27 Jul 2014

TV Shows From Your Childhood That Were Super Overrated

Aah, the shows of our childhood. They made us laugh, they made us cry, they comforted us when times were tough. But to be perfectly honest, some of them just weren't that good.

Here are five shows from our childhoods that we super overrated:

“Hey Arnold!” (1996-2004)

If even suggesting “Hey Arnold!” could be overrated is enough to make no less than two coworkers confront you at your desk when you’re just trying to drink chocolate milk and live your life, then this has to be done. The madness has to stop.

Matt Passmore’s last cable series, The Glades, was on the air for four seasons before A&E cancelled it. Will his new USA show Satisfaction run as long or longer — or will it be cancelled after just one year? Stay tuned.

On Satisfaction, a successful married man (Passmore) has his world turned upside down when he discovers that his wife (Stephanie Szostak) of 18 years has hired a professional lover (Blair Redford). Through a series of events, he ends up deciding to try the escort business for himself. Others in the cast include Michelle DeShon and Katherine LaNasa.

USA has done very well with Royal Pains, a show about a private doctor who treats the wealthy. Now, the cable channel is trying a different twist with Rush. Will this series be a success and run for many seasons as well or, will it be cancelled after one short year? Stay tuned to find out.

Rush revolves around a talented and handsome physician (Tom Ellis) who had it all — but then lost it in one fateful night. Six years later, he’s a private doctor who treats less-than-squeaky-clean clientele in Los Angeles. The rest of the cast includes Harry Hamlin, Larenz Tate, Odette Annable, and Sarah Habel.

There has never been a better time for sitting up all night watching other people be better at things than you are, on the telly.

Fresh out of the World Cup and Wimbledon, in which countless Australians watched human beings of all races and creeds being relentlessly better-than-them at soccer and tennis, we now face a perfect storm of Commonwealth Games, Tour de France and MasterChef. This means that in the course of one sleepless night, an average viewer can reflect on how wretchedly their own ability to command a dressage horse, ascend the Col du Tourmalet or chiffonade a bunch of parsley compares to that of the God-like protagonists on screen. It amounts to competency tourism, pretty much.

And for a generation of narcissists, we seem surprisingly up for being reminded – graphically and at length – how crap we are at certain enterprises. In fact, it’s addictive.

Holy Blu-ray, Batman! Warner Bros. Entertainment has announced new details on the Blu-ray and DVD collector's set for the 1960s Batman TV show, released on home video for the first time ever on November 11.

The Batman TV show collector's set will boast all 120 original episodes of the series, starring Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. In addition, there will be more than three hours of never-before-seen content in the package.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Luc Besson’s ‘‘Lucy’’ proved mind can overpower muscle, topping a remake of ‘‘Hercules’’ by director Brett Ratner at the box office on the weekend.

The Universal Pictures-released movie starring Scarlett Johansson as an accidental psychokinetic took in $44 million in North American movie theaters over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.

‘‘Hercules,’’ starring Dwayne ‘‘The Rock’’ Johnson and produced by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, brought down an estimated $29 million.

Crowd of 6,500 gets peeks of Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man and gets news of Guardians of the Galaxy sequel

An exuberant Saturday evening panel from Marvel Studios provided confirmation, if any were needed, that the studio is the boss of Hollywood at Comic-Con.

In a climactic session played out in a giddy party atmosphere, Marvel paraded the cast of Avengers: Age Of Ultron, showed a sneak peak of Ant-Man and announced a sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy.

COMING THIS WEEK

By Steven Rea

Get On Up Chadwick Boseman, having played baseball legend Jackie Robinson in 42, tries on a different kind of legend: the Godfather of Soul. With that unmistakable rasp, unmistakable pompadour, and unmistakable dance moves, a biopic of James Brown. From Tate Taylor, director of The Help. PG-13

Guardians of the Galaxy Chris Pratt, token Earth man, joins a team of alien misfits, including a gunslinging talking raccoon (the voice of Bradley Cooper) and a treelike humanoid (the voice of Vin Diesel), to try to save, well, the galaxy, in this Marvel Comics movie adaptation. Zoe Saldana and Glenn Close also show. PG-13

I thought I might be going deaf last weekend.

