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Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
After 10 years, ‘Phineas and Ferb' returns with a new season and more musical moments
Jaret Reddick remembers the first time he met Dan Povenmire and Jeff 'Swampy' Marsh. He had flown to L.A. because Povenmire and Marsh were hoping Reddick, the lead singer of the pop-punk band Bowling for Soup, would sing the theme song for their new animated series, 'Phineas and Ferb.' The meeting went well and Reddick not only got to sing the show's theme song, 'Today's Gonna Be a Great Day,' but he was also cast as the voice of Danny, the lead singer of the show's fictional band Love Händel. 'I walked out of there going, 'Man I love those guys. I really hope this show does well for them,'' Reddick recalls. And done well it has. Since its premiere in 2007, 'Phineas and Ferb' has become the most successful animated series for children and tweens in Disney Television Animation history. The series about two brothers — Phineas (Vincent Martella) and Ferb (David Errigo Jr.) — trying to make the most of their 104 days of summer vacation ran for four seasons and spawned multiple movies including 2020's 'Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe.' Now, 10 years after the show's fourth season ended, the series returns for a fifth season Thursday at 8 p.m. PT on the Disney Channel. The first 10 episodes of the new season will also debut Friday on Disney+. Most of the main voice cast has returned, including Martella, Ashley Tisdale — who voices the continually exasperated older sister, Candace — and Caroline Rhea, the boys' ever serene mother, Linda. For this new batch of episodes, Povenmire and Marsh embraced the show's successful formula where the boys come up with new and always increasingly creative ways to entertain themselves. 'I think there's probably a bunch of episodes this season that are going to be people's favorite episodes that they have ever seen,' says Povenmire, who also voices the show's inept nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Just like how Phineas always knows what he and Ferb are going to do today, Marsh knew what Disney was expecting with the show's return. 'They really just wanted more of the same,' Marsh says. 'The show always worked before and it was always sort of timeless. It was not anything that relied on current events or the current zeitgeist. We really just had to keep doing what we are doing and keep pushing the envelope into new areas and do it without violating the framework that we had set up.' One thing that has changed for the new season is the writers' room, which now includes writers who grew up watching the show. And Olivia Olson — you may remember her as Joanna, the little girl singing 'All I Want for Christmas is You' at the end of 'Love Actually' — who voices Vanessa Doofenshmirtz on the series, has also come on board as a writer. Olson says this new role formalizes the unofficial one she had shadowing her dad, Martin Olson, who wrote for the series during its original run. Now they're a writing team on the series. 'There's a lot more Vanessa in this new season,' she says with a laugh. 'It's really cool to write for my own character and see the stories I wanted to have for her play out and I just learned so much. To come back and write with my dad is really cool.' Since the beginning, the show's music has set the series apart. 'Phineas and Ferb do something completely out of the box and different every day,' Olson says. 'The music just mirrors that.' Marsh recalls an early episode featuring the song 'Let's Take a Rocket Ship to Space,' which was an homage to Frank Sinatra. Executives were worried the show's target audience wouldn't get it, but that wasn't the case. As the show grew in popularity, so did the music, which crosses multiple genres. 'Country songs, rock songs, pop songs, operatics, big band, rap stuff — it's all over the map,' Marsh says. 'The songs move the story along, hopefully they bring humor as well as telling us something about the characters.' Reddick says during Bowling for Soup concerts, in addition to the band's biggest hits like 'Girl All the Bad Guys Want' or '1985,' fans demand to hear the show's theme song. 'It's so infectious,' he says. 'We managed to record a song that is just accepted by everybody. Everyone loves it.' When the show was first starting out, Povenmire and Marsh would tell series composer and song producer Danny Jacob to not pick up the phone when they called so they could leave a message on his answering machine with their latest song. 'We sounded like a bunch of college frat boys singing into a tape recorder,' Marsh says. While the technology they use has improved, their approach to the show's music has not changed. Jay Stutler, senior vice president of music at Disney Television Animation, has been with the show since the first episode. 