What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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T22 WHATS UP! February 12 - 18, 2023 The Late Show With Stephen Colbert The Taliban — they've been making headlines this week after they started buying blue check marks on Twitter. That is not good. I don't want that. Now Twitter might be full of awful men saying terrible things about women. The U.S. has reached its $31.4 trillion debt ceiling. Now, nor- mally Congress automatically raises the debt limit as needed, but House Republicans are re- fusing in order to "leverage the standoff to extract major spend- ing cuts ... on social programs ... including Social Security and Medicare." That is an insane ne- gotiating tactic. That's pretty drastic. That's like a husband saying, "Honey, we're spending too much on entertainment so either we cancel one of our streaming services or I shove your grandpa into the river. Which is it: Netflix or P-Pop?" The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon A new poll found that President Biden's approval rating has not been affected by the classified documents scandal. Today, Biden said, "In that case, there's another 100 documents stashed in the pool house. Let's just get that out." The State Department is chang- ing their official font from Times New Roman to Calibri. It feels like this is the government's at- tempt to be like, "We're fun. We're naughty." Yep, our govern- ment is changing fonts. Yep. When you heard that, President Zelenskyy was like, "Still here. This is still happening. We'll take anything. We'll take tanks, missiles, slingshots, boomer- angs." Jimmy Kimmel Live! Fortunately for Brett Maher, the Cowboys won [on Jan. 16]; it's the first time they ever beat Tom Brady. He was 7-0 against Dallas, lifetime. Now he's 7-1. Brady was reportedly so upset after the game he ate a carb. Just one, but, you know, those things will kill you. This could turn out to be Tom Brady's last game for Tam- pa Bay. George Santos, despite being ex- posed as a fraud — this guy has an almost comical list of lies to his name now — was assigned to not one but two committees. New speaker Kevin McCarthy put him on the Science Commit- tee and the Space and Technolo- gy Committee, which makes sense because he's the only con- gressman who found a cure for cancer and successfully manned a mission to Mars, all this year alone. Late Night With Seth Meyers In a new episode of a podcast, former president Trump said that he heard Florida governor Ron DeSantis may challenge him for the Republican presi- dential nomination, and added, "We'll handle that the way I han- dle things." So get ready, Ron: he's gonna cheat on you. According to a new poll, Presi- dent Biden would defeat former president Trump in a hypotheti- cal 2024 election rematch by eight points. Pretty bad, but not as defeated as I feel hearing about that poll. Can we not do this yet? It's January. The only thing I want to hear less than a presidential poll is a Christmas carol. In a series of posts yesterday on Truth Social, former president Trump pushed back against claims that he illegally stored classified files at Mar-a-Lago and accused federal agents of planting documents inside of empty folders he had taken. Oh, you are trying anything. That's like telling the police, "Someone else put the cocaine there. I just collect tiny plastic baggies." The Late Late Show With James Corden There were massive strikes and protests across France today [Jan. 19] as workers pushed back on the government's decision to raise the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. People in France haven't protested like this since they raised the legal smoking age to seven. The current retire- ment age is 62, that's amazing. When you're 62 years old in America, you've still got another 18 years until you can become the president of the United States. LATE LAUGHS BY MICHELLE ROSE TV Media Strike first: According to Ka- rate Kid franchise villain John Kreese (Martin Kove), "Cobra Kai never dies" — and fans of the Netflix revival have been hoping that the mantra applies to their beloved show, too. Well, in a case of good news/ bad news, Netflix's "Cobra Kai" will return for a sixth season on the streamer — but it will be its last. Series creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schloss- berg announced the renewal and pending ending in a letter to the fans that was shared by Netflix (and "written" on an All-Valley Karate Championships letter- head). After paying tribute to the Mi- yagiverse and Karate Kid fan- dom, the three stated, "our Day 1 goal with 'Cobra Kai' has always been to end it on our terms, leav- ing the Valley in the time and place we've always imagined. So, it is with immense pride and thankfulness that we are able to announce that achievement. The upcoming Season Six will mark the conclusion of Cobra Kai." They went on to tout Season 6 as the "BIGGEST SEASON OF COBRA KAI YET" (yes, in all caps) and Deadline is reporting that production is set to begin in late spring. "Cobra Kai" is set 30 years af- ter the events chronicled in the 1984 film "The Karate Kid," which launched a franchise that now includes multiple films. The Netflix series centers on original franchise stars Ralph Macchio and William Zabka, whose characters — Macchio as Daniel LaRusso and Zabka as Johnny Lawrence — have alter- nated between underdog- turned-hero and wounded bully (and occasionally allies) throughout the series' run, as their conflict spilled over into their family and professional lives. We've seen a few familiar fac- es reprise their movie roles in "Cobra Kai," including Elisabeth Shue from the first film and Yuji Okumoto from "The Karate Kid Part II" (1986). So will Hilary Swank, a.k.a. Julie Pierce in "The Next Karate Kid" (1994), make an appearance in the final sea- son of "Cobra Kai"? Neither the actress nor the creators have publicly commented on this possibility, so fans will have to wait and see. Rami's Buster: His last TV role, "Mr. Robot," earned Rami Malek an Emmy for his perfor- mance, so it's not hard to imag- ine the Oscar winner (for 2018's "Bohemian Rhapsody") return- ing to that medium sometime soon. And according to Deadline, Malek might already have a role in mind — that of silent film star Buster Keaton. The trade publication broke the news that a limited series about the Hollywood legend was in development over at Warner Bros. Television, and that Malek would potentially portray the actor known for his physical comedy and deadpan expression. The story generated a flurry of headlines, but it's important to note that this project is still in the early stages: it's being shopped around to networks and streamers, and at the time of writing, Emmy-winning writer Ted Cohen ("Succession") was reportedly in negotiations to board the project. Negotiations were also underway to secure the rights to James Curtis' "Bust- er Keaton: A Filmmaker's Life" as the source material. The project hails from 6th & Idaho Productions, which was launched by "The Batman" (2022) director Matt Reeves and has an overall deal at Warner Bros., where Reeves is also de- veloping the Colin Farrell-led series "The Penguin." As for its subject, Keaton was a vaudeville star who made the leap to silent films. He appeared in and produced a number of two-reel comedies before mov- ing on to feature films such as "Steamboat Bill, Jr." (1928), which produced the classic im- age of him surviving a falling house facade thanks to an open window. 'Forgive and Forget': You wouldn't expect Alzheimer's disease to be fodder for comedy, though some comedians have been praised for using humor as a way of easing the strain of a loved one's diagnosis. But the risk of backlash is always there. It seems the key is to approach the situation with sensitivity and take aim at relatable moments of lightness and levity. This is what a new family comedy hopes to do successfully — that, plus des- tigmatize a disease currently af- flicting more than six million Americans, according to the Al- zheimer's Association. The new series is called "For- give and Forget." It is a collabo- ration between Eugene Garcia- Cross ("The Santa Clauses"), Robin Shorr ("Punky Brewster") and "Modern Family" star Ty Burrell, whose Desert Whale Production company focuses on comedies from underrepresent- ed voices. Described as a multi-camera comedy, "Forgive and Forget" centers on the character of Ben Flemings, who is forced to take in his "life-of-the-party" father when he is diagnosed with Al- zheimer's. Any sense of conflict seems to stem from the fact that they have conflicting per- sonalities, as Ben must come to terms with the fact that he's "forced to take in the one man he's worked his whole life not to become" (as it's been widely reported). Ralph Macchio in "Cobra Kai" STARS ON SCREEN