The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced on Wednesday that Eddie Murphy has withdrawn as host of this year’s Oscar ceremony.Host of the 84th Academy Awards®

Apparently, Brett Ratner (one of the producers of the telecast) made some “offensive” public remarks that upset some AMPAS members.

At the time of this writing, the folks here at BCNews could not establish whether Mr. Ratner refused to apologize for the “offensive” remarks, or if the apology offered was deemed disengenuous and as a result refused. In any event, Ratner resigns from the show. Now this is the part where Eddie Murphy comes in…

Eddie Murphy and Brett Ratner are friends… so much so that the only reason Murphy accepted the hosting gig was at the invitation of Ratner.

In fact the two had just finished collaborating on this year’s comedy caper, “Tower Heist.”

In a statement Murphy said, “I completely understand and support each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job.”

Murphy already had a stormy history with the Oscars. He appeared on the show several times, most recently when he presented Jerry Lewis with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 2009, but is famously known for making an early exit from the Kodak Theater in 2006 after losing to Alan Arkin in the Best Supporting Actor category.

That nomination, for “Dreamgirls,” was the only one of Murphy’s career.

One Academy member stated regarding Murphy’s decision, “He needs to stay on and work with the new producer, or it’ll look like he’s supporting the stuff that Brett said,” said one member of the public relations branch on Tuesday afternoon. “He won’t look good if he leaves now.”

Murphy, though, recently told Rolling Stone that he considers himself “a semi-retired gentleman of leisure,” and said, “I only want to do what I really want to do, otherwise I’m content to sit here and play my guitar all day.”

Early in his career, Murphy dealt with his own charges of homophobia, and apologized for joking about AIDS and using derogatory language to refer to gays.

Murphy’s exit leaves the Academy with two big holes to fill in the upcoming show: a producer to work alongside Don Mischer, and a host to replace Murphy.

While the producers are virtually always in place by this time of year, it is common for the Oscars not to have a host at this point in the calendar.

Of the last three Oscar hosts, or host teams, only the Steve Martin/Alec Baldwin pairing at the 2009 Oscars was announced in early November. Last year’s hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, weren’t in place until November 29, while 2008 host Hugh Jackman wasn’t announced until mid December.

In the past, hosts have been announced as late as early January.

Related posts:

1. Eddie Murphy Says He’s Gotten Over His Grudge Against ‘Saturday Night Live’
2. Diddy : I want to be the next Eddie Murphy
3. eddie murphy?

A perfect storm is brewing for Eddie Murphy to make his first appearance on this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” since leaving the show in 1984 and igniting a feud with creator Lorne Michaels.

Work is going on behind the scenes for Murphy to pop up on the NBC show when his “Tower Heist” co-star, Ben Stiller, hosts Saturday night, we’re told. Murphy’s hosting the next Oscar telecast, which happens to be produced by “Tower” director Brett Ratner.

Reports of bad blood between Murphy and “SNL” surfaced after cast member David Spade took a shot at him during a career slump. In a mock entertainment news segment, Spade showed a picture of Murphy and joked around the time of his 1989 film “Harlem Nights,” “Look children, a falling star … Quick, make a wish!”

WireImage

Eddie Murphy

Sources say Murphy was not amused at the time and complained bitterly to Michaels, “demanding an apology, but Michaels sided with his writers, saying he had to give them creative freedom.”

Murphy has never joined any “SNL” reunions or specials, sparking further speculation of a long-standing beef with Michaels. But sources say Ratner eased the way to bring Murphy back and bury the hatchet.

But reps for both Murphy and Ratner said it wasn’t definitely in the cards yet. “There are no plans for Eddie to appear on ‘SNL’ at this time, but perhaps in the future he will make a return,” said a rep for Murphy, which was echoed by Ratner’s rep.

“Eddie rarely does appearances, and nothing is scheduled,” said another source. A different spy close to the show noted, “He hasn’t been on ‘SNL’ for over 25 years, it would be astonishing if he did it.”

Another source denied tension between Murphy and Michaels, claiming, “There was never any hatchet to be buried. Eddie has never had any issues with Lorne.” An “SNL” rep didn’t get back to us.

Related posts:

1. Doesnt Eddie Murphy look older than Charlie Murphy?
2. Diddy : I want to be the next Eddie Murphy
3. eddie murphy?

Puffy has revealed that he wants to be the next Eddie Murphy, saying, “I’m funnier than you think”.

In an impromptu interview with the Los Angeles Times, the 40 year old hip-hop mogul spoke about his desire to be taken seriously as an actor.

