Victoria Police are investigating an incident in the downtown core on Christmas Eve, involving a stolen vehicle that evaded officers before being recovered. Around 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 24, officers received a call from the owners of a stolen vehicle that it had been spotted being driven downtown, Vic PD confirmed in an email to Victoria News. Officers located the vehicle and moved into position behind it. However, the driver ran a red light, which caused officers to end their pursuit for public safety reasons. Police located the stolen vehicle again, a few moments later, immobile. In an attempt to prevent the individual from fleeing further, officers executed a manoeuvre which resulted in the stolen vehicle losing one of its tires. Despite the damage, the vehicle managed to flee the scene on three wheels. The pursuit resumed as the stolen vehicle sped down some of Victoria's busiest arteries. Many social media users commented on the event and posted videos of the sighting. “Holy there is a guy driving a three-wheeled 4x4 down Douglas sparks flying with two dozen cops chasing them they almost hit us,” said Facebook user Takuma Valcourt. VicPD confirmed that the stolen vehicle was later recovered, and the investigation remains ongoing.TAIPEI , Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- VIVOTEK (3454-TW), the global leading security solution provider, has once again demonstrated its outstanding commitment to sustainability. Participating for the first time in the 17th Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards (TCSA), VIVOTEK emerged victorious, earning the Sustainability Report Award for the Information, Communication, and Broadcasting Industry and the Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Excellence Award. These recognitions showcase VIVOTEK's remarkable success in corporate governance, environmental protection, and social responsibility, affirming its dedication to sustainable growth. Pioneering Sustainability with Dual Recognition "For over seven years, VIVOTEK has independently published sustainability reports, actively driving and disclosing our internal sustainability initiatives." said Allen Hsieh , VIVOTEK's Spokesperson and Director of the Global Marketing Division. "These awards not only recognize our integrity and efforts in presenting operational performance, environmental data, and social impact but also serve as a strong motivation for us to continue advancing on the path of sustainable development." Driving Sustainability through AI Innovation VIVOTEK delivers advanced AI-powered security solutions built on cutting-edge AI and edge computing technologies. Beyond innovation, the company drives green initiatives, reduces its carbon footprint, and fosters a sustainable, supportive workplace. Committed to social responsibility, VIVOTEK leads the security industry's sustainability efforts through its 'Safety Map' initiative. For four years, employees have formed security teams to enhance safety in neighborhoods, care centers, and schools with on-site assessments and improvement plans. In 2024, VIVOTEK will expand its efforts to Hualien's Dacheng Village, where it will help improve local safety environments and support cultural preservation and tourism revitalization. These actions reflect its dedication to sustainability, community well-being, and lasting societal contributions. Security Sustainability as a Foundation for Social Impact VIVOTEK proudly received two prestigious honors at the Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards, highlighting its dedication to sustainable practices. These accolades inspire the company to deepen its internal efforts and mark the start of an exciting new chapter. Building on this achievement, VIVOTEK aims to strengthen its mission of becoming the world's most trusted smart security brand. By aligning with global market needs and fostering collaboration with customers, partners, and employees, VIVOTEK is committed to shaping a sustainable future founded on mutual trust and shared success. To learn more about VIVOTEK's sustainability initiatives, please refer to the 2023 Sustainability Report .(TNS) — Rend Lake College celebrated the opening of its Southern Illinois Manufacturing Academy on Thursday, a 20,000 square-foot facility that promises state-of-the-art training for the manufacturers of tomorrow. In June 2022, Rend Lake College was awarded a $5 million grant from the US. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration through funding provided by the American Rescue Plan. SIMA stands at the Rend Lake College MarketPlace on Potomac Boulevard in Mount Vernon, just off of Interstates 57 and 64. The academy includes advanced training stations for welding, machining, pneumatics, electronics, wiring, power and controls, a robotics lab, a computer lab and classrooms for lectures and presentations. Terry Wilkerson, president of Rend Lake College, used a hockey analogy during his remarks, to not skate where the pick is, but where it’s going to be. “I hope industry and the community realize our role and how serious we take it as a college to be on the forefront of where we think we need to be, and where we can help take our region,” Wilkerson said. One of the highlights of the academy is Confection Connection, a chocolate production facility born out of a grant stipulation requiring the production of a tangible product. It is a collaboration with the college’s Culinary Arts program meant to display the entire production process that blends culinary arts with manufacturing. Lori Ragland, executive vice president of Rend Lake College, called the facility a “significant milestone” for the region. “This training academy is more than just classrooms and equipment,” Ragland said. “It’s about opportunity. Opportunity for our students to gain skills for sustainable jobs, for our local businesses to find talent, and for our economy and community to thrive.” Wilkerson said the concept was originally pitched to the state government before becoming a federal project. “The state liked the proposal so much that they modeled it and they awarded two in the state, but they didn’t put it here, so we decided to explore more options,” Wilkerson said. “I can’t tell you the status of the other two that were put forward, but I can tell you this: we’ve come in on time and under budget.” Christopher Sink, director of the Southern Illinois Manufacturing Academy, explained how the facility will look to keep up with the needs of an ever-changing industry for the benefit of the students it will train. “We’re always pursuing new avenues to bring new technologies and equipment in here to meet the demands of our business partners and to make sure that we provide a good education and good skill set for our graduating students so that they’re successful now,” Sink said. State Rep. Dave Severin (R-Benton) was on hand during the showcasing of the academy and described the facility as “phenomenal.” He said the facility will provide a beacon for people to stay in Southern Illinois after high school or come to Illinois instead of needing to seek opportunities elsewhere. “This is giving a reason for young people to stay in Southern Illinois for the opportunities that are here,” Severin said. “If you’re a student and you’re interested in getting into the trades, you don’t have to drive to another state or go somewhere else. You can stay in Southern Illinois.” Severin commended the effort by Rend Lake College to make such an investment in expanding its reach and staying competitive to build up the region. “It’s one thing to talk about something,” Severin said. “It’s another thing to produce. This is producing. This keeps us relevant.” For more information about the Southern Illinois Manufacturing Academy, contact SIMA director Christopher Sink at 618-437-5321, ext. 1798, or visit .

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Sean Combs ’ physical violence was allegedly directed at both his romantic partners and personal employees, with the music mogul accused of once attempting to beat down a woman’s door with a hammer. Prosecutors for the Southern District of New York leveled the new accusations against Combs on Monday as they argued against his release from jail. The 55-year-old has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn without bail since his arrest on sex trafficking and racketeering charges on Sept. 16. (Combs pleaded not guilty to the three charges. If convicted, he stands to serve 15 years to life in prison.) U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian is expected to make a decision this week on whether Combs will be released. Combs’ attorneys have proposed a sizable $50 million bail package, in which Combs would be monitored 24/7 by a private security firm from a three-bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side. His trial is currently set for May 2025. However, prosecutors vehemently oppose Combs’ release, claiming that he has been continually tampering with witnesses and alleged victims — even from the MDC , using other inmates’ phone numbers and unauthorized methods of communication to contact third parties. (Combs’ team has denied any obstruction allegations against their client.) Prosecutors also claim that Combs presents a danger to the community, alleging that he has an extensive history of physical violence towards romantic partners, including once attempting to beat down a woman’s door with a hammer. “Often behind closed doors, the defendant engaged in acts of violence against women, including throwing them to the ground, dragging them by their hair, kicking, shoving, punching, and slapping them,” prosecutors allege in court documents. “He manipulated, coerced, and extorted women, including by plying them with drugs, threatening to withhold financial support, and threatening to disseminate sex tapes that the defendant had made of their sexual encounters. He [intimidated] women, including by displaying firearms, threatening them, showing up at their homes unannounced, and attempting to beat down the door — on one occasion with a hammer.” Editor’s picks The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time Prosecutors widened the scope of Combs’ alleged abuse to his employees, who “have described the defendant threatening to kill them, throwing objects at them, and being struck, punched, and shoved by the defendant, and seeing him do the same to others,” according to court documents. Throughout the 13-page letter, prosecutors argue that there are no measures that would satisfy conditions of Combs’ release. Combs has suggested that he could be monitored around the clock by a private security team. His attorney, Marc Agnifilo, had previously floated to the court hiring the company Sage Intelligence Group for the job. That company’s director is Herman Weisberg, a well-known private detective who has worked on several high-profile cases, including for Harvey Weinstein’s defense lawyers. The issue, prosecutors point out, is that Weisberg is “already working as a private investigator” for Combs and was “contacting witnesses — a fact that was not disclosed by the defense to the Court or to the Government prior to or at the hearing.” And in a minor point to the government’s opposition to bail, they accuse Combs of breaking a gag order that his team insisted on by orchestrating a social media campaign for his birthday on Nov. 5. Prosecutors claim that Combs had his children post a video of themselves celebrating his birthday with the intention of influencing a future jury pool. Referencing a gag order in President Donald Trump’s since-dismissed federal election interference case, Combs’ team argues that a “heightened standard” to what constitutes breaking the order should apply in Combs’ case. Like Trump, they argue, Combs has “a greater constitutional claim than other trial participants ... to criticize and speak out against the prosecution and the criminal trial process that seek to take away his liberty.” Related Content Kanye West Sued for 'Pornographic Gagging' of Model on Video Set Rebel Wilson Loses Bid To Toss Defamation Suit Filed by 'The Deb' Producers Conor McGregor Loses Sexual Assault Civil Trial, Ordered to Pay Victim $250,000 Jonathan Majors' Ex-Girlfriend Settles Assault, Defamation Lawsuit This is Combs’ third attempt at release after having been denied by two previous judges. He currently has an appeal pending in the Second Circuit, which will likely move forward if Judge Subramanian denies his request. Prosecutors have voiced concerns that if released, Combs could potentially speak with witnesses and alleged victims. In the lead-up to his arrest, Combs was accused of speaking with a male escort who testified in the grand jury and later deleting those messages. He is also accused of trying to feed a “false narrative” to a woman the government identified as Victim-2 after the woman said reading Casandra “Cassie” Ventura’s lawsuit was like reading her own “sexual trauma.” (Combs’ team denied this woman is a victim.) In mid-September, SDNY unveiled their 14-page indictment against Combs . The case is largely built around the experiences of Combs’ ex-partner Ventura. The R&B singer sued Combs for sex trafficking and sexual abuse in November 2023, claiming that throughout their decade-long relationship, Combs forced her to engage in sexual acts with male sex workers. Ventura alleges that she was threatened with physical violence, professional retribution, potential leaks of the footage and was kept compliant through excessive drug use. The embattled music executive is also facing a growing pile of civil lawsuits . More than 30 men and women have sued Combs in New York and California, claiming they were assaulted by Combs from the 1990s and as recently as 2022. The claims come from former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard, producer Rodney “Lil Rod” Jones, working models, aspiring artists, businessmen, security guards and people who say they were teens at the time of their alleged encounters. Combs has denied all claims of sex abuse through his reps. “As his legal team has said before, Mr. Combs has full confidence in the facts and the integrity of the judicial process,” his media team previously said in a statement to Rolling Stone .None

Hudson Meek, the 16-year-old actor who appeared in “Baby Driver,” died last week after falling from a moving vehicle in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, according to CNN affiliate WVTM. The teen sustained blunt force trauma in the fall on Dec. 19 and was admitted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, where he died from his injuries on Dec. 21, the Jefferson County Coroner’s office told CNN affiliate WVTM . “His 16 years on this earth were far too short, but he accomplished so much and significantly impacted everyone he met,” reads a post on his Instagram account . Hudson Meek attends the "A Different Man" premiere during the Deauville American Film Festival in Deauville, France, on September 9. The teen actor had various acting and voice over credits, most notably playing a younger version of Ansel Elgort’s character Baby in 2017 movie “Baby Driver.” Meek also voiced the lead in “Badanamu Stories” — a children’s show that examines themes relevant to preschoolers, according to IMDb . He also appeared in shows including NBC’s “Found” and The CW’s “Legacies,” as well as the recently released thriller “The School Duel.” Meek’s obituary described the teenager as a “reflective and thoughtful” avid traveler and fan of the outdoors. “He loved snow-skiing and could easily navigate the hardest trails that no one else in the family would dare attempt,” the obituary read. “One of his favorite places to be was at the lake, tubing and wakeboarding.” The Vestavia Hills Police Department is still investigating the circumstances surrounding Meek’s death, WTVM reported. CNN has reached out to Vestavia Hills police for more information on the incident. Glynis Johns, a Tony Award-winning stage and screen star who played the mother opposite Julie Andrews in the classic movie “Mary Poppins” and introduced the world to the bittersweet standard-to-be “Send in the Clowns” by Stephen Sondheim, died, Thursday, Jan. 4, 2023. She was 100. Adan Canto, the Mexican singer and actor best known for his roles in “X-Men: Days of Future Past” and “Agent Game” as well as the TV series “The Cleaning Lady,” “Narcos,” and “Designated Survivor,” died Monday, Jan. 8, 2024, after a private battle with appendiceal cancer. He was 42. Bud Harrelson, the scrappy and sure-handed shortstop who fought Pete Rose on the field during a playoff game and helped the New York Mets win an astonishing championship, died Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. He was 79. The Mets said that Harrelson died at a hospice house in East Northport, New York after a long battle with Alzheimer's. Golden State Warriors assistant coach Dejan Milojević, a mentor to two-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and a former star player in his native Serbia, died Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024, after suffering a heart attack, the team announced. He was 46. Jack Burke Jr., the oldest living Masters champion who staged the greatest comeback ever at Augusta National for one of his two majors, died Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Houston. He was 100. Mary Weiss, the lead singer of the 1960s pop group the Shangri-Las, whose hits included “The Leader of the Pack,” died Friday, Jan. 19, 2024, in Palm Springs, Calif. She was 75. Norman Jewison, a three-time Oscar nominee who in 1999 received an Academy Award for lifetime achievement, died “peacefully” Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024, according to publicist Jeff Sanderson. He was 97. Charles Osgood, who anchored “CBS Sunday Morning” for more than two decades, hosted the long-running radio program “The Osgood File” and was referred to as CBS News’ poet-in-residence, died Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. He was 91. Melanie, a singer-songwriter behind 1970s hits including “Brand New Key,” died Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. She was 76. Born Melanie Safka, the singer rose through the New York folk scene and was one of only three solo women to perform at Woodstock. Her hits included “Lay Down” and “Look What They've Done to My Song Ma.” Chita Rivera, the dynamic dancer, singer and actress who garnered 10 Tony nominations, winning twice, in a long Broadway career that forged a path for Latina artists, died Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024. She was 91. Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing-off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” died Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024. He was 76. Wayne Kramer, the co-founder of the protopunk Detroit band the MC5 that thrashed out such hardcore anthems as “Kick Out the Jams” and influenced everyone from the Clash to Rage Against the Machine, died Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, according to Jason Heath, a close friend and executive director of Kramer's charity, Jail Guitar Doors. Heath said the cause of death was pancreatic cancer. He was 75. Actor Ian Lavender, who played a hapless Home Guard soldier in the classic British sitcom “Dad’s Army,” died Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. He was 77. Country music singer-songwriter Toby Keith, whose pro-American anthems were both beloved and criticized, died Monday, Feb. 5, 2024. He was 62. Henry Fambrough, the last surviving original member of the iconic R&B group The Spinners, whose hits included “It’s a Shame,” “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love,” and “The Rubberband Man,” died Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, of natural causes, according to a statement from his spokeswoman. He was 85. Bob Edwards, right, the news anchor many Americans woke up to as founding host of National Public Radio's “Morning Edition” for nearly a quarter-century, died Saturday, Feb. 10, 20243. He was 76. He's shown here with sports announcer Red Barber. Don Gullett, a former major league pitcher and coach who played for four consecutive World Series champions in the 1970s, died Feb. 14. He was 73. He finished his playing career with a 109-50 record playing for the Cincinnati Reds and New York Yankees. Lefty Driesell, the coach whose folksy drawl belied a fiery on-court demeanor that put Maryland on the college basketball map and enabled him to rebuild several struggling programs, died Feb. 17, 2024, at age 92. Germany players celebrate after Andreas Brehme, left on ground, scores the winning goal in the World Cup soccer final match against Argentina, in the Olympic Stadium, in Rome, July 8, 1990. Andreas Brehme, who scored the only goal as West Germany beat Argentina to win the 1990 World Cup final, died Feb. 20, 2024. He was 63. Despite the effort of Denver Broncos defensive back Steve Foley (43), Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Golden Richards hauls in a touchdown pass during NFL football's Super Bowl 12 in New Orleans on Jan 15, 1978. Richards died Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, of congestive heart failure at his home in Murray, Utah. He was 73. Richards' nephew Lance Richards confirmed his death in a post on his Facebook page. Comedian Richard Lewis attends an NBA basketball game in Los Angeles on Dec. 25, 2012. Lewis, an acclaimed comedian known for exploring his neuroses in frantic, stream-of-consciousness diatribes while dressed in all-black, leading to his nickname “The Prince of Pain,” died Feb. 27, 2024. He was 76. He died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday night after suffering a heart attack, according to his publicist Jeff Abraham. Former Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov attends a session of the Federation Council, Russian parliament's upper house, in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, June 25, 2014. Ryzhkov, former Soviet prime minister who presided over failed efforts to shore up the crumbling economy in the final years before the collapse of the USSR, died Feb. 28, 2024, at age 94. Brian Mulroney, the former prime minister of Canada, listens during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Canada-U.S.