Joy-less 'View' doing just fine; will Behar-besting Swisher go from temp to perm?
Better 30-plus years late than never?Ted Danson committed one of the most outrageous blackface routines ever in 1993. The “Cheers” star was dating Whoopi Goldberg at the time, and the two appeared at the New York Friars Club, a comedians’ hangout.The tour’s stage visuals included the group’s crow logo dressed as Uncle Sam. The crowd spontaneously began chanting, ‘USA, USA!’His mission? Roast Goldberg, then a legitimate star and recent Oscar winner for “Ghost.” Except Danson wasn’t, and still isn’t, a stand-up comic. So he went for “performance artist,” dressing in full blackface to riff on interracial couples and related themes.Regrets, Danson has a few, even though Goldberg helped write his jokes.“Your intentions do not matter. The impact you have on people is what matters,” he told super woke comic W. Kamau Bell on the latter’s podcast.The moment never rose to the level of career cancellation. Few stars have worked more than Danson over the decades. He keeps finding long-running TV shows like “The Good Place,” “Becker,” and, most recently, “A Man on the Inside.”Now, if we can only get Jimmy “Karl Malone” Kimmel canceled ...No Joy in ‘View’-villeDid Joy Behar just get Wally Pipped?Pipp famously played first base for the New York Yankees in the 1920s, but he took a day off to battle a headache issue. His replacement? Lou Gehrig, the “Iron Man” who went on to play 2,130 straight games for the team.Joy Behar voluntarily stepped aside from “The View” this week to work on her play, “My First Ex-Husband,” set to bow on the West End.Behar’s blend of ugly banter, misinformation, and ignorance seems impossible to replace, even temporarily.Enter Kara Swisher, a far-left journalist known for covering the tech beat. And, boy, did she bring it during her “View” debut. She compared Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to a talk show host, suggesting he lacked combat experience.That ignored Hegseth’s decorated military career, including two Bronze Star Medals, two Army Commendation Medals, and the Joint Commendation Medal.Later, Swisher said Scott Pelley’s dismissal from “60 Minutes” was an attack on the media, not the fallout from publicly blasting his bosses. Finally, she ran to senatorial hopeful Graham Platner’s defense after the Maine resident’s wife had to bail him out of a gross sexting scandal.Watch your back, Joy. Swisher is swinging a hot bat in the on-deck circle ...RELATED: D-Day drama ‘Pressure’ celebrates forgotten values Alex Bailey/Focus FeaturesNothing to Crowe aboutYou’d think peaking in the 1990s would bring a bit of humility to a band.Not for the Black Crowes, who broke out in a big way with songs like “She Talks to Angels” and “Jealous Again.” The band is back on the road, but a recent Florida tour stop became a prime example of rake stepping.The tour’s stage visuals included the group’s crow logo dressed as Uncle Sam. The crowd spontaneously began chanting, “USA, USA!”Rather than lean into the sentiment or simply smile over fans having a blast, lead singer Chris Robinson lectured them, according to TMZ. From the stage he snarked, “Thanks for the geography lesson. ... I don’t know what you have to be so proud of right now.”That landed poorly with the crowd, so he doubled down amid the boos and walkouts.“For those of you f**king booing us, some of us are not afraid. And we most assuredly are not f**king ignorant.”Here’s guessing his band won’t be playing that Freedom 250 concert, either ...Quentin unchainedThis former video store clerk has had enough of Hollywood dreck, thank you. Except he’s so stuck on his 10th and “final” film that he’s not personally helping matters.Quentin Tarantino penned a blistering essay this week on the current state of the Hollywood movie. Spoiler alert — it stinks, to paraphrase Jon Lovitz’s “Critic” character.Since the pandemic, for me anyway, it seems almost impossible for a new movie to come out that I don’t pick to death. Flaws, implausibilities, audience pandering, miscast performers, or just plain stupid s**t usually torpedoes every new movie coming out of the flavorless sausage factory that used to call itself Hollywood.Yikes.Tarantino has pledged to stop making movies after he completes his 10th film. He seems stuck on number nine, following the roaring success of 2019’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”His planned final film, “The Movie Critic,” got scrapped in 2024. He’s gotten plenty of criticism for overusing the “N-word” on-screen and featuring too many feet close-ups over the years. Maybe penning a screenplay without his signature tics is proving harder than he thought.