'That pilot was the most fun pilot I've ever worked on,' he says. Povenmire and Marsh brought a musical aesthetic that 'took chances and leaned into some really obscure musical references from around the world.' 'What this show did better than any other show was establish that the song can be whatever it needs to be,' he adds. One of the stories from this season's sixth episode, 'Lord of the Firesides,' finds the show's Girl Scout-like troop, the Fireside Girls, going completely feral, like in the famous William Golding novel. It features the song 'Watch It Burn.' 'It's a really thrashing screaming song for the sweetest little girls in the world,' Povenmire says. 'It's the hardest-rocking song that would ever be on the Disney Channel.' Tisdale, who also starred in the 'High School Musical' franchise, jokes that her new edict to her agent is 'iconic stuff only please.' Tisdale, who lent her voice to some of the show's most memorable songs including 'Busted' and 'Gitchee Gitchee Goo,' is delighted to be back voicing Candace. 'She's so fun. She's just a crazy sister trying to bust her brothers. I truly just feel like she wants to be seen.' In the fifth season, Candace is now 16, a year older than she was during the original run. In addition to her updated cellphone, the new season finds Candace getting her driver's license and going to therapy, 'which she totally needs to do,' Tisdale says. In addition to the returning main voice cast, Povenmire and Marsh lined up many guest stars — they marvel at who they were able to get: Brendan Hunt, Alan Cumming, John Stamos, Leslie Jones, Anna Faris, Cristo Fernández, Megan Rapinoe, Meghan Trainor, Jonathan Banks, Rhys Darby, Ruth Negga and Michael Bublé. Bublé plays himself and serenades an audience during a beach concert. Povenmire recalls Bublé texting him, 'You would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting with my manager when I told him what I really wanted to do at this point in my career is sing a song called 'Tropey McTropeface.'' The musical guest stars have always been a highlight of the show. Povenmire fondly recalls the time they wrote 'I Believe We Can,' which featured performances from Clay Aiken and Chaka Khan for the 2010 episode 'Summer Belongs to You,' and then realized they had to actually get Aiken and Khan for the joke to work. They did. Although they joke around, the series' return packs an emotional punch for the duo, who famously pitched the series for 13 years before Disney picked it up. 'I watched the first episode and came back into the writers' room and I was crying,' Povenmire says. 'It feels like 'Phineas and Ferb' are back. That's what I want people to feel. This show is back with a vengeance.'
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Priscilla Presley Wins Round in Elder Abuse Lawsuit Against Ex-Associates
A Los Angeles County judge has sided with Priscilla Presley and ruled California is the best venue to hear her elder abuse lawsuit against the group of ex-associates she claims duped her out of more than $1 million. That means the case can proceed with its next hearing in a few weeks. In a new ruling issued Thursday, Judge Mark H. Epstein shot down the argument by Florida memorabilia dealer Brigitte Kruse, Kruse's husband, and investor Kevin Fialko that Presley's elder abuse claims against them should be placed on hold while they pursue a separate breach of contract lawsuit against Presley in Florida. The defendants had argued that fighting Presley's lawsuit on the west coast while simultaneously pursuing their previously filed claims against Presley in Florida would be 'extraordinarily inconvenient.' More from Rolling Stone Suge Knight's Lawyer Tries, Fails to Escape Mogul's Retrial Judge Declines to Revoke Young Thug's Probation Following Viral Tweet Mariah Carey Seeks Legal Fee Reimbursement in Dismissed 'All I Want for Christmas is You' Case After previously rejecting the defendants' claims that California had no jurisdiction over them, Epstein said he considered the latest legal push 'yet another in what seems to be a never-ending series of motions … to move this case out of California and into Florida.' He rebuffed the argument that Florida was the best venue in terms of preserving private and public resources. He also brushed off the claim that Presley signed contracts that agreed to litigate disputes in Florida. 'This is not really a contract-based case at its heart; it is a fraud case,' Epstein wrote in his ruling obtained by Rolling Stone. 'Plaintiff is suing these defendants for fraud and elder abuse, an aspect of which was allegedly bamboozling her into signing those agreements in the first place.' Judge Epstein said that while Kruse, her husband, and Fialko may reside in Florida and Tennessee, Presley and her alleged witnesses are in California. He also noted that the abuse allegedly occurred in California, giving the state 'a strong public interest in the case.' He faulted the defendants for not addressing these issues adequately in their joint motion. 