THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 70

Strap yourself in as we travel to Bengal, Jamaica, the old West, and a tool supply company. Oh, and Florida, too, but keep it to yourself.

BEYOND BENGAL (1934): The 1930s were a prime era for jungle documentaries, no matter the quality, e.g., the notorious Ingagi. Harry Schenck, Beyond Bengal's star/director, is credited on only three other movies. This made him as qualified as anybody else churning out these things, especially when it came to padding it out with phony footage shot in Florida. (You can figure out the Florida scenes because they're in focus and, well, look phony.) Even the industry trade paper Variety doubted Beyond Bengal's authenticity in its bemused review.

In fact, you can bet your last poisha that anything in focus is as fraudulent as Harry's on-camera friend Joan Baldwin almost dying of jungle fever. Not even the footage of a native guide almost eaten by a crocodile trying passes the smell test. On the other hand, another guide almost getting squeezed to death by a python looks genuine -- but if it is, why didn't the cinematographer help the poor schmuck instead of cranking the camera? Oh, I know why! Non-white = expendable. 

The Bengali segments that are definitely for real are when Harry's pals shoot animals. (At one point, the narrator gloats, "Boy, this is gonna be good!" as one poor tiger is ready to bite the dust.)  When the narrator describes a panther as "the most dangerous and hateful creature on the planet," it's clear nobody involved with Beyond Bengal ever went beyond 5th grade to learn the definition of "ironic". An interesting history lesson to see how you didn't need A.I. to fool the public. 

BONUS POINTS: "Produced in cooperation with HIS HIGHNESS THE SULTAN OF PERAK F.M.S." (as the credits read), Beyond Bengal was nominated for the Mussolini Cup at the 1934 Venice Film Festival. Do they give that out anymore?

VAGABOND ADVENTURE: JAMAICA (1934): In addition to pseudo-documentaries about jungle life, one-reel travelogues entertained audiences at a time when travelling the world was strictly for the wealthy. 

Unlike MGM's Technicolor Traveltalks, the Van Buren/RKO Radio Vagabond Adventures lived down to their name. Its 16mm black & white footage of Jamaica captures none of the "silver rivers", "verdant valleys" and "blue Caribbean sea" the narrator breathlessly describes. His patronizing description of "peasant Negroes" hasn't aged well, either.  And why does the accompanying music sound like a Jewish folk song? However, what it offers is a rare look at Jamaica decades before it was a tourist haven for vacationers and potheads.

The opening shot presents a shoreline without hotels or bars, while the rest of the area doesn't seem to have any buildings more than two stories high. Locals still make sugar the old-fashioned way (it involves an oxen team, which also takes the banana crop to the ships), and peddle their foods at the market.  

Outside of the trolley car and autos in Kingston, Jamaica as presented in this Vagabond Adventure is probably little different from how it had been a century earlier. If you can get past the annoying voiceover, it's more fascinating than any contemporary documentary on the country you'd find today.

BONUS POINTS: We see the statue of Queen Victoria, who the narrator informs us "is lovingly referred to as the supreme lady of Jamaica". Not anymore, I bet.

TRAIL OF THE VIGILANTES (1940): Tim Mason, a reporter from back East, goes undercover out West to expose a colleague's murder by Mark Dawson, a cattleman ripping off locals by running a protection racket.

If you think that's a fairly standard plot for a run of the mill oater, so did director Allan Dwan. That's why he hired someone to do a rewrite and turn Trail of the Vigilantes into a sly upending of the genre while maintaining its serious throughline. From the moment Tim Mason shows up in the ironically named dusty town of Peaceful Valley -- a scene awfully similar to anyone who's seen Blazing Saddles -- you know this is not going to be your typical B-western. 

Luckily, the cast is game, starting with Franchot Tone as Tim, the tenderfoot who doesn't convince anybody he's an old cowhand, with an amusing running gag of making an ass of himself while jumping on his horse. As two ranch hands, Broderick Crawford and Andy Devine send up their usual screen roles, while the great Mischa Auer gets the most laughs as a con man impersonating a Native American chief, Spanish bullfighter, Russian Cossack, and Southern shyster. There is nobody but nobody like Mischa Auer around anymore, and we're all poorer for it.

