s I Clowns—a 1970 TV movie—as the first proper mockumentary—but This Is Spinal Tap realized the nascent genre’s full satiric potential.

This Is Spinal Tap absolutely skewers the airheaded pomposity of 1980s heavy metal bands (the scene of the titular group getting lost backstage is still priceless), and apparently, it was even more accurate than we imagine. When Glenn Danzig of the Misfits got around to watching the film, he was reported as saying: “When I first saw Spinal Tap, I was like, 'Hey, this is my old band.'”

The movie also gets points for introducing the world to Christopher Guest, who co-wrote the film. He would go onto direct Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind using the format Spinal Tap popularized.

18) Top Five (Hulu)

Who knew Chris Rock would prove to be such a great director? Top Five was the standup comic’s third stint behind the camera, after Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife. The latter, a sometimes successful adaptation of Eric Rohmer’s Love in the Afternoon, showed that Rock had unexpected art house sensibilities.

But instead of the French New Wave, Rock found his muse in Richard Linklater. Top Five is a masterful riff on Linklater’s Before series, in which a couple discusses life and love while wandering through the cityscapes of Vienna or Paris. Top Five trades Europe for the streets of New York. It’s both one of cinema’s best modern romantic comedies and a pretty good thinkpiece on being a black entertainer in Hollywood. Rock (who plays a version of himself) struggles with balancing an unexpected connection (a New York Times reported played by Rosario Dawson) with the pressures of celebrity.

19) Walking and Talking (Netflix)

Nicole Holofcener is one of the great, underrated directors working today. From Lovely and Amazing to Enough Said, featuring James Gandolfini’s last film performance, Holofcener makes movies I feel deeply at home in. Critics refer to them as “white people problems” movies, but they’re at once incisive satires of upper-middle-class lives and deeply affectionate portraits of their own targets. They’re both brittle and warm, scathing and incredibly human.

Cited by Entertainment Weekly as one of the greatest cult movies ever made, Walking and Talking is the movie that made Catherine Keener a star. It’s about, more or less, what all of Holofcener’s movies are about: how change tests the bonds between people. In Walking and Talking, Keener plays Amelia, whose best friend (Anne Heche) decides to get married. Imagine a very low-key, indie version of Bridesmaids—with a much better soundtrack (courtesy of Billy Bragg and Guyville-era Liz Phair).

20) Wet Hot American Summer (Netflix)

David Wain’s meta-comedy was critically reviled when it came out. The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter wrote that watching Wet Hot American Summer was “so depressing I almost started to cry,” while Salon’s Charles Taylor called it a “thoroughly inept piece of moviemaking.”

That’s because some movies take time and a certain amount of patience to find their audience, and Wet Hot American Summer is the definition of a grower, a movie that only becomes funnier the more you think about it. Previously known for creating the TV cult comedy The State, Wain’s debut is a surreal send-up of '80s camp comedies—tinged with a Hal Hartman deconstructionist sensibility. In a personal favorite scene, a group of campers wander into town, and through an escalating series of events, get addicted to heroin within a span of minutes.

If you’re a fan of the non-sequitur humor of Anchorman and Zoolander, do yourself a favor and check this out.

Screengrab via Top Five Movie/YouTube 

Metal singer growls out the recipe for an extreme birthday cake

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Linzey Rae is really motivating us to get more metal in the kitchen this year. 

Earlier in the month, Rae, singer for Denver metal band The Anchor, delivered a sternum-rattling recipe for shepherd's pie. This week she returned to her metal kitchen to whip up dessert. 

If you're in need of some birthday-planning tips, Rae has you covered. In addition to decorations, she offers step-by-step instructions for making a delicious, sugary birthday cake. We don't know if we can ever go back to non-metal cooking. 


H/T Incredible Things | Screengrab via Linzey Rae/YouTube 

Will you sign this petition to get Snoop Dogg to narrate 'Planet Earth'?

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Who doesn’t love nature shows? The beauty, the violence, the drama. Shows like Planet Earth can be a great way to wind down from a long day— letting the serene splendor of our world wash over you and erase the various annoyances and idiotic banter you’re subjected to daily at work. There’s only one problem: Sometimes you’re not in it to learn all these facts and data about our amazing world.

Sometimes you just want to sit back, look at some nature, and go, “The fuck?”

That’s exactly the thinking behind a recent Change.org petition asking that rapper, entrepreneur, and poet warrior Snoop Dogg take over as the official narrator of an entire season of BBC show Planet Earth, or, as the recurring segment on Jimmy Kimmel Live dubs it, Plizzanet Earth.

Because sometimes you don’t want to know the gestation period of an average tree frog. Sometimes, you don’t even want to know it’s a tree frog. Sometimes you just want to see a bunch of little brown meerkats or beavers or whatever fight an alligator or something, and feel like the narrator is as fucking surprised as you are.

BECAUSE NATURE IS INSANE. And it’s time we had a world-class nature show host who recognizes that.

As of Saturday, the petition had more than 34,000 signatures, and only needs 35,000 to reach its goal. We can only hope that serious waves are being made in the cut-throat world of nature show production. 

H/T Uproxx | Screengrab via Jimmy Kimmel Live/YouTube 

Louis C.K. surprises fans with webseries 'Horace and Pete'

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On Saturday, Louis C.K. bestowed the greatest gift upon his fans: a new webseries starring him and Steve Buscemi.  

Titled Horace and Pete, the series is up for grabs on C.K.'s website for $5, and stars C.K., who wrote and directed, as Horace, Buscemi (Pete), Alan Alda, Steven Wright, Edie Falco, and Aidy Bryant, among others. 

For C.K., this might just be a small project while Louie is off the air, but it was certainly kept a secret. It does find Buscemi back in a Trees Lounge vibe, which is never a bad thing. The hourlong episode takes place in a Brooklyn bar, and the New York Times said "it may best be described as a Cheers spec script by Eugene O’Neill." 

You can watch it here. And then go watch C.K.'s other new show, Baskets

H/T AV Club | Photo via david_shankbone/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

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