-Mexico relationship, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Mulroney died at the age of 84 on Feb. 29, 2024. Akira Toriyama is pictured in 1982. Toriyama, the creator of one of Japan's best-selling “Dragon Ball” and other popular anime who influenced Japanese comics, died March 1, 2024. He was 68. Iris Apfel, a textile expert, interior designer and fashion celebrity known for her eccentric style, died March 1, 2024, at 102. Andy Russell, the standout linebacker who was an integral part of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ evolution from perennial losers to champions, died Feb. 29, 2024. He was 82. Russell won two Super Bowls during a 12-year NFL career between 1963-76 that was briefly interrupted by a stint in the military. Russell played in 168 consecutive games and spent 10 years as a team captain. He was named to the Pro Bowl seven times. Russell remained active in the Pittsburgh community after retiring, writing several books and launching the Andy Russell Charitable Foundation. Pittsburgh Pirates' Ed Ott slides across home late out of reach of Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey to score the winning run in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the World Series at Baltimore, Oct. 11, 1979. Ott, a former major league catcher and coach who helped the Pittsburgh Pirates win the 1979 World Series, died March 3, 2024. He was 72. He batted .259 with 33 homers and 195 RBIs in 567 major league games. Ott and Steve Nicosia were the main catchers when the Pirates won it all in 1979. In a photo supplied by ESPN, Chris Mortensen appears on the set of Sunday NFL Countdown at ESPN's studios in Bristol, Conn., on Sept. 22, 2019. Mortensen, the award-winning journalist who covered the NFL for close to four decades, including 32 as a senior analyst at ESPN, died March 3, 2024. He was 72. Mortensen announced in 2016 that he he had been diagnosed with throat cancer. Even while undergoing treatment, he was the first to confirm the retirement of Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. Mortensen announced his retirement after the NFL draft last year so that he could “focus on my health, family and faith.” Singer Steve Lawrence, left, and his wife Eydie Gorme arrive at a black-tie gala called honoring Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas on May 30, 1998. Lawrence, a singer and top stage act who as a solo performer and in tandem with his wife Gorme kept Tin Pan Alley alive during the rock era, died Wednesday, March 6, 2024 at age 88. Gorme died on Aug. 10, 2013. Martin Luther King III, right, the son of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., walks with his daughter Yolanda, and Naomi Barber King, left, the wife of Rev. King's brother, A.D., through an exhibition devoted to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to King at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Site, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2014, in Atlanta. Civil rights activist Naomi Barber King died Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Atlanta, according to family members. She was 92. A Texas man who spent decades using an iron lung after contracting polio as a child died March 11, 2024, at the age of 78. Paul Alexander's longtime friend Daniel Spinks says Alexander died Monday at a Dallas hospital. Spinks called his friend one of the "bright stars of the world.” Friends of Alexander, who graduated from law school and had a career as an attorney, say he was a man who had a great joy for life. Alexander was a child when he began using an iron lung, a cylinder that encased his body as the air pressure in the chamber forced air in and out of his lungs. Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford stands near the NASA Motor Vessel Retriever during training Aug. 23, 1965, in the Gulf of Mexico. Stafford, who commanded a dress rehearsal flight for the 1969 moon landing and the first U.S.-Soviet space linkup, died March 18, 2024, at 93. New York Rangers' Chris Simon celebrates his second-period goal against the New York Islanders, Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004, at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. Former NHL enforcer Chris Simon has died. He was 52. Simon died March 18, 2024, according to a spokesperson for the NHL Players' Association. M. Emmet Walsh arrives at the 2014 Film Independent Spirit Awards, March 1, 2014, in Santa Monica, Calif. Walsh, the character actor who brought his unmistakable face and unsettling presence to films including “Blood Simple” and “Blade Runner,” died March 19, 2024, at age 88, his manager said Wednesday. "Babar" author Laurent de Brunhoff, who revived his father's popular picture book series about an elephant-king, has died at 98 after being in hospice care for two weeks. De Brunhoff was a Paris native who moved to the U.S. in the 1980s. He died March 22, 2024, at his home in Key West, Florida. Just 12 years old when his father, Jean de Brunhoff, died of tuberculosis, Laurent drew upon his own gifts as a painter and storyteller and as an adult released dozens of books about the elephant who reigns over Celesteville, among them "Babar at the Circus" and "Babar's Yoga for Elephants." Longtime Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos has died at the age of 94. His family announced in a statement that Angelos, who had been ill for several years, died March 23, 2024. Angelos was owner of an Orioles team that endured long losing stretches and shrewd proprietor of a law firm that won high-profile cases against industry titans such as tobacco giant Philip Morris. Angelos’ death came as his son, John, was in the process of selling the Orioles to a group headed by Carlyle Group Inc. co-founder David Rubenstein. Peter Angelos purchased the team for $173 million in 1993, at the time the highest for a sports franchise. His public role diminished significantly in his final years. Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, left, and his running mate, vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, wave to supporters Oct. 25, 2000, at a campaign rally in Jackson, Tenn. Lieberman died March 27, 2024. He was 82 and died Wednesday of complications from a fall. Lieberman nearly won the vice presidency on Democrat Al Gore's ticket in the disputed 2000 White House race. Eight years later, he came close to joining the GOP ticket as John McCain’s running mate. The Democrat-turned-independent stepped down from the Senate in January 2013 after 24 years. His independent streak often irked Senate Democrats he aligned with. Yet his support for gay rights, civil rights, abortion rights and environmental causes at times won him the praise of many liberals over the years. Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” died March 28, 2024. He was 87. Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” He also was a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964 and recently played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.” Former cast members of SCTV, from left, Dave Thomas, Joe Flaherty, Catherine O'Hara, Andrea Martin, foreground, Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy and Martin Short, pose at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival on March 6, 1999, in Aspen, Colo. Flaherty, a founding member of the Canadian sketch series “SCTV,” died Monday, April 1, 2024 at age 82. John Sinclair talks at the John Sinclair Foundation Café and Coffeeshop, Dec. 26, 2018, in Detroit. Sinclair, a poet, music producer and counterculture figure whose lengthy prison sentence after a series of small-time pot busts inspired a John Lennon song and a star-studded 1971 concert to free him, has died at age 82. Sinclair died Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at Detroit Receiving Hospital of congestive heart failure following an illness, his publicist Matt Lee said. Boston Red Sox president Larry Lucchino, right, tips his cap to fans as majority owner John Henry holds the 2013 World Series championship trophy during a parade in celebration of the baseball team's win, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2013, in Boston. Larry Lucchino, the force behind baseball’s retro ballpark revolution and the transformation of the Boston Red Sox from cursed losers to World Series champions, has died. He was 78. Lucchino had suffered from cancer. The Triple-A Worcester Red Sox, his last project in a career that also included three major league baseball franchises and one in the NFL, confirmed his death on Tuesday, April 2, 2024. Playwright Christopher Durang appears on stage with producers to accept the award for best play for "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" at the 67th Annual Tony Awards, on June 9, 2013 in New York. Also on stage are actors, background from left, Shalita Grant, Kristine Nielsen and Billy Magnussen. Durang died Tuesday, April 2, 2024, at his home in Pipersville, Pennsylvania, of complications from logopenic primary progressive aphasia. He was 75. In this Oct. 16, 1969 file photo, New York Mets catcher Jerry Grote, right, embraces pitcher Jerry Koosman as Ed Charles, left, joins the celebration after the Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the Game 5 to win the baseball World Series at New York's Shea Stadium. Grote, the catcher who helped transform the New York Mets from a perennial loser into the 1969 World Series champion, died Sunday, April 7, 2024. He was 81. In this July 8, 2003 photo, Lori, left, and George Schappell, conjoined twins, are photographed in their Reading, Pa., apartment. Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died April 7, 2024, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. They were 62. The University of Edinburgh says Nobel prize-winning physicist Peter Higgs, who proposed the existence of a sub-atomic particle that came to be known as the Higgs boson, died April 8, 2024, at 94. Higgs predicted the existence of the particle in 1964. But it would be almost 50 years before the its existence could be confirmed at a particle collider in Switzerland called the Large Hadron Collider. Higgs’ work helps scientists understand of the most fundamental riddles of the universe: how the Big Bang created something out of nothing 13.7 billion years ago. Higgs won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, alongside Francois Englert of Belgium. A retired U.S. Army colonel who was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Korean War died April 8, 2024, at age 97. A funeral home says that Ralph Puckett Jr. died Monday at his home in Columbus, Georgia. President Joe Biden presented Puckett with the Medal of Honor in 2021, more than seven decades after Puckett was seriously wounded leading an outnumbered company of Army Rangers in battle. Puckett refused a medical discharge and served as an Army officer for another 20 years before retiring in 1971. Puckett received the U.S. military's highest honor from President Joe Biden on May 21, 2021, following a policy change that lifted a requirement for medals to be given within five years of a valorous act. O.J. Simpson, left, grimaces June 15, 1995, in a Los Angeles courtroom as he famously tries on one of the leather gloves prosecutors say he wore the night his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were murdered. Simpson, t he decorated football star who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but wound up in prison years later in an unrelated case, died April 10, 2024. He was 76. His family made an announcement Thursday in a statement on Simpson's X account. Simpson said last year that he was battling prostate cancer. Simpson’s gridiron legacy was forever overshadowed by the 1994 knife slayings of Brown Simpson and Goldman. A criminal court jury found him not guilty of murder, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable. Simpson's nine-year prison stint in Nevada was for the armed robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers. Francis Coppola and wife, Eleanor, pose July 16, 1991, in Los Angeles. Eleanor Coppola, who documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s iconic films, including the infamously tortured production of “Apocalypse Now,” and who raised a family of filmmakers, has died. She was 87. Coppola died April 12, 2024, at home in Rutherford, California, her family announced in a statement. Eleanor, who grew in Orange County, California, met Francis while working as an assistant art director on his directorial debut, the Roger Corman-produced 1963 horror film “Dementia 13.” Their first-born, Gian-Carlo, quickly became a regular presence in his father’s films, as did their subsequent children, Roman, and Sofia. After acting in their father’s films and growing up on sets, all would go into the movies. Robert MacNeil, seen in February 1978, who created the even-handed, no-frills PBS newscast “The MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour” in the 1970s and co-anchored the show for with his late partner, Jim Lehrer, for two decades, died April 12, 2024, at age 93. Artist Faith Ringgold poses for a portrait in front of a painted self-portrait during a press preview of her exhibition, "American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold's Paintings of the 1960s" at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, June 19, 2013. Ringgold, an award-winning author and artist who broke down barriers for Black female artists and became famous for her richly colored and detailed quilts combining painting, textiles and storytelling, died Friday, April 12, 2024, at her home in Englewood, N.J. She was 93. Alabama coach Bear Bryant, left, talks with his former star quarterback Steve Sloan, right, after practice in Miami for the Orange Bowl game New Years' night against Nebraska, Dec. 29, 1968. Former college coach and administrator Sloan, who played quarterback and served as athletic director at Alabama. has passed away. He was 79. Sloan died Sunday, April 14, 2024, after three months of memory care at Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital, according to an obituary from former Alabama sports information director Wayne Atcheson. Oakland A's pitcher Ken Holtzman poses for a photo in March 1975. Holtzman, who pitched two no-hitters for the Chicago Cubs and helped the Oakland Athletics win three straight World Series championships in the 1970s, died April 14, 2024. He finished with a career record of 174-150 over 15 season with four teams and was the winningest Jewish pitcher in baseball history. Carl Erskine, center, pictured with teammate Duke Snider, left, and manager Charley Dressen in 1952, after beating the Yankees 6-5 in Game 5 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium in New York, Oct. 5, 1952. Erskine, who pitched two no-hitters for the Brooklyn Dodgers and was a 20-game winner in 1953 when he struck out a then-record 14 in the World Series, has died. Among the last survivors from the celebrated Brooklyn teams of the 1950s, Erskine spent his entire major league career with the Dodgers. He helped them win five National League pennants from 1948-59. Erskine won Game 3 of the 1953 World Series, beating the Yankees 3-2. He appeared in five World Series, with the Dodgers beating the Yankees in 1955 for their only championship in Brooklyn. Erksine died April 16 in his hometown of Anderson, Indiana, according to a hospital official. He was 97. St. Louis Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog lets umpire John Shulock, right, know how he feels about Shulock's call on the tag attempt on Kansas City Royals Jim Sundberg by Cardinals catcher Tom Nieto, second from left, in the second inning of Game 5 of the 1985 World Series in St. Louis. Herzog, the gruff and ingenious Hall of Fame manager who guided the St. Louis Cardinals to three pennants and a World Series title and perfected an intricate, nail-biting strategy known as “Whiteyball,” has died. Herzog, affectionately nicknamed “The White Rat,” was a manager for 18 seasons, compiling an overall record of 1,281 wins and 1,125 losses. He was named Manager of the Year in 1985. Under Herzog, the Cardinals won pennants in 1982, 1985 and 1987 and won the World Series in 1982, when they edged the Milwaukee Brewers in seven games. He died April 15, 2024, and was 92. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., gestures as he answers questions regarding the ongoing security hearing on Capitol Hill, June 18, 2002, in Washington. Graham, who chaired the Intelligence Committee following the 2001 terrorist attacks and opposed the Iraq invasion, died April 16, 2024. He was 87. His family announced the death Tuesday in a statement posted on X by his daughter Gwen Graham. Graham served three terms in the Senate and two terms as Florida's governor. He made an unsuccessful bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, emphasizing his opposition to the Iraq invasion. But that bid was delayed by heart surgery in January 2003, and he was never able to gain enough traction with voters to catch up. He didn’t seek re-election in 2004 and was replaced by Republican Mel Martinez. Guitar legend and Allman Brothers Band co-founder Dickey Betts died April 18, 2024, at age 80. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer wrote the band's biggest hit, “Ramblin’ Man.” Manager David Spero told The Associated Press that Betts died early Thursday at his home in Osprey, Florida. He says Betts had been battling cancer for more than a year and had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Betts shared lead guitar duties with Duane Allman in the original Allman Brothers Band to help give the group its distinctive sound and create a new genre: Southern rock. Acts ranging from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Kid Rock were influenced by the Allmans’ music, which combined blues, country, R&B and jazz with ’60s rock. Contemporary Christian singer Mandisa, who appeared on “American Idol” and won a Grammy for her 2013 album “Overcomer,” died April 18, 2024. She was 47. Mandisa gained stardom after finishing ninth on “American Idol” in 2006. In 2014, she won a Grammy for best contemporary Christian music album for “Overcomer,” her fifth album. She spoke openly about her struggles with depression, releasing a memoir that detailed her experiences with severe depression, weight-related challenges, the coronavirus pandemic and her faith. David Pryor, a former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator who was one of the state’s most beloved and active political figures, died April 20, 2024, at the age of 89. His son, former two-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, says the Democrat died Saturday of natural causes in Little Rock surrounded by family. David Pryor was considered one of the Democratic party’s giants in Arkansas and remained active in public life after he left office, including serving on the University of Arkansas’s Board of Trustees. Roman Gabriel was known for his big size and big arm. He was the first Filipino-American quarterback in the NFL. And he still holds the Los Angeles Rams record for touchdown passes. Gabriel died April 20, 2024, at age 83. His son posted the news on social media. He says Gabriel died at home of natural causes. Gabriel starred at North Carolina State and was the No. 2 pick by the Rams in the 1962 draft. The Oakland Raider of the rival AFL made him the No. 1 pick. Gabriel signed with the Rams and later played with the Philadelphia Eagles. Andrew Davis, an acclaimed British conductor who was music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and orchestras on three continents, died April 20, 2024. He was 80. Davis died Saturday at Rusk Institute in Chicago from leukemia. That is according to his manager, Jonathan Brill of Opus 3 Artists. Davis had been managing the disease for 1 1/2 to 2 years but it became acute shortly after his 80th birthday on Feb. 2. Davis was music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra from 1975-88, Britain’s Glyndebourne Festival from 1988-2000, chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1989-2000, then was music director of the Lyric Opera from 2000-21. Former hostage Terry Anderson waves to the crowd as he rides in a parade in Lorain, Ohio, June 22, 1992. Anderson, the globe-trotting Associated Press correspondent who became one of America’s longest-held hostages, died April 21, 2024. Anderson was snatched from a street in war-torn Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years. Anderson, who was tortured and chained to a wall, wrote about his experiences in the best-selling memoir, “Den of Lions.” After returning to the United States in 1991, Anderson gave public speeches, taught journalism and, at various times, operated a blues bar, Cajun restaurant, horse ranch and gourmet restaurant. He also struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. British army veteran Bill Gladden, who survived a glider landing on D-Day and a bullet that tore through his ankle a few days later, wanted to return to France for the 80th anniversary of the invasion so he could honor the men who didn’t come home. It was not to be. Gladden, one of the dwindling number of veterans who took part in the landings that kicked off the campaign to liberate Western Europe from the Nazis during World War II, died April 24, his family said. He was 100. With fewer and fewer veterans taking part each year, the ceremony may be one of the last big events marking the assault that began on June 6, 1944. Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as “Rebel Rouser,” “Forty Miles of Bad Road" and “Cannonball” helped put the twang in early rock ‘n’ roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians, died April 30 at age 86. With his raucous rhythms, and backing hollers and hand claps, Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and mastered a distinctive sound based on the premise that a guitar’s bass strings sounded better on tape than the high ones. Author Paul Auster has died at age 77. Auster was a prolific, prize-winning man of letters and filmmaker known for such inventive narratives and meta-narratives as “The New York Trilogy” and “4 3 2 1." Auster’s death on April 30 was confirmed by his literary representatives. Auster completed more than 30 books, translated into dozens of languages. He never achieved major commercial success in the U.S., but he was widely admired overseas for his cosmopolitan worldview and erudite and introspective style. Auster’s novels were a mix of history, politics, genre experiments, existential quests and self-conscious references to writers and writing. Co-pilots Dick Rutan, right, and Jeana Yeager, no relationship to test pilot Chuck Yeager, pose for a photo after a test flight over the Mojave Desert, Dec. 19, 1985. Rutan, a decorated Vietnam War pilot, who along with copilot Yeager completed one of the greatest milestones in aviation history: the first round-the-world flight with no stops or refueling, died late Friday, May 3, 2024. He was 85. Music producer Steve Albini, seen in his Chicago studio in 2014, produced albums by Nirvana, the Pixies and PJ Harvey. Albini died at 61. Brian Fox, an engineer at Albini’s studio, Electrical Audio, says Albini died after a heart attack May 7. In addition to his work on canonized rock albums such as Nirvana‘s “In Utero,” the Pixies’ breakthrough “Surfer Rosa,” and PJ Harvey’s “Rid of Me,” Albini was the frontman of the underground bands Big Black and Shellac. He dismissed the term “producer” and requested he be credited with “Recorded by Steve Albini." San Francisco 49ers Hall of Fame football player Jimmy Johnson, left, is honored by owner Jed York before a 2011 game between against the St. Louis Rams in San Francisco. Pro Football Hall of Fame defensive back Jimmy Johnson, a three-time All-Pro and member of the All-Decade Team of the 1970s, has died. He was 86. Johnson's family told the Pro Football Hall of Fame that he died May 8. Johnson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1994. He played his entire 16-year pro career with San Francisco. He played in 213 games, more than any other 49ers player at the time of his retirement. San Diego Padres third baseman Sean Burroughs fires a throw to first from his knees but is unable to get Los Angeles Dodgers' D. J. Houlton at first during the third inning of a baseball game June 22, 2005, in San Diego. Burroughs, a two-time Little League World Series champion who won an Olympic gold medal and went on to a major league career that was interrupted by substance abuse, has died. He was 43. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s online records said Burroughs died Thursday, May 9, 2024, with the cause of death deferred. Producer Roger Corman poses in his Los Angeles office, May 8, 2013. Corman, the Oscar-winning “King of the Bs” who helped turn out such low-budget classics as “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Attack of the Crab Monsters” and gave many of Hollywood's most famous actors and directors an early break, died Thursday, May 9, 2024. He was 98. A.J. Smith, a longtime NFL executive who was the winningest general manager in Chargers history, has died. He was 75. His son, Atlanta assistant general manager Kyle Smith, announced in a statement released by the Falcons that his father died May 12. Kyle Smith said his father had been battling prostate cancer for seven years. The Chargers won five division titles during Smith’s 10 seasons as GM. The franchise’s 98 wins, including the playoffs, were the sixth most in the league from 2003-12. Saxophone player David Sanborn performs during his concert at the Stravinski hall at the "Colours of Music night" during the 34th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland on July 10, 2000. Sanborn, the Grammy-winning saxophonist who played lively solos on such hits as David Bowie's “Young Americans” and James Taylor's “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” and enjoyed his own highly successful recording career as a leading performer of contemporary jazz, died Sunday, May 12, 2024, at age 78. Nobel laureate Alice Munro has died. The Canadian literary giant who became one of the world’s most esteemed contemporary authors and one of history’s most honored short story writers was 92. Munro achieved stature rare for an art form traditionally placed beneath the novel. She was the first lifelong Canadian to win the Nobel and the first recipient cited exclusively for short fiction. Munro was little known beyond Canada until her late 30s but became one of the few short story writers to enjoy ongoing commercial success. A spokesperson for publisher Penguin Random House Canada said Munro died May 13 at home in Port Hope, Ontario. Dabney Coleman, the mustachioed character actor who specialized in smarmy villains like the chauvinist boss in “9 to 5” and the nasty TV director in “Tootsie,” died May 16. He was 92. For two decades Coleman labored in movies and TV shows as a talented but largely unnoticed performer. That changed abruptly in 1976 when he was cast as the incorrigibly corrupt mayor of the hamlet of Fernwood in “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” a satirical soap opera. He won a Golden Globe for “The Slap Maxwell Story” and an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in Peter Levin’s 1987 small screen legal drama “Sworn to Silence.” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi listens to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, not in photo, during a joint news conference following their meeting at the Presidential palace in Ankara, Turkey, Jan. 24, 2024. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others were found dead at the site of a helicopter crash site, state media reported Monday, May 20, 2024. Jim Otto, the Hall of Fame center known as Mr. Raider for his durability through a litany of injuries, died May 19. He was 86. The cause of death was not immediately known. Otto joined the Raiders for their inaugural season in the American Football League in 1960 and was a fixture on the team for the next 15 years. He never missed a game because of injuries and competed in 210 consecutive regular-season games and 308 straight total contests despite undergoing nine operations on his knees during his playing career. His right leg was amputated in 2007. Ivan F. Boesky, the flamboyant stock trader whose cooperation with the government cracked open one of the largest insider trading scandals on Wall Street, has died at the age of 87. A representative at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, owned by his daughter, confirmed his death. The son of a Detroit delicatessen owner, Boesky was once considered one of the richest and most influential risk-takers on Wall Street. He had parlayed $700,000 from his late mother-in-law’s estate into a fortune estimated at more than $200 million. Once implicated in insider trading, Boesky cooperated with a brash young U.S. attorney named Rudolph Giuliani, uncovering a scandal that blemished some of the most respected U.S. investment brokerages. Boesky died May 20. Jan. A.P. Kaczmarek poses with the Oscar for best original score for his work on "Finding Neverland" during the 77th Academy Awards, Feb. 27, 2005, in Los Angeles. Polish composer Kaczmarek, who won a 2005 Oscar for the movie “Finding Neverland,” has died on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at age 71. Kaczmarek’s death was announced by Poland’s Music Foundation. Train bassist and founding member Charlie Colin has died at 58. Colin’s sister confirmed the musician's death Wednesday to The Associated Press. Variety reported Colin slipped and fell in the shower while house-sitting for a friend in Brussels. Train formed in San Francisco in the early ’90s. Colin played on Train's first three records, 1998’s self-titled album, 2001’s “Drops of Jupiter” and 2003’s “My Private Nation.” The track “Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)” hit No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. It also earned two Grammys. Colin left the band in 2003. He also worked with the Newport Beach Film Festival. Colin died May 22. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, an Oscar nominee whose most famous works skewered America’s food industry and who notably ate only at McDonald’s for a month to illustrate the dangers of a fast-food diet, has died of cancer. He was 53. Spurlock made a splash in 2004 with his groundbreaking film “Super Size Me,” and returned in 2019 with “Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!” — a sober look at an industry that processes 9 billion animals a year in America. Spurlock was a gonzo-like filmmaker who leaned into the bizarre and ridiculous. His stylistic touches included zippy graphics and amusing music. Spurlock died May 23. Richard M. Sherman, one half of the prolific, award-winning pair of brothers who helped form millions of childhoods by penning classic Disney tunes, has died. He was 95. Sherman, along with his late brother Robert, wrote hundreds of songs together, including songs for “Mary Poppins,” “The Jungle Book” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” — as well as the most-played tune on Earth, “It’s a Small World (After All).” The Walt Disney Co. announced that Sherman died Saturday due to age-related illness. The brothers won two Academy Awards for Walt Disney’s 1964 smash “Mary Poppins.” Robert Sherman died May 25 in London in 2012. Basketball Hall of Fame legend Bill Walton laughs during a practice session for the NBA All-Star basketball game in Cleveland, Feb. 19, 2022. Walton, who starred for John Wooden's UCLA Bruins before becoming a Basketball Hall of Famer and one of the biggest stars of basketball broadcasting, died Monday, May 27, 2024, the league announced on behalf of his family. He was 71. “The Godfather” producer Albert S. Ruddy died May 25 at 94. The Canadian-born producer and writer won Oscars for “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby,” developed the raucous prison-sports comedy “The Longest Yard” and helped create the hit sitcom “Hogan’s Heroes." A spokesperson says Ruddy died Saturday at the UCLA Medical Center. Ruddy produced more than 30 movies and was on hand for the very top and the very bottom. “The Godfather” and “Million Dollar Baby” were box office hits and winners of best picture Oscars. But Ruddy also helped give us “Cannonball Run II” and “Megaforce,” nominees for Golden Raspberry awards for worst movie of the year. Larry Allen, one of the most dominant offensive linemen in the NFL during a 12-year career spent mostly with the Dallas Cowboys, died June 2. He was 52. The Cowboys say Allen died suddenly on Sunday while on vacation with his family in Mexico. Allen was named an All-Pro six consecutive years from 1996-2001 and was inducted into the Pro Football of Hall of Fame in 2013. He said few words but let his blocking do the talking. Allen once bench-pressed 700 pounds and had the speed to chase down opposing running backs. Bob Hope and Janis Paige hug during the annual Christmas show in Saigon, Vietnam, Dec. 25, 1964. Paige, a popular actor in Hollywood and in Broadway musicals and comedies who danced with Fred Astaire, toured with Bob Hope and continued to perform into her 80s, died Sunday, June 2, 2024, of natural causes at her Los Angeles home, longtime friend Stuart Lampert said Monday, June 3. Parnelli Jones, the 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner, died June 4 at Torrance Memorial Medical Center after a battle with Parkinson’s disease, his son said. Jones was 90. At the time of his death, Jones was the oldest living winner of “The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.” Rufus Parnell Jones was born in Texarkana, Arkansas, in 1933 but moved to Torrance as a young child and never left. It was there that he became “Parnelli” because his given name of Rufus was too well known for him to compete without locals knowing that he wasn’t old enough to race. Boston Celtics' John Havlicek (17) is defended by Philadelphia 76ers' Chet Walker (25) during the first half of an NBA basketball playoff game April 14, 1968, in Boston. Walker, a seven-time All-Star forward who helped Wilt Chamberlain and the 76ers win the 1967 NBA title, died June 8. He was 84. The National Basketball Players Association confirmed Walker's death, according to NBA.com . The 76ers, Chicago Bulls and National Basketball Retired Players Association also extended their condolences on social media on Saturday, June 8, 2024. The Rev. James Lawson Jr. speaks Sept. 17, 2015, in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Lawson Jr., an apostle of nonviolent protest who schooled activists to withstand brutal reactions from white authorities as the Civil Rights Movement gained traction, has died, his family said Monday. He was 95. His family said Lawson died on Sunday after a short illness in Los Angeles, where he spent decades working as a pastor, labor movement organizer and university professor. Lawson was a close adviser to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who called him “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” Lawson met King in 1957, after spending three years in India soaking up knowledge about Mohandas K. Gandhi’s independence movement. King would travel to India himself two years later, but at the time, he had only read about Gandhi in books. Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jerry West, representing the 1960 USA Olympic Team, is seen Aug. 13, 2010, during the enshrinement news conference at the Hall of Fame Museum in Springfield, Mass. Jerry West, who was selected to the Basketball Hall of Fame three times in a storied career as a player and executive, and whose silhouette is considered to be the basis of the NBA logo, died June 12, the Los Angeles Clippers announced. He was 86. West, nicknamed “Mr. Clutch” for his late-game exploits as a player, was an NBA champion who went into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1980 and again as a member of the gold medal-winning 1960 U.S. Olympic Team in 2010. He will be enshrined for a third time later this year as a contributor, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called West “one of the greatest executives in sports history.” Actor and director Ron Simons, seen Jan. 23, 2011, during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, died June 12. Simons turned into a formidable screen and stage producer, winning four Tony Awards and having several films selected at the Sundance Film Festival. He won Tonys for producing “Porgy and Bess,” “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder,” “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” and “Jitney.” He also co-produced “Hughie,” with Forest Whitaker, “The Gin Game,” starring Cicely Tyson and James Earl Jones, “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” an all-Black production of “A Streetcar Named Desire,” the revival of "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" and the original work “Thoughts of a Colored Man.” He was in the films “27 Dresses” and “Mystery Team,” as well as on the small screen in “The Resident,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” and “Law & Order: SVU.” Bob Schul of West Milton, Ohio, hits the tape Oct. 18, 1964, to win the 5,000 meter run at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Schul, the only American distance runner to win the 5,000 meters at the Olympics, died June 16. He was 86. His death was announced by Miami University in Ohio , where Schul shined on the track and was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 1973. Schul predicted gold leading into the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and followed through with his promise. On a rainy day in Japan, he finished the final lap in a blistering 54.8 seconds to sprint to the win. His white shorts were covered in mud at the finish. He was inducted into the USA Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1991. He also helped write a book called “In the Long Run.” San Francisco Giants superstar Willie Mays poses for a photo during baseball spring training in 1972. Mays, the electrifying “Say Hey Kid” whose singular combination of talent, drive and exuberance made him one of baseball’s greatest and most beloved players, died June 18. He was 93. The center fielder, who began his professional career in the Negro Leagues in 1948, had been baseball’s oldest living Hall of Famer. He was voted into the Hall in 1979, his first year of eligibility, and in 1999 followed only Babe Ruth on The Sporting News’ list of the game’s top stars. The Giants retired his uniform number, 24, and set their AT&T Park in San Francisco on Willie Mays Plaza. Mays died two days before a game between the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals to honor the Negro Leagues at Rickwood Field in Birmingham , Alabama. Over 23 major league seasons, virtually all with the New York/San Francisco Giants but also including one in the Negro Leagues, Mays batted .301, hit 660 home runs, totaled 3,293 hits, scored more than 2,000 runs and won 12 Gold Gloves. He was Rookie of the Year in 1951, twice was named the Most Valuable Player and finished in the top 10 for the MVP 10 other times. His lightning sprint and over-the-shoulder grab of an apparent extra base hit in the 1954 World Series remains the most celebrated defensive play in baseball history. For millions in the 1950s and ’60s and after, the smiling ballplayer with the friendly, high-pitched voice was a signature athlete and showman during an era when baseball was still the signature pastime. Awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015, Mays left his fans with countless memories. But a single feat served to capture his magic — one so untoppable it was simply called “The Catch.” Actor Donald Sutherland appears Oct. 13, 2017, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, Calif. Sutherland, the Canadian actor whose wry, arrestingly off-kilter screen presence spanned more than half a century of films from “M.A.S.H.” to “The Hunger Games,” died June 20. He was 88. Kiefer Sutherland said on X he believed his father was one of the most important actors in the history of film: “Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that.” The tall and gaunt Sutherland, who flashed a grin that could be sweet or diabolical, was known for offbeat characters like Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman's "M.A.S.H.," the hippie tank commander in "Kelly's Heroes" and the stoned professor in "Animal House." Before transitioning into a long career as a respected character actor, Sutherland epitomized the unpredictable, antiestablishment cinema of the 1970s. He never stopped working, appearing in nearly 200 films and series. Over the decades, Sutherland showed his range in more buttoned-down — but still eccentric — roles in Robert Redford's "Ordinary People" and Oliver Stone's "JFK." More, recently, he starred in the “Hunger Games” films. A memoir, “Made Up, But Still True,” is due out in November. Actor Bill Cobbs, a cast member in "Get Low," arrives July 27, 2010, at the premiere of the film in Beverly Hills, Calif. Cobbs, the veteran character actor who became a ubiquitous and sage screen presence as an older man, died June 25. He was 90. A Cleveland native, Cobbs acted in such films as “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “The Bodyguard” and “Night at the Museum.” He made his first big-screen appearance in a fleeting role in 1974's “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three." He became a lifelong actor with some 200 film and TV credits. The lion share of those came in his 50s, 60s, and 70s, as filmmakers and TV producers turned to him again and again to imbue small but pivotal parts with a wizened and worn soulfulness. Cobbs appeared on television shows including “The Sopranos," “The West Wing,” “Sesame Street” and “Good Times.” He was Whitney Houston's manager in “The Bodyguard” (1992), the mystical clock man of the Coen brothers' “The Hudsucker Proxy” (1994) and the doctor of John Sayles' “Sunshine State” (2002). He played the coach in “Air Bud” (1997), the security guard in “Night at the Museum” (2006) and the father on “The Gregory Hines Show." Cobbs rarely got the kinds of major parts that stand out and win awards. Instead, Cobbs was a familiar and memorable everyman who left an impression on audiences, regardless of screen time. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for outstanding limited performance in a daytime program for the series “Dino Dana” in 2020. Independent gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman speaks with the media Nov. 7, 2009, at his campaign headquarters in Austin, Texas. The singer, songwriter, satirist and novelist, who led the alt-country band Texas Jewboys, toured with Bob Dylan, sang with Willie Nelson, and dabbled in politics with campaigns for Texas governor and other statewide offices, died June 27. He was 79 and had suffered from Parkinson's disease. Often called “The Kinkster" and sporting sideburns, a thick mustache and cowboy hat, Friedman earned a cult following and reputation as a provocateur throughout his career across musical and literary genres. In the 1970s, his satirical country band Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys wrote songs with titles such as “They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore” and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed.” Friedman joined part of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour in 1976. By the 1980s, Friedman was writing crime novels that often included a version of himself, and he wrote a column for Texas Monthly magazine in the 2000s. Friedman's run at politics brought his brand of irreverence to the serious world of public policy. In 2006, Friedman ran for governor as an independent in a five-way race that included incumbent Republican Rick Perry. Friedman launched his campaign against the backdrop of the Alamo. Martin Mull participates in "The Cool Kids" panel during the Fox Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour on Aug. 2, 2018, at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including “Roseanne” and “Arrested Development,” died June 28. He was 80. Mull, who was also a guitarist and painter, came to national fame with a recurring role on the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” and the starring role in its spinoff, “Fernwood Tonight." His first foray into show business was as a songwriter, penning the 1970 semi-hit “A Girl Named Johnny Cash” for singer Jane Morgan. He would combine music and comedy in an act that he brought to hip Hollywood clubs in the 1970s. Mull often played slightly sleazy, somewhat slimy and often smarmy characters as he did as Teri Garr's boss and Michael Keaton's foe in 1983's “Mr. Mom.” He played Colonel Mustard in the 1985 movie adaptation of the board game “Clue,” which, like many things Mull appeared in, has become a cult classic. The 1980s also brought what many thought was his best work, “A History of White People in America,” a mockumentary that first aired on Cinemax. Mull co-created the show and starred as a “60 Minutes” style investigative reporter investigating all things milquetoast and mundane. Willard was again a co-star. In the 1990s he was best known for his recurring role on several seasons on “Roseanne,” in which he played a warmer, less sleazy boss to the title character, an openly gay man whose partner was played by Willard, who died in 2020 . Mull would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on “Arrested Development,” a cult-classic character on a cult-classic show, and would be nominated for an Emmy, his first, in 2016 for a guest run on “Veep.” Screenwriter Robert Towne poses at The Regency Hotel, March 7, 2006, in New York. Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of "Shampoo," "The Last Detail" and other acclaimed films whose work on "Chinatown" became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, died Monday, July 1, 2024, surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said publicist Carri McClure. She declined to comment on any cause of death. Vic Seixas of the United States backhands a volley from Denmark's Jurgen Ulrich in the first round of men's singles match at Wimbledon, England, June 27, 1967. Vic Seixas, a Wimbledon winner and tennis Hall of Famer who was the oldest living Grand Slam champion, has died July 5 at the age of 100. The International Tennis Hall of Fame announced Seixas’ death on Saturday July 6, 2024, based on confirmation from his daughter Tori. In this June 30, 2020, file photo, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., speaks to reporters following a GOP policy meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington. Former Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma died July 9. He was 89. The family says in a statement that the Republican had a stroke during the July Fourth holiday and died Tuesday morning. Inhofe was a powerful fixture in state politics for decades. He doubted that climate change was caused by human activity, calling the theory “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” As Oklahoma’s senior U.S. senator, he was a staunch supporter of the state’s military installations. He was elected to a fifth Senate term in 2020 and stepped down in early 2023. The Oak Ridge Boys, from left, Joe Bonsall, Richard Sterban, Duane Allen and William Lee Golden hold their awards for Top Vocal Group and Best Album of the Year for "Ya'll Come Back Saloon", during the 14th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards in Los Angeles, Calif., May 3, 1979. Bonsall died on July 9, 2024, from complications of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in Hendersonville, Tenn. He was 76. A Philadelphia native and resident of Hendersonville, Tennessee, Bonsall joined the Oak Ridge Boys in 1973, which originally formed in the 1940s. He saw the band through its golden period in the '80s and beyond, which included their signature 1981 song “Elvira.” The hit marked a massive crossover moment for the group, reaching No. 1 on the country chart and No. 5 on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100. The group is also known for such hits as 1982’s “Bobbie Sue." Shelley Duvall poses for photographers at the 30th Cannes Film Festival in France, May 27, 1977. Duvall, whose wide-eyed, winsome presence was a mainstay in the films of Robert Altman and who co-starred in Stanley Kubrick's “The Shining,” died July 11. She was 75. Dr. Ruth Westheimer holds a copy of her book "Sex for Dummies" at the International Frankfurt Book Fair 'Frankfurter Buchmesse' in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007. Westheimer, the sex therapist who became a pop icon, media star and best-selling author through her frank talk about once-taboo bedroom topics, died on July 12, 2024. She was 96. Richard Simmons sits for a portrait in Los Angeles, June 23, 1982. Simmons, a fitness guru who urged the overweight to exercise and eat better, died July 13 at the age of 76. Simmons was a court jester of physical fitness who built a mini-empire in his trademark tank tops and short shorts by urging the overweight to exercise and eat better. Simmons was a former 268-pound teen who shared his hard-won weight loss tips as the host of the Emmy-winning daytime “Richard Simmons Show" and the “Sweatin' to the Oldies” line of exercise videos, which became a cultural phenomenon. Former NFL receiver Jacoby Jones died July 14 at age 40. Jones' 108-yard kickoff return in 2013 remains the longest touchdown in Super Bowl history. The Houston Texans were Jones’ team for the first five seasons of his career. They announced his death on Sunday. In a statement released by the NFL Players Association, his family said he died at his home in New Orleans. A cause of death was not given. Jones played from 2007-15 for the Texans, Baltimore Ravens, San Diego Chargers and Pittsburgh Steelers. He made several huge plays for the Ravens during their most recent Super Bowl title season, including that kick return. The "Beverly Hills, 90210" star whose life and career were roiled by tabloid stories, Shannen Doherty died July 13 at 53. Doherty's publicist said the actor died Saturday following years with breast cancer. Catapulted to fame as Brenda in “Beverly Hills, 90210,” she worked in big-screen films including "Mallrats" and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" and in TV movies including "A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story," in which she played the "Gone with the Wind" author. Doherty co-starred with Holly Marie Combs and Alyssa Milano in the series “Charmed” from 1998-2001; appeared in the “90210” sequel series seven years later and competed on “Dancing with the Stars” in 2010. Actor James Sikking poses for a photograph at the Los Angeles gala celebrating the 20th anniversary of the National Organization for Women, Dec. 1, 1986. Sikking, who starred as a hardened police lieutenant on “Hill Street Blues” and as the titular character's kindhearted dad on “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” died July 13 of complications from dementia, his publicist Cynthia Snyder said in a statement. He was 90. Pat Williams chats with media before the 2004 NBA draft in Orlando, Fla. Williams, a co-founder of the Orlando Magic and someone who spent more than a half-century working within the NBA, died July 17 from complications related to viral pneumonia. The team announced the death Wednesday. Williams was 84. He started his NBA career as business manager of the Philadelphia 76ers in 1968, then had stints as general manager of the Chicago Bulls, the Atlanta Hawks and the 76ers — helping that franchise win a title in 1983. Williams was later involved in starting the process of bringing an NBA team to Orlando. The league’s board of governors granted an expansion franchise in 1987, and the team began play in 1989. Lou Dobbs speaks Feb. 24, 2017, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md. Dobbs, the conservative political pundit and veteran cable TV host who was a founding anchor for CNN and later was a nightly presence on Fox Business Network for more than a decade, died July 18. He was 78. His death was announced in a post on his official X account, which called him a “fighter till the very end – fighting for what mattered to him the most, God, his family and the country.” He hosted “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on Fox from 2011 to 2021, following two separate stints at CNN. No cause of death was given. Bob Newhart, center, poses with members of the cast and crew of the "Bob Newhart Show," from top left, Marcia Wallace, Bill Daily, Jack Riley, and, Suzanne Pleshette, foreground left, and Dick Martin at TV Land's 35th anniversary tribute to "The Bob Newhart Show" on Sept. 5, 2007, in Beverly Hills, Calif. Newhart has died at age 94. Jerry Digney, Newhart’s publicist, says the actor died July 18 in Los Angeles after a series of short illnesses. The accountant-turned-comedian gained fame with a smash album and became one of the most popular TV stars of his time. Newhart was a Chicago psychologist in “The Bob Newhart Show” in the 1970s and a Vermont innkeeper on “Newhart” in the 1980s. Both shows featured a low-key Newhart surrounded by eccentric characters. The second had a twist ending in its final show — the whole series was revealed to have been a dream by the psychologist he played in the other show. Cheng Pei-pei, a Chinese-born martial arts film actor who starred in Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” died July 17 at age 78. Her family says Cheng, who had been diagnosed with a rare illness with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, passed away Wednesday at home surrounded by her loved ones. The Shanghai-born film star became a household name in Hong Kong, once dubbed the Hollywood of the Far East, for her performances in martial arts movies in the 1960s. She played Jade Fox, who uses poisoned needles, in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which was released in 2000, grossed $128 million in North America and won four Oscars. Abdul “Duke” Fakir holds his life time achievement award backstage at the 51st Annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 8, 2009, in Los Angeles. The last surviving original member of the Four Tops died July 22. Abdul “Duke” Fakir was 88. He was a charter member of the Motown group along with lead singer Levi Stubbs, Renaldo “Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton. Between 1964 and 1967, the Tops had 11 top 20 hits and two No. 1′s: “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” and the operatic classic “Reach Out I’ll Be There.” Other songs, often stories of romantic pain and longing, included “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “Bernadette” and “Just Ask the Lonely.” Sculptress Elizabeth Catlett, left, then-Washington D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon, center, and then-curator, division of community life, Smithsonian institution Bernice Johnson Reagon chat during the reception at the Candace awards on June 25, 1991 in New York. Reagon, a musician and scholar who used her rich, powerful contralto voice in the service of the American Civil Rights Movement and human rights struggles around the world, died on July 16, 2024, according to her daughter's social media post. She was 81. John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, died July 22. He was 90. He is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. A statement on Mayall's official Instagram page says he died Monday at his home in California. Though Mayall never approached the fame of some of his illustrious alumni, he was still performing in his late 80s, pounding out his version of Chicago blues. Erica Ash, an actor and comedian skilled in sketch comedy who starred in the parody series “Mad TV” and “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” has died. She was 46. Her publicist and a statement by her mother, Diann, says Ash died July 28 in Los Angeles of cancer. Ash impersonated Michelle Obama and Condoleeza Rice on “Mad TV,” a Fox sketch series, and was a key performer on the Rosie O’Donnell-created series “The Big Gay Sketch Show.” Her other credits included “Scary Movie V,” “Uncle Drew” and the LeBron James-produced basketball dramedy “Survivor’s Remorse.” On the BET series “Real Husbands of Hollywood,” Ash played the ex-wife of Kevin Hart’s character. Jack Russell, the lead singer of the bluesy '80s metal band Great White whose hits included “Once Bitten Twice Shy” and “Rock Me” and was fronting his band the night 100 people died in a 2003 nightclub fire in Rhode Island, died Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024. He was 63. Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Hall of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and inspiring life story made him among the sport’s most popular players during a long professional career, died Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024. Susan Wojcicki, the former YouTube chief executive officer and longtime Google executive, died Friday, Aug. 9, 2024, after suffering with non small cell lung cancer for the past two years. She was 56. Frank Selvy, an All-America guard at Furman who scored an NCAA Division I-record 100 points in a game and later played nine NBA seasons, died Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. He was 91. Wallace “Wally” Amos, the creator of the cookie empire that took his name and made it famous and who went on to become a children’s literacy advocate, died Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, from complications with dementia. He was 88. Gena Rowlands, hailed as one of the greatest actors to ever practice the craft and a guiding light in independent cinema as a star in groundbreaking movies by her director husband, John Cassavetes, and who later charmed audiences in her son's tear-jerker “The Notebook,” died Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. She was 94. Peter Marshall, the actor and singer turned game show host who played straight man to the stars for 16 years on “The Hollywood Squares,” died. Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024 He was 98. Alain Delon, the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, died Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024. He was 88. Phil Donahue, whose pioneering daytime talk show launched an indelible television genre that brought success to Oprah Winfrey, Montel Williams, Ellen DeGeneres and many others, died Sunday, Aug. 18, 2024, after a long illness. He was 88. Al Attles, a Hall of Famer who coached the 1975 NBA champion Warriors and spent more than six decades with the organization as a player, general manager and most recently team ambassador, died Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024. He was 87. John Amos, who starred as the family patriarch on the hit 1970s sitcom “Good Times” and earned an Emmy nomination for his role in the seminal 1977 miniseries “Roots,” died Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. He was 84. James Darren, a teen idol who helped ignite the 1960s surfing craze as a charismatic beach boy paired off with Sandra Dee in the hit film “Gidget,” died Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. He was 88. James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen has died. He was 93. His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Sept. 9 at home. Jones was a pioneering actor who eventually lent his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader. Working deep into his 80s, he won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors and was given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor. Frankie Beverly, who with his band Maze inspired generations of fans with his smooth, soulful voice and lasting anthems including “Before I Let Go,” has died. He was 77. His family said in a post on the band’s website and social media accounts that Beverly died Sept. 10. In the post, which asked for privacy, the family said “he lived his life with a pure soul, as one would say, and for us, no one did it better.” The post did not say his cause of death or where he died. Beverly, whose songs include “Joy and Pain,” “Love is the Key,” and “Southern Girl,” finished his farewell “I Wanna Thank You Tour” in his hometown of Philadelphia in July. Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92. The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Sept. 11. A cause of death was not provided. One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000. Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt. Chad McQueen, an actor known for his performances in the “Karate Kid” movies and the son of the late actor and racer Steve McQueen, died Sep. 11. His lawyer confirmed his death at age 63. McQueen's family shared a statement on social media saying he lived a life “filled with love and dedication.” McQueen was a professional race car driver, like his father, and competed in the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 24 Hours of Daytona races. He is survived by his wife Jeanie and three children, Chase, Madison and Steven, who is an actor best known for “The Vampire Diaries.” Tito Jackson, one of the brothers who made up the beloved pop group the Jackson 5, died at age 70 on Sept. 15. Jackson was the third of nine children, including global superstars Michael and Janet. The Jackson 5 included brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and Michael. They signed with Berry Gordy’s Motown empire in the 1960s. The group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and produced several No. 1 hits in the 1970s, including “ABC,” “I Want You Back” and “I’ll Be There.” John David “JD” Souther has died. He was a prolific songwriter and musician whose collaborations with the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt helped shape the country-rock sound that took root in Southern California in the 1970s. Souther joined in on some of the Eagles’ biggest hits, such as “Best of My Love,” “New Kid in Town,” and “Heartache Tonight." The Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee also collaborated with James Taylor, Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt and many more. His biggest hit as a solo artist was “You’re Only Lonely.” He was about to tour with Karla Bonoff. Souther died Sept. 17 at his home in New Mexico, at 78. In this photo, JD Souther and Alison Krauss attend the Songwriters Hall of Fame 44th annual induction and awards gala on Thursday, June 13, 2013 in New York. Sen. Dan Evans stands with his three sons, from left, Mark, Bruce and Dan Jr., after he won the election for Washington's senate seat in Seattle, Nov. 8, 1983. Evans, a former Washington state governor and a U.S. Senator, died Sept. 20. The popular Republican was 98. He served as governor from 1965 to 1977, and he was the keynote speaker at the 1968 National Republican Convention. In 1983, Evans was appointed to served out the term of Democratic Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson after he died in office. Evans opted not to stand for election in 1988, citing the “tediousness" of the Senate. He later served as a regent at the University of Washington, where the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance bears his name. Eugene “Mercury” Morris, who starred for the unbeaten 1972 Miami Dolphins as part of a star-studded backfield and helped the team win two Super Bowl titles, died Sept. 21. He was 77. The team on Sunday confirmed the death of Morris, a three-time Pro Bowl selection. In a statement, his family said his “talent and passion left an indelible mark on the sport.” Morris was the starting halfback and one of three go-to runners that Dolphins coach Don Shula utilized in Miami’s back-to-back title seasons of 1972 and 1973, alongside Pro Football Hall of Famer Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick. Morris led the Dolphins in rushing touchdowns in both of those seasons. John Ashton, the veteran character actor who memorably played the gruff but lovable police detective John Taggart in the “Beverly Hills Cop” films, died Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. He was 76. Maggie Smith, who won an Oscar for 1969 film “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Sept. 27 at 89. Smith's publicist announced the news Friday. She was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench. “Jean Brodie” brought her the Academy Award for best actress in 1969. Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978. Kris Kristofferson, a Rhodes scholar with a deft writing style and rough charisma who became a country music superstar and an A-list Hollywood actor, died Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. He was 88. Drake Hogestyn, the “Days of Our Lives” star who appeared on the show for 38 years, died Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. He was 70. Ron Ely, the tall, musclebound actor who played the title character in the 1960s NBC series “Tarzan,” died Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024, at age 86. Dikembe Mutombo, a Basketball Hall of Famer who was one of the best defensive players in NBA history and a longtime global ambassador for the game, died Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, from brain cancer, the league announced. He was 58. Frank Fritz, left, part of a two-man team who drove around the U.S. looking for antiques and collectibles to buy and resell on the reality show “American Pickers,” died Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. He was 60. He's shown here with co-host Mike Wolfe at the A+E Networks 2015 Upfront in New York on April 30, 2015. Pete Rose, baseball’s career hits leader and fallen idol who undermined his historic achievements and Hall of Fame dreams by gambling on the game he loved and once embodied, died Monday, Sept. 30, 2024. He was 83. Cissy Houston, the mother of Whitney Houston and a two-time Grammy winner who performed alongside superstar musicians like Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, died Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in her New Jersey home. She was 91. Ethel Kennedy, the wife of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, who raised their 11 children after he was assassinated and remained dedicated to social causes and the family’s legacy for decades thereafter, died on Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, her family said. She was 96. Former One Direction singer Liam Payne, 31, whose chart-topping British boy band generated a global following of swooning fans, was found dead Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, after falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, local officials said. He was 31. Mitzi Gaynor, among the last survivors of the so-called golden age of the Hollywood musical, died of natural causes in Los Angeles on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. She was 93. Fernando Valenzuela, the Mexican-born phenom for the Los Angeles Dodgers who inspired “Fernandomania” while winning the NL Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year in 1981, died Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. He was 63. Jack Jones, a Grammy-winning crooner known for “The Love Boat” television show theme song, died, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. He was 86. Phil Lesh, a founding member of the Grateful Dead, died Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, at age 84. Teri Garr, the quirky comedy actor who rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to co-star of such favorites as "Young Frankenstein" and "Tootsie," died Tuesday, Oct 29, 2024. She was 79. Quincy Jones, the multitalented music titan whose vast legacy ranged from producing Michael Jackson’s historic “Thriller” album to writing prize-winning film and television scores and collaborating with Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and hundreds of other recording artists, died Sunday, Nov 3, 2024. He was 91 Bobby Allison, founder of racing’s “Alabama Gang” and a NASCAR Hall of Famer, died Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024. He was 86. Song Jae-lim, a South Korean actor known for his roles in K-dramas “Moon Embracing the Sun” and “Queen Woo,” was found dead at his home in capital Seoul, Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2024. He was 39. British actor Timothy West, who played the classic Shakespeare roles of King Lear and Macbeth and who in recent years along with his wife, Prunella Scales, enchanted millions of people with their boating exploits on Britain's waterways, died Tuesday, Nov 12, 2024. He was 90. Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power in the sport, died Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. He was 82. Arthur Frommer, whose "Europe on 5 Dollars a Day" guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, died Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. He was 95. Former Chicago Bulls forward Bob Love, a three-time All-Star who spent 11 years in the NBA, died Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. He was 81. Chuck Woolery, the affable, smooth-talking game show host of “Wheel of Fortune,” “Love Connection” and “Scrabble” who later became a right-wing podcaster, skewering liberals and accusing the government of lying about COVID-19, died Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. He was 83. Barbara Taylor Bradford, a British journalist who became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the saga "A Woman of Substance" and wrote more than a dozen other novels that sold tens of millions of copies, died Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. She was 91. Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!NoneTrump has flip-flopped on abortion policy. His appointees may offer clues to what happens next

Occasionally, K-Pop from a lesser-known company will attract attention for a variety of reasons. For example, groups with older members often become a hot topic as fans seek out older idols. Others gain attention through the use of technology for their promotions, like the virtual boy group PLAVE . Another group that gained attention for using technology was one of the first to combine AI members with real members. In June 2022, the boy group SUPERKIND made its official debut with four real members and one virtual member named Saejin . The concept intrigued many and Saejin’s visuals left many interested in the group, which ended up adding two more members — another virtual idol named Seung and a normal idol named JDV . The group was very active on social media, especially TikTok, where Seung and Saejin answered viewers’ questions about themselves. At one point, Seung even got caught up in “dating rumors” with a member of MAVE: , an entirely virtual group. First K-Pop AI “Dating Scandal” — SUPERKIND’s Seung Responds “To The Scandal Rumors” About MAVE:’s ZENA The group’s most recent release was their first mini album, which dropped on October 18, 2023. SUPERKIND continued to be active on their social media accounts until around November 11, when only the group’s self-run X account continued posting content. This account also stopped posting content after early February 2024. The group are still available for purchase on the fan social media platform Fromm , though it is unsure how active they are on the platform. Usually, in situations like this, there is a lack of activity from the company as well. However, SUPERKIND’s label, Deep Studio Entertainment, very recently shared audition information for an upcoming girl group. There also appears to be a number of trainees already under the company. A post shared by 딥스튜디오 신인개발팀 (@deep.audition) With the initial interest the group drew it, it is puzzling to see their level of inactivity while still technically being active. Hopefully, fans will get updates from the group soon!