 And talk about out of the box casting -- Warren William plays straightman as the no-good polecat Mark Dawson. At 46, he carries the bearing of a man a decade older but looks as elegant in Western finery as he did tuxedos during his pre-code days at Warners. Trail of the Vigilantes doesn't always hit the mark -- a scene at a mudhole is straight out of a latter-day Three Stooges short -- but otherwise provides a ranch-sized number of genuine laughs while still providing the action and dramatic arc that comes with the (Western) territory.

BONUS POINTS: Co-star Peggy Moran later recounted Trail of the Vigilantes did good box-office with "New York's sophisticated audiences." 

IMPULSE (PILOT EPISODE) (1952): Before Alfred Hitchcock Presents, there
was Impulse. Or would have been had there been more than its unaired pilot episode. Going by the opening narration of this episode (titled "Mr. Pips"), the series would have explored the idea of the consequences from acting upon our worst impulses. Don't tell me you haven't had the urge.

The eponymous Mr. Pips, a mousy worker at a tool supply factory, is regularly humiliated by his repulsive boss into literally crawling through a rabbit-warren of sky-high crates piled dangerously high to retrieve items. These scenes -- far creepier and more claustrophobic than you'd expect -- are greeted by non-stop derisive laughter by the workers, including the woman Pips has a crush on. Eventually, the laughter stops when Pips, finally pushed to the breaking point, brings a gun to work in order to exact some well-deserved revenge. Never push a mousy guy too far.

Maybe you need some personal connection to the mousy side of life to appreciate it, but character actor King Donovan slams it out of the park as Pips, a perfectly nice guy who's allowed himself to be the object of ridicule by not standing up for himself. When he finally explodes by smacking his boss in the mouth with a gun, I almost shook with joy. Pips forcing the weeping guy to crawl through the crates and ordering the others to laugh at the threat of death? Heaven.  If this was the kind of series Impulse had been like, I'd have owned the entire run on 4K UHD Blu-ray. Oh, and the moral of the episode seems to be Chicks dig guys who threaten violence to others!  

BONUS POINTS: "Mr. Pips" was directed by Alfred E. Green, whose 119 credits include Dick Powell's NRA-rah rah short The Road is Open Again.

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NOBLE ROT

I listen to a lot of Times Radio, the BBC, and other UK news outlets. And speaking as an American with zero skin in the game, the most fascinating thing going over there isn't Prime Minister Keir Starmer gripping on to power the way Donald Trump does a Big Mac. It's the growing loathing toward Britain's most expensive welfare family, i.e. the Royals. 

Catherine plots to repurpose the Tower of London
to its original prison status.

The raucous negative reaction they received at the recent Trooping the Color event was a shocker. (By the way, does "Trooping the Color" sound like anything that should exist after the Victorian Age?). Princess Catherine's response to the loud, lusty booing of spectators was worthy of Melania Trump at her most repulsed. Or repulsive, it's your call. 

To answer your question: Charles knew everything.

It must have been quite the comedown for the Princess, whose handling of her
cancer diagnosis a few years back brought out admiration from all but the most cold-hearted citizen. What could she have possibly told her royal kiddies -- with the straight-out-of-fairytale names George, Charlotte, and Louis -- when they asked her, Mummy, why are those peasants making unpleasant noises at us? Can't you execute them or something? 

This dolt actually takes this stuff seriously.

As further damning information about Prince Andrew continues to be released -- information that was covered up by his mummy and big brother -- the rising anger against the House of Windsor is to be expected. When diehard royal fans explain the reason for the monarchy is they "set an example" for the peons to follow, they seem to desire the entire country to hide crimes of treason and sex made by one of their own. 

Believe it or not, there's something even more inexplicable going on. With the rise of the anti-royal outrage, you'd think Prince Harry would be taking a victory lap or two for quitting his job. Instead, he and his family are returning to visit the homeland for the first time in four years -- and, if stories are to be believed, the are-they-or-aren't-they Prince and Princess want to make it permanent. 

