Entertainment

When Norm Macdonald died last September after a private, yearslong battle with cancer, his fans and even his friends were shocked.

That included his co-stars of The Orville, the sci-fi show on which he lent his trademark sarcastic voice to Yaphit [YAH-fit], a goo-like alien who serves as one of the titular starship’s engineers.

“It was just sheer shock, I think, when we got the news,” says Adrienne Palicki, who plays Commander Kelly Grayson on the show. “He was so young and vibrant and such a big part of what made the show great.”

“That voice,” she added wistfully, calling his loss “devastating.”

“And it was too soon. And, you know, we miss him.”

Penny Johnson Jerald plays the ship’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Claire Finn, on whom Yaphit had an unrequited crush. She called the loss “truly shocking.”

However, she insists talking about it wasn’t a “down note,” but a celebration of the comedian, writer, and actor.

“That’s the one wonderful thing about creating a project like this, or any television period, is that you live forever.”

“So we will always see Norm when you do reruns or whatever; he exists on that level. He’ll never be gone.”

The Orville: New Horizons, and the previous two seasons of the show, are now on Hulu.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Imagine the family that moved in next door to you was actually a bunch of famous evildoers in disguise. That’s the premise of Disney Channel’s new offering The Villains of Valley View, and the cast explained what makes their show so relatable.

“It’s about a family of supervillains! What’s not to love about that?” Malachi Barton, who plays Flashform, asked ABC Audio. He thinks the show is relatable because it celebrates “a family being their unique selves while they’re having to learn how to work together.”

Reed Horstmann, who plays the villain Chaos, added the sitcom has “a lot of heart” because it’s about a family of once-powerful supervillains “finding their own self-confidence” after being “forced to adapt” to life on the run.

The family is forced to go into hiding after Havoc, played by Isabella Pappas, angers the League of Villains. The supervillains change their identities to the Madden family and move to a sleepy suburb in Texas.

Pappas said the show is not just about villains, it shares important life lessons. “It’s about taking control of your life and not letting people walk all over you,” she said, adding that’s an important message for young kids.

Kayden Muller-Janssen plays Hartley, the Maddens’ ultra-nice neighbor. She’s happy to see a show that sympathizes with villains instead of the “perfect” heroes. She said villains are allowed to have flaws, which makes them “really relatable” because “everybody makes mistakes. That’s a part of being human.”‘

British comedian Lucy Davis stars as the top-ranked villain Surge, the family’s matriarch, and found her “strong and confident” character very surprising. Teasing a midseason arc, she dished, “You almost wouldn’t have expected her to have insecurities.”  

The Villains of Valley View premieres June 3 on Disney Channel.

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Fans of the beloved sitcom The Golden Girls will soon get to live like Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sofia in their Shady Pines apartment, thanks to a new, full-service pop-up restaurant experience.

The Golden Girls Kitchen is being presented by the experience company Bucketlisters and was the brainchild of Derek Berry, the guy who brought to life interactive experiences based on Breaking Bad, Saved by the Bell and other fan favorites.

The Golden Girls Kitchen officially opens in July, but its website is currently taking reservations. For $50, you can sample items like The Dorothy: A Miami Style Sandwich, Sophia’s Lasagna, Blanche’s Georgia Style Cookies, Rose on Rosé and, as was often eaten in the girls’ kitchen, cheesecake.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The Apple TV+ series Physical is back for more heart-pumping drama, with season two launching Friday.

So what can fans look forward to this season? Rose Byrne, who stars as Sheila, tells ABC Audio, “Season two starts with Sheila slowly trying to set up her business as a fitness instructor, as a fitness guru…And this season really opens up the world.”

“It’s a lot more about the other characters and the other lives of characters. And Sheila is quote unquote, in recovery from her eating disorder,” she continues. “But we soon find out, you know, that’s far from the truth and far from the case. She’s just sort of replaced it with other things.”

Although the season will also explore more of the other characters, viewers will see plenty of Sheila as she has to “fight to be taken seriously.”

“She’s trying to get at the totem pole in this very conservative kind of conventional company that has taken her on as a personality,” Byrne explains. “And they’re just telling her to stay in her lane and she has bigger ideas and she has to kind of circumnavigate that and figure out a way out, and fight her way out again.”

One difference fans of Physical might notice is that there isn’t as much voiceover as the first season, even though Byrne raves about doing them.