West Ham surprise Newcastle with 2-0 away winRegardless of what the Emmys and Golden Globes awarded, comedy in 2024 was actually blossoming, thriving, and everywhere for those with eyes to see. Young upstarts like [ checks notes ] the Lonely Island and Seth Meyers got in on the podcast game , and legacy casts found new bursts of creative energy. Stand-ups self-released specials on YouTube and places like VEEPS, and Dropout proved that independent comedy can thrive directly through fans outside the major studios and social-media platforms. SNL was sharper than a half-century-old sketch show has any right to be, and John Mulaney created a new live, late-night comedy show that managed to hit in the streaming era. An actually funny Joker movie outclassed Joaquin Phoenix’s miserable one , and the biggest theater story of the year was an audacious, bawdy farce from a crazed comic genius . A note about our methodology: This is a roundup of the best moments in comedy, so something unintentionally hilarious, like Raygun’s Olympic break-dance , does not qualify. Also, there are some recurring favorites on this list: What We Do in the Shadows and Girls5eva had too many good moments to be reduced to a single blurb, as was also the case for favorites like Chris Fleming and Conner O’Malley . Now please give an Ellen DeGeneres–length round of clapter for our list of the funniest comedy moments of the year. Skip to : Stand-up / Podcasts / Late Night / The Mulaneyverse / Award-worthy Performers / Great Moments in TV / GirlsNoLonga / Cinema / What?! / Internet Stuff / Funny People Named Conner or Chris / The Giggle Crypt / Saturday Night Live / Line Readings 100 percent material, zero percent crowdwork. Bones and All , November anthony jeselnik on joe rogan: “i like joe... but if you listen to his podcast you’re a fucking loser” pic.twitter.com/z0OXaGUx1t Before every comedian of a certain ilk had a Netflix special entitled Um, Triggered Much? , Anthony Jeselnik loved to tell offensive jokes; it was sort of his thing. In the 2016 Netflix special Thoughts and Prayers , for instance, he tells a long story about nearly losing his Comedy Central show over a joke about the Boston Marathon bombing ... which he tweeted out on the day of the bombing . Considering how intensely the world fixated on “wokeness” in the years since his follow-up special from January 2020, there’s been a lot of interest in what Jeselnik thinks about cancel culture. His latest Netflix special, Bones and All , provides the answer. “I’m against cancel culture,” he says toward the end. The line gets a big reaction from some of the crowd before Jeselnik drops the hammer: “Thank you. That’s my impression of a shit comic trying to get on Rogan .” Far too many comedians are happy to throw marginalized communities under the bus for the sake of “edgy” jokes, so it’s heartening to see one with Jeselnik’s reputation dunk on those other comics to score laughs. But his harshest words aren’t reserved for them. “I like Joe. Joe’s my friend. Joe’s a good guy,” he says in quick succession. Then he waits the perfect amount of time before adding: “But if you listen to his podcast, you’re a fucking loser.” With the sizable overlap between Jeselnik’s fan base and Rogan’s, telling a joke like that in 2024 is nearly as fearless about potential blowback as joking about a tragedy immediately after it happens. — Joe Berkowitz Arizona comedy show, January election year joke pic.twitter.com/BoVcsb5Ac9 In a sea of now-obsolete jokes about the 2024 election featuring such revolutionary premises as “Joe Biden is old” and “Donald Trump looked cool when he got shot,” my favorite election joke was not about the race for the country’s executive branch but a local bid for the office of Arizona mine-safety inspector. “This feels like a skills-based position!” says comedian Anwar Newton, incredulous that the public is qualified to elect a bureaucrat in charge of such a specific and important task. What’s worse is it’s apparently a partisan issue. “They had a Republican and Democratic choice for the mine inspector ,” Newton continues. “What could they possibly have disagreed on?” Newton goes on to tell a few solid jokes speculating about how divisive issues like abortion and DEI quotas could theoretically be litigated within a mine setting, but the jokes’ broader point — that society often leaves crucial problems with unambiguous solutions at the mercy of partisan electoral politics — is worth thinking about. — Hershal Pandya YouTube, September While comedy fans have been lucky to see a lot of James Adomian this year as Mike Lindell on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the voice of befuddled Batman baddie Bane on Harley Quinn , they also got something unprecedented: a stand-up special. In addition to his uncanny impressions — including hilarious takes on Jon Taffer, Tom Selleck, and David Attenborough — Path of Most Resistance is more evidence that Adomian is one of the sharpest joke writers on the planet. There are few specials this year, or any year, this smart, energetic, or jam-packed with jokes. —John Roy Seasoned Professional , February Forget the epidural, that mic stand is on a mission. #JennySlate #SeasonedProfessional #PrimeVideo #SeasonedProfessionalPV By the time a comedian is ready to film a special, their material is often so polished that it can feel devoid of urgency. There are points in Jenny Slate’s Amazon Prime special Seasoned Professional when it falls into this trap, which is why the moment when she intentionally knocks over her microphone stand then panics as she realizes in real time it’s about to roll off the edge of the stage is so refreshing. True spontaneity in stand-up specials is rare — even rarer when it doesn’t take the form of crowdwork . This appears to dawn on Slate in the moment, too, as her initial panic quickly gives way to excited cheering. The moment produces a second payoff at the end of the special when Slate, lacking her usual place to put the microphone, gently places it on the floor and blows it a kiss. —H.P. Love You , August I lost count of how many times Adam Sandler repeats the title of his Josh Safdie–directed Netflix special over the course of its 84 minutes. “Love you,” he tells the audience, the guy who gets him coffee, his keyboard player, and his wife, in between jokes about no-wipe shits, genie hand jobs, and being mistaken for Ben Stiller (actually, those are all the same joke). But it’s clear that what Sandler loves above everything is comedy, and he lays out why in the final song of the special. As clips from comedy history play behind him, Sandler thanks a litany of greats, from Buster Keaton to Maya Rudolph, for helping people get through rough times. By the time he gets to Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald, any lingering cynicism has been thoroughly drained away. Comedy is just so fucking cool! — Emily Palmer Heller Dirt Nap , April If Family Feud polled 100 people on “How many words are in a joke?,” the most common answer would be, like, 30. Well, on Dirt Nap , Kyle Kinane closes his special with a joke that is (based on word counting the copy-and-pasted YouTube transcript) 8,787 words. And every one of those words freaking rules. The joke is a story about moving to the suburbs and adopting a street cat, but that’s like saying Forrest Gump is a movie about sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. It’s so much more! — Jesse David Fox Someday You’ll Die , May If the 2024 Nikki Glaser output you’re most familiar with is her set from The Roast of Tom Brady, you’re not getting the full picture. In her HBO special Someday You’ll Die , Glaser takes the same savant-like joke-writing skill she displayed live on Netflix and applies it to topics far more interesting than Brady and Gronk, including suicide, procreation, and hack stand-up crutches. It all builds toward a masterful closer in which she compares the feeling of being alive to being the woman in a gangbang, because “every day, life is just trying to fuck you from so many angles.” It’s a fine-enough premise on paper, but the examples she cites to prove it — and the grueling act-out she performs to sell it — elevate it from a filthy joke to a deeply profound existential rumination. — H.P. For the Boys , May Dan Licata packs so many bizarre details into one single joke set-up, any one of them could be an entire pause-for-laughter punch line in some other project — a surrealist sitcom, maybe. He transferred to “Jesus Christ High School,” which is a Staten Island public school, because his dad “got a job cleaning the breastfeeding pods at JFK airport,” pods he uses to watch “ Paranormal Activity on a VR headset” while drinking two iced coffees before a flight, because you don’t actually need a baby to use those suckers. Then, he describes “edging, but with piss,” which is when he took “one-third of a piss, wrapped a couple rubber bands around the head, started shotgunning Dasanis,” which is extra difficult because he put a gauge earring in his pee-hole. He demonstrates what it sounds like when he pees now by dumping a glass of water on the floor. All of this takes place in the first three minutes after Licata gets onstage, and he keeps going on like this for the rest of the special. It’s called For the Boys because he shot it at his Buffalo high school in front of a room of teenage boys who, I’ll be honest, don’t seem like they’re totally getting it. Watching this special possibly has the brain-damage equivalent of doing ten canisters of whippets back to back. Licata also had an excellent set on Late Night With Seth Meyers to promote the special, if you want a smaller dose. I’ve been thinking about how he says his wife was deployed but “already used up all her PTO so she could be home for Halloween” all year. It tickles me so! — Rebecca Alter Good Grief , June Good Grief is a special about Marlon Wayans losing both his parents, but even Sigmund Freud, author of The Interpretation of Dreams and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious , couldn’t have dreamed what such a thing would look like. Specifically, Wayans dedicates an unbelievable amount of time describing his elderly parents’ respective genitalia. But the image that is burned in my brain and will soon be burned into yours comes when he imagines what his mother’s vagina would look like late in life. Wayans is a comedian known for act-outs, so when he says “The lips would be stretched out and the hair would be coming out, and it would be like an old camel chewing straw,” the audience expects him to act it out, but the result defies any expectation. It is vivid, grotesque, pained, and weirdly sentimental. — J.D.F. GRL/LATNX/DEF , September Netherlands-based comedian Lara Ricote’s GRL/LATNX/DEF , which won the 2022 Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer, is a solo show about the idea of doing a show about identity. Each time it seems like it’s going to fall into a dissection of the various groups she belongs to, it morphs into something else. This approach is best exemplified in a stand-out joke about Ricote’s “degenerative hearing loss.” Ricote’s not getting ahead of it by learning sign language, she explains, because doctors have assured her that medical science is advancing quickly enough that it’ll address the deterioration before it goes too far. She then conducts an informal audience survey. “I just want to know: Is there anyone here tonight who happens to be working on it?” she asks to silence. “And nobody knows anybody?” Finally, the twist: “Now’s the time where I tell you where that whole ‘degenerative hearing loss’ thing is actually a metaphor for the climate crisis.” —H.P. Netflix, December Throughout Hecklers Welcome , James Acaster walks around holding the entire mic stand like he’s in the tech crew and has wandered onstage accidentally. It looks a bit like he’s about to play an air guitar, or maybe like he’s hauling around a little step stool for reaching a high shelf? The general impact of it is “How do mics even work?” with a large dash of “I’ve picked this up because I’m in the middle of doing something, but now I can’t remember what it was I meant to do, so I’m just going to carry it around until something comes to me.” — Kathryn VanArendonk On and On and On , December Look, for all the critical rubrics people use to judge stand-up, sometimes enjoying a special is as simple as a comedian being roughly the same age as you and referencing things that make you reenact the “Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV” meme. This was my experience watching Rose Matafeo’s Max special On and On and On , specifically during the moments when she swiftly disabuses Gen Zers of the notion that their age group invented the concept of whimsy (“My child, have you ever worn a top hat at the height of summer to a Panic! at the Disco concert?”) and refers to getting dumped over the phone as “the reverse Soulja Boy.” The latter joke, she adds, is “a good litmus test to see how many people my age are in the crowd,” which, yes. — H.P. Ends , September the family whatsapp going crazy #AhirShah #standup #netflix #netflixisajoke #parents #family #relatable In 2019, British comedian Ahir Shah concluded an uneven stand-up set at a festival in Melbourne by speculating aloud about the crowd’s perception of him. “You might think that I’ve been a relatively unfunny stand-up comedian,” he said. “But I think we can all agree I would’ve made an extremely funny lecturer. Let’s just acknowledge that we could reassess these ten minutes in the light of that and realize we’ve all witnessed something breathtaking that’s been horrifically missold.” Such is the feeling one might walk away with after watching Shah’s Netflix special Ends , a filmed adaption of his show that won the comedy award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023. In it, Shah uses the story of his family’s emigration from India to the U.K. to make the case that even political progressives who ardently disagree with Rishi Sunak’s policies should see it as a sign of progress that he was elected the country’s first Indian prime minister in 2022. Superficial ethnic representation is the type of thing that inspires eye rolls in 2024, especially when it’s not followed by material change, but Shah’s “funny lecture” is so persuasive that he successfully calls that reflex into question. — H.P. Basic Lee , July Liking the U.K. comedy legend Stewart Lee is sort of the comedy-fan equivalent of being really into wellness, in the sense that people who do it cannot and will not stop talking about it. In his new special, Basic Lee , the comedian hits out at these (mostly male) obsessives who he says drive women away from his shows with their overenthusiastic fandom. “You have my sympathy, ladies,” he says, sketching out a scenario he imagines they’re all too familiar with. “You’re trying to get ready for bed at night, aren’t you? You’re trying to get in the shower, or have a talk about the gas bill or something, and he’s lying in bed on his back, he’s got a laptop on his chest, and he’s watching little clips of me on YouTube. And he’s going [ Ten seconds of obnoxious laughter ] Oh God, he’s a genius. And so am I, because I like him.’” That I personally happened to watch this special for the first time in bed with my laptop on my chest, I’m sure, was just a coincidence. — H.P. Did podcasts make the election? Maybe. Did they make this list? Yes! Club Shay Shay , January No list of notable 2024 comedy moments could be credible without including Katt Williams’s internet-stopping interview on Shannon Sharpe’s podcast Club Shay Shay . Had it just been that Williams’s insults of his comedy peers started going viral before the interview finished livestreaming on YouTube, that alone would merit recognition. (Perhaps you heard that Cedric the Entertainer’s four specials are “so bad” that they’re not available to watch on “Netflix or Tubi.”) But its ripple effects were far wider. It prophesized cultural reckonings (the fall of Diddy), set the tone for a year heavy in public feuds (sorry, Drake), led to follow-up interviews where Williams said offensive things that were much less fun, and coronated Club Shay Shay as a platform so influential that none other than Kamala Harris stopped by during election season . It also spawned this breathlessly funny video of Williams sprinting shirtless to authenticate his eyebrow-raising claim that he’s able to run a 40-yard dash in a little over four seconds. It’s an interview for the history books — one Williams will no doubt read one day as part of his stated yearly quota of 3,000. — H.P. Comedy Bang! Bang! , May Modern-era CBB GOAT Lisa Gilroy takes a page from Nephew Todd and finds a great game in just playing a relative of host Scott Aukerman, saying kooky shit about him that he has to “yes, and” as truths. As Nana Aukerman, Gilroy takes this 15th-anniversary episode to mean that it’s Scott’s 15th birthday and proceeds to give him a silly sex talk. Because this is a supersize anniversary episode, the whole bit is bolstered by a peanut gallery of seven other guests cracking up at her moto-scootoo-quick improvising. What truly makes the mind reel is this was the second half of a two-week streak for Gilroy; she ran away with the episode the week before playing God. — R.A. Doughboys , November Next year will be the tenth anniversary of the Doughboys podcast, which is basically a medical miracle of longevity for a podcast centered around eating fast food. Over hundreds of episodes, hosts Mike Mitchell and Nick Wiger have played plenty of games with guests, but maybe none have ever performed so well as first-time guest Kate Berlant, who shocks and surprises everyone, most of all herself, as she correctly guesses the exact year that a series of obscure Long John Silver’s commercials aired, based solely off aesthetic signifiers. (Has Berlant ever even eaten at Long John Silver’s? Extremely unlikely.) When someone fails horribly at a task like this, it can be funny. But when they succeed so impossibly, in a way that feels almost like they’re being guided by the hand of God, at a task so difficult yet so stupid? Hilarious. — R.A. Comedy Bang! Bang! , October A post shared by Earwolf (@earwolf) It has been seven years since the last time Scott Aukerman found himself at Suicide House for one of Comedy Bang! Bang! ’s formerly annual Halloween episodes. It’s tragic imaging Bueford LeBaron (Jon Daly) working in the lab late one night for nothing. Well, apparently all Aukerman needed to do was change up the lineup slightly (not getting into it right now) and we had a perfect episode of Comedy Fang! Fang! And if you can believe it, there was a brand, totally new song from Leo Carpazzi (Nick Wiger) that was nothing like “The Monster Fuck.” — J.D.F. Stavvy’s World , August A post shared by Stavvy’s World Podcast (@stavvysworld) Like a good hot sauce, a great podcast guest doesn’t change the flavor entirely but pushes things in new, unexpected directions. Mandal, a 2024 Comedian You Should and Will Know , is new to the podcast-guest game, but he’s already proven himself a must-listen. His brand of deadpan whimsy puts the listener on the edge of their seat, wondering if he’s going to respond with a flight of fancy or something surprisingly understated. So when Stavvy’s World host Stavros Halkias brings up the secret of making it as a white guy in a largely Black high school, Mandal has a perfect “Yeah, but nah” response: “We only had one white dude, and I’m going to be honest with you ... They was beating the mess out that boy.” He adds, “If that cat didn’t end up racist, he hated himself.” For that moment, we were all living in Mandal’s World. — J.D.F. Threedom , February through December Every now and then on their podcast, Threedom , Scott Aukerman, Paul F. Tompkins, or