"You get hair implants or else!"

Yes, the "ginger one" (as the childishly anti-Harry horde refers to him) allegedly wants to make his father, stepmother, and brother forget he gave them a right thrashing in his ghostwritten autobiography Spare. Maybe because it was published three years ago, he believes that they will forgive being called a bunch of cruel, dysfunctional, coldhearted racists. You would if it happened to you, right?

It's very possible  ol' dad will turn the other pallid cheek, but word around the palace has it that once William gets crowned, Harry will get the royal boot for good. He already received a taste of what might be coming his way when Spike Lee refused to shake his hand at the Knicks/Spurs game last week. To someone who's had a lifetime being treated like, er, a prince, Spike's deportment must have been a jolt bordering on trauma. And this time, he can't blame it on racism toward his wife.

Obviously not a discussion with fans.

Further confusing things is the reaction from Harry and Meghan fans in America. Anti-royal to their core, they were suddenly thrilled to see a mixed-racial marriage shake up Buckingham Palace. Their revelry increased when the couple pulled up stakes for Montecito and started making bank with Netflix and Spotify. We hate the royals! We hate the rich! We love the royal and rich Harry & Meghan! 

Now that Harry & Meghan no longer feel the love from their one-time American showbiz friends -- the couple has been diagnosed with the contagious disease "loser" -- they're trying very hard to make inroads at the Palace. And in a textbook case of cognitive dissonance, their fans who were ecstatic the couple left their "royal duties" are suddenly angry that those horrid palace people allegedly don't want them back. 

But nobody seems to care that the treasonous sexual abuser Andrew is still eighth in line to the throne. 

Be thankful for your wacky family.

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THE EARLY SHOW, PT. 69

 

THE WITCHING HOUR (1934): "From the celebrated stage play by AUGUSTUS
THOMAS", as the opening credits inform us. Don't worry if you haven't heard of it, as it was first staged in 1907, and hasn't been revived since. 

Jack Brookfield accidentally hypnotizes his future son-in-law to murder a rival (you mean it hasn't happened to you?). The only lawyer who'll take the case is Martin Prentice, a former judge whose belief in the paranormal causes yet another climactic, borderline illegal courtroom stunt -- as in The Kiss Before the Mirror, involving gunfire -- we've all become accustomed to in movies like these. Which is why I love them! 

I don't know why The Witching Hour takes place in the South, other than to feature the usual black butlers speaking the way black butlers spoke in these movies. Keeping its timeframe in the turn of the century was a good idea since its basic idea would probably have been accepted by many people, just as the ghost of Martin Prentice's old flame visiting him every day was likely greeted by audiences with a shrug -- doesn't that happen to everybody? A fun, fast paced movie with the occasional welcome surprise -- the most welcome being how movie studios could whittle a four-act stage play like The Witching Hour down to 68 minutes.

BONUS POINTS: The only actor you'll recognize in The Witching Hour is William Frawley, two decades before his run as Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, as the cynical jury foreman who winds up playing a key part in the defendant's freedom. (SPOILER: It involves hypnotism. Of course.)

THE SECRET BRIDE (1934): Attorney General Robert Sheldon has secretly married Ruth Vincent just before her father, Governor W.H. Vincent, is accused of accepting a bribe. If word gets out Sheldon is married to the Guv's daughter, it looks bad for both men. If he delays the investigation, it looks really bad. Worse still, Ruth refuses to testify on behalf of a woman wrongly accused of the murder of Sheldon's assistant. Ruth, you see, witnessed the crime through the window of Sheldon's apartment at midnight -- they're not supposed to be married, remember? Impeachment or electric chair: what to choose?

Despite featuring two of Warner Bros. top  actors-- Barbara Stanwyck and Warren William -- The Secret Bride is a comedown for both, as it possesses the odor of a mediocre script that the studio thought could be saved by its stars. Released not long after the enforcement of the Hays "code", the movie plays like Warners' attempt into more generic dramas where sex didn't exist and crime didn't pay. Stanwyck didn't stick around long afterwards, becoming a freelancer within a year. William, his caddish roles behind him, was transferred to Warners' Perry Mason series before being shown the door.

