Television

Arts

'Breaking Bad' Creator Vince Gilligan Reflects On Meth And Morals

1:38pm October 11, 2019

by Terry Gross

Gilligan's AMC show centered on a chemistry teacher who created a meth empire. In 2011, Gilligan told Fresh Air that he pitched the series by saying, "You take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface."

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'Sesame Street' Doesn't Shy Away From The Topic Of Addiction

6:07am October 11, 2019

Sesame Street has revealed the reason why one puppet character went into foster care. The children's program is taking on one of the most difficult social issues of our time: addiction.

Mediocre TV Proves To Be Good Enough For Audiences

5:08pm October 10, 2019

by Eric Deggans

TV has a lot of just OK shows. Examples include The CW's Nancy Drew reboot, Fox's Almost Family, ABC's Stumptown, NBC's Sunnyside. Why the mediocrity? People watch it.

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Actor/comedian Rip Taylor tosses confetti on the Tonight Show on September 27, 1994 (Photo by Margaret Norton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Arts

Rip Taylor Was In On The Joke

9:33am October 07, 2019

by Glen Weldon

The comedian, who died Sunday, knew how to make an entrance — tossing confetti, laughing boisterously and insisting the audience join him.

Celebrating 50 Years Of 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'

5:12am October 04, 2019

by Phil Harrell

Spam was at the center of a classic Monty Python sketch, and their association with the forcemeat had an even longer shelf life than the product itself.

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Willie Ito at his home studio in Los Angeles in the late 1970s.

National

Before He Animated For Disney, He Sketched Cartoons In An Internment Camp

5:12am October 04, 2019

As a child, Willie Ito spent nearly three years in a Japanese American internment camp. At StoryCorps, he tells his son how he went from doodling on Sears catalogs to animating for Walt Disney.

From left: Caleb McLaughlin, Kai, Gaten Matarazzo and Suho, photographed in Seoul, South Korea on June 20, 2019. McLaughlin and Matarazzo star in the popular Netflix series Stranger Things; Kai and Suho are members of the K-pop group EXO.

Netflix Loves Music Content – But Also All Other Content

10:03am October 03, 2019

by Sophie Haigney

Netflix seems to release so many music-related projects — but are they just another box to check on the road to eyeball monopolization?

Conan O'Brien hosts the TBS talk show Conan. "I just really do love getting in front of people and making them happy, making them laugh," he says.

Arts

'Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend' Is A Joke Name For A Podcast — Sort Of

1:42pm October 02, 2019

by Terry Gross

The late-night host says that hosting a podcast allows him to "mind meld" with guests in a way he can't on TV: "I can sit down and we can just go down a deep, deep, deep well, and it's fascinating."

TV Review: 'The Politician'

4:48pm September 30, 2019

by Eric Deggans

Ryan Murphy's first show for Netflix is a satire on politics through a high school election in tony Santa Barbara, starring Ben Platt and Gwyneth Paltrow. It debuted last Friday.

Captain Sandy Yawn, Hannah Ferrier, and Aesha Scott are part of the cast of the fourth season of Below Deck Mediterranean.

Arts

There's A Monster At Both Ends Of This Boat: 'Below Deck Mediterranean'

12:02pm September 30, 2019

by Linda Holmes

The Bravo show Below Deck Mediterranean is the goofiest, soapiest show about the hospitality industry you're likely to find. And it might care even more about place settings than Downton Abbey.