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UPI
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- UPI
Famous birthdays for June 2: Dana Carvey, Awkwafina
1 of 2 | Dana Carvey uses his phone to take pictures of the photographers as he arrives on the red carpet for the 2023 Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor gala evening in Washington, D.C., on March 19, 2023. The actor turns 70 on June 2. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo
New York Times
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
The Best of ‘S.N.L.' Season 50: Trump, Biden and Domingo
In a season so heavily focused on celebrating the 50th anniversary of 'Saturday Night Live,' it was easy to forget that there were also 21 regular episodes of the show this year. While not every sketch from this run will go down in history, this year 'S.N.L.' did cover a contentious presidential election and reckon with the re-election of Donald Trump; create an unexpected online trend by ruining a couple's impending marriage; and allow Timothée Chalamet to appear as both a host and a musical guest. Will we someday talk about these segments with the same reverence we reserve for the Coneheads or 'Mister Robinson's Neighborhood'? That will be the job of some future recapper to decide. (Hopefully.) For now, join us as we look back at the most memorable moments of the past season of ' Political impressions of the season After abundant speculation about who would play the Democratic presidential and vice-presidential nominees, the results — with Maya Rudolph as former Vice President Harris and Jim Gaffigan as Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota — were mostly lackluster. The performances were too amiable and not particularly satirical (much like the real-life Harris's own appearance on the show). James Austin Johnson has remained a dependable President Trump. But we'll give the edge this season to the 'S.N.L.' alums Dana Carvey, who finally found a funny way to play President Biden, and Mike Myers, who seemed to be having the time of his life skewering Elon Musk. Two '90s-era 'S.N.L.' stalwarts remaining relevant? No way! Way. Inexplicable viral phenomenon of the season Was it funny when a quartet of bridesmaids (played by Ariana Grande, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman and Heidi Gardner) sang an off-key rewrite of Sabrina Carpenter's 'Espresso' about a marriage-wrecking hunk named Domingo (Marcello Hernández)? Sure. Did anyone expect it to lead to countless TikTok tributes, two additional sketches this season (including one on the 50th anniversary) and an appearance by Hernández as Domingo at one of Carpenter's concerts? Probably not. The Domingo phenomenon was mostly espresso and not too depress-o. But if next year brings more sketches or a line of Domingo-branded male enhancement pills, it will probably have gone too far. Opening monologue of the season It seemed like tempting fate when Bill Burr was offered what had been the ceremonial Dave Chappelle post-election weekend hosting slot; in return, Burr delivered a somewhat polarizing stand-up monologue that both was and was not about the recent re-election of President Trump. (As one representative line went: 'Ladies, enough with the pantsuit, OK? It's not working. Stop trying to have respect for yourselves. You don't win the office on policy. You got to whore it up a little.') When Chappelle returned, the weekend before Trump's second inauguration, he proved worth the wait, with a powerful, 17-minute monologue that touched on everything from the death of President Carter to the Los Angeles wildfires to the war in Gaza. At its memorable conclusion, Chappelle implored Trump and the American people: 'Do not forget your humanity, and please have empathy for displaced people, whether they're in the Palisades or Palestine.' 50th anniversary celebration of the season To borrow a phrase, everyone involved with 'SNL50: The Anniversary Special' went all-out, and it had everything: Will Ferrell in booty shorts; Sabrina Carpenter duetting with Paul Simon; Maya Rudolph dressed as a heroin shot; Jack Nicholson an airdate that inexplicably preceded the actual 50th anniversary of the show's debut broadcast by more than eight months. Yet, for all the hype and the many demographic demands that the (three-and-a-half hour) anniversary show had to satisfy, it delivered a classic 'S.N.L.' experience: overly ambitious while feeling as if it had been written earlier that morning. And while it would be folly to pick one