While William -- who isn't even billed on some of the lobby cards -- accepts his role with grace, Stanwyck seems vaguely aware that The Secret Bride is a comedown after slam bang pre-codes like Baby Face, Night Nurse, and The Miracle Woman. Both actors disappear in the final reel, as a complicated flashback narrated by another character explains the whole confusing mystery. Had The Secret Bride been made three years earlier, the lead characters would have been shacking up rather than married, the Governor really would have been crooked, and the killer might have gotten away with it because the victim had it coming. Sounds better, right?

BONUS POINTS: It wouldn't be a '30s movie without the reliable gun-in-the-desk-drawer trope, and The Secret Bride gets it out of the way in the first five minutes. 

NON-STOP NEW YORK (1937): Jennie Carr, a witness to a murder, is flying from London to New York in order to stop an innocent man from getting the hot squat at Sing-Sing. Other passengers include Police Inspector Jim Grant, a professional blackmailer, a wiseacre adolescent violin prodigy, and the real murderer. And you thought your last flight was weird.

The through-line is secondary to that humdinger of an airplane showcased in the poster. That's the real star of Non-Stop New York, often placing it (wrongly) in the sci-fi category for years. The British production could have benefited from Alfred Hitchcock's sly touch, but director Robert Stevenson does a serviceable job with his engaging actors, many of whom went on to have fine careers both in the UK and the US. Anna Lee and John Loder pull the old will-they-or-won't-they routine as Jennie and Jim, while semi-familiar character actor Francis L. Sullivan is a proto-Victor Buono as the killer who has a couple more targets in mind. 

Absurd moments abound -- an outdoor deck with a guard rail only waist high, Jim climbing atop the plane while in flight, to name two -- but that's the fun of it, even if it wasn't meant to be goofy. Non-Stop New York takes a while for the story to get up to speed, but once the plane takes off, so does the movie, with a surprise twist courtesy of the violin prodigy. By the way, the wonder of the plane isn't just its futuristic double-decker construction, but that it flies 3,000 miles in "only" 16 hours! It would be nice to know why the designer thought it would be a good idea to put an outdoor flight deck on there, though.

BONUS POINTS: Twenty-five-year-old Peter Bull, possessing an almost unreal blobby face straight out of Alice in Wonderland, makes the most of his brief, slimy moments a blackmailer-wannabe. If his name isn't familiar, you may remember him as the Russian ambassador in Dr. Strangelove.

THE BOY WHO SAW THROUGH (1956): Through walls, that is. Not like he sees
anything important. A minister looking for his false teeth, a cook dropping a roast on the kitchen floor. Nothing that would get a kid in trouble. Unless you're living in a small town at the turn of the 20th century, and you're treated as a freakish troublemaker nobody believes.

At 24 minutes, The Boy who Saw Through plays like a lighthearted episode of The Twilight Zone. And like most of the Zone stories, it seems to be an allegory. The boy's therapist realizes the X-ray vision is real, but advises him not to mention it anymore -- the same way most children who see the truth are told to shut up. 

I couldn't discover if The Boy who Saw Through was part of a forgotten anthology series or merely syndicated to plug a half-hour hole in local TV schedules. Most everything about it is strictly so-so and is included here solely due to its 15-year-old star Ronnie Walken, who would later change his first name to Christopher. Already possessing charisma and ease before the camera, Walken also has a touch of the creepiness he would become famous for. But I guess that makes sense if he can see through walls. 

BONUS POINTS: The near-ever present shadow of the boom microphone is almost a star itself.

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THE LATE, GREAT SCOTT

Four down, three to go.

 Well, that was fast.

It could very well be that Scott Pelley wanted no part of the new regime at CBS News, and was aware his colleagues at 60 Minutes were afraid of the new direction (downhill) it was being taken.

Therefore, he decided to take one for the team, knowing it would likely cost him his job, while hoping to draw further attention to destruction of the legendary news franchise. 

