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“‘Knots Landing’ Star Donna Mills Joins OnlyFans at 85 Years Old”
Category: Entertainment
What are the least-visited U.S. States for foreign visitors?
Visitors from Mexico and Canada are excluded, so I guessed that the bottom three would be North Dakota, Nebraska and Delaware. I never heard of anyone going to those places on purpose. In fact, the “Welcome to Delaware” sign has a sub-heading that asks, “Is your GPS broken?”
(North Dakota would not be on the list if Canadian visitors were included. It’s a border state, and booze is much cheaper than in Canuckistan.)
I was right in general. Those were three of the bottom four, but the real list says the other non-destination is West Virginia, which tied for the bottom spot with North Dakota. I guess I forgot about WV. Based on the estimate of ZERO foreign visitors, rounded to the nearest thousand, I guess I’m not the only one who forgot it.
You can probably guess that NY, California and Florida are high. Nevada is fourth, which is not a surprising fact, but stands as an awe-inspiring tribute to the ability of mankind to alter its reality. If we had done this same survey in 1926 instead of 2026, Nevada might have competed with North Dakota and West Virginia to be the least-popular destination for overseas visitors. Somehow, thanks to the creation of Lake Meade and one gangster’s dream of a legal gambling oasis in the desert, Nevada has gone from the bottom of the popularity chart to the top.
Lindsay Lohan turns 40
My, those years do slip by.
This is the first time I have seen a detailed article about Lohan in which she seems like a normal person. Good for her. As the saying goes, better late than never.
Who knows, maybe even Britney will re-join the human race some day.
More of the genius of Mel Brooks – springtime for Torquemada
Bonus inquisition humor from the Pythons:
What Is the Definitive Movie About America?
It’s an interesting question. Which films have caught, if not the essential nature of America, at least the zeitgeist of America at a particular time.
There are some odd selections among these ten, including some mediocre-to-poor films, and films that say absolutely nothing accurate about America.
I’ve always argued that Casablanca is the film that best reflects what we want to be, and Idiocracy is the one that portrays what we really are.
I would include, as a joint entry of films that accurately portray America as I knew it in the time of my youth and childhood, two comedies by Bob Clark: Porky’s and A Christmas Story.
Happy 100th Birthday, Mel Brooks
We want to show the world the Hitler you knew, the Hitler you loved – the Hitler with a song in his heart!
– Max Bialystock, The Producers
Sure, I knew Jesus. He came in the store all the time. Never bought anything.
– The 2000-year-old Man
I’m going to bother you a bit with the reminiscences of an old man, albeit one much younger than Mel. There may be some things from his early career that you don’t know, or have forgotten. In the 1960s, although Mel was already known for his records with Carl Reiner, and mainstream appearances on big-time venues like The Tonight Show, it was not at all surprising to see him drop in on local talk shows, or syndicated shows. On those less formal shows, he was a loose cannon like Robin Williams, totally impossible for the host to control. They just had to go with his improvisations, and try to build on his ideas if they were witty enough (Steve Allen was good at this). Mel would break into absurd song parodies, obscure showbiz stories, bizarre impersonations (Jimmy Cagney’s Aunt Hilda), and even a spot-on Frank Sinatra where he crooned America the Beautiful as a saloon song. (Although it was rarely demonstrated, Mel was a remarkably good singer, and an accomplished drummer.)
By the time the audience caught up with one of his odd concepts, he would be off to another, impersonating Humphrey Bogart’s sister, or singing a risque version of a Lestoil commercial.
As I mentioned, he was Robin Williams before Robin was.
He moved from Brooklyn to Hollywood around 1960, but for people from the Outer Boroughs, Mel was our guy, and his success was our success.
And, as Sid Caesar, Peter Sellers and Steve Allen readily conceded, Mel was the funniest mofo on the planet.
Happy Count Floyd day
It’s Joe Flaherty’s birthday, or it would have been. He would have turned 85 today. He was the oldest of the SCTV group.
Pretty scary, eh, kids?
Joe’s hilarious impersonation of William F. Buckley Jr.
Variety’s obituary here.
Joe became the third of the seven original cast members to pass away, following John Candy and Harold Ramis. Catherine O’Hara recently became the fourth to pass. Only two of the guys are still with us: Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas. The other living member is Andrea Martin, who went on to a pretty good career in film and TV, but really found her niche as a huge Broadway star (6 Tony nominations, with two wins). Levy and Martin are still working constantly, but Dave Thomas has sort of dropped off the radar lately.
That original cast is pictured below.
Although SCTV was originally a Canadian show, that original cast featured three Americans: Ramis (Chicago), Martin (Portland, Maine) and Flaherty (Pittsburgh). That was the maximum allowed, because the rules prevalent at the time demanded that at least 50% of the performers had to be Canadian.
(Canadians Martin Short and Rick Moranis joined the cast later.)
Did you know that Martin Short and Andrea Martin became in-laws when they married siblings?
Below, Joe Flaherty discusses the early days of SCTV with Jen Candy, John’s daughter. What a great, nostalgic visit with a charming man! When the hour was up, I wanted another two hours. I was deeply disappointed that Jen never got him on for a second appearance. (Curse you, pandemic.)
As Joe points out in that interview, he took an unusual path toward Second City stardom. He was the classic late bloomer. After some college, the Air Force, and acting classes, he was already 28 when he joined Second City Chicago – as a stage manager! It was quite a while before he got to perform, and that happened only because the rest of the cast refused to work with Gerrit Graham on a road show, so Joe was plugged in as a desperation choice.
Thus, eventually giving birth to Count Floyd.
Arooooooooooooooooooo!
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By the way, Prime Video in Canada is now streaming all six seasons of SCTV.
Birodalom news
From the comment area:
Michelle Wild will be in the next episode of Birodalom (both the character, and also the real Michelle in a cameo)
Here is Viola Lotti Gombo playing Michelle Wild in episode 3:
Donny “No Soul” Simmons serenades us with non-threatening music
A great comedy bit from Amazon Women on the Moon (1987). David Alan Grier did a great job at singing the whitest songs ever written. The premise behind it was a benefit to support the cure for the black people who were tragically born without soul. John Landis, director of Animal House, created the segment.
TRIVIA: How did David Alan Grier learn to be so white? He has a Master’s degree from Yale where he studied Shakespeare, and presumably, had ample opportunity to study white people in their natural habitats, like Sunday brunches, yard sales, antiquing, and performing in barbershop quartets.
I wonder whether he was a Wiffenpoof, possibly the whitest thing in human history.
Conan O’Brien’s commencement speech at Harvard
One of the best, maybe the best, of commencement speeches. These orations are usually filled with empty platitudes and truisms. Not this one. It is witty and about as edgy as such as thing can be.