Lauren Lapkus will respond to something the other is saying or answer a question with a heightened, hostile condescension, tacking a weaponized “sweetie,” “honey,” or “dear” onto the end of their sentence. They have such an ease with each other, and clearly so much friendship and respect, that the words cut through like comedy daggers. It’s hard to explain to the non-pisspig community, but it makes us fans laugh every time. Sorry if you don’t get it, dear. — R.A. A.k.a. "Next Morning on YouTube." Comedy Central, February But only on Mondays; the kids are still trying to feed themselves Tuesday through Thursday. It’s been nice having Jon Stewart back, even if it is only once a week. His elder-statesman status lets him pop off a little more than the rest of the late-night hosts on touchier subjects. He was pretty much the only host, for example, to talk shit about the McDonald’s narc that fingered Luigi Mangione. — Bethy Squires CBS, January January saw the premiere of After Midnight , the reboot/revival of @midnight and the successor to The Late Late Show With James Corden . Host Taylor Tomlinson guides guests through a very different internet than the one @midnight left behind in 2017. A meaner one, for starters. But the show still serves an important function in the comedy world: It helps touring comedians get a little more famous and sell a few more tickets for their shows. In the 12 months since its premiere, After Midnight has settled into a truly stupid little show. Panelists play games like Does This Lamp Work? and Which Guy Named Nick Is Taller? It’s also become a welcome space for certain recurring panelists’ little bits. Chris Fleming’s staged readings are always a delight, for example. — B.S. Late Night With Seth Meyers , March When Joe Biden gave one of his most detailed statements on a cease-fire in Gaza, he did it while eating an ice-cream cone with Seth Meyers. That week, Meyers used “A Closer Look” to really wallow in the absurdity of having ice cream with a world leader while they actually do some world-leading. It was a real master class in how to handle a scandal, especially a deeply stupid one. — B.S. Jimmy Kimmel Live! , June You often hear how great comedians don’t lose potency with age, but witnessing it in real time can still seem miraculous. Martin Short brought beloved, belligerent, and be-fat-suited celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick back to guest host Jimmy Kimmel Live! over the summer , and the results were explosive. Still perhaps the most courageous improviser on the planet, Short threw himself into physical gags that seem impossible for a man his age. Watch as he unleashes pure comedy chaos on guest Nick Kroll, reducing the usually unflappable pro to a giggling wreck. — J. Roy The Tonight Show , April So many leftists I know were radicalized in 2010 — not by the recession, but by Conan O’Brien losing The Tonight Show. For those who weren’t there, it’s impossible to explain the fervor with which people pledged their allegiance to Team Coco. There were honest-to-God marches! About The Tonight Show ! O’Brien got fucked over by Jay Leno and NBC, had The Tonight Show yoinked from his hands after seven months, and the world trembled. But this year, a peace was brokered between NBCUniversal and Team Coco, and O’Brien returned to 30 Rock to plug his new travel show. What a beautiful, but fragile, peace we have found. — B.S. Jimmy Kimmel Live! , September When we were all still coconut-pilled and the election seemed almost fun, Jimmy Kimmel assembled a murderers’ row of impressions to play various nut bars across the political spectrum. James Adomian’s MyPillow Guy (he probably has a name, but that’s not important right now) has been on the show for years, as has Josh Meyers’s eerily accurate and slimy Gavin Newsom. But nabbing Haley Joel Osment to play Vice-President-elect J.D. Vance? Inspired. Getting all three of these freaks out on the same night? Gorgeous, gorgeous TV. — B.S. Late Night With Seth Meyers, February Years ago, when Larry David appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers , he told Meyers that he should do an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm . It never happened. This year, David appeared on Late Night to promote Curb ’s final season , and Meyers used it as an opportunity to uncomfortably confront the famous uncomfortable confronter. The top YouTube comment on the segment says it all: “What’s great about this is Seth complaining that he was never in an episode of Curb , only for the interview to turn into one.” It even ends with multiple unrelated narratives uniting in a way that is both surprising but inevitable. — J.D.F. Two highlights from 'Everybody's in L.A.' John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A ., May It would have been enough to have brought back Gil Faizon (Nick Kroll) and George St. Geegland (John Mulaney). But, like everything about John Mulaney’s brilliant experiment in Making Late Night Good Again, Everybody’s in L.A. , he went above and beyond, figuring out the funniest possible setting to plunk the “two legendary bachelors” in Los Angeles: a Hollywood mansion tour. The crotchety, idiosyncratic Upper West Siders quickly reveal that they thought it was a Hollywood Manson tour. Why? “The reason we are here is because we’re visiting,” George clarifies, helpfully. Their ulterior motive, however, is they’d like to scatter an unreasonably huge bag of ashes belonging to their late friend Art Simpson (lol) who was a young pledge in the Manson family with them in the ’60s. “ So many people were, honey,” George tells their poor tour guide, Robert. There are approximately one thousand jokes in this under-ten-minute segment, like how a wheel of Art’s gaming chair is in the bag (along with some unburned bones), Gil saying “We couldn’t get into the Robert Blake tour because it doesn’t exist,” and Mulaney’s amazing quip when noticing the tram is for a mansion tour: “There’s no i in Manson .” This is such an incredible bit of lore-building for everyone’s favorite modern amoral Statler and Waldorf. Of course they did helter-skelter in the ’60s. Of course they were draft dodgers who “applied hard to the North Vietnamese Army.” And of course the characters are only getting better with age. — R.A. John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A. , May Two of the stand-out pre-taped segments featured in John Mulaney’s live talk show, Everybody’s in L.A. , starred writers Rajat Suresh and Jeremy Levick , who, between their appearances on this show, guest spots on the final season of What We Do in the Shadows , and cameos in the movies Let’s Start a Cult and Rap World , had a big 2024 as performers as well. In this segment, the pair try to help a group of devoted Tina Fey and Amy Poehler fans realize a lifelong dream by participating in a special surprise for them. Unfortunately, the fans, fresh off delivering emotional speeches about Fey and Poehler’s significance in their lives, appear underwhelmed when Levick and Suresh come strolling out from behind a curtain expectantly. “We thought you might be excited to meet us, because we’re comedy writers like Tina and Amy,” Levick deadpans as the participants look on in confusion. Evidently, one thing they didn’t learn from their repeat viewings of Mean Girls was gratitude. —H.P. The MVPs. YouTube and The Daily Show , all year Josh Johnson went from Daily Show writer to correspondent this year, but it’s the internet that has made him a star. Eschewing the quick crowdwork clips so beloved of his TikTok peers, Johnson dropped lengthy, informative, razor-sharp monologues unpacking current events so frequently and so quick on the heels of the news throughout the year that it’s easy to believe his claim to only sleeping four hours a night. Watch this extended take on the Drake-Kendrick beef, which racked up 1.2 million views in its first five days on YouTube, and you’ll see why Johnson’s is a fresh and vital voice in stand-up. — J. Roy Hot Ones , April We’re well past the point of incredulity that an escalating series of hot-sauce challenges on YouTube has become one of our best talk shows and an essential stop on promotional tours (Kamala would’ve won if she’d talked inflation policy through Da Bomb sweats, etc.). Hot Ones is quite simply the new Tonight Show , which made this the perfect moment for a comedy legend like Conan O’Brien to fuck with the formula, as he did on the April 11 episode. “I don’t fear your wings, man!” Conan boasted, taking regular breaks to stash chicken-wing bones in his pockets and consult his dubious physician Dr. Arroyo (José Arroyo). On a baseline level, this is absurd, because O’Brien looks like (and admits as much) he’s never eaten anything spicier than corned beef. At around the 14-minute mark, he speeds past his last exit ramp, taking a heedless swig from a bottle of hot sauce, working himself into a Howard Beale–esque frenzy, lips stained orange, his face sickly sweaty in a way only true Irish heritage can produce. After taking a perfectly on-target shot at the parent company of the show he was promoting (“They used to call it HBO, but people found that too popular!”), our final image is of O’Brien — eyes crazed with a mania that’s no longer quite as exaggerated as it was six wings ago; his chin dripping a revolting combination of milk, drool, and maybe snot — having defeated Hot Ones , but at what cost? — Joe Reid Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson’s improv marathon, October Dicks: The Musical creators Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson did six straight hours of gay improv this October at the Bell House, with hourly changing guests that included Ilana Glazer, Julio Torres, and Pat Regan. The whole thing was a glorious salute to increasingly deranged improv energy, and the best guest was drag artist Kiko Soirée. She walked onstage with a completely done-up face including bright-blue eye shadow, but was otherwise only wearing skin-tone heels, nude pasties, and tights, the combination of which she claimed would help the audience be able to imagine her as any character. She then changed out of her nude heels into white sneakers and became a child in anaphylaxis. It’s these moments that make you want to claim that improv is back. — Jason P. Frank Oh, Mary! , February 2024 was the year that Cole Escola became someone your grandma might text you about. The comedian’s play Oh, Mary! , in which they play a demonic version of Mary Todd Lincoln, became one of the biggest hits on Broadway, after beginning the year Off Broadway at the Lucille Lortel. In the show’s grand finale (spoiler ahead!), Mary Todd is finally able to return to cabaret after her bitch husband’s been shot, and, in a moment of pure theatrical bliss, performs a full cabaret number with a multiplicity of songs. My favorite moment? When Escola drags a chair out from one side of the stage and, instead of pausing to use the chair for any form of performance à la Chicago , simply drags it to the other side. Perfection! — J.P.F. Still got it, baby! Netflix, September Great British Bake Off - quite enjoying this season for reasons #gbbo #dylanbachelet Oh, Dylan. The standout contestant of this season of The Great British Bake-Off would have been easy to hate. He was just 20 years old, gorgeous, a little pretentious, and preternaturally good at baking. The show’s producers were in a quandary. They knew this Little Mister Perfect was destined to go all the way to the final. How to get viewers on his side? By taking him down a peg right off the bat. In week one, as he explained his concept for a sticky mango rice loaf cake (inspired by a trip to Thailand during his gap year — ugh, but also: sounds delicious), the editors cut to a ten-second clip of Dylan completely sucking at skateboarding. “He’s a bit rusty,” host Alison Hammond murmured apologetically. The message was clear: We could love Dylan, because we had permission to laugh at him, too. — Nate Jones The Simpsons , September Ah, 2024. I’m going to miss this place. There’s a sort of “Too Many Cooks” effect that happens over the course of The Simpsons season 36 premiere, in which the internal reality of The Simpsons begins to subtly fold in on itself, all using sitcom series finale tropes. They zoom past the rule of threes and do the joke nine times. — R.A. Shōgun , March Yes, Sh ō gun is a series mostly defined by court intrigue, human loss on a devastating scale, honor, betrayal, scheming, and the naked pursuit of power. If it had only those things, it would be a solid show. What makes it a great show is that it also has a scene where its idiot himbo Englishman gets extremely excited about cooking a pheasant, and demands that his household of Japanese aristocrats let him age the pheasant for days and days by hanging it near the front door of their house. “Yes, yes!” he tells them, cheerfully, when they ask about it rotting. “It will be a terrible stench.” Then, in typical Sh ō gun fashion, an elderly gardener gets killed because he messed with the pheasant, and the whole thing is exactly awful enough that the gruesome rotting pheasant is painfully, perfectly absurd. — K.V.A. Hacks , May Work that #2 pencil girl!! #Hacks #AvaDaniels #HannahEinbinder #Max #FeelYourPride #Pride2024 @Max In the great 2024 comedy-television wars, Hacks emerged as not the hero we deserved but the one we needed. As we wrote, it isn’t a good comedy , but it beat The Bear for Best Comedy at the Emmys, vanquishing the mighty beast that grew to be the symbol for gag-writer resentment toward the post-comedy genre of sitcom-making. But this is not a time for negativity but to focus on, for my money, the one scene in the most recent season of Hacks that really had me going. Ava (Hannah Einbinder) is promised the head-writer job on Deborah’s new late-night show, so she needs new headshots. Which means she must take a photo holding a pencil. This was written by writers who have had to be photographed as writers, and they nailed this one.— J.D.F. Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show , March Jerrod Carmichael’s reality show wanted us to cringe at him, right? Like, the whole point was that you kind of just felt bad for him, because the choice to make this thing at all could only ever amount to deep wells of pity in his audience. Well, he won, and in the process made the best cringe comedy of the year. While the show broadened its focus eventually, the foundation of it all was in its pilot, in which Carmichael tried to get Tyler, the Creator, who he had a crush on, to come to the Emmys with him. While nervous about Tyler’s answer, he tried to ask a 20-year-old Grindr hookup to go instead. The accompanying “yes” by the hookup and immediate rudeness of Carmichael in response (“Would you mind being a backup date?” he asks. “I have to see if someone that I genuinely love wants to go”) made for a shocking, horrible, embarrassing, and, yes, hilarious moment. — J.P.F. Bluey , July The Bluey minisodes range from unobjectionable to transcendent, but “Muffin Unboxing” is the only one that manages to produce a gut-level laugh. Muffin, the show’s resident chaos-causing cousin, has been wheedled into filming an unboxing-style video by her father, Stripe, who has once again reached for the parenting stars but landed somewhere significantly south of his goal. Everything goes wrong, beginning with Muffin’s distaste for the unboxed toy and continuing through battery mishaps, a jelly bean frenzy, and a final sibling-rivalry-fueled collapse. Sometimes Bluey sneaks up from behind in an emotional ambush , but there’s no need to worry about that here. It’s Schadenfreude all the way down. — K.V.A. Smiling Friends , May Smiling friends - President Jimble Screws up #smilingfriends pic.twitter.com/MePnXcL1MC Adult Swim’s Smiling Friends delivered the boldest piece of satire of the 2024 presidential election with its second episode of season two, which imagines an election between incompetent incumbent President Jimble, played by a human actor in cartoon surroundings, and populist favorite (and Smiling Friends fan favorite) Mr. Frog, returning from his cancellation in season one. The face-off, which aired two months before Biden backed down, captures the feelings of dread at the time and heightens them to psychotic proportions. Mr. Frog is a rich-as-filth TV star who enjoys widespread popularity despite his history of inappropriate behavior, total lack of moral compass, and seeming disdain for his voter base. But sitting President Jimble is a useless idiot of a man who accidentally cozies up to war criminals leading to the bombing of children, can’t string three words together, and pretty consistently throws up on himself and shits his pants as he toddles around. No piece of comedy trying to get a handle on the “rock and a hard place” nature of national politics in 2024 was quite so crass, or quite so cathartic. — R.A. NBC, September In the new NBC procedural Brilliant Minds , Zachary Quinto plays not-quite Oliver Sacks (Oliver Wolf , thank you very much), a doctor with face blindness, a desperate need to treat his patients via unconventional methods like kidnapping them and throwing them on the back of a motorcycle, and an all-consuming passion for ferns. He loves ferns. There are ferns all over his house. There are ferns in his windowsill. There are ferns on the counters, on his desk, and on his bookshelves and on the floor. And when he opens the fridge to get some water, there is water, and there are also ferns. This is what repetitive, underbaked medical procedurals should be: overserious acting and a goofy fridge full of ferns. — K.V.A. NFL draft, April Every year I am allowed to sneak one funny wrestling moment onto this otherwise totally normal list, and this year the winner is All Elite Wrestling owner Tony Khan wearing a neck brace during the NFL draft and his subsequent TV interviews. Wrestling is at its funniest when it bleeds into the straight world, confusing well-meaning normie interviewers who do not understand they are actually now in an improv scene against their will. Khan was injured when his company’s EVPs, the Young Bucks, attacked him on live television in front of his own perfectly mustachioed father . He then went around for days in a neck brace — the funniest of all medical devices — like a guy trying to garner sympathy during a court hearing . The coup de grâce was when he caused two NFL Network interviewers to completely panic by calling WWE the “Harvey Weinstein of pro wrestling.” If only all billionaires could be this funny. — Anne Victoria Clark English Teacher , September Rick Santana, Businessman Extraordinaire @CarmChristopher #EnglishTeacherFX pic.twitter.com/qFiu7dvt3R Carmen Christopher may not have the biggest role on FX’s English Teacher, but he eats every moment he’s onscreen as Rick Santana, the high school’s guidance counselor whose whole character game is to say and do things that suggest he just might be the world’s least qualified person to be giving guidance. He’s a mildly dumb guy in a very 2024 way, falling for online business-opportunity scams, avoiding the students who bully him, and saying things like “My cousin created his own version of ChatGPT to write a more fucked-up version of Breaking Bad , dude!” Whatever the fate of this show ends up being (creator and star Brian Jordan Alvarez is currently facing allegations of misconduct on the set of his 2016 web series), future TV series should be leaping at the chance to get Christopher in their ensembles. — R.A. Matlock , October The premise of the Matlock reboot is that Kathy Bates plays Madeline Matlock, which, she explains, is like the guy on the TV show Matlock , except he’s a fake lawyer on TV and she’s a real lawyer (on TV!). But also her Matlock identity is a ruse! It’s a cover-up for her own secret