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Ratings: NFL, Forgetting Kaepernick and Kneeling, Returns to Huge Sunday Numbers of Old

Roger Friedman
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Ratings: NFL, Forgetting Kaepernick and Kneeling, Returns to Huge Sunday Numbers of Old

Colin Kaepernick? Kneeling? That’s so 2018.

The NFL is back! Memories are short, people want to get out of the house, and if not, settle in for a good old football game.

Sunday’s ratings for the NFL were huge for three networks: CBS, NBC, and Fox. Not for ABC, which go tackled over and over carrying the BS Global Citizen concert special at 7pm and got 1.6 million viewers.

At 1pm, over 14 million people sat down to CBS to see a bunch of games play out.

Over on Fox, 12.5 million fans got into their Barcaloungers and poured a few beers for the first set of games. For the second set, at 4:30, 22,6 million people were watching. And 10 million hung on for overtime coverage.

Back on NBC, at 8:30pm, just under 20 million people ignored “The Simpsons” premiere on Fox and the Tony Awards on CBS at 9pm. They watched the Packers defeat the 49ers decisively.

All eyes Sunday were on football. That the Tony’s even got 2.7 million viewers is a miracle.

During the last four years, the NFL has been in a serious slump. Encouraged by the Former Guy in the White House, there was a negative vibe about the NFL. For a few minutes, some people had a conscience about the way Colin Kaepernick was treated. But then, hey, time passed. Kap still isn’t playing football, but the hot dogs are hot, and the beer is cold, and what else are we going to do.

America is still a great country. Pictured: winner of the day, Roger Goodell.

Pop Hit 50 Years Old: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1970 “Fortunate Son” Has Sold Almost 1 Million Copies This Year via Streaming

Roger Friedman
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Pop Hit 50 Years Old: Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 1970 “Fortunate Son” Has Sold Almost 1 Million Copies This Year via Streaming

If you know an explanation for this phenomenon, let me know. showbiz411@gmail.com.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” has sold via streaming the equivalent of 822,000 copies this year. They will sell 1 million copies before the end of 2021.

What?

The song was released in 1970.

CCR, fronted by John Fogerty, has been out of business since 1976. They formed in the mid 60s. Their “20 Greatest Hits” album, issued in 1976, has sold well all year. It’s currently at 112,000 copies. Roughly half were CDs and paid downloads. The album is currently NUMBER 1 of all Amazon’s CDs and vinyl. Hello?

Their second best selling track is “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” Runner up is “Bad Moon Rising.”

Fogerty took a long break after CCR broke up. He was angry because his record company was sold to producer Saul Zaentz, who tied Fogerty up in litigation for a decade. In the late 80s Fogerty re-emerged with “Centerfield” and had a few more hits. His “Proud Mary” became a rock staple, and a classic hit covered by Ike and Tina Turner.

Why the group is selling like crazy is a mystery. Maybe it’s the universe returning the favor to them after Zaentz made their lives so miserable. Whatever it is, it’s a good thing that new generations are enjoying the swampy country funk that made CCR such a hit during their original run.

 

 

Stevie van Zandt Reveals in New Book Not All Stars Were Nelson Mandela Supporters: Issues with Paul Simon, Whitney Houston

Roger Friedman
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Stevie van Zandt Reveals in New Book Not All Stars Were Nelson Mandela Supporters: Issues with Paul Simon, Whitney Houston

Before 1987, few people in America knew who Nelson Mandela was or was in support of him. The South African leader had been in prison since 1962, so for 25 years he was not well known outside of certain circles.

Little Steven van Zandt was among those who did know about Mandela. The E Street Band leader first became involved with anti-apartheid movement through his boycott of the Sun City resort, a major strike at the evil of apartheid.

In his very detailed new memoir, “Unrequited Infatuations,”  the politically passionate van Zandt recalls that in helping to organize the famous June 1988 Freedom Concert for Mandela at London’s Wembley Stadium, he ran into issues with some of the performers. The concert was billed as a 70th birthday show so as not to scare TV networks and advertisers. But van Zandt recalls it was really an all star show seeking Mandela’s freedom from prison.