'Defendants seem to almost ignore the elder abuse allegations, which are not part of the Florida action. But that is the beating heart of the California case,' he wrote. 'Plaintiff [Presley] suggests that the witnesses to the elder abuse, the effect it had on plaintiff, and plaintiff's situation before and after the alleged actions are here, not in Florida. Similarly, plaintiff contends that many of the documents that relate to the claim of abuse are here as well. The court tends to agree.' Lawyers for Kruse, her husband, and Fialko did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. In prior declarations to the court, the defendants claimed Presley willingly entered into agreements with them to lease a property in Florida and fork over the controlling interest in her publicity rights. In her 45-page elder abuse complaint filed last July, Presley claimed Kruse 'quickly immersed herself' in her life after meeting her in 2021, 'often sending her multiple text messages a day, and telling her how much she loved her and admired her.' Presley's lawsuit called Kruse a 'con-artist and pathological liar' who misappropriated more than $1 million from Presley and 'fraudulently induced' her into signing contracts that gave Kruse and Fialko between 51 percent and 80 percent control over closely held companies owning and exploiting her name, image and likeness. 'This action arises out of a meticulously planned and abhorrent scheme by the defendants in this action to prey on an older woman by gaining her trust, isolating her from the most important people in her life, and duping her into believing that they would take care of her — personally and financially — while their real goal was to drain her of every last penny she had,' the lawsuit filed by Presley's lawyers Martin Singer and T. Wayne Harman read. Presley said the defendants placed a 'stranglehold' on her finances and withheld not only the $500,000 she made from Sofia Coppola's film adaptation of her biography Elvis and Me, but also the $349,900 she received in connection with her 'Cilla' cosmetics deal. Though Priscilla said she negotiated the deal for Coppola's film, titled Priscilla, under a predecessor company before Kruse and Fialko 'were even involved in her affairs,' the pair 'never paid [her] a dime,' the lawsuit said. Priscilla further alleged Kruse and Fialko 'attempted to obtain an invitation to the premiere of Priscilla at the Venice Film Festival' even though they 'had absolutely nothing to do with the film.' In her dueling breach of contract lawsuit, Kruse alleges that Presley illegally walked out on their various business agreements when her financial circumstances changed in the wake of her daughter Lisa Marie's death. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Presley challenged a 2016 amendment to her daughter's Promenade Trust that removed her as a co-trustee but then quickly reached a generous settlement with granddaughter Riley Keough that granted her a $1 million lump-sum payment, $100,000 annual salary, and burial rights near Elvis at Graceland. In a statement previously sent to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for Kruse called Presley's elder abuse lawsuit a 'retaliatory' response to Kruse's breach of contract case. 'We are confident that the facts will speak for themselves and justice will prevail,' the statement said. 'It saddens all of us who dropped our lives to provide aid to a woman who needed help and she is now attempting to use her celebrity status to ruin the lives of kind, hardworking people. Thank you to all of our supporters who have stood by us during this difficult time. We will continue to focus on our business and look forward to our day in court. The truth will come out by way of evidence and not rumors. There will be no further comment at this time as we respect the judicial process.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Judge Rejects Lawyer's Bid to Exit Suge Knight Case on ‘Eve of Trial'