He said: “To be honest, as an actor, I had a dream – and everybody had laughed at me – but I was like, there’s nobody to ever fill the void of the way Eddie Murphy was in 48 Hours or, you know, even Chris Tucker.”

“And as a comedic actor, I think I could one day fill that role.

“And people are like, ‘Are you crazy? You’re not even funny’. And I’m like, ‘No, you’ll see. I’m funnier than you think’.

“And that’s my mission.”

Combs plays a music mogul in the Russell Brand comedy Get Him To The Greek, revealed that he arduously prepared for the role, even going so far as creating a background for his character Sergio Roma.

He said: “I think this role will definitely be a revelation to people.

“People have this perception of me – which is my fault – of champagne-sipping and The Hamptons and white fur and just cliché-type of things that are just kind of old and dated and corny…

“That was just part of my image for a second. It wasn’t who Sean is.”

He added: “You evolve – like, I need to retire my diamond necklace and fur jacket now.

“Things change. Times change…”

Related posts:

1. Doesnt Eddie Murphy look older than Charlie Murphy?
2. Charlie Murphy or Eddie Murphy?
3. eddie murphy?

Comedian Dernie Mac

Prominent actor and comedian Bernie Mac, famous for his role in the casino heist caper film “Ocean’s Eleven” died Saturday at age 50. Mac was equally famous for his television sitcom “The Bernie Mac Show”, for which he gained a prestigious Peabody Award.

“Mac passed away this morning from complications due to pneumonia in a Chicago area hospital,” announced his publicist, Danica Smith, in a statement from Los Angeles.

The comedian suffered from sarcoidosis, an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the body’s organs, but had said the condition went into remission in 2005. He recently was hospitalized and treated for pneumonia, which his publicist said was not related to the disease.

Recently, Mac’s brand of comedy caught him flack when he was heckled during a surprise appearance at a July fundraiser for Democratic presidential candidate and fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama.

Toward the end of a 10-minute standup routine, Mac joked about menopause, sexual infidelity and promiscuity, and used occasional crude language. The performance earned him a rebuke from Obama’s campaign.

But despite controversy or difficulties, in his words, Mac was always a performer.

“Wherever I am, I have to play,” he said in 2002. “I have to put on a good show.”

Mac worked his way to Hollywood success from an impoverished upbringing on Chicago’s South Side. He began doing standup as a child, and his film career started with a small role as a club doorman in the Damon Wayans comedy “Mo’ Money” in 1992. In 1996, he appeared in the Spike Lee drama “Get on the Bus.”

He was one of “The Original Kings of Comedy” in the 2000 documentary of that title that brought a new generation of black standup comedy stars to a wider audience.

“The majority of his core fan base will remember that when they paid their money to see Bernie Mac … he gave them their money’s worth,” Steve Harvey, one of his co-stars in “Original Kings,” told CNN on Saturday.

Mac went on to star in the hugely popular “Ocean’s Eleven” franchise with Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

Comedian Carl Reiner, who also appeared in “Ocean’s Eleven” and its two sequels, said Saturday he was “in utter shock” because he thought Mac was improving. “He was just so alive. I can’t believe he’s gone,” he said.

Reiner told KNX-AM in Los Angeles that other comics had talked to the audience as Mac did on “The Bernie Mac Show,” but “he took it to a new level.”

“It was such a popular show because of his bigger-than-life persona,” Reiner said.

His turn with Ashton Kutcher in 2005′s “Guess Who” topped the box office. It was a comedy remake of the classic Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn drama “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” — with Mac as the black dad who’s shocked that his daughter is marrying a white man.

Mac also had starring roles in “Bad Santa,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” and “Transformers.”

The comedian drew critical and popular acclaim with his Fox television series “The Bernie Mac Show,” which aired more than 100 episodes from 2001 to 2006.

The series about a man’s adventures raising his sister’s three children, won a Peabody Award in 2002. At the time, judges wrote they chose the sitcom for transcending “race and class while lifting viewers with laughter, compassion — and cool.”

In real life, he was very much like his character on that series, his daughter, Je’niece Childress, told The Associated Press on Saturday.

“He was the king of his household,” Childress said in Chicago, describing Mac as “a loving grandfather” to her daughter, his only grandchild.

“The Bernie Mac Show” garnered Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for Mac.

“But television handcuffs you, man,” he said in a 2001 Associated Press interview. “Now everyone telling me what I CAN’T do, what I CAN say, what I SHOULD do, and asking, `Are blacks gonna be mad at you? Are whites gonna accept you?’”

He also was nominated for a Grammy award for best comedy album in 2001 along with his “The Original Kings of Comedy” co-stars, Harvey, D.L. Hughley and Cedric The Entertainer.