Not everyone was in agreement. van Zandt writes:

I was surprised an American network picked up on it at all. The consensus among the mainstream media was that Mandela was a terrorist
and a Communist. And not just among the right wing. Famous liberal
Paul Simon once cornered me at a party and asked how I could be supporting this Mandela character when he was obviously a Communist.
“Really, Paulie?” I said. “You sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “My friend Henry Kissinger explained it all to me. Just
follow the money!”
“Well, Paul, I know you and Henry are students of revolution, but I
have news for the both of you. People fighting for freedom outnumbered
by a better-supplied enemy don’t really care where the money comes
from. And by the way, your buddy Kissinger is not only an unindicted war
criminal but was with the Dulles brothers in the early fifties overthrowing
Mosaddegh in Iran and installing the shah. That’s the direct cause of half
of the real terrorism on the planet to this day. So when you see him, please
tell your friend Henry to stick his Nobel Peace Prize up his fuckin’ ass.

Simon, of course, quickly came around.  van Zandt writes he was amused two years later when Mandela came to New York to raise money for his run for President of South Africa. Simon was so much on board that a photo of him and Mandela appeared in all the newspapers. He writes: “I guess Paul Simon got over that whole scary dangerous Communist thing.”

Another big issue was the appearance of Whitney Houston. Some performers didn’t want her on the show, van Zandt recalls, but she was needed to broaden Mandela’s appeal.

I happened to be in the office with the promoter, Jim Kerr, and Peter Gabriel
when Whitney Houston’s Manager came in. “We thought this was about
celebrating a birthday, but we’re hearing lots of politics from the stage.
We don’t want any part of it. We want the Free Nelson Mandela posters
covered up or Whitney doesn’t go on!” He stormed out.
Whoa!
We looked at each other in shock. I spoke first. “Throw that bitch the
fuck off this show right now!”
“We can’t,” the promoter said. “We sold the show to the networks
with her on it.”
“Let ’em complain!” I said.
Jim, or maybe Peter, spoke up. “She was the only request from
Mandela personally. They had a poster of her in prison and all the prisoners . . . fell in love with her.”
We let her perform. It makes me nauseous seeing the documentaries
since then proclaiming her as a proud activist who fought against apartheid all her life.

Houston, of course, also came around despite the manager’s interference.

van Zandt recalls: The American network edited out everything I said onstage and
trimmed whatever politics they could in general. Fox, of course. But the
telecast was enormously successful and helped cement Mandela’s status
as a world leader and one of the good guys.

Ratings for Tony Awards Terrible But Who Cares, Global Citizen Concert a Real Bust

Roger Friedman
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Ratings for Tony Awards Terrible But Who Cares, Global Citizen Concert a Real Bust

The Tony Awards on CBS had pretty bad ratings, just 2.65 million people. And who cares? The two hour show from 9 to 11pm was beautifully produced and well worth watching again. But CBS had it all screwed up by not just broadcasting in real time across the country. Also, the Paramount Plus feed was apparently a mess on the west coast for people not using Roku. (We had no trouble with it.)

The Tony Awards offered all the biggest stars doing their best work so that wasn’t an issue. The producers, Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss, made lemonade out of lemons. After all, only 16 shows were eligible. Half of them were bad, the other half had closed. All the Best Score nominees were plays, not musicals. How ridiculous is that? “A Christmas Carol,” a seasonal entry, won a bunch of awards it would never have won. But the producers made it work.

On another ratings front, the scammish Global Citizen concert scored just 1.55 million viewers showing clips from their egregious day of spending millions on rock stars and nothing on the poor or the hungry. The rock stars are using Global Citizen to look like activists and get attention for their music. The Global Citizen execs are using the rock stars for big salaries and hobnobbing. The whole thing is absurd.

 

We Were Right: “SNL” Adds Three New Players (Named Here), But MVP Beck Bennett is Exiting Show

Roger Friedman
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We Were Right: “SNL” Adds Three New Players (Named Here), But MVP Beck Bennett is Exiting Show

I told you over the weekend “Saturday Night Live” was adding three new players. I named them. They are Aristotle Athari, James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman aka Sarah Squirm.

But the bad news is Beck Bennett, an MVP Leading man who’s played everyone from Mike Pence to Vladimir Putin, is leaving. He will be sorely missed.

Everyone else from the main cast is returning including Kate McKinnon, Cecily Strong, and Kenan Thompson. Even Pete Davidson. Also out with Bennett is featured player Lauren Holt.