“I love doing it,” she says. “I’m one of those weird beasts who enjoy going into the looping room and fixing the performance and finding the humor an

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Glee alum Matthew Morrison posted a video on Instagram Thursday evening to address allegations he had an inappropriate texting exchange with one of the female contestants on Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance, on which he was a judge.

The married star was reportedly fired from the Fox show for sending “flirty” messages that People reported “crossed a line” with Fox execs.

To his Instagram followers, Morrison denied the “blatantly untrue” accusations.

Grabbing his phone, he explained, “I have nothing to hide, and in the interest of transparency, I will read to you the ONE message I sent to a dancer.”

Morrison then looked at his phone as he reportedly quoted the message, but didn’t show the screen to the camera. “‘Hey! It’s Matthew. If you don’t mind, would love to get your number and talk you through some things.’ The end,” the actor said, before tossing his phone away in disgust.

Morrison claimed, “I’ve known her for over 20 years and was trying to help her get a job as a choreographer on the show.”

He also added, It’s devastating that we live in this world where gossip rules and people’s lives are being thrown around as clickbait.”

“I think this is much bigger than me,” he expressed. “Gossip is toxic.”

Morrison announced last Friday that he was leaving the show, claiming he “did not follow competition production protocols.” However, a source tells People he was let go after a dancer “became uncomfortable” with the messages Morrison reportedly sent her, kicking off an investigation that led to his ouster.

The 17th season of So You Think You Can Dance just got underway in May, with Cat Deeley back as host, and a new judging panel that also includes Stephen “tWitch” Boss and YouTube star JoJo Siwa.

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Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will begin streaming exclusively on Disney+ June 22. The film’s main stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong and Xochitl Gomez made the announcement in a :45 video clip released by the streaming service on Thursday. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness — also starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, with Michael Stühlbarg and Rachel McAdams — has crossed the $800 million mark at the worldwide box office. Disney is the parent company of ABC News…

20th Century Fox on Thursday released the official trailer for The Princess, premiering July 21 on Hulu. The feature, per the studio, is “an action-packed fight to the death set in a fairy tale world” starring The Kissing Booth‘s Joey King as “a beautiful, strong-willed princess who refuses to wed the cruel sociopath to whom she is betrothed, and is kidnapped and locked in a remote tower of her father’s castle. With her scorned, vindictive suitor intent on taking her father’s throne, the princess must protect her family and save the kingdom.” Princess also stars Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko and Veronica Ngo…(Trailer contains censored profanity.)

Variety reports that Will & Grace alum Megan Mullally and Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place vet Jason Mantzoukas have joined the cast of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Disney+’s series adaptation based on Rick Riordan‘s bestselling Percy Jackson books. Mullally and Mantzoukas will appear in recurring roles, along with Virginia Kull, Glynn Turman and Timm Sharp. They join previously announced series lead Walker Scobell and recently announced co-stars Aryan Simhadri and Leah Sava Jeffries. The series follows the titular hero, a 12-year-old — played by Scobell — who finds out he’s actually the son of Greek god Poseidon. Accused of stealing a lightning bolt from Zeus himself, Percy goes on a quest to recover it. The series kicks off production in Vancouver. Disney is the parent company of ABC News…

A few weeks after its season three finale, HBO has given a fourth-season renewal to Robin Thede‘s A Black Lady Sketch Show. Ashley Nicole Black, Gabrielle Dennis and Skye Townsend star with Thede. Guest stars in the third season included Ava DuVernay, Michael Ealy, David Alan Grier, Daphne Reid, Tommy Davidson, Raven-Symoné and Wayne Brady, among others…

There’s hope for Magnum P.I. fans still reeling from the CBS’ surprise cancellation of the show last month. Deadline reports talks are underway for NBC and/or USA Network to potentially carry the series starring Jay Hernandez. An arrangement still is being figured out, but the outlet says one scenario is for new episodes to air on NBC while USA would run previous seasons of the action drama, a reboot of the 1980s Tom Selleck series…

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That Latino superhero comedy Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion arrives Friday on Disney Channel and fans can expect to see some intense stunts.

Scarlett Estevez stars as Violet Rodriguez, a new hero who goes by the moniker Ultra Violet. She tells ABC Audio, “We were training a lot!”  

Adds J.R. Villarreal, who plays Black Scorpion, “It was so fun. They definitely trained us enough to make us feel like we could really be superheroes.”

The show follows Violet, who is chosen by a magical luchador mask that transforms her into Ultra Violet. She sets out on a quest to become a famous hero and seeks the vigilante Black Scorpion to train her. She soon learns Black Scorpion is none other than her uncle Cruz de la Vega.