plan to bring down the law firm that helped the evil pharmaceutical company that profited from opioid abuse. And now she’s so deeply entrenched in her identity that she’s having dreams about the original TV Matlock, in which she is Andy Griffith, wearing the Matlock suit. It’s so delightful. She’s so annoyed! — K.V.A. Saying good-bye to 'Girls5eva.' March While Girls5eva is an embarrassment of comedic riches overall, Renée Elise Goldsberry is a rare talent who can truly do it all. She sings! She dances! She acts! But she can also sell the hell out of a joke. Here, she tells her ex-beau Torque that she doesn’t want to hear about the time she puked at Benihana and it started cooking and the guy tried to flip it into his hat. It’s the kind of joke you’d have heard on 30 Rock in its heyday: an entire story — nay, a tableau — laid bare in a single run-on sentence that escalates from simple embarrassment to absurd devastation. While the joke is strong enough on paper, Goldsberry punctuates it with a “no” delivered with such seductive flair it made me laugh for 15 minutes straight. That’s more than some Emmy-winning comedies (ahem) make me laugh in a whole season. — A.V.C. March Grotesque, fantastic. A scream at an instantly iconic and horrifying set of jagged vulpine teeth transplanted into a hot man’s forever-altered mouth is kind of like a laugh, right? — Roxana Hadadi March @Cathleen is a treasure. #girls5eva #catcohen #peacock What the night sky was to van Gogh, vowel sounds are to Catherine Cohen: a landscape for expansive, impressionistic, kaleidoscopic exploration. In her season-three guest appearance, of Girls5eva in which she plays Taffy, a sugar baby celebrating her birthday, the show’s writers gave Cohen the perfect canvas to do her thing. In response to WNBA legend Rebecca Lobo asking if it would be cute if she makes as many baskets as Taffy’s age, the line as scripted is “So cute, Rebecca Lobo.” Cohen read the line as “Sooo kewt, Rebecca l-O-b-O” with an earworm musicality. The line played in my head like the chorus of a song: So cute, Rebecca Lobo / So cute, Rebecca Lobo / So cute, Rebecca Lobo / So cute, Rebecca Lobo. — J.D.F. We come to this place for slapstick. The People’s Joker, April Vera Drew’s Gotham Award–winning debut feature, The People’s Joker , uses a lot of classic Batman characters to transformative effect in its autobiographical story of coming out as a woman (awesome!) and a comedian (YIKES!), but it also introduced a new villain into the Rogue’s Gallery in the form of lo-res CGI Lorne Michaels The ultimate big-bad of this Joker origin story is the head honcho of a UCB- SNL dystopian hybrid that exerts authority, control, and sexism over comedy in Gotham, and Maria Bamford voices him like a little cartoon weasel. What makes it great is she’s not trying to do a Lorne; she’s doing her own thing. So not only did People’s Joker out-Joker Joker: Folie à Deux , it out-Lorned Saturday Night. — R.A. Stress Positions , January POV: You’re John Early and you slipped on chicken. STRESS POSITIONS opens in theaters April 19th. #johnearly #nyccomedy #filmtok Theda Hammel’s debut feature Stress Positions is full of smart satire about millennials, COVID, brain worms, and queer Brooklynites, but it also has a couple of good, old-fashioned pratfalls courtesy of John Early as neurotic loser Terry Goon. Watching him in this starring role, throwing his back out on raw chicken, just confirms that he’s our best physical comedian since maybe Jim Carrey. Get this guy a franchise! — R.A. The Gutter , November A problem common to silly comedy movies, even as they’ve grown increasingly extinct, is that their marketing teams often release trailers ahead of time that spoil all of their best jokes. Watching The Gutter , Yassir Lester and Isaiah Lester’s movie about a bowling prodigy named Walt (Shameik Moore), the script feels like it was written with the explicit intention of making this impossible. An editor could conceivably cut together a 15-minute-long teaser without scratching the surface. It’s not just the movie’s joke density that impresses, either — it’s the joke assortment. There’s wordplay, roasts, physical gags, callbacks, and visual jokes littering the backgrounds of scenes to reward eagle-eyed viewers. It’s a movie in which the main character types out his résumé in a font called Buffalo Wingdings and tries to seek a pro-sports endorsement from a local business called Booty Clappin’ Jermaine, Attorney at Law. If only it’d been released 20 years earlier, its DVD would be a staple of college dorms everywhere. — H.P. Conclave , October #CONCLAVE Cardinal Tedesco and his vape is brat pic.twitter.com/hRrYUeBbml No movie captured the hearts of the meming public this awards season quite like Conclave , a film about the Catholic clergy choosing a new pope. Something about the messiness, the Gossip Girl –like maneuvering, and the pure heart of one particular cardinal made for perfect X.com fodder . The most meme-able part of the movie was the occasional cut to the villainously traditionalist Cardinal Tedesco inconspicuously vaping . It captured the old-new dichotomy of the film perfectly while still being legitimately surprising. Plus, the vaping was cool enough to turn the racist, homophobic, misogynist Tedesco into a Charli XCX–scored queer icon . Slay. — J.P.F. Megalopolis , September Apart from its Randian contention that a visionary individual could get humanity back on track by inventing Hudson Yards , Megalopolis is not the Movie of Big Ideas that Francis Ford Coppola billed it as. It is, however, one of the year’s funniest movies — a fact sometimes obfuscated by the clunkiness of its stylized dialogue and its general incoherence. But rest assured that the maestro who wrote “What do you think of this boner I got?” knew he was making a comedy. The film’s comedic apex arguably arrives when Coppola tosses in a quick shot of the villainous Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf) power walking across marble floors, three henchmen in tow. Without breaking stride, Clodio removes his fedora and throws it on the ground, barking “Pick up my hat!” Unfazed, the goon behind him picks up the hat and throws his own fedora on the ground, yelling “Pick up my hat!” This continues down the line, until the goon in the back is presumably forced to reckon with the fact that he’s last in the pecking order. Supposedly inspired by an improv exercise, the scene manages to say more about man’s relationship to power than any of the drivel that spills out of Cesar Catalina’s Emersonian mind. And it’s funny! Pick up my hat, Francis. —Chris Stanton Anora , October It’s not often that a prestigious, Palme d’Or–winning film’s best scene is when it becomes a Three Stooges –like farce. Anora is that movie. Watching Ani kick and bite the Russian bodyguards invading her newfound home while they fall on top of glass tables could be terrifying. Instead, director Sean Baker opts to make the scene madcap fun, leaving the deep well of fear and sadness for later, and allowing for 28 full minutes of Looney Tunes –esque pratfalling. And at the center of it is a star turn by Mikey Madison as Ani, with oodles of charisma and comic timing, plus a fearsome determination that makes it the funniest home invasion since Kevin McCallister grabbed both sides of his face. — J.P.F. Let’s Start a Cult , October Imagine you’re on the lam, and you’re trying to disguise your getaway car from the police. Would your first thought be to swap the license plate or spontaneously and haphazardly repaint the car using house paint? In Let’s Start a Cult , Stavros Halkias and Wes Haney’s old-school comedy about a ragtag group in search of a chosen family, the crew chooses the latter. In doing so, they successfully give birth to the spiritual sequel to Zoolander’s gasoline-fight scene you didn’t know you needed. — H.P. DìDi , August Sean Wang’s feature-directorial debut, DìDi , was another under-the-radar gem this year, a comedy-drama about a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy navigating the summer before high school. It features a heartwarming performance from Wang’s own grandmother Chang Li Hua, who seems to be invoking every grandmother I’ve ever met with this monologue about how the main character’s life is already ruined, because he got a black eye, of course. — A.V.C. Love Lies Bleeding , March Ed Harris never half-asses anything — not even the final episodes of Westworld , when it was clear that he had no idea what the Man in Black was up to. (Same, Ed. Same.) But he spouted off all that nonsense dialogue like a true professional, and he brings the same degree of commitment to the grimy and vulgar Love Lies Bleeding . As Lou Sr., the estranged father of Kristen Stewart’s same-named gym manager, he’s a leathered raisin of a criminal mastermind, the man haunting his daughter’s memories and ruling their crummy little town’s underworld with an iron fist. All that seriousness is what helps make his breaking-bad moment so wonderfully ludicrous. The man keeps pet beetles. And in a moment of particular fury, he chomps into one of those with zero hesitation — no abandon, all crunch. Like Penélope Cruz throwing vegetables around in Ferrari , it’s so intensely dramatic that it bounds into camp; hopefully it’s part of why John Waters named Love Lies Bleeding his top film of 2024 . — R.H. Problemista , March Julio Torres’s movie Problemista takes various silly things very seriously. That’s perhaps no better represented by The Eggs , a series of paintings that RZA’s painter character created and nobody but Tilda Swinton understands. They provide the fulcrum around which the entire movie turns but are ultimately just eggs. The 13 Eggs are not particularly amazing works, nor do they have a deeper meaning beyond “eggs,” but, by the end of the movie, you find yourself completely invested in their futures, because the characters take them so seriously. You want the world to understand the Eggs , even as you don’t. — J.P.F. Deadpool & Wolverine , July The funniest part of Deadpool & Wolverine was not any of Ryan Reynolds’s many, many jokes about anal. It was Channing Tatum’s locked-in commitment to his terrible attempt at Cajun English as the New Orleans–based Gambit. It could have been awful and offensive. Instead, it was the funniest thing in the most-watched comedy of the year. — J.P.F. Thelma , June This comedic double-hander between June Squibb and Fred Hechinger is one of the most delightful films of the year, and Squibb’s performance has been tragically overlooked come year-end lists and discussions. One of the worst Golden Globe snubs of the year. Her performance as a nonagenarian tracking down a scammer is brave and so, so silly, culminating in a high-octane “hacking” scene where she has to pull off the greatest technological feat this side of Mission: Impossible : logging in to an online banking account. — R.A. Your Monster , January Your Monster is a horror rom-com that flew quietly under the radar this year, but please be aware that this movie exists and is a total treat for fans of both horror rom-coms and heavy comedic weeping. Deep sobs are hysterically funny in the correct hands, and Melissa Barrera proves she’s up to this specific task in the film’s opening montage. Having been dumped by her Broadway director boyfriend while in the hospital with cancer , Barrera’s weeps are both righteous and pathetic. They also happen regardless of how much pie she’s crammed into her mouth. The Amazon guy delivering boxes of tissues and serving as her only sympathetic ear adds a straight man to the scene at exactly the correct rhythmic intervals. All-around A-plus shtick. — A.V.C. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , September Tim Burton says the death of “Bob” was necessary in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” “You know what he deserved it, there you go, kiss ass. (Via: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Commentary) pic.twitter.com/Tv7A9wdBcs Tim Burton’s best movie in a good long while is simply just okay. It bounces along on a sort of sketch-comedy rhythm without actually containing too much that can be considered actually funny. More often, the comedic set pieces are nifty, or cute, or gross, or impressive; you appreciate the fun of the underworld’s Soul Train bit more than you actually laugh at it. But Bob, the film’s preeminent shrunken-head guy, is funny just to look at. His worried murmurs, his big eyes with tiny pupils on his tiny head on his huge body, the way he pilots that huge body around — all of these traits make him a great scene partner for an extremely on-one Michael Keaton. — R.A. Fantasmas , June Look, if you don’t understand why it’s funny to watch actual hamsters with the voices of John Early, Josh Sharp, and Aaron Jackson pretend to do cocaine in a teeny-tiny nightclub that’s “like Studio 54 meets Berghain, but for gay hamsters” and has a teeny-tiny coat check that costs $5, I certainly can’t explain it to you. — Jen Chaney This was weird! Rome, June The pope is an inherently funny figure: He’s very powerful but only to those who believe in him, like Santa or the Rock. Comedians meeting the pope , then, is double funny, because we’re watching people who make a living being totally unserious be completely earnestly emotional about meeting this adult version of Santa. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who isn’t even Catholic, fully looked like a Disney adult about to meet Mickey Mouse. Also, I cannot stress this enough: Someone brought him a bottle of olive oil. — A.V.C. The best of TikTok, Instagram, and yes, still X somehow. Your move, Bluesky. TikTok, all year I’m a total disoriented middle-aged man girlie. #GRWM #makeup #makeuptutorial To quote TikTok user River__Betty in the comments section of Zach Woods’s March 4 TikTok , “Gangster Jazz,” “Zach Woods understands content creation on a deep level.” The comment has over 15 thousand likes because it’s true. The actor and comedian had a strong start to the year with his tragically overlooked stop-motion NPR parody In the Know , but maybe the show didn’t make the impact it should have because audiences couldn’t see his beautiful punim behind the puppet-man he voiced. Enter TikTok, which Woods posted to for the first time on January 5 (it was an unsolicited product recommendation for cinnamon brooms and Enron), and from there has been the highlight of followers’ FYPs anytime he graces us with a front-facing video. Woods posts like someone who watches a lot of TikTok, which is surprising and rare coming from a 40-year-old master improviser. Sometimes he uses his powers for good, like in July when he tried to get a dog adopted by staring down the barrel of the camera with his baby blues and saying “You thought I was a one-and-done hit-it-and-quit-it charitable fuckboy slut!” He experiments with existing TikTok genres, like making a keenly observed GRWM makeup tutorial or rattling off an inspirational stream-of-consciousness story time . Most recently, he offered some beautiful tips about how to have the perfect Christmas (kiss someone under the mistletoe, but also insult them near drywall). He’s setting the bar for TikTok posting at six-foot-four. — R.A. Instagram, June A post shared by Paula Pell (@pellpix) This season of Girls5eva, Gloria (Paula Pell) made it her mission to sleep with 178 types of women. In June, she recited the entire list on Instagram, including “a Siri or Alexa-type,” “femme Mr. Peanut,” and “lumberjackess.” Women can truly be anything! — R.A. Make Some Noise , August A post shared by makesomenoise (@makesomenoise) So much of the appeal of Dropout programming is that it feels like hanging out with dear old friends. Even when the performers are new or unfamiliar, their dynamics encourage viewers to let go of their inhibitions and laugh along with them. That’s the draw of this clip from Make Some Noise , in which Pete Holmes relentlessly roasts the show’s host and Dropout CEO Sam Reich. As much as Holmes’s jokes about Reich’s outfit — “You look like you just got back from the Wild West selling a remedy that doesn’t work” and “How is it defending an innocent man in the South?,” to cite a few — are well-crafted and build momentum as he doubles down, it’s the way everyone around him absolutely loses their shit that makes this so rewatchable. — H.P. Hotel Art Thief on X, March I used AI to recreate my grandpa's dead wife and something amazing happened pic.twitter.com/oFdkTMVHRq When they’re not onstage at Union Hall, Brooklyn-based sketch duo Hotel Art Thief are doing haunting, amazing things with digital animation. This year they had a viral hit with “The bear video game actually looks pretty cool,” which imagines a hack video-game adaptation of the hit unfunny comedy , complete with cigarette-smoking side quests and NPCs trauma dumping and yelling “Yes, chef!” But this is slightly edged out on a laugh-per-second basis by this zany, sci-fi dystopian short, which uses sentimental clickbait as a diving board for its damning AI use case. In this short tragi-parody, an old guy in a sexy ascot is horny for a janky CG face (“Holy moly, I frigging love my computer wife!”), but when Anonymous sucks her into the dark web (“They stole my wife! I have to hack to get her!”), he has to enter the Matrix to track her down. If Michael Kandel and Joe Miciak are already reaching heights not seen since Conner O’Malley’s Hudson Yards simulator , just imagine what they could do if a network gave them a budget. — R.A. X, July our new king has been chosen pic.twitter.com/ap9annFrT0 It’s possible that the best joke spawned by the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef came courtesy of Kendrick himself (“trying to strike a chord and it’s probably A-minor”), but the back-and-forth was nevertheless a goldmine of inspiration for comedians everywhere. It gave us pitch-perfect RDCWorld1 sketches , a great Niles Abston joke about wishing rap music was “recorded at a frequency where only n- - - - -s can hear it,” and this Sahib Singh sketch about a group of South Asian Drake stans being thrust into an existential tailspin after their GOAT’s downfall. It hits harder if you’re familiar with the archetype of South Asian male Singh is parodying, but even if you aren’t, the out-of-left-field punch line at the end is extremely gratifying. — H.P. TikTok, August This did NOT go as planned. Wishing we had some more Pixie Dust on our side today 😞❤️ #disneyadult #disney #dnc #d23 #mistake #psa “Name a more iconic duo than a twink and a redhead.” So goes the comedy-pop song by Grand Gibbs and Ashley Gill, who are merely the latest in a proud comedic tradition of gay guys and redheads committing joint slays (see also: Will & Grace, Difficult People, Team Rocket). The Gen-Z comedy duo have had a prolific year on TikTok, where they did some crucial reporting from the Democratic National Convention ... in character as their married Disney Adult swinger couple, thinking the “D” in DNC stood for Disney. While they were there, they also got Fox News’s ass . — R.A. YouTube, February A lot of comedians hosted shows on Zoom over the pandemic, but almost none of them turned them into full-fledged TV shows. Enter New Zealander comedian Guy Montgomery, whose virtual spelling bees in 2020 and 2021 were such a convincing proof of concept that he now hosts television adaptations in both New Zealand and Australia . The official version, Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont-Spelling Bee , has all the elements of a good panel show, but February’s one-off virtual revival had the added draw of featuring comedians from all over the world. When else would performers from America, the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia like Paul F. Tompkins, Lolly Adefope, Rose Matafeo, and Aaron Chen ever be in the same