There was a little meeting following the now-legendary throwdown between new 60 Minutes producer Nick "Slender Qualifications" Bilton and Pelley at the staff meeting. In addition to the two men, Bari Weiss and CBS president Tom Cirbrowski were on hand to iron things out. 

Pelley, for his part, asked Weiss why former executive producer Tanya Simon and on-air correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecelia Vega had gotten the sack. As Pelley described it later, she refused to answer; her manner “was cold and callous and beneath the dignity of CBS News.” Not when CBS is run by a father and son tag team doing business with Donald Trump, it isn't! 

"You can fit all of my network news experience
in my hands!"

Details were provided to the New York Times by "three people with knowledge" of the meeting. My money says their names are Pelley, Weiss, and Bilton. I can picture Weiss putting the call on speakerphone, allowing her to flap her hands around as she seems to do in every photo of her in conversation. 

Scott Pelley, like his former network colleague Stephen Colbert, will probably have a better gig lined up elsewhere. Somewhere management won't force him to “inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story,” as he claims the current crew running 60 Minutes tried to do. 

Some cable or streaming platform could create a series -- let's call it Seven Days with Scott Pelley. He would be surrounded by hungry young reporters creating hard-hitting stories every week with no interference from management, while Pelley himself remains at the anchor desk for serious, one-on-one interviews with important newsmakers. The guy's pushing 70, y'know? Let others do the travelling while he stays in New York.

Or... forget cable! Just do the interviews on a weekly podcast, available on your laptop, smartphone, smart speaker, whatever you've got that's smart. Bari Weiss is always yakking about how networks are losing eyeballs to new media. Here's a chance to prove her right and cost her the job she was never qualified for!

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GREAT SCOTT!

 

Having signed an NDA, I'm skittish about naming
the employer, so here's a 1938 photo of the
block where I worked. Good luck figuring it out.

My previous, long-time employer had the occasional staff meeting, which consisted of one of the execs telling us what the company expected from us. Following her gentle harangues, she would ask if there were any comments. There rarely if ever were.

Over time, I decided to take her up on her offer, which shocked her for two reasons: 1) I tended to keep my yap shut, and 2) I told her that management had no idea what our jobs entailed and that the allegedly jimdandy software they forced on us was always crashing, wiping out weeks of work, and, in general, making our lives miserable. 

And because nothing ever changed, it was my same comment every time. After each meeting, co-workers -- many of whom I had never talked to before -- quietly thanked me for speaking up on their behalf. And many repeated their thanks on the day I was shown the door. 

The real-life Superman.

I was reminded of my one-man rebellion when Scott Pelley tore into his new boss Nick Bilton at a staff meeting like a starving man at a Thanksgiving meal. 

Without couching any of his remarks behind gentle "concerns", Pelley questioned the qualifications of the new guard at CBS News. He added that Bilton's boss, Bari Weiss, was out to "murder" 60 Minutes.

What could Bilton say in response to Pelley -- winner of 48 Emmys and three Peabody Awards for news reporting -- other than "I’m very excited to meet with everyone, yourself included” and "Enjoy the bagels". Oh, and "The show is going to stay exactly as it is FOR NOW" (emphasis added to drive it home). 

Three down, four to go.

You'd think television's #1 rated news program (averaging 9.1 million viewers, peaking at 14 million last November) which has seen a 5% increase in viewers 25-54 would stay exactly as it is forever. But not when Bari Weiss (under the guidance of Davd Ellison and Donald Trump) is calling the shots.

Last week, Weiss lived up to the cliche that women hate female competition in the workplace by firing three of them last week: executive producer Tanya Simon and correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. They join Anderson Cooper, who left on his volition after seeing the Trump handwriting on the wall. Little wonder the higher-ups at CBS kept her away from the meeting "citing the staff’s ill feelings surrounding the firings". Yeah, that's the kind of person you want running the news division!

David Ellison and Bari Weiss: the news
equivalent of the pimp and his wifey.

Scott Pelley is in the enviable position of having his boss over a barrel. If he's fired, the 60 Minutes viewers will leave in droves. Which is perhaps the idea, especially if rumors concerning the hiring of professional meathead Joe Rogan are true. 