Chicago music producer Carolyn Albritton said she was Bernie Mac’s first manager, having met him in 1991 at Chicago’s Cotton Club where she hosted an open-mike night.

“From very early on I thought he was destined for success,” Albritton said Saturday. “He never lost track of where he came from, and he’d often use real life experiences, his family, his friends, in his routine. After he made it, he stayed a very humble man. His family was the most important thing in the world to him.”

In 2007, Mac told David Letterman on CBS’ “Late Show” that he planned to retire soon.

“I’m going to still do my producing, my films, but I want to enjoy my life a little bit,” Mac told Letterman. “I missed a lot of things, you know. I was a street performer for two years. I went into clubs in 1977.”

Mac was born Bernard Jeffrey McCullough on Oct. 5, 1957, in Chicago. He grew up on the city’s South Side, living with his mother and grandparents. His grandfather was the deacon of a Baptist church.

In his 2004 memoir, “Maybe You Never Cry Again,” Mac wrote about having a poor childhood — eating bologna for dinner — and a strict, no-nonsense upbringing.

“I came from a place where there wasn’t a lot of joy,” Mac told the AP in 2001. “I decided to try to make other people laugh when there wasn’t a lot of things to laugh about.”

Mac’s mother died of cancer when he was 16. In his book, Mac said she was a support for him and told him he would surprise everyone when he grew up.

“Woman believed in me,” he wrote. “She believed in me long before I believed.”

source

Related posts:

1. Bernie Mac Joins NBC ‘Family’
2. Bernie Mac to star in MADAGASCAR 2
3. Bernie Mac Diagnosed with Respiratory Disease

Related posts:

1. Nov. 28-30:Donnell Rawlings “Ashy Larry”
2. IMPROV HOUSTON- DONNELL RAWLINGS
3. ashy larry donnell rawlings interview gakcity.com

The series, from Langley Prods. and C to the B Prods., is scheduled to premiere in the fall 2008, airing at 8:30 p.m. Wednesdays.

The half-hour program features the humor of Tony Rock, younger brother of Chris, as he observes the hilarious habits of regular people. Through man-on-the-street style interviews and hidden-camera segments, Rock uses his comedic style to expose some of society’s stereotypes, hang-ups and prejudices.

“Tony’s charming personality, quick-witted comedy and cutting-edge social commentary makes the program a perfect addition to our Wednesday night comedy block,” MyNet president Greg Meidel said.

Exec producers are John and Morgan Langley and Claude Brooks.

MyNet’s lineup also includes Langley’s “Jail” and “Street Patrol” and C to the B’s and Qtopia Entertainment’s sitcom “Under One Roof” starring Flavor Flav.

Related posts:

1. Did Chris Rock actually go to Stuyvesant High School?
2. Why on God s green earth is Dog Chapman apologizing for anything? Chris rock dont apologize for racist jokes?
3. Does Chris Rock make a valid point about Hillary?

The upcoming film, which tells the story of the legendary boxer’s life, will take a look at Tyson’s life accomplishments including the infamous ear biting match between him and rival Evander Holyfield.

No dates have been announced yet, so be sure to keep checking www.blackcomedynews.com for more updates!

Related posts:

1. International Wax Exhibit Celebrates Black History Month with Jamie Foxx Tribute
2. CarBabes-Trailer
3. What if Chris Jericho vs The Rock happened at WrestleMania ?

She explains her midlife joy: “I’m experiencing something so different and liberating. Everybody says 40 is the new 20. But I don’t want it to be the new 20. Everything is so better now. At 20, sexually, you don’t know what you’re doing. You look for it, you find it, you lose it a few times.”

No related posts.

In the spirit of Black History Month, Madame Tussauds Las Vegas has chosen to honor Oscar-winning actor and performer, Jamie Foxx, with an official unveiling of his life-like wax statue.

The unveiling kicks off Madame Tussauds Black History month-long celebration exhibit where the new Foxx replica will join other notable African-American figures including Muhammad Ali, Louis Armstrong, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Oprah Winfrey. Each famous wax figure featured in the attraction will be accompanied by a biography highlighting each of the figures’ contributions to American history.

Jamie Foxx is the first African-American in history to receive two Oscar nominations in the same year for two of his films, Collateral and Ray.

Foxx took part in a two-hour private sitting enabling Tussauds Studio artists to create the highly-detailed $300,000 wax reproduction.

Related posts:

1. Welcome to Black Comedy News
2. Political correctness? What’s that?
3. DON LaFONTAINE SKETCH TRIBUTE

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The guy just wants to be funny. So why does comic Tracy Morgan often think that he’s tiptoeing through a minefield?

