To mark the 25th anniversary of the classic 1980s film 'Back to the Future,' new footage was released. These outtakes showed the original casting of Eric Stotlz as "Marty McFly."

Though we all know and love Michael J. Fox as the time-traveling teenager, he wasn't the first person cast in the film. But some things just feel right. And so, Eric was eventually replaced with Michael -- even though changing actors added about $3 million to the budget.

Hmm ... So according to 'Back to the Future,' you can remake the past or the present -- and casting choices can be remade as well. But once you start questioning your original decisions, there's no telling how far you can go. And on the new 'SNL' (Sat., 11:30PM ET on NBC), the cast members decided to see just how far they could go with it.

Gosh, they sure seem to be handing out a lot of reality shows these days, don't they? And our very latest one is 'Mel B: It's a Scary World' (Sun., 9PM ET on Style). Mel B -- or Melanie Brown, if you'd like her full name -- first gained fame as a member of the Spice Girls. Since the Spice Girls broke up, she's been doing ... um, stuff, probably. Now she has her own reality series, for whatever reason. This is how things work these days.

On the premiere episode of the show, Mel B appeared in a live burlesque act along with the Pussycat Dolls. She slightly panicked before the show, practicing her moves in front of Pussycat Doll founder Robin Antin, during the only rehearsal before the performance. Would Mel be okay, in spite of her nerves?

Early in their stand-up careers, Eddie Murphy and Jay Leno didn't make much, and had to be careful with their money. On 'The Tonight Show' (weeknights, 11:35PM ET on NBC), the two reminisced about not getting paid, James Brown's questionable financial advice and comedian Redd Foxx's tax-dodging methods.

"I remember I did a gig in a little place," said Murphy. "And afterwards -- I did such a bad show -- I went up to the guy ... and said, 'Hey, I was supposed to get 50 dollars for the show.' And he looked at me and said, 'You better get the **** outta my face.'"

James Brown later advised Murphy to "bury [his] money in the woods." Just how is that helpful? Watch and learn.

Eddie Murphy seemed a little subdued last night on the 'Late Show' (weeknights, 11:35PM ET on CBS). But David Letterman suggested that he's exhausted from his eight children.

Watch the video after the jump.

They're at it again. Another popular television series from yesteryear, in this case 1964-68, is being remade, reworked and revamped into a big screen movie. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E,' one of the iconic spy shows spawned by the James Bond craze, has been tapped by Warner Brothers as a theatrical. The Hollywood Reporter reports that David Dobkins, best known for 'Wedding Crashers,' will direct 'The Man from UNCLE' and Max Borenstein is writing the script.

The big question now is not when or why, but who. Who will Warners choose to play Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, the two super secret agents of United Network Command for Law Enforcement (U.N.C.L.E.), and even if the casting is perfect, as a follow up, how will they inevitably screw it up? The track record for well-loved TV shows being rejiggered for the silver screen is awful.

Radner. Louis-Dreyfus. Poehler. Fey. Shannon.

Suffice it to say, the number of women who became famous on Saturday Night Live before graduating to solo success is few and far between. Sure, Gilda Radner can be considered a pioneer in the art of sketch comedy. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus undoubtedly honed her comedic skills before becoming a sitcom icon on Seinfeld. And, yes, Tina Fey can easily be considered a heroine to comedy nerds everywhere who have witnessed her climb from Weekend Update anchor to Mean Girls scribe to single-handedly decimating the vice presidential chances of one certain gun-wieldin', six-pack-totin' Alaskan governor.

But, sadly, the number of men who left Studio 8 for the superstardom of Planet Hollywood (not the theme restaurant) easily outnumbers the ladies. For every Amy Poehler, there's a Will Ferrell. And a Bill Murray. And a Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy and Adam Sandler (although, to be fair, there's also a David Gary Kroeger, A. Whitney Brown, and Charles Rocket for every Melanie Hutsell, too). (And for the record, no, you shouldn't recognize those names.)

One of my favorite sketches from Chappelle's Show was "Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories". It was proof that the best sketches come from real stories and it was a perfect example of how nutty a world the entertainment business is.

Hopefully, we'll be seeing more of that sort of comedy by Charlie Murphy as he will be hosting his own sketch comedy show called Charlie Murphy's Crash Comedy on Sony's Crackle.com video network.

I can only imagine the conversation at the Murphy family reunions nowadays. "I have a new movie coming out." "Will it suck like Pluto Nash? Well, now I have my own comedy series." "Yeah, but it's just on the Internet." Naturally, there would be a lot more profanity than what I'm writing. Hollywood should just put the two of them in a movie together and be done with it.

Do you think Eddie will make a cameo on Charlie's show?