Suge Knight appeared remotely from a San Diego prison Thursday and told a judge he was surprised to hear his longtime lawyer, David Kenner, had asked to withdraw as his attorney just weeks before a major civil trial. Speaking over a phone line from his detention center, Knight told the court he wanted to move ahead with his April 7 re-trial over a civil lawsuit tied to the 2015 death of Compton businessman Terry Carter. He said he couldn't proceed alone and rejected Kenner's claim that an 'irreconcilable conflict' had developed between them. More from Rolling Stone Judge Declines to Revoke Young Thug's Probation Following Viral Tweet Mariah Carey Seeks Legal Fee Reimbursement in Dismissed 'All I Want for Christmas is You' Case Nicolas Cage's Son Avoids Jail, Gets Mental Health Diversion for Alleged Assault on Mom 'I don't want to put anyone in a bad situation, but I have some real concerns. I've known Mr. Kenner for a very long time, and I feel we still have a relationship,' Knight told the court. 'I do want to move forward. I'm very tired and want to put this behind me. I never wanted any delays in the first place.' After the 30-minute hearing, Los Angeles County Judge Thomas Long denied Kenner's motion to withdraw, calling it 'untimely' on the 'eve of trial.' He kept the month-long jury trial's planned Monday start but ordered the parties back for a final status conference Friday. He appeared open to a possible one-week delay if the parties agree to pare down their planned evidence and testimony. Knight, 59, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for his voluntary manslaughter conviction involving Carter's hit-and-run death. While incarcerated, he faced an initial June 2022 civil trial over the wrongful death claims filed by Carter's widow and daughters. That first trial ended with jurors deadlocked seven to five in favor of finding Knight liable. The trial set to begin Monday is a second attempt to resolve the case. At the Thursday hearing, Kenner said he could no longer represent Knight after he learned something 'disturbing' during a phone call with Knight in the last six weeks. He declined to elaborate, citing attorney-client privilege. He said after the call, he felt 'anxious about being able to competently and energetically try this case.' Knight told the court he believed Kenner was referring to recent 'death threats' allegedly made by a third party toward the lawyer. Kenner said that was not the case. He was adamant the third party had not threatened him, though he did recall feeling concerned about a witness who said something sinister when he was approached years ago to possibly testify. 'Mr. Knight is entitled to representation in which there's no conflict,' Kenner told the court Thursday. 'Both he and I are in a terrible position. I don't want to do it. I don't want to [represent him].' Knight again made the claim that his call with Kenner involved a discussion of 'death threats.' He said there was no time to find a new lawyer and he didn't want to wait. 'I'm really in a bad position because I do feel bad about the death threats,' Knight said. 'I don't want to be in a situation where I go in a courtroom, and I end up losing because I'm by myself. I just want a fair trial, and I don't want to see anyone get hurt, let alone get killed. I don't want that on my conscience. I'm a God-fearing man. I love the lord. I'm doing everything I can to make my life better. I just want to get this behind me.' After Judge Long made his ruling, Kenner asked for an expedited transcript of the proceeding. He said he planned to file an appeal. The judge said Kenner was free to do that but he didn't plan to delay the trial on that basis. 'The court's ruling puts me and even Mr. Knight in an improbable, impossible position, and I think an appellate court would overrule it,' Kenner tells Rolling Stone after the hearing. 'I, of course, will also be requesting a stay during the pendency of the appeal.' Carter's family claimed Knight acted negligently when he hit the gas on his Ford Raptor truck and fatally struck Carter in a Tam's Burgers parking lot on Jan. 29, 2015. Knight denies any wrongdoing, claiming he was the victim of an armed ambush at the Compton burger stand and acted in self-defense. Testifying from prison at the initial civil trial three years ago, Knight told jurors he accelerated because he feared for his life after another man, Cle 'Bone' Sloan, allegedly brandished a gun and started punching him through his truck window. Sloan, who also was injured in the hit-and-run, denied having a gun during the confrontation. Testifying under a grant of immunity at a criminal hearing in 2015, Sloan said the item in his hands was a two-way radio that he used as a security guard on the set of the Dr. Dre– and Ice Cube-produced N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton. Graphic surveillance video depicting the deadly incident was shown repeatedly during the 2022 civil trial held in a Compton courtroom. In the footage, Knight's truck is seen pulling into the Tam's driveway in the hours after an alleged confrontation between Knight and Sloan outside a production office of the movie earlier that day. Knight previously testified that he had visited the production office to speak with Dr. Dre. He claimed police had told him Dre had hired the man who shot Knight seven times at Chris Brown's pre-VMA party in the summer of 2014. 