JaneCurtin
Celebrity 'Jeopardy!' Contestants and Schedule
The game show 'Jeopardy!' has announced the semi-finalists for its Million Dollar Celebrity Invitational Tournament, in which celebrities compete for $1 Million to go to the charity of their choice. The list of celebrities and the charities they will sponsor is as follows:May 3
Pat Sajak (Vietnam Veterans of America)
Jane Curtin (U.S. Fund for UNICEF)
Harry Shearer (Common Ground Relief)
May 4
Michael McKean (International Myeloma Foundation)
Charles Shaughnessy (1736 Family Crisis Center)
Isaac Mizrahi (Good Shepherd Services)
May 5
Neil Patrick Harris (Food on Foot)
Jane Kaczmarek (Clothes Off Our Back)
Cheech Marin (Hispanic Scholarship Fund)
The winners of each round will move on to the 2-day finals, on May 6th and 7th.
It must have been easy for the studio to get Pat Sajak since both 'Jeopardy!' and 'Wheel of Fortune' are produced by Sony Pictures Studios. The line-up on May 4th isn't as interesting as the other two dates (Andy Richter had to drop out for that day due to his appearances on Conan O'Brien's tour), but the other two days pretty much rock, celebrity-wise. I'm secretly hoping that NPH wins it all but I have no idea how good each of the contestants are at 'Jeopardy!'.
Tell us: Who do you think will win?
Sendhil Ramamurthy Joins 'Rex Is Not Your Lawyer': More Bad News for 'Heroes'?
First 'Heroes' lost its creative edge. Then it lost its ratings lead. Now, it looks like it may be losing its voice. According to the Hollywood Reporter, 'Heroes' stalwart Sendhil Ramamurthy has been tapped to co-star in the upcoming NBC pilot 'Rex Is Not Your Lawyer'. Ramamurthy, who has played ethically challenged geneticist Mohinder Suresh on 'Heroes' since the show's inception, often provides the voiceover narration at the beginning of each episode and has been a key player in most plot lines over the past four seasons.
With season 4 of 'Heroes' now managing less than a third of its peak numbers (last week's episode drew a paltry 5.17 million viewers, compared to 16.97 for the season 2 premiere), however, the writing may finally be on the wall for the niche hit. Ramamurthy, who will play a friendly rival to David Tennant's title character on 'Rex,' will likely leave 'Heroes' if 'Rex' gets picked up for a full season, similar to the way 'Lost' favorite Elizabeth Mitchell jumped over to 'V' when that series got the greenlight. Whether or not his character would go out with as a big a bang, of course, is hard to predict.
Susan Saint James gets a star - VIDEO
Remember Susan Saint James? She was honored this week with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and it's about time, I say. The 61-year-old actress is pictured here, with husband Dick Ebersol. California First Lady Maria Shriver was on hand to compliment Saint James for her decades of volunteer work to support the Special Olympics and people with disabilities.
Saint James told ET, "When your name gets called, it's indelible, it's permanent. It's just a compliment of the highest order."
So let's go back a few years to honor this talented actress (this is where David Letterman starts stroking his chin and the picture gets fuzzy)...
The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players who made it to the big time: 1975-1985
As AOL Television continues their look at the 50 Best TV Comedies -- Ever with numbers 30-21, we here at TV Squad are also looking at television comedy, but with a slightly skewed difference. Last week, we took a look at the numerous stand-up comedians who became sitcom stars. In this installment we look at one particular TV comedy that made stars out of a number of actors and actresses.
I'm talking about NBC's Saturday Night Live. Since its premiere in 1975, the late-night sketch show has given us a slew of actors and actresses who have made the move onto both the big and small screen. Sometimes the move was towards more comedy, sometimes it was a switch to more serious roles, other times it was a little bit of both. And, while many of those who made it are still in the public eye these days, some of the greatest of those who came from Studio 8H had their careers snuffed out way too early.
The amount of those who rose to the top varied from cast to cast. Some casts, like the very first one, produced a whole slew of talent who went on to bigger and better things. Others, like the first casts from 1980-85 and the mid-1990s, produced very little in the way of big stars.
%Gallery-20739%
Jane Curtin is back with new ABC comedy
Of all the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players from Saturday Night Live, who knew that Jane Curtin was going to be the one to have the most consistent and sustainable entertainment career? Think about it: John Belushi and Gilda Radner are dead, Lorraine Newman and Garrett Morris have fallen off the face of the earth, and Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd show up as guest actors on TV from time to time, but that's about it. Curtin, on the other hand, had hit sitcoms in the '80s (Kate & Allie) and the '90s (Third Rock from the Sun) and continues to get interesting roles in new shows, the last of which was the crazy mother in last year's failed ABC comedy Crumbs.Well, now she's back in another ABC comedy pilot, called Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office. She plays the feared assistant of a nice woman who tries to make it in corporate America (Jayma Mays). I can see her in that kind of role; Curtin has always been good at playing the prim and proper woman who has a streak of something sexy or mean or evil underneath.
DVD Review: Kate & Allie, seasons 1 and 2
This review is for the Canadian DVD release, which has season 1 (6 episodes) and season 2 (22 episodes). The American version only includes the first season (though the American release does have two things missing from the Canadian version: an interview with Susan Saint James and writer Bill Persky, and a gag reel).
Kate & Allie is one of my favorite shows. Yeah, I know, what's a 41 year-old guy doing loving some show about two divorced women raising their families together? The show was not only well-written and cast (Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, Allison Smith, Ari Meyers, and Fred Koehler), but it had a lot of smart things to say about family, relationships, and living in New York City (the show was one of the few sitcoms actually filmed in New York, at the Ed Sullivan Theater).
TV Squad Hot Topics
Most Popular Articles
Most Popular Tags
From Our Partners
- 'Fringe' Recap: You Can Check Out Any Time You Like...
- 'Supernatural' Recap: Attack of the Clowns
- 'Nikita' Recap: Old Friends Reunited
- Cool Casting: John Goodman, Ryan Phillipe and Henry Ian Cusick on TV
- 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Preview: The Queens Film Infomercials, and 'Glee's' Amber Riley Guest Judges!
- More From BuddyTV
- John Goodman, Roseanne Barr reunite in NBC pilot 'Downwardly Mobile'
- 'The Vampire Diaries' recap: In which Elena is starting to get on our nerves
- 'Fringe': 'Lost's Henry Ian Cusick cast
- 'Bones' will (finally!) return to FOX on April 5
- Matt Lauer wants $30 million per year to stay on 'Today'
- More From Zap2it
- Pilot Scoop: Michael B. Jordan Reunites with Friday Night Lights Boss on NBC's County
- Pilot Scoop: Shonda Rhimes' Gilded Lilys Period Drama for ABC Casts Blythe Danner, Others
- Pilot Scoop: Fox Orders Becki Newton Comedy from How I Met Your Mother Team
- Fringe Exclusive: Lost's Henry Ian Cusick Cast as [Spoiler] – But in Which Universe?
- New Girl Exclusive: Zooey Deschanel, Hannah Simone, Ryan Kwanten Talk Awkward First Dates
- More From TVLine
