What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T22 WHATS UP! April 3 - 9, 2022 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert According to reports, Putin wanted to invade Ukraine ear- lier, but he waited because China asked Russia to delay the Ukraine war until after the Olympics. ... After that report, a spokesperson for Chinese President Xi Jinping claimed they didn't ask Russia for the delay. Well, this is just a classic case of "he said, Xi said." The Russians [invading Ukraine] are attacking civilian infrastructure in ... "an effort to break Ukrainian morale." Break their morale? Hasn't Pu- tin seen how tough these Ukrainians are? This weekend a man and a woman who are serving together in the resis- tance took a break from fight- ing to get married on the front lines. It's like a wedding in Tex- as, but with slightly fewer guns! The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon On Saturday [March 5], Ukrai- nian President Zelenskyy held a Zoom call with U.S. lawmak- ers, and at one point during the meeting, he asked Florida Sen. Rick Scott to mute himself. ... It's amazing! With everything Zelenskyy is dealing with, even he was like, "Freakin' Florida!" The world's largest cruise ship just set sail on its first voyage. The ship is called the Wonder of the Seas and it's five times big- ger than the Titanic. Passengers were like, "Cool, but let's maybe not compare any ship to the Ti- tanic, OK?" I read that Tinder is now offer- ing criminal background check on potential dates. ... So now you get a message that says, "You've matched with John, who's want- ed in 46 states." The Late Late Show With James Corden Last night [March 1] President Biden gave the shortest State of the Union address since 2016, clocking in at one hour and two minutes. I like this trend. Let's get it down to one TikTok. The luxury brands Cartier and Tiffany & Co. are in the midst of a legal battle. Cartier sued Tiffa- ny, claiming that Tiffany hired a former Cartier employee solely to access their confidential trade secrets. What kind of trade secrets could there be? Something like, "Ah, it says here in this classified document that 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend!'" Jimmy Kimmel Live! Putin himself has been suspend- ed as the honorary president of the international Judo Federa- tion — I didn't know he was that — and he's also stripped of his honorary black belt in taekwon- do. Apparently invading a peace- ful country is a taekwon-don't and so they took his black belt away. Warner Bros. has decided that the new Batman movie will not be shown in Russia: "You're gonna invade Ukraine? OK, then you're not getting Bat- man!" ... How good would it be if what finally brings Putin down is a bunch of Russian comic book nerds who are mad they didn't get to see "[The] Batman"? Disney and Para- mount have also pulled their films, and if that doesn't work, Universal is threatening to re- release the [2019] movie "Cats" in Moscow. Late Night With Seth Meyers New York Mayor Eric Adams announced ... that he is lifting the city's vaccine requirement for indoor entertainment venues and said, "This is truly an Arnold Schwarzenegger moment: We'll be back." OK, but just to refresh your memory, when he came back he killed, like, a ton of peo- ple. The athletic apparel brand Lu- lulemon yesterday unveiled its first-ever running shoe. The sneaker will give you the grip and the support you need when you're demanding to speak to a manager. Amid retirement rumors, Green Bay Packers quarter- back Aaron Rodgers has re- portedly decided to remain with the team for at least one more variant. LATE LAUGHS BY MICHELLE ROSE TV Media Disney's 'Muppets May- hem': According to Disney+, "It's time to play the music" and "light the lights" again. The latest attempt to launch a Muppets TV series for modern audiences, Disney+'s "The Mup- pets Mayhem" was recently handed a series order and film- ing was scheduled to begin this month. And while the Muppets are the series' top draw (as they always are), the new comedy se- ries also stars former late-night talk show host Lilly Singh, who is fresh off her recurring role in "Dollface." The Indo-Canadian YouTu- ber, actress and comedian will play the lead human role of Nora, a junior A&R executive tasked with managing Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem Band — and that should amount to a lot of screen time because "The Muppets Mayhem," which hails from "The Goldbergs" creator Adam F. Goldberg, will focus primarily on the musical group that has been the house band for "The Muppet Show" since 1975. The 10 episodes have been de- scribed as a music-filled journey as band members Dr. Teeth (vo- cals, keyboards), Animal (drums), Floyd Pepper (vocals, bass), Janice (vocals, lead gui- tar), Zoot (saxophone) and Lips (trumpet) set out to record their first studio album while also navigating the current-day mu- sic scene with Nora's help. Disney has been trying hard to revive/revitalize the beloved brand since acquiring the rights to "The Muppets" back in 2004, despite previous "Muppet" re- vivals, including ABC's "Mup- pets Tonight" (1996-98) and "The Muppets" sitcom (2015), struggling to connect with audi- ences. And while Disney+'s first attempt at a Muppets scripted comedy series, "Muppets Live Another Day," didn't make it past the pilot stage due to cre- ative differences, the streamer did launch the short-form series "Muppets Now" in 2020 and its first Halloween special, "Mup- pets Haunted Mansion," in 2021. "We are so excited to bring the story of the Electric Mayhem Band to the front and centre of this new series," David Light- body, executive producer and senior vice-president of Disney Live Entertainment and The Muppets Studios, said. "They've been entertaining audiences since "The Muppet Show," which debuted 45 years ago, so it's wonderful that these charac- ters are finally getting to play lead rather than supporting roles." Esposito is 'The Driver': The final season of "Better Call Saul" is underway, but one of its cast members will be staying on at AMC after the series wraps. Giancarlo Esposito, who played the role of drug kingpin/ Los Pollos Hermanos owner Gustavo Fring in both "Breaking Bad" and its aforementioned prequel series, is set to extend his collaboration with the cable outlet by starring in a third (but completely different) AMC se- ries. The upcoming series "The Driver" is based on the 2014 BBC miniseries that starred David Morrissey ("The Walking Dead") as a cabbie whose life is turned upside down when he agrees to drive for a criminal gang. Esposito will serve as both an executive producer and the star of the AMC remake, in which Esposito's new (on- screen) boss turns out to be a New Orleans-based Zimbabwe- an gangster who is exploiting undocumented immigrants at ports in the southern United States. Esposito was a big fan of the BBC series, according to co-cre- ator Sunu Gonera, who ex- plained, "This whole journey started as a simple conversation four years ago in my manager Josh Kesselman's living room when he said, 'Giancarlo is keen to play an everyman as his next role. There's a British show he loves called 'The Driver.' Would you watch the pilot and see if you could come up with a take you both could get excited about?' Um, would I? You had me at Giancarlo and everyman." Look for the first six episodes of AMC's "The Driver" to pre- miere in 2023. 'Cannon' canceled: Amid many changes to the daytime talk show landscape this fall, it seems Wendy Williams and El- len DeGeneres aren't the only ones stepping away from the genre (at least for now, in Wil- liams' case). Lionsgate's Debmar-Mercury, the producer-distributor of "The Wendy Williams Show" and the upcoming "Sherri" (hosted by Sherri Shepherd), has cancelled "The Nick Cannon Show" after just one season on the air. After a delayed launch due to controversial remarks made by Cannon on his "Cannon's Class" podcast, the syndicated daytime show premiered last fall but has averaged just 568,000 daily viewers — quite a low number compared to the two-plus mil- lion who tune in daily to "Live With Kelly and Ryan" and "Dr. Phil." While staffers learned of the cancellation on the last day of production (March 10) before a pre-planned hiatus, Cannon ad- dressed the cancellation on-air during the "Rumor Report" seg- ment. "This is show business, right?" Cannon said. "As a businessman, I know that as much fun as we have on the show, business is the thing that makes this whole thing tick and operate." Lilly Singh to star in "The Muppets Mayhem" STARS ON SCREEN