'I was going to talk to him and say, 'Hey man, I'm not going to react to what authorities say about you having something to do with me getting shot or [having] paid somebody to get me killed. I just want to make you aware they are saying this,'' Knight testified in 2022. He claimed it wasn't a big deal when Dre was 'too busy' for a meeting and testified that it was Sloan who acted aggressively toward him as he departed the movie's base camp. Knight told jurors that Carter, whom he described as a longtime friend, called him later that day and invited him to a meeting with Dre at another man's home across the street from Tam's. He claimed Carter told him Dre wanted to give him 'some bread' amid a disagreement over Knight's portrayal in the movie. (Dre, through a lawyer, previously denied the allegation that he offered money to have Knight killed. 'Given that Dre has had zero interaction with Suge since leaving Death Row Records in 1996, we hope that Suge's lawyer has lots of malicious prosecution insurance,' the lawyer said.) Knight's retrial in the civil case was postponed five times before it was set for April 7. The music mogul asked for more time last October as he sought to gain release from custody with claims he was coerced into accepting the 2018 plea agreement that reduced his murder charge to a manslaughter charge in the criminal hit-and-run case. A judge denied Knight's bid to overturn the 28-year-sentence in a ruling last month. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Michael Hurley, Influential Outsider Folk Singer, Dead at 83
Michael Hurley, the beloved eccentric folk singer whose music became a touchstone for a generation of singer-songwriters, has died at 83. The singer's death was announced in a statement from his family, and his publicist confirmed that Hurley died in his home state of Oregon after returning home from a series of weekend performances at the Big Ears festival in Knoxville. A cause of death was not provided. More from Rolling Stone Trump Fires NatSec Officials After Meeting With Far-Right Conspiracy Theorist Mariah Carey Seeks Legal Fee Reimbursement in Dismissed 'All I Want for Christmas is You' Case Sarah Silverman's Comedy Special About Parents' Death Headed to Netflix 'It is with a resounding sadness that the Hurley family announces the recent sudden passing of the inimitable Michael Hurley,' the statement reads. 'The 'Godfather of freak folk' was for a prolific half-century the purveyor of an eccentric genius and compassionate wit. He alone was Snock. There is no other. Friends, family, and the music community deeply mourn his loss.' Michael Hurley was known for singing and writing songs that were delivered warmly and plainly, often in a lo-fi presentation, about unconventional subject material. Put more simply, he sang and wrote songs that sounded like they couldn't have been written or sung by anyone other than Michael Hurley, songs about fishbones and biscuit rollers and werewolves and forsaken hogs. Over the past quarter-century, those songs and the one-of-a-kind spirit that produced them became a guiding beacon of artistic integrity and inspiring non-conformity. They inspired everyone from indie legends like Cat Power and Will Oldham to roots luminaries like Lucinda Williams to roots rockers Deer Tick to next-generation oddballs like Jonny Fritz, a singer who wouldn't exist without the path Michael Hurley blazed decades prior. Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Hurley moved around as a child, traveling to Florida and California due to his father's work as a producer of musicals, before settling back in Pennsylvania. Music came to him at a young age, as he absorbed R&B, blues, and rock and roll records as a child. Before long, Hurley began writing his own songs. 'I started making up stuff right away,' Hurley told the New York Times in 2021. 'If you don't know the proper way, you do it your way. Sometimes, that gives you a better song.' As a teenager, Hurley began hitch-hiking and traveling across the country, eventually finding himself in Greenwich Village. At 22, he recorded his debut album First Songs, which was released in 1964 by Smithsonian Folkways. But after releasing the album, Hurley became a father and a husband, and spent the next half-dozen years working a series of odd jobs, which he chronicled to a journalist years later in his own words: 'Groundskeeper, Machine operator, foundry worker, cookie bakery worker, carding mill worker, shoe pattern shop worker, moccasin maker, carpenter, apple picker, tipi maker, grocery store general helper who was handy with a broom and could stock shelves and make kielbasa sausages, artist's model at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art, hot pretzel vendor on streets of Boston, hospital janitor, janitor at Paris Cinema Boyleston St, Boston.' Hurley's second release —1971's Armchair Boogie — was his major label debut that featured his signature songs like 'Be Kind to Me' and 'Sweedeedee.' 