segment to summarize the entire night, we'll just arbitrarily pick the 'Close Encounter' sketch with Meryl Streep, who was a long-awaited and perfect match for Kate McKinnon's oddball energy. Weekend Update desk segment of the season It got a bit overshadowed by the unexpectedly bawdy in-studio reaction it elicited, but Ego Nwodim's comedy set as her standup alter-ego Miss Eggy, 'the baddest chick on the block,' was a character piece that was (nearly) flawless in its execution — at least until the live audience was asked to chime in. Hilarious in its own right, the bit was memorable enough to get a return outing in the season finale, this time without swear words shouted by the crowd. We'll give runner-up status to Michael Longfellow for his comically aloof commentary on the Real ID rollout, and to Hernández for powering through his 'Movie Guy' segments on sheer charisma. TV parody of the season Arriving just days after the third-season finale of 'The White Lotus,' 'The White Potus' was a timely and topical sendup of that much-discussed HBO comedy-drama that managed to touch all the bases. The 'S.N.L.' lampoon nailed the breezy cinematography and melodramatic tone of its source material, managed to draw a few salient parallels between the 'White Lotus' characters and the current Trump administration and brought back some welcome alumni (like Alex Moffat as Eric Trump and Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin). The segment also proved unexpectedly controversial when the 'White Lotus' cast member Aimee Lou Wood called it 'mean and unfunny' for how she was depicted (as played by Sarah Sherman with a set of prosthetic teeth). Sherman sent Wood a conciliatory bouquet of flowers, saying, 'I feel terrible that anyone would feel bad.' Musical inspiration of the season Bob Dylan, who hasn't performed on 'S.N.L.' since Season 5, proved to be an unlikely muse in Season 50. He was the motivation for this charmingly freewheeling sketch that imagined a red-carpet premiere for the biopic 'A Complete Unknown' attended by Dylan (Johnson) and his youthful portrayer Chalamet (Chloe Fineman). He also inspired the real-life Chalamet's performances of Dylan songs on the show a few weeks later. And while it's too soon to say whether Jane Wickline will go on, like Dylan, to win 10 competitive Grammy Awards and the Nobel Prize for Literature, her own offbeat musical ramblings about Sabrina Carpenter, the trolley problem and a baby shoe found at the Central Park Zoo have become a welcome part of the 'S.N.L.' fabric. We'll check back on her progress in another 50 years.
Motor 1
17-05-2025
- Automotive
- Motor 1
Excellent! The AMC Pacer From Wayne's World Got a Full Restoration
Ah, the AMC Pacer. At a time when American vehicles had football fields for hoods, the Pacer was a bulbous little runabout with distinct 1970s charm. And now, the most famous Pacer of them all is immortalized and ready to charm a new generation of AMC fans. Of course, we're talking about the blue 1976 AMC Pacer from Wayne's World . The breakout film for Mike Myers starred fellow Saturday Night Live alum Dana Carvey as Wayne's best bud Garth, owner of said Pacer—AKA the Mirthmobile. Few movie scenes from the last 35 years are as iconic as Wayne, Garth, and their pals rocking out to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody in the Mirthmobile. It was such an iconic scene that it brought Queen's bodacious 1970s ballad back to the Billboard charts. Now, 33 years after the film's debut, the iconic Pacer is heading to the prestigious Petersen Museum with a full restoration. But it wasn't an easy road to get there, as Hagerty reports. After filming, the car was used for some movie promo work and was ultimately given to a woman in Oregon as part of a prize package through MTV. From there, the car went to a local museum, where it didn't receive the best treatment. It sat outside, got a bit crusty, and basically faded out of the public's eye until it ended up on the History Channel show, Pawn Stars. At that point, the car was fully restored, but according to Hagerty, some "shortcuts" were taken in the process. It wasn't quite as original as it was in the movie, so when the car was purchased by Kevin and Brandon Mindel, they set about making it right. Known for their passion regarding iconic Hollywood cars, they spiffed up Garth's ride just as it was in the film—licorice dispenser and all. The Pacer is currently on display as part of the Petersen's Hollywood Customs gallery. Excellent! More Movie Car Magic: Great Scott! DeLorean BTTF RC Car Has Lights, Sounds, And Smoke Knight Rider Historians Are The Epic Superfans Keeping KITT Alive Get the best news, reviews, columns, and more delivered straight to your inbox, daily. back Sign up For more information, read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . Source: The Petersen Museum via Hagerty Share this Story Facebook X LinkedIn Flipboard Reddit WhatsApp E-Mail Got a tip for us? Email: tips@ Join the conversation ( )