If Weiss grits her teeth and keeps Pelley onboard, his presence will be a constant reminder that not only does he loathe her, she'll know, deep down in her icy heart, he is correct that she has "no qualifications" for her job. Outside of being really good at selling herself to the highest bidder, I mean. 

For all of Weiss' alleged intellect, she's just another moron who, like other Trump minions, believes that she's the genius who's cracked the code on how to keep her job. Just wait 'til she realizes that she was really was hired to whack 60 Minutes. 

The clock is ticking on Bari Weiss'
career at CBS.

As the ratings drop, "CBS insiders" will tell friendly reporters at the New York Times that Weiss's job is on "shaky ground", while those same backstabbers will claim to the Wall Street Journal, "Nothing could be further than the truth. We believe Bari is doing a wonderful job and stand by her."  Meaning, We give her three weeks, tops. 

In the end, Bari's golden parachute will soften the fall, even as she becomes toxic to any journalistic enterprise outside of Newsmax. That would make a heck of a story for Scott Pelley to cover.

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EXPENSIVE ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN

What's breaking is the bank
once Jordan marries hm.

Whenever I'm feeling a little too good about myself, I make sure to read a few
statistics to even things out. These usually involve relationships, such as the latest that claims one in three women admitted they "settled" when choosing their husband. That doesn't apply to my wife, although I have only her word to go by. 

Ironically, the best way to pick myself up is to be happy I am married to my wife. Because if the singles scene is really as bad as it's made out to be for young men, give me old age any time. 

Guys are going online paying anywhere from $1,200 to $10,000 to "dating experts" like Dr. Orion Taraban to crack the code how to score with women. Their advice involves "status, confidence, appearance, and wealth". 

Mistake #1: giving this guy $1,200 to learn what
you already knew.

No kidding. Those are the things that have always been important. Plus, if you've got 10-grand to drop for that kind of advice, you definitely have the status and wealth aspects already tied up. 

As for confidence and appearance, all you need is a new suit and remembering that you can afford to overspend on information that the rest of us have known all our lives. My charge? Buy me a cup of coffee and we'll call it even.

If you saw the original, you'd
know why I wouldn't post it.

Then there's a site called Digital Black Belt which charges $300 a week to get you laid. Their services include "enhancing" your bio and making A.I. photos of yourself. 

By that measure, all I'd have to do is post the A.I.-enhanced selfie to the right and refer to myself as a "semi-retired actor and award-winning writer". Are the photo and C.V. accurate? Yes, but...

The $10,000 advisor, Michael Sartain, promises to help "build social circles of incredible women and elite men in just 30 days". To which I repeat, if you have that kind of scratch lying around, you probably don't need this "former nightclub manager" to get you rich friends. And if you don't have that dough, believe me, you won't make rich friends in 30 years.

I never dated any women who looked
like them, and thank God for it.

As for "incredible women", if the photos of Sartain like the one to the left are any indication, the only thing incredible about them is the amount of plastic surgery they've undergone. 

The most interesting tip comes from yet another expert who claims, "Women crave to see that you have the ability to leave them and walk away and not communicate."

I ran that past my wife just to see if it was true. Rather than giving me a yes or no, she asked of the source, "Wait, is that the asshole online?" She didn't name which specific asshole online, but it sounded like I should ignore him.

Since everybody else has the secret to dating success, I thought I'd put in my one-cent to desperate men:

• Have good hygiene.
• Skip going out for food and drinks for a few weeks and buy new clothes instead.
• Get a good cookbook -- women are impressed by guys who can make dinner themselves.
• Put away 10% of your salary in a high-yield savings account. 
• When on a first date, ask questions and let her do the talking. 

You're probably not going to find your alleged dream girl, but you just might find yourself "settling" for the real one. And by following my free advice, you'll find that you've saved the money you would have otherwise splurged online for a really nice engagement ring, no A.I. photo required.

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PETE'S ROSE

 When choosing a potential father for your baby, it's always good idea to find a guy with certain characteristics. These include:

• borderline personality disorder
• online suicide threats
• an addiction to cannabis that no amount of time in rehab has ever cured
• a history of intense relationships that flame-out within weeks
• a resemblance to a guy you would run away from if he didn't have eight million dollars in the bank

Made for each other.