'Michael Hurley is either a stone genius or he is stone crazy,' Rolling Stone's review of the album said. 'I suspect he is both.' A few years later, Hurley played a part in a record that became his most influential and well-known work. The album was called Have Moicy, credited to an on-and-off cast of outsider folk musicians who called themselves the Holy Modal Rounders. Although the bulk of the record was recorded by just two bandmates (including Peter Stampfel), Hurley and many others contributed to the album, which soon became a cult-classic. In his A+ review, the critic Robert Christgau raved that the record 'renew[ed] the concept of American folk music as a bizarre apotheosis of the post-hippie estate.' Before long, Hurley had largely retreated from the music industry, though he never stopped making music. In the eighties, he established his own label, Bellemeade Phonics, which he used to release his own records until the early 2000's, when a series of indie labels began releasing his music. At that point, Hurley had settled in the Pacific Northwest, where he'd been anointed as a sort of king of nonconformist singer-songwriters to a younger generation. 'The refrain,' Will Oldham, one of those songwriters, told the Times in 2021, 'is, 'What would Michael Hurley do?'' 'Calling me an outsider artist…yes, I think it's apt,' Hurley said later that year. 'It's taken me a long time to join the gang.' Michael Hurley remained active as a recording and touring artist in his final years. His last new album of entirely new material is 2021's The Time of the Foxgloves. In 2021, Hurley was asked to name his all-time favorite albums. His response was, instead, a personal manifesto: 'I like original music,' Hurley said. I like to listen to people who are playing themselves, not somebody else or who they think they should be. I like a raw truth. I like to celebrate the hilarity of life. The whole deal. The boogie woogie, the bebop and the blues as well as folk music of all nations.' Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Fox News
21-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Mariah Carey didn't steal lyrics for hit song 'All I Want For Christmas Is You,' judge rules
Mariah Carey won big Wednesday after she was accused of copying lyrics for her hit "All I Want For Christmas Is You." Judge Mónica Ramírez Almadani granted Carey's motion for summary judgment before the case made it to trial, Fox News Digital can confirm. Carey had been battling over her hit Christmas song after songwriters accused the R&B pop singer of stealing the lyrics in a complaint first filed in 2023. Andy Stone, the lead vocalist of Vince Vance and the Valiants, co-wrote his song – also titled "All I Want for Christmas is You" – in 1989. Stone accused Carey and her team of copying his song's "compositional structure," according to the complaint obtained by Fox News Digital. Carey "directly" copied lyrics from Stone's 1989 hit, and "approximately 50%" of the song is copyright infringement, the court documents stated. Stone had claimed that Carey and her team "undoubtedly" had access to his version of "All I Want for Christmas is You" due to its "wide commercial and cultural success." Stone's song charted on Billboard for years, and his band performed the song during an appearance at the White House in the spring of 1994 – the same year Carey's song was released. The White House performance put Vince Vance and the Valiants' song back on the Billboard Hot Country Chart in 1994, according to the court docs. "Carey has capitalized on the success of her infringing work," Stone's complaint alleged. "'All I Want for Christmas is You' has become a ubiquitous part of popular culture, and Carey's name has become synonymous with the season." After hearing from two experts for each side, Ramírez Almadani agreed with those from the defense, who said the writers employed common Christmas clichés that existed prior to both songs, and that Carey's song used them differently. She said the plaintiffs had not met the burden of showing that the songs are substantially similar. The judge also ordered sanctions against Stone and Powers, claiming the plaintiffs had filed a frivolous lawsuit and "made no reasonable effort to ensure that the factual contentions asserted have evidentiary support." They will also have to pay part of Carey's legal fees. Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Carey for comment. Stone's lawyer, Gerard P. Fox, said he was "disappointed" with the outcome in an email to the Associated Press. Fox claimed that judges at this level "nearly always now dismiss a music copyright case and that one must appeal to reverse and get the case to the jury. My client will make a decision shortly on whether to appeal. We filed based on the opinions of two esteemed musicologists who teach at great colleges."