 

(Trailer) A Hollywood “Almost Famous” as Bradley Cooper Plays Jon Peters in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” Based On Producer Gary Goetzman’s Childhood

Roger Friedman
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(Trailer) A Hollywood “Almost Famous” as Bradley Cooper Plays Jon Peters in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Licorice Pizza” Based On Producer Gary Goetzman’s Childhood

Paul Thomas Anderson’s falsely named “Soggy Bottom” has a real title and a trailer.

Now it’s called “Licorice Pizza,” and as I told you exclusively weeks ago, the movie is based on the teen years of Hollywood producer Gary Goetzman, now Tom Hanks’s producing partner. Goetzman had a career as a child actor.

PTA heard Goetzman’s stories and turned them into a film instead of rock version of “Almost Famous.” Cooper Hoffman, son of the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman, plays Gary.

Bradley Cooper plays real life Jon Peters, who went from being a hairdresser to Barbra Streisand’s boyfriend, to Hollywood producer. Warren Beatty played a version of him in “Shampoo.” In the trailer he tells Hoffman how to pronounce “Streisand.”

The whole trailer has a very Wonder Years feel to it. For PTA it would be a very sentimental film, different than his past work. But it looks very promising.

“Licorice Pizza” was the name of a famous LA record store in the 70s.

 

Tony Awards Pt 2: “Moulin Rouge,” “The Inheritance” win Best Musical, Play, In Memoriam Segment Shines with Mitchell, O’Hara, and Lewis

Roger Friedman
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Tony Awards Pt 2: “Moulin Rouge,” “The Inheritance” win Best Musical, Play, In Memoriam Segment Shines with Mitchell, O’Hara, and Lewis

Part 2 of the Tonys went on a little too long, but overall the show on CBS was a success.

“The Inheritance” won Best Play. “Moulin Rouge” was Best Musical. “Slave Play” got nothing, which I think is great because it was basically porn. So there.

The duets segment culminated in a huge moment with Audra McDonald and Brian Stokes Mitchell singing from “Ragtime.” They were brilliant.

Stokes-Mitchell, and Kelli O’Hara and Norm Lewis were especially terrific during an emotional and long In Memoriam for 2020 and 2021 that I think included everyone who passed away. Having Mitchell sing “The Impossible Dream” was a lovely touch. He sang it from his apartment window during the height of the pandemic for all the first responders, nurses and doctors.

The 2020-21 Tony Awards are over. All in all, the four hours were splendid. They should get Emmys. They made a very good lemonade from lemons. No complaints. The ratings? Who cares? There was a lot of competition. But if you love Broadway, the whole thing was worth it.

Tony Awards Part 1: Jennifer Holliday Steals the Show, Adrienne Warren Best Actress, Aaron Tveit Best Actor in a Musical

Roger Friedman
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Tony Awards Part 1: Jennifer Holliday Steals the Show, Adrienne Warren Best Actress, Aaron Tveit Best Actor in a Musical

The first two hours of the abridged 2020 Tony Awards, shown in September 2021, were well produced, an intimate affair with a lot of heart, if a little odd.

All of the 2020 Tony Awards from an abbreviated season were handed out except Best Musical, Play and Revival of a Play. They were left for the CBS special at 9pm. Everything else was handed out on Paramount Plus, but just on the East Coast. On the West Coast, everyone was complaining. They’ll see it later.

The big winner was not any of the nominees, but Jennifer Holliday who brought the house down and the audience to their feet singing her Tony hit from 1981, “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls.”

The audience at the Winter Garden still isn’t over it.

Some of the awards were silly. Some wouldn’t have happened if the 2020 season had proceeded properly. All the shows nominated for Best Score were plays, not musicals. Huh? “A Christmas Carol” is a seasonal production that wouldn’t have won so many awards. But why quibble? Broadway’s back, what happened happened, and we’ll all live.

The main thing is all the main acting awards were spot on. Danny Burstein won after 7 tries, Lois Smith won after 60 years. Many congrats to both of them. Adrienne Warren finally got her award for playing Tina Turner. The universe is happy. And PS Everyone loves David Grier.

Kudos to Audra McDonald, who should host everything.