place? It’s comedy’s Multiverse of Madness but with spelling. (For those new to Montgomery’s comedy, he also released a very good stand-up special this year titled My Brain Is Blowing Me Crazy that is very much worth your time.) — H.P. @Keeple_AI on X, February Meet Keeple AI #SuperBowl #AI pic.twitter.com/gj4emBZLkJ Not enough comics are putting their powers toward the noble use of exposing AI for the garbage it is. But Nick Corirossi never misses an opportunity to satirize whatever VC-backed aesthetic rot is currently being pushed on the masses by pushing it to a degree only slightly more absurd than the real thing. Enter keeple.ai, a fake Sora-style artificial-intelligence graphics engine that aims to upload “life-challenged celebrities” into their “library of recognizables” for use in soulless ads. Co-written and directed by Corirossi and Charles Ingram, the ad-parodies-within-an-ad-parody for things like John Lennon endorsing eczema medicine, or James Gandolfini doing a food-delivery app spot, are just shitty and creepy enough to seem like actual AI companies. — R.A. And also Corey. Instagram, September A post shared by Chris Fleming (@chrisflemingfleming) This was the year to make fun of The Bear , a show that Emmy voters love and fans of Matt Berry have sworn a vow of vengeance against. I didn’t expect Chris Fleming to be the person to do this, but this was the year he established himself as the entertainment industry’s Joker (Good). Here, he dunks firmly on the FX dramedy, while also doing a perfect Jeremy Allen White impression by simply taking off his glasses and making a face. In any other century, this is witchcraft. But we’re lucky enough to live in an age of science and reason, where this can be rightfully recognized as a zenith of physical comedy. That’s right, a zenith!! — A.V.C. Stand Up Solutions , May Conner O’Malley understands the American male in an utterly terrifying way. In his special Stand Up Solutions , he portrays a suburban dad from Illinois who pitches the audience on his AI start-up. Over the course of the presentation, he takes the audience on a guided meditation he does regularly in which his entire family is killed by big fat Italian guys, forcing him to become their avenger. It’s a darkly hilarious unpacking of a male fantasy catered to in so many classic action films, one in which they have every excuse to clean guns all day and also a scenario in which, yes, they are single. — A.V.C. Instagram, August A post shared by Chris Fleming (@chrisflemingfleming) A roast typically works best when there’s a clear affection between the roaster and the roastee. Not so for Chris Fleming, master of the most precisely worded burn you’ve ever heard. Nestled into a joke about how SNL is too boring if the rumor is true that everyone is on cocaine, Fleming hones in on Jost’s particular brand of bland mundanity. It’s a beautiful joke — “He is the final pebble before the estuary of not knowing” — made all the more awe-inspiring by the realization that Fleming is burning every possible bridge that could lead to working for Lorne Michaels. Jost could never. — E.P.H. Coreys , July There’s a temptation to label Conner O’Malley as something like the “bard of the manosphere,” as The New Yorker put it. In a year when everyone’s rushing to understand what young white guys are getting up to on the internet, O’Malley has cranked out one film project after the next in which he plays a delusional midwestern striver liable to tumble down any rabbit hole. But his best stuff never seems reverse-engineered for maximum satire — instead, it feels like he stewed his brain in ungodly corners of YouTube, then bottled the results. In his short film Coreys , what emerges from that stew is a demonic, hard-partying, masculine id named Corey who exists “outside of space and time” and inexplicably absorbs a timid midwestern dad who looks just like him. His grand plan? To make everything Corey. “No kings, no presidents, no senators. Just Corey.” —C.S. Chris Fleming’s YouTube, August Chris Fleming’s capitalist meditation on the hallucinatory qualities of the Trader Joe’s snack aisle is also an exquisite deconstruction of exactly how gender, time, and quantum physics work, beginning with Fleming’s assessment of their own gender, the nature of donkeys, the quality of a particular audience member’s laugh, the physicality of how women glide through store aisles, and the fourth-dimensional Dune- prophetess-esque experience of snack shopping. It is Donnie Darko for suburban Lean In moms. It is a fever dream. It is perfect. — K.V.A. Vampire-related content only. What We Do in the Shadows , October In its final outing, What We Do in the Shadows played to its strengths. Natasia Demetriou has quietly been the funniest person on earth for years, and season six of the FX comedy let her off the leash by giving Nadja, the ancient vampire who grew up a peasant on an island in Greece, a corporate job at a private-equity firm. You see, Nadja is obsessed with regular people, but her obsession reads as ironic, making her every move a roast of us. She wears power suits that make the movie Working Girl look like a low-budget web series, and she engages with modern office life by doing things like pouring coffee all over the break room while moaning “Mmmm, mama’s gogo juice.” Again I say to you, this was peak TV. TGIFMLNGL-LOL! — A.V.C. What We Do in the Shadows , December In its sixth and final season, What We Do in the Shadows rejected the kind of “We’re wrapping it up” sentimentality you’d expect from a long-running series making its exit. Instead, the FX comedy went all-in on goofy, with an array of pranks that pick up long-running gags (Colin and Laszlo taking their neighbor Sean to the railroad where they’ve claimed to work for years, Guillermo sharing with his cousin Miguel that their family is descended from vampire killer Van Helsing) or rely on one-off cameos for episodic silliness (Steve Coogan as Laszlo’s selfish father, Jon Glaser as a March Madness–obsessed demon). “Come Out and Play” combines both those approaches and the series’ customary wordplay into a Warriors homage that sees the gang running around New York avoiding other vampires intent on killing them. That gave writers Shana Gohd and Paul Simms the opportunity to unleash increasingly absurd vampire-gang names upon us: Lower East Side Vampire Punks, Manhattan All-Girls Private-School Vampires, Coney Island Carny Vampires, JFK TSA Vampires, a riverboat-gambler vampire, even a guy in an MTV astronaut suit from the ’80s. “We’re artist and writer vampires who happen to currently be working as baristas” is a line worthy of 30 Rock ! There’s a rhythm to the listing that’s pleasantly like that time Simon the Devious identified all his hangers-on, and coupled with Laszlo for the second time quoting the Democracy Manifest viral video , it’s a reminder that WWDITS often sounded like no other show on TV. — R.H. What We Do in the Shadows , November What We Do in the Shadows is over, but its final season was a feast — particularly so during the season’s eighth episode, in which Guillermo totally fanboys out over his favorite show filming in their neighborhood, while Laszlo and Nandor react to this like it’s a very real military invasion. The episode hits right in that Shadows sweet spot of putting our favorite silly vampires in a distinctly modern situation, then letting them react accordingly. In the episode’s B plot, Colin and Nadja (who recently learned about girl talk from watching the “‘Sexy City’ show”) attend a dinner party where they valiantly attempt to seem normal, only to find their host Joel (Zach Woods, a real ringer of a guest star) secretly wants Colin to copulate with his very angry wife. There’s also a scene where their neighbor Sean (Anthony Atamanuik) is yelling about “Mike Burbooglio’s piss”; television will simply never be this good again. Pack it up! — A.V.C. Nosferatu , December Bill Skarsgård does not get to be hot, nor does he get that much screen time, in Nosferatu . How often his villainous Count Orlok is kept unfocused in the background means he’s more a creation of our imagined fears than a distinctly presented one. That’s also why his obsessive huffing on a locket holding a lock of hair from Lily-Rose Depp’s Ellen, the woman he’s been obsessed with since her youth, is so unexpectedly funny. It’s the most recognizably human thing this centuries-old vampire, hunched over and shuffling around his decrepit mansion (sometimes with no underwear on!), does, and it’s also a bit of outsize physical acting that wouldn’t seem unusual in an old Mr. Bean episode. Sorry to everyone whose lingering Pennywise crush was dampened by all the prosthetics Skarsgård is under as Orlok, but hopefully that giggle-inducing lusty sniffing is enough for your sicko-mode fantasizing. — R.H. Ever heard of it? April This sketch established itself as an instant SNL classic before it was even over. Written by Streeter Seidell, this depiction of a NewsNation town hall about AI that gets derailed by Beavis and Butt-head look-alikes contains all the elements that make an SNL clip forever rewatchable: a brilliantly random premise, a perfect kicker (the King of the Hill reference: genius), and multiple performers cracking up so badly they can barely say their lines. Mikey Day, who plays Jeff, the Butt-head doppelgänger, rarely loses it during sketches, but totally loses it here. Host Ryan Gosling — Dean, the pompadoured Beavis double — always loses it during sketches, but loses it extra hard in this one. Then there’s the normally unbreakable Heidi Gardner , who breaks so freaking hard at the sight of Day’s fake exposed gums that you can actually hear her funny bone crack. But the best thing about this sketch is that it’s a reminder of how vital it is to actually watch this show live. “Beavis and Butt-head” is definitely funny after the fact, something I can personally attest to after revisiting it approximately 87 times. But it was really something to witness the reveals of Gosling and Day in real time, with zero warning that this news program was about to devolve into a Beavis and Butt-head revival. “I just couldn’t prepare for what I saw,” Gardner told us in an interview after the episode. Neither could we, Heidi. Neither could we. — J.C. October Because Wicked was not Ariana Grande’s best comedic tour de force this year — really, it was her completely dead eyes as she played a castrated teen male opera singer in Renaissance Italy on Saturday Night Live . — J.P.F. October Domingo was not universally beloved at the Vulture offices, but I am willing to take a stand here and say what needs to be said: Domingo is good! A catchy tune? Ariana Grande singing off-key? An ultra-confident nice-guy horndog who shows up to sexually taunt another woman’s husband? What’s not to like? The best SNL sketches find a way to turn an otherwise throwaway idea into something that hits a cultural nerve. Domingo did this rapidly, fusing Marcello Hernandez’s raw charm with this year’s biggest pop hits to create a Lingua Franca used among friends and on TikTok over and over again for weeks. This is what comedy should do: make everyone feel connected, like we could be buddies no matter what, because we understand each other at least enough to laugh together at Domingo showing up to a Sabrina Carpenter concert. — A.V.C. All year #snl #michaelche #weekendupdate #snlsketch For those not in the know, Weekend Update is currently going through somewhat of a Golden Age. It might not be cool or fashionable to say this, but pretty much every week, the hardest I’ll laugh at any episode is when Colin Jost and Michael Che deliver a joke or two that’s just a little too naughty . Che’s “Ain’t I a stinker?” energy is especially infectious and makes it easy to laugh at jokes that would sound genuinely offensive, instead of clearly ironically so, in the hands of a lesser or meaner comic. Often, the audience sounds like they don’t know what the fuck is going on or are too stunned to laugh when Che makes a topical joke about something like abortion or abuse, leading to a self-deprecating shake of the head. But this season, he’s taken on a new catchphrase for when a joke prompts pearl-clutching. “It’s the ’90s, Colin!” he says, trying to justify it, suggesting we’re all modern men and women, able to handle an edgy joke about a touchy topic. It’s a scary world out there, and whether it’s political cold opens or internet-trend sketches, SNL is often ill-equipped to handle it. But on Weekend Update, it’s the ’90s, baby . Get with the times. — R.A. March Ego Nwodim, as Charlotte the Stingray, saying “I’ve been near males, but none of them been men. None of them been, Mr. MICHAEL CHE” was my favorite song of the year. — J.D.F. September As much as Donald Trump has fumed about his portrayal on SNL , he should be grateful none of the show’s many impressions of him have ever been quite as devastating as Dana Carvey’s geriatric take on Joe Biden. The impression went through many iterations over the years — Jason Sudeikis , Woody Harrelson , Jim Carrey , and James Austin Johnson have all played him — before Carvey got to him back in October, and from his halting first steps, looking down at his feet to make sure he doesn’t fall (again), the SNL veteran’s squinty Biden felt like a major event of an impression. His face is a roiling bouillabaisse of tics that swing from confused to scared to overconfident so rapidly, it might as well be all happening at once. By the second time he trots out his catchphrase — the dueling non sequiturs, “Guess what” and “by the way” — the audience is in hysterics well before he gets out the last syllable. Never has a political impression been so scathing with such little exaggeration. While Kamala Harris’s campaign was still ongoing, Carvey’s Biden was a comic harbinger of why the newly buoyant Dems might actually win. Now, it’s a bitter but still comic reminder of why they lost. — J.B. October Since Andy Samberg and Jorma Taccone left SNL in 2012 (Akiva Schaffer left a year earlier), musical sketches on SNL have ranged in quality, but they’ve all tended to be straightforward. There are parodies and pastiche executions of one comedic idea, but nothing nearly as layered and dense as what the audience came to expect from the Lonely Island’s Digital Shorts. Then, as a by-product of Samberg playing Doug Emhoff (remember Doug Emhoff!) early in season 50, we got some dang Digital Shorts. Both were exceptional (if not Criterion Collection worthy), but “Sushi Glory Hole,” a song about sushi being fed through a hole in the wall, should be studied in musical-sketch-writing classes for its instant premise introduction, having multiple games that heighten, the amount of moves in less than three minutes, and the ending. Hear us out: It was very good. — J.D.F. It's all about delivery. StraightioLab , February There was no greater success in the “unintentional comedy” category this year than Sony’s box-office murder victim Madame Web , and no greater chroniclers of its flop-dom than George Civeris and Sam Taggart over at StraightioLab . Discussions of the film — including the way the villain’s lines were all dubbed, the hyper-sexualizing of Sydney Sweeney, and the blind Dakota Johnson at the end who acts like Bob Odenkirk in Little Women — took over the podcast entirely. But their obsession peaked in the episode “Museums With Slides in Them,” in which they brought up the film’s tagline “Her web connects them all” to guest Esther Fallick (who had not yet seen the film) so many times that she grew to share their obsession. That led to the greatest single phrase of the year, when a confused but enthusiastic Fallick said, when describing how much she loves her niece: “Her web connects me all.” What a compliment! Hear Fallick say it once, and the phrase will somehow never leave your brain. — J.P.F. Challengers , April A racket and a d- #challengers #challengersmovie #zendaya #joshoconnor #exboyfriend #cheating #peakedinhighschool #fyp #fypage #filmclips #fypシ゚viral #funny #CapCut #relationships #toxic The shocked laughter this elicited in the theater! If only they gave an Oscar for Sickest Burn. — R.A. Joel Golby on X, May sabrina carpenter: so what's the joker? barry keoghan: he's sart of like an evil porson Barry Keoghan’s relationship with Sabrina Carpenter is dead as a bog body. His turn as the Joker won’t come until The Batman Part II in 2026. But this tweet, a 15-word sketch by writer Joel Golby, captures a beautiful, more optimistic moment in the year, when “Please Please, Please” was on the radio and Joker: Folie à Deux still had a shot at being maybe actually good. “___’s sart of like a ___ porson” is a useful, silly-sounding tool to describe literally anyone. It is linguistically perfect and a sign that, for better or for worse, Twitter’s still where the jokes are at. (And if you go along with calling it “X” you’re a narc, a loser, and sart of like an evil porson.) — R.A. RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars , June RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars was awful this year, but you can’t deny a great lip-sync’s power, and while she may not have won the season (for some reason), at least Roxxxy Andrews gave us that. During the spoken-word bridge in her lip-sync to “No One Gets the Prize,” by Diana Ross, Roxxxy filed her nails, seemed utterly bored by the idea that you could “run behind” her back, and thrust her shoulders forward on the words “back off” in a way that made me, the first time I watched, legitimately jump. It was precise, it was fully in character, and it was funny. Thank you for your service, Roxxxy! — J.P.F. The Substance , September The grossest part of The Substance had nothing to do with the body horror Elisabeth (Demi Moore) put herself through in order to regain her youth; it was the opening scene of Dennis Quaid’s smarmy TV executive scarfing down shrimp. He also gets the funniest line reading of the movie. As he unceremoniously kicks Elisabeth out of the studio where she’s hosted an exercise show for decades, he hands her a gift that comes highly recommended by his wife. Then, almost as an offhanded comment to himself, he practically squeals “Oh, I love my wife!” The glee in his voice is so genuine, you actually believe he doesn’t realize how cruel he’s being. The Substance didn’t get enough credit for how funny it is, probably because the comedy comes in these small, throwaway moments that keep things light even as things get grimmer and grimmer for our heroine(s). — E.P.H. Hard Truths , September The omnidirectional sense of grievance that Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) projects into every single social interaction in her daily London life immediately announces Hard Truths as one of Mike Leigh’s more prickly comedies. She’s furious with everyone, from checkout cashiers to the doctors who try to administer a check-up to (especially) her own family. Leigh eventually steers Pansy’s story into a more dramatic direction, as Hard Truths becomes a story about family, frustration, and a kind of pain you can’t even account for, much less heal from. But before that happens, Pansy lets rip the funniest line in this or any movie this year, as she complains about a neighbor who doesn’t dress their fat baby appropriately for the weather, just an outfit with pockets. “What’s a baby need pockets for?! What’s it gonna keep in its pockets — a knife?” That line elicited the biggest burst of laughter in a night full of them at the film’s Toronto International Film Festival world premiere, an early sign that Jean-Baptiste had locked into a performance that would be raved about through the end of the year and hopefully deep into awards season. If only so her line about babies with knives in their pockets becomes the Oscar clip it deserves to be. — J. Reid