The latest thing to set the Internet on fire was LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to revive and expand his vision for the PBS show Reading Rainbow. Those of you who grew up on a steady diet of public television probably remember watching Burton’s enthralling show about children’s books and the…

Siblings of famous celebrities have a stigma of being less than great when compared with their more famous brothers and sisters. Granted, some of the evidence hasn’t helped fight that stereotype. Sly Stallone’s brother Frank recently resorted to selling a gig for himself on eBay. George Clinton was a deep…

TV and movies have a weird way of warping famous people into mythological gods and goddess that somehow also make non-famous people look pudgier and more serf-like as if there’s a special camera filter made for both of them. Everyone has a story about meeting a famous celebrity and how…

I don’t know how, when you lump them all together in a montage, the works of the ’70s pop band ABBA add up to a story about a bride’s search for her real father — one of three men who slept with her mom back when. Dunno why the musical…

He’s been the star of major motion pictures. He’s had his own CBS sitcom. And yet he still does stand-up. You can take the comedian out of the club but you can’t, well, you know the rest. Rob Schneider, former Saturday Night Live cast member and star of Deuce Bigalow:…

Last year’s Oddball Comedy and Curiosity Festival was a historic tour for comedy fans and not just because comedy hermit Dave Chappelle returned to the stage and almost suffered a total implosion at some of his stops. It was a primer of modern comedy that could help even the most…

Cartoons aren’t just for kids anymore thanks in part to rise of Adult Swim and primetime fare like The Simpsons, South Park and the endless supply of shows that FOX instinctively keeps giving to Seth MacFarlane. Just about every major animator and cartoon artist working today got their start as…

Stand-up comedians usually don’t make great cultural ambassadors because their job is to offend the sensibilities of everyone in the room for a laugh. Comedian Maz Jobrani, however, can do both with a daft cleverness that’s rare in comedy circles. His well honed material doesn’t attack cultural and political biases…

Long before Adult Swim, MTV’s Liquid Television and even most of the cartoons that penetrated your sugar riddled brain on Saturday mornings, Spike & Mike were traveling the globe introducing audiences to the joy and magic of animation. “We were with Pixar before Steve Jobs was with Pixar,” Spike said…

Fandom is an interesting driver. It drives some people to permanently paint their bodies with portraits of their favorite characters or spend scads of money and effort on elaborate costumes and disguises to express their love for their favorite TV shows, movies and comic books. Seeing someone in a full…

This is what happens when you — or me, at least — find out that you’re getting a chance to chat one-on-one with William Shatner: You tell your parents that you’re talking to the guy they used to see on TV all the time. You start conversations with friends just…

Steven Michael Quezada can do a lot more than slyly take down the pawns of drug kingpins with a crooked smile that immediately weakens the knees of his enemies. He’s also pretty damn funny. Quezada may be best known for play Hank Schrader’s partner-in-crime-fighting Steven “Gomey” Gomez on the critically…

Is getting sand kicked in your face at the beach by a hulking mass of muscles still a common trope? We’re assuming that such unbelievably rude behavior has been drummed out of polite society along with cell phones that you can only transport in a briefcase, neon colored clothing and…