At least that seems to be what Elsie Hewitt was thinking when she started dating Pete Davidson. 

Pete, of course, is best known for all the above, along with making an intergalactic fool of himself when he was briefly attached to Ariana Grande. (The only memorable thing about his eight years on Saturday Night Live was just how unmemorable they were.)

Elsie Hewitt is known for... well, really nothing until Pete knocked her up. Oh, she's done some modeling and acting and dated a couple of other vaguely familiar actors, the way most B-level semi-celebrities do until they "wish each other the best" or launch a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against them, as she did with Ryan Phillipe due to his alleged physical and drug abuse. Elsie is a "food influencer" as well, although it's unclear how one influences food to do anything other than go bad if kept out of the fridge too long.

Having gotten the hang of suing ex-boyfriends, Hewitt is threatening to do the same to Davidson. Oddly, drugs aren't involved. This time, it's all about the child support which she claims Davidson hasn't provided. Like Ryan Phillipe, Davidson denies the charges, adding that he's covering her entire lifestyle, including health insurance. If only he spent a fraction of that money on a decent stylist.

Any other guy who looked like that would have
"restraining order" all over him.

Let's take a glance at their relationship timeline. Pete 'n' Elsie started dating in March 2025. Their daughter, Scottie Rose, made her debut in December of that year. 

If you haven't done the math yet, that's exactly nine months from "Hi, I'm Pete, what's your name?" to "Your water is breaking? What does that mean?" 

During their relationship, they broke up and got back together a few times before officially calling it quits this month due to Davidson's "intense travel schedule" (to his dealer?).  

There's no way of knowing if the pregnancy fell under the category of "C'mon, what are the odds, right?" or deliberately planned by one of them. If it's the latter... well, Pete Davidson doesn't strike anybody as the type to "settle down". Not when attractive women are throwing themselves at him despite looking like a cross between a drug cartel hitman and a raccoon. 

By Scottie Rose's first birthday, Pete will be, as his PR team always says, "taking it one step at a time" with another good-looking woman, while Elsie will be sharing her baby food recipes with her one million followers. It's remarkable how far a pothead and a former Playboy model can go in life. And if you forget the condom, so much the better!

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AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR

 

Oh, no! After this week, only four middle-aged
white guys will tell the same jokes.

It's now the final week of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And there hasn't been such an open display of celebrity mourning since John Lennon's death. 

Me, I'm more concerned if my daughter's Master's Degree in Urban Planning will be considered useless in the near A.I. future than whether a guy who made $15 million per annum is going to survive.

Tom & Dick were cancelled for
your sins.

Colbert -- comfortably ensconced in his Montclair mansion -- will spend zero minutes worrying about where his next job is coming from, or how he will pay the mortgage or future medical bills.  Not when he and his son are writing the next Lord of the Rings movie. 

And certainly not when he'll have plenty of other offers, like maybe a podcast with a worldwide audience where he can say anything he wants. Gee, I sure wish the Smothers Brothers had those options when CBS gave them the heave-ho after just two-and-a-half years. (Thanks to Johnny Carson, every late-night host feels it's their right to sit at their desks longer than most marriages last. Certainly Johnny's, anyway.)

We're told that CBS cancelled Colbert for political reasons. What we don't hear as much is that he turned down a five-year renewal in 2023, opting instead for a three-year extension. 

Those three years have passed. Maybe I'm missing something, but it sounds like he got what he wanted. If those mourners at the Late Show funeral gave it a few minutes thought, they might come around to my belief that it was the best thing that could have happened to their hero. Colbert himself even told People magazine he wonders if CBS “saved my life” because “it takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day, and now I’ll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do." 

Oh yeah, he's hurting.

Late-night TV is the video version of the Titanic. And rather than drowning in ice-cold water, Colbert gets to continue his voyage on another ship that will get him to his destination in one piece and leave him richer in the long run. We should all be so lucky when we lose our jobs. 

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