It was the best of Oscar it was the worst of Oscar. It wasn't the best show I've ever seen, but was it the worst Oscars ever as one friend emailed me? I think there were features that worked and features that tanked. There could have been more star power -- where were Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Jim Carrey, Sandra Bullock, Christian Bale, Tyler Perry (he had the biggest box office opening last week!), etc.? Forget about stars from the '70s...

Anyway, I had predicted that the Oscars would stink. Well, I was wrong, or half-wrong. Separate from whether you agreed with the winners -- I did by and large -- or you didn't, what about the broadcast? I think if you had seen all the nominees (or at least the Best Picture noms), you probably had a rooting interest and were amused by most of the show. However, the other half was pretty bad. After the jump, what worked versus what did not.

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.

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Eddie Murphy will star in the big screen remake of the popular series Fantasy Island.

I'll let that first sentence soak in. Ready? Okay, let's continue:

Murphy, much like in the Nutty Professor and Norbit, will play multiple roles in the adaptation of the series which starred Ricardo Montalban and Hervé Villechaize, ran from 1978 to 1984, and always creeped me the heck out when I was a kid. I'm not sure why it creeped me out, but it did. Hey, I was young and my parents watched it, plus I was kind of a wuss anyway. Maybe it was Montalban's accent.

In the original series, Montalban played Mr. Roarke, the caretaker of a mystical island where visitors could have any fantasy fulfilled, but there was always a catch.

Norbit screenwriters Jay Scherick and David Ronn are re-writing the script, and no director is attached to the project at this time.

[via Moviehole]

American Idol's oh-so-brutally-honest judge Simon Cowell wasn't always quite so brutally honest. In fact, back in the 1980s, Simon was so intimidated by mega-star Eddie Murphy, that he didn't have the nerve to tell him that the songs he had written were complete and utter crap.

Simon recalls how he went to Eddie's home, expecting it to be "just the two of us and one hi-fi." Instead, he found himself in "a recording studio with about 20 nodders; a nodder is someone who gets paid to agree with the person paying him."

Ex-Idol finalist Jennifer Hudson was awarded the 2007 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture during tonight's award show. Even though I don't particularly like film adaptations of stage productions (don't even get me started on how much I hated Rent or The Producers), I did enjoy Dreamgirls and was blown away by Hudson's spectacular performance (both her singing and acting were incredible). She not only holds her own in a film full of major stars -- such as Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy, and Jamie Foxx -- she pretty much steals the show.

Sad news to report on this Christmas Day. James Brown, the true 'Godfather of Soul' passed away earlier today at the age of 73 due to complications from pneumonia. Mr. Brown wasn't a television star, although he did appear in numerous talk, variety and award shows, but he was imitated and emulated by many other TV performers during his lifetime.

One such imitator was comedian Eddie Murphy, who would regularly add impressions of James Brown to his stand-up routines. This eventually fed into his appearances during his run on Saturday Night Live. The clip you'll see after the jump was from, I believe, one of his guest appearances on the show . . . after he left for movie stardom in the mid-80's. It's entitled 'James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub'. There are no celebrities (other than a picture of Dr. Joyce Brothers sitting in the hot tub with Eddie/James). There's just Eddie performing an extremely good impression of James as he is about to get into the hot tub.

In my opinion, it is one of the more memorable skits that Eddie performed on SNL. You can see the video after the jump.

Finally! Former American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson has signed a record deal with powerhouse producer Clive Davis, who also has Aretha Franklin and Barry Manilow, along with other Idol winners, on his label. Hudson was on the third season of American Idol, where she was the sixth contestant (in the top 12) voted off the show. There was a lot of outrage after Hudson was ousted-- even Elton John weighed in and called Americans racist for voting Hudson off the show. Apparently it took a role on Dreamgirls, alongside Beyonce, Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy--plus, some love from Oprah--to get Clive Davis' attention. I look forward to a Jennifer Hudson album. This girl has one hell of a voice, and a sassy attitude to match!

What can you say about Inside the Actor's Studio that hasn't already been said by a hundred parodies and humorists' impersonations? It will always be galling to hear hack actors talk about their "craft" and to hear James Lipton wax poetic about the farcial tour de force that is Half-Baked.

The show, however, is inspired precisely because it doesn't make the distinction between "movie stars" and "actors" in the way that most viewers do. It's like Charlie Rose meets Entertainment Weekly - celebrity journalism that aims for something higher.

Inside the Actor's Studio returns to Bravo for a new season on December 18th. In this outing of the 12-time Emmy-nominated series, James Lipton sits down with Eddie Murphy, Matt Damon, Forest Whitaker and Kyra Sedgwick. You can almost hear Lipton's careful intonation, "And, then, you turned your attention to outer space - from fat suit to space suit - with The Adventures of Pluto Nash."