Forbes
10-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Na Ga Da Republicans
' Here goes our GOP today. Photo by: Alan Singer/NBCU Photo Bank "Not gonna do it [creepy laughter], not gonna do it [creepy laughter], not gonna do it [creepy laughter],…did it.' So went comedian Dana Carvey's legendary impersonation of President George H.W. Bush. Whatever the underlying issue to which the routine was referring, it was rolling-on-the-floor hilarious because the na-ga-da (the shorthand for this sequence that became a cultural buzzword) captured, perfectly, Bush's unbelievable reversal of his solemn 1988 Republican presidential nomination acceptance speech pledge never to raise taxes. 'Read my lips, no new taxes,' the man said in 1988, at the pinnacle moment of his political career and as the transition from the tremendous Reagan years was at hand. That was the first na-ga-da. A few more came once Bush was president in 1989 and early 1990 and then…in the summer of 1990…'heh heh heh heh…did it.' Bush went for tax-rate increases, in particular in the top rate of the income tax. Congress, run by Democrats, gleefully obliged, and the tax-rate increases headlined by a hike at the top came later in the year. The rout President Bush experienced in his re-election effort two years later was a sight to behold. The man took 37 percent of the vote. No incumbent, and I mean no incumbent ever does that poorly in a re-election effort. Hoover in 1932? He took 39.6 percent of the vote. In a delicious irony, Democrat Bill Clinton, the victor in 1992, said thanks a lot and raised the top tax rate to 39.6 percent. The fellow rubbed it in. You know why we are going into all this. Just now the controlling Republicans in Congress are considering raising the top rate of the income tax, currently at 37 percent thanks to the 2017 tax cut but really at 40 percent because of the mandatory Medicare add-on. Republicans are indeed considering doing a na-ga-da. The purpose of Republicans, the party has been aware for decades now, is to ensure that the top tax rate does not rise. The political economics of the matter is as Arthur Laffer and I put it yesterday: Keeping the top tax rate low is the guarantee of the American Dream for everybody. Raising the top tax rate is wholesale the stuff of the idiot left. There is no credible economics or budgetary concern for raising the top tax rate. Do tax shelters exist in this country? To the extent they do—and that extent is enormous—the top tax rate is not optimal and can be cut productively. The debate is over. Yet economics Nobelist Peter Diamond has an equation showing the top tax rate should be 70 percent? He does. The tippy-top econ journals have all sorts of proofs that income tax rates should be raised at the top. The profession also—we sure have seen this lately—speaks with one accord that the tariff rate should be zero, the necessary corollary of the concept of free trade. Income tax 70 is best, tariff zero is best, the proofs are in the Greek letters, and look at these Nobels. It is important to recognize, as the ludicrousness of the 70-zero difference screams, that the whole of the scholarly economics profession's discussion of taxation is rot. Throw it all out—in whole—and act rationally, like actual, non-over-intellectualized leaders, and figure taxation from scratch. Even Hayek and Friedman talked confidently about a flat 25 percent income tax—as if Andrew Mellon, who had unmatched wisdom on this score, was incorrect that any rate over 10 percent prompts the full menace of flows into economically unproductive shelters. Throw out all of the stuffed-shirt consensus and cut the top rate. When has this failed? About the only answer anyone ever comes up with, with some illusion of credibility, is 2001. W. Bush cut the top tax rate, see, and on came the Great Recession. He cut the top rate from 39.6 percent to 39.1 percent while expanding all sorts of credits and such below the top rate. Take a hike. When has it succeeded? Mellon's cuts, top rate from 73 to 25 percent—Roaring 1920s. The Depression came