With her floppy hat and flapping gums, Jackie "Moms" Mabley is mostly remembered these days for her outrageous appearances on late-'60s and '70s-era variety and talk shows, as mainstream as Ed Sullivan and as of-the-moment as the Smothers Brothers, performing racy and politically barbed stand-up routines whose sting was couched in a dirty-old-lady's guise.
Among those influenced by Mabley was Whoopi Goldberg, who performed an homage to the comedian early in her own career. In the HBO documentary Whoopi Goldberg Presents Moms Mabley (Monday, 9/8c), the View personality directs and participates in this tribute to the pioneering comic's life and legacy, with TV clips and audio excerpts (enhanced with crude animation) from her many comedy albums, which hold up surprisingly well.
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Nostalgia is all the rage these days, so it comes as no surprise that Bill Cosby is hoping to return to prime time.
The comedian told Yahoo TV that he's re-teamed with one of The Cosby Show producers Tom Werner to develop a family comedy that "would [satisfy] the people who have come to me in public places and said, 'Can't you put something on that I can watch?'"
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Carol Burnett was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the country's top humor honor, over the weekend.
"This is very encouraging," Burnett said in her acceptance speech, The Associated Press reports. "It was a long time in coming, but I understand because there are so many people funnier than I am, especially here in Washington. With any luck, they'll soon get voted out, and I'll still have the Mark Twain prize."
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Considered a father of the modern movie poster, Bob Peak created art for Apocalypse Now, Superman: The Movie and The Spy Who Loved Me, among many others. But during a nearly 20-year run, he was also one of TV Guide Magazine's most prolific cover artists, contributing 38 gorgeous, graphically inventive illustrations. Peak's son and archivist, Thomas Peak, helps annotate some of his father's finest.
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Bill Cosby is set to do his first stand-up TV special in 30 years, Entertainment Weekly reports. Comedy Central announced the plans Friday, Cosby's 76th birthday, to air ...
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