One thing he knows for certain: he hates the feeling. He may be proudly black, but he doesn’t want anyone telling him that jokes about race are out of bounds or that it’s wrong to be funny about religion or even mental illness.

That’s why Morgan felt like he had died and gone to heaven when NBC unleashed the taboo-breaking 30 Rock on unsuspecting viewers and cast him in the role of an addled television star whose behaviour frequently borders on dementia. He knows why 30 Rock has won such a cult following.

“It’s because the characters on the show are the most unlikely,” the Saturday Night Live veteran proclaims. “Me and Alec Baldwin? And Tina Fey? You gotta watch that show. There’s a little bit of something for everybody in there — something that you can identify with and relate to.”

Morgan is still surprised 30 Rock has even made it onto network television. “It’s really an HBO show.” he says. “We push the envelope — and that’s what TV needs. I’m sick of this political correctness. It’s killing comedy.”

Morgan yearns for the bad old days when the network police were less controlling and society was less uptight and TV comedy could poke fun at a whole range of now taboo subjects.

“Back in the days of Archie Bunker and George Jefferson, we used to make fun of racism. Now you can’t say nothing without people wanting to protest and all that stuff. I came up in a different generation of TV. You know what Redd Foxx was like on Sandford and Son? Anything came out of his mouth — and that was comedy.”

So what does Morgan want to say that he can’t say right now?

“I want to be able to say whatever I want to say,” he replies. “Freedom of speech! Not ‘watch what you say!’ ”

In fact, as he continues his affable rant, Morgan is also taking care to be politically incorrect on this particular morning. The 39-year-old smiles happily when reporters express disbelief that the oldest of his three kids is 22. He sees this as a cue to go off on an outrageous riff.

“Hey listen!” Morgan says. “In the ghetto, we use sex as a sedative, man. It eases the pain of poverty. We couldn’t afford a puppy — make a baby! You need something to love in a broken house.”

So how old was he when he had his first child?

“I was exposed early,” he says mischievously, then adds that if he hadn’t made it in the entertainment mainstream, he could have been a success in the pornography industry.

To explain this, Morgan carries his enthusiasm for political incorrectness to an unprintable level.

All of this is in aid of his theory that his brand of comedy works best when it’s based on life and it ventures into taboo territory.

“When I first started doing stand-up I was young,”Morgan says. “A lot of my material was based on imagination.

“Now I’m an adult, and a lot of material is based on observation, and it’s hilarious. Tragedy is funny — all that stuff.

“What I see is what I’m saying. I’m just gonna inject my sense of humour into it and make it funny. ‘Cause if you don’t laugh, guess what. You’ll cry. And I’m tired of crying.”

Morgan even finds it funny that he’s a guy who gets into trouble himself — with the law (because of an alcohol problem) and sometimes even when he’s working.

Morgan found himself in hot water during the making of his new movie, First Sunday, in which he and Ice Cube play a pair of bumbling buddies who set out to rob a church.

Scenes were actually shot in a church and Morgan — a non-attender — found himself in alien territory.

“I didn’t know how to act,” he says. His colleagues kept reminding him that he was in a holy place. “I’m like, wait a minute, ain’t this a movie? Camera men, grip guys — everybody’s behaving except me.”

He insists that he can’t remember why his conduct was so bad. “But I know I got kicked out a couple of times. ‘Mr. Morgan, you’ve got to go now. You just got to go. You’re making all this noise …’ ”

On the other hand, Morgan thinks the film gives him the chance to show that he’s really an actor — his character, a petty thief named LeeJohn, is one of society’s losers. Morgan wanted to be funny, but he also wanted to show some inner pain.

“When I read the role, it hit home with me,” he says. “It almost scared me, because I’ve known that pain. You see LeeJohn at the beginning and he’s a funny guy — a kind of knucklehead.

“And then you see the layers being peeled back. For a comedian, associated with being funny my whole career, it’s awesome when you get an opportunity to be emotional.”

When he worked on First Sunday, he was going through a “weird” time because of a court order which required him to wear an alcohol-detecting monitoring bracelet on his ankle during filming.

“It was heavy-duty stuff. It was a crazy time in my life filming that movie. I had just got the monitor, and I was going through some ups and downs legally — everybody knows my legal woes. So ain’t it incredible that I did this movie at that time? God works in mysterious ways, sometimes right in front of you.”

Jamie Portman, Canwest News Service © The Leader-Post (Regina) 2008

Related posts:

1. Chris Rock?
2. Where’s Dave Chappelle now? On his way here!