when in 1929 Hoover told Mellon we're stopping at 25. Kennedy's in the 1960s—6.1 percent per annum economic growth (that's not a misprint), 1961-66, as JFK willed a 21-point-top-tax-rate cut into being. See Larry Kudlow and me on that. Reagan's, 70 to 28 percent at the top, led to permanent 4 percent growth and a collapse of inflation, the insoluble problem of the 1970s, along with a two-decade moonshoot in stocks, but we deindustrialized. Oops no we didn't. Industrial production soared in real terms by 80 percent 1980-2000. But we had a deficit burdening our grandchildren. Oops no we didn't, national debt less than what the Fed needed to conduct open market operations within a decade. The H.W. Bush team—what a sad-sack picture they made as the economy tilted into recession over 1990-91 and they were trying to gear up for the re-election effort. This C-span video from 1992 of the troika, Treasury secretary, Council of Economic Advisors Chair, and Budget Director, doing a beautiful impersonation of the walking dead as they hype, after a fashion, the Bush record. Their boss had done it —raised the top tax rate—from some weird amalgam of not wanting to take orders from a lower-class predecessor in Reagan, some pseudo-Episcopalian sense that the rich should 'chip in' (his luxury tax killed the industry of yachting craftsmen and entrepreneurs), and some unwillingness to look at the clear-as-day data that the Reagan deficit kept going down as the 1980s proceeded in growth glory and top tax rates got cut. In another delicious irony, as Bush increased the top tax rate, inflation went up. Stagflation recrudesced! There are still cheerleaders who say H.W. and Clinton's top-tax-rate increases underlay the 1990s boom and budget surpluses. Newt Gingrich did not take government by the throat and impose his will after 1994? Nice try, anti-supply-siders. Republicans in Congress and the executive—it would be preferable to rehearse all this history as an affair of leisure. That it is altogether relevant right now is exceedingly disappointing.
Yahoo
22-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Real Time': Dana Carvey Tells Bill Maher He's 'Working On' His Elon Musk Impression
As Dana Carvey appeared Friday on Real Time with Bill Maher, he brought a few familiar voices with him. The Saturday Night Live alum quickly whipped out his impressions of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, noting that he's 'working on' the latter after Musk appeared to be put off by the impersonation during a post-election SNL appearance in November. More from Deadline Elon Musk Takes Issue With Dana Carvey's 'SNL' Impression: 'They Are So Mad' Dana Carvey Sets December Return To 'SNL' & Responds To Elon Musk Criticism Donald Trump Lashes Out At New York Times Over Elon Musk Report, Again Targets CNN And MSNBC 'So, Trump's there, and he's got the tie, and then Elon is up there talking, right?' he explained. 'And I don't really do it yet, but I'm working on it.' In his best Musk mumble, Carvey said, 'We got to go to Mars, because we can't sustain life on planet Earth. We gotta go to Mars, it's just gonna be really cool, OK? Mhm, mhm, mhm.' Pivoting to his Trump impression, the comedian responded, 'What he said. He's a smart cookie, he's a tough cookie, he's a Cookie Monster. This one, he's smart. Everybody talks about it. He's like Chips Ahoy.' After Carvey debuted his Musk impression on SNL, Musk shared his criticism to his own social platform the next day. 'They are so mad that @realDonaldTrump won,' he wrote in one response on X, adding in another: 'Dana Carvey just sounds like Dana Carvey.' Musk also took aim at the long-running NBC sketch comedy show. 'SNL has been dying slowly for years, as they become increasingly out of touch with reality,' he wrote. Meanwhile, Carvey was big enough to admit he didn't nail the impression. 'I can't do Elon Musk very well,' he said on his Superfly podcast. 'But I can do something that sounds not like anything. He has an incredible accent — South Africa via Canada, via Pennsylvania. It's almost like, it's a little bit of Australian in there, a little bit of British, but he's not totally that.' Nobody was off limits during Carvey's brief sit-down with Maher as he also served impressions of Joe Biden, RFK Jr., JFK, Johnny Carson, Bill Gates, Gollum, Woody Allen and Paul McCartney. Best of Deadline How To Watch 'Wicked: Part One': Is The Film Streaming Yet? All The Songs In 'Severance' Season 2: From The Who To Ella Fitzgerald 2025 TV Series Renewals: Photo Gallery