Aside from fighting crime, the two said an important pillar of their series is family. Estevez adds the theme makes the series “really special and really amazing.” She notes, “Besides comedy and action, there’s lots of love and lots of family … It grounds the show and it brings it to this real aspect where people can really relate to it on a different level.”

Villarreal agrees the relationships their characters form with their family, their friends and their culture is “the heart of the show,” which he believes “is what’s really going to surprise people.”

So, what would they do if a magical luchador mask chose them to be the next superpowered crime fighters?  Estevez says, “I think I would be a little freaked out and leave [the mask] in the corner for a little bit.”

“I might … just go full method and just use the superhuman strength,” Villarreal jokes, adding he’d probably join the NFL or become a luchador.  

Ultra Violet & Black Scorpion premieres June 3 on Disney Channel. 

Disney is the parent company of ABC News.

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Cue the air guitar: Beavis and Butt-Head’s recently announced return is happening sooner than previously thought — June 23.

Their first adventure in more than 10 years, Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe is billing itself as “the dumbest science fiction movie made.”

According to the streaming service, the snickering pair are “sentenced to Space Camp by a ‘creative’ judge in 1998, leading to a trip on the Space Shuttle, with predictably disastrous results.”

“After going through a black hole, they reemerge in our time, where they look for love, misuse iPhones, and are hunted by the Deep State. Spoiler: They don’t score.”

Back in 2020, ABC Audio reported that Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge had inked a deal to write, produce and, of course, voice new B&B content for Comedy Central.

Paramount+ is owned by the same parent company as the comedy network.

Beavis and Butt-Head launched on MTV in 1993 with a series of janky-looking animated shorts, including Frog Baseball, which would never pass in today’s society, making the movie’s time travel plot a rich comedy field to mine.

The show became a smash and later extended to full episodes that were interspersed with scenes of the boys making fun of music videos … because those were still a thing in 1993.

Beavis and Butt-Head spawned a hit movie, the 1996 road trip flick Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, which spawned a best-selling soundtrack to boot.

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Apparently, Pete Davidson has been hiding some hidden talents in the bedroom: amateur dermatology.

Sure, Kim hinted she’s having the “best sex” of her life in the most recent installment of Hulu’s The Kardashians, but apparently she’s also celebrating the literally skin-deep gestures, too.

“I had this big pimple on my nose and I kept on complaining about [it],” the SKIMS mogul told her sisters Kourtney and Khloé, adding that one thing she has in common with Davidson is “we’re obsessed with skin care and dermatologists and beauty products.”

“I fell asleep at 8:30, I was so tired, and I woke up with dried pimple medicine on my nose. He put it on for me in my sleep.”

As for what he’s doing in that room when Kim’s awake, they’re all good in that department, too.

“When I turned 40, everyone said it’s the best sex of your life,” the 41-year-old also said, adding with a wink, “And so far …”

The reality show queen and her 28-year-old King of Staten Island also vibe outside the bedroom. “I never knew you could just be so happy watching [a] TV series or [going] to the gym, from someone that I never thought would go to the gym or had been to the gym before,” Kim said.

A new episode of The Kardashians dropped Thursday on Hulu.

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The sci-fi show The Orville got off to a rocky launch on its original network, creator and star Seth MacFarlane tells ABC Audio.

“I mean … when the show premiered, it was marketed by Fox as almost a Spaceballs kind of thing. And of course, that was not what it was at all. It was something very different,” he explains.

The series has more in common with classic Star Trek than MacFarlane’s other hit, Family Guy. The show follows MacFarlane’s unlikely starship captain, Ed Mercer, whose titular ship is on a deep space exploratory mission.

As the series progressed, word of mouth, and a dedicated fan base, grew, and “that’s a really exciting thing,” MacFarlane says, which led to Hulu scooping it up and rebranding the pandemic-stalled third season as The Orville: New Horizons.

“I follow as many of the podcasts and fan reactions as I can to really hear what’s working … and what’s not. And obviously, we have our own ideas of what we want to do,” MacFarlane says, praising this “dialogue” with fans.

“This season is really going to be a make or break for us. I know a lot more people discovered the show over the pandemic. Whether that works to the degree that Family Guy worked way back when, when the show had … some downtime … We will see.”

Seth admits, “Either it works like gangbusters this season or it’s, you know, it wraps.

“I will say scope wise, we are delivering a little movie every week.”

The Orville: New Horizons also stars Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald and Scott Grimes, as well as the voice of the late Norm MacDonald.

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