74th ANNUAL TONY AWARDS WINNERS LIST

Best Play, The Inheritance

Best Revival of a Play, A Soldier’s Story

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play
David Alan Grier, A Soldier’s Play

Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical
Danny Burstein, Moulin Rouge! The Musical

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
Lois Smith, The Inheritance

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play
Lois Smith, The Inheritance

Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical
Lauren Patten, Jagged Little Pill

Best Scenic Design of a Play
Rob Howell, A Christmas Carol

Best Costume Design of a Play
Rob Howell, A Christmas Carol

Best Sound Design of a Musical
Peter Hylenski, Moulin Rouge! The Musical

Best Sound Design of a Play
Simon Baker, A Christmas Carol

Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre
A Christmas Carol
Music: Christopher Nightingale

Best Book of a Musical
Jagged Little Pill
Diablo Cody

Best Orchestrations
Katie Kresek, Charlie Rosen, Matt Stine and Justin Levine, Moulin Rouge! The Musical

Exclusive: E Street Band’s Stevie van Zandt Finally Explains His Hair Coverings in Terrific New Book

Roger Friedman
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Exclusive: E Street Band’s Stevie van Zandt Finally Explains His Hair Coverings in Terrific New Book

Tuesday is the official publication date of “Unrequited Infatuations,” the really great memoir from Steven van Zandt aka Little Steven, Miami Steve, Stevie, leader of the E Street Band among many other things. I’ve been a fan of Little Steven since he emerged as Bruce Springsteen’s musical director, all star guitarist, songwriter and producer of Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes since the mid 70s. He’s also been a very astute political activist.

I always wanted to ask Stevie about his trademark bandanas. They’ve given him such a distinctive look, a brand that most marketing people would pay millions for. Later in the book he says he fell on bandanas because kids with cancer who lost their hair would wear them and it would make them feel “super cool.”

But here’s the backstory of Little Steven and the Bandanas:

I’m not sure exactly why, but I suppose I am obligated to explain
the origin of my unusual habiliments. On top of the obvious standard
hippie/gypsy/troubadour garb, there was an incident that married the
bizarre to the bazaar.
One night I was driving a girlfriend home from the Pony, three in
the morning, four lanes, when a guy coming the other way crossed
over. I switched lanes as quickly as I could, but he drifted right with me.
Head-on collision. Not too fast, but I smashed into the windshield, and
though I didn’t lose consciousness, I needed a few operations. After
that, my hair never really grew in properly.
I asked Bruce what he thought. “You’ve been wearing these ban-
danas,” he said. “Just make it a thing.” I did.

Watch Lady Gaga Perform “La Vie En Rose” for Star Studded Crowd at Academy Museum Opening

Roger Friedman
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Watch Lady Gaga Perform “La Vie En Rose” for Star Studded Crowd at Academy Museum Opening

Lady Gaga stole the show in Hollywood Saturday night at the opening of the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum.

Gaga performed “La Vie En Rose” for a star studded crowd that included Cher, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, and stars stars stars like Sophia Loren, Ben Affleck and JLo, Nicole Kidman, Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, Tiffany Haddish, Spike Lee and his whole family, Laura Dern, Michael Keaton, Angela Bassett, Annette Bening (Warren Beatty?), Netflix’s Ted Sarandos and Nicole Avant, and so on. Lots of great pictures at all your usual haunts.

(Everyone got cool looking gift bags, pictured here. Back here in New York I watched the two newest episodes of “Only Murders in the Building” and slept off “Macbeth” and “Many Saints” premieres.)

Cher, the world’s faithful correspondent, wrote on Twitter: “2am.Home & Really Tired. Took Bob & Paul 2 Academy Museum opening.Ran In2 Sarah Paulson,Jumped 2 my Feet As GaGa Finished”La Vie en Rose”,Hugged Sophia Loren,& Met Tiffany Haddish.Chick is a Force of Nature.I Liked Her.” She added Night plus a celebration Emoji.

Her second post: Academy museum part 2.
“Saw SpikeKiss mark,Tom & Rita,told Him [Red heartRed heart]”News Of TheEarth [globe europe-africa”],my Dear Laura Dern,Many Cool Ppl.Told Gaga”This is Bob Mackie, She almost fell over..HES AN ICON. Party was outside..Filled With Heavy Hitters,Donors,Up & Comers,& Ppl Like Me.
Oh 4got Angela Bassett”

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