Standing in line at the local movie theatre, the cashier asked me for $37.

Surely I must have misheard? Then I saw the numbers flash up on the Eftpos terminal, and reluctantly forked out the cash for two tickets.

The price for going to the flicks constantly seems to creep up, most recently reaching the lofty heights of $18.50 a ticket.

With only a girlfriend to provide for, I've got it easy.

This week Netflix made several announcements regarding their streaming properties that will forever change the shape of video content consumption.

Netflix’s announcement that they had increased their subscriber base this quarter by 1.7 million to a total of more than 50 million globally was paired with a plan to go live in France and Germany as well as Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland in September. At present, three quarters of Netflix registrations are U.S. based; this move clearly indicates a more global focus.

Dwayne Johnson says he plans to join forces with ‘Fast & Furious 7’ co-star Jason Statham on a future project.

We were quizzing the star about his “franchise viagra” reputation, when he asked us where he should he apply his box-office power to next. A buddy cop movie with Jason Statham was our instant reply.

“It’s funny, I was working with Jason [Statham] on ‘Fast and Furious’ and we’ve been talking about doing something together… he’s great.”

If this happens, we want our cut Dwayne. If these two powerhouses of modern action films were to join forces, it’d surely be box office gold.

Streaming videos or music from Popcorn Time or similar websites may get a lot more illegal if the Department of Justice has its way. According to a report in The Hill, the DOJ wants Congress to turn streaming media that infringes on copyright from a misdemeanor into a felony. Right now, only downloading a movie or song or other media is a felony, making streaming a slightly less dangerous option for the modern pirate. That's a problem for enforcement, according to the DOJ, which sent representatives to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, specifically the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet.

"In short, throughout our history, copyright infringers have taken advantage of new technologies, and Congress has responded by updating the law to combat the new methods of infringement," wrote David Bitkower, the acting deputy assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division of the DOJ in his written testimony.

Comic-Con 2014: Miller compared screenplays to canine urinals

Hollywood has raided the libraries of Marvel, DC and every other comic book publisher it can find for potential source material, and few writers have aroused its interest like Frank Miller.

Miller wrote the graphic novels that inspired “The Dark Knight,” “Daredevil” and “300” while making the “Sin City” movies with Robert Rodriguez. At a panel for “A Dame to Kill for,” the second “Sin City” movie, Miller returned Hollywood's affection in his own signature style.

Never mind strawberries and Pimm's. The real sign that summer is here is at the cinema. Long school holidays lose their appeal by day four, when parents start looking for ways to get children out of the house. And Hollywood has always been happy to oblige. Action thrillers and romcoms? You got 'em!

But, somewhere along the way, the old formula has fallen apart. Box-office sales for this summer are down for the eighth year running, and are on course to finish up to 20 per cent down on last year. This would be the biggest year-on-year fall in nearly 30 years. While the figures are for the North American market, they are almost always closely mirrored in Britain. US revenues are not expected to break the $4bn (£2.4bn) mark, according to The Hollywood Reporter, which is a considerable drop on last year's $4.75bn. No film is expected to make more than $300m, for the first time since 2001.

Is Hollywood even trying anymore? I mean Batman vs. Superman? OK fine, let’s put aside the fact that we’ve done about 50 Batman and Superman movies. Let’s put aside the fact that this is just “Oh hey Marvel made an Avengers movie, let’s make a Justice League one too, but without all that back story and lead up.” Let’s even put aside Ben Afflek. “Batman vs. Superman” was the best title you could think of? “Batman vs Superman” sounds like a short story written by a third grader.

Hollywood is intellectually bankrupt, or to be more accurate, the big Hollywood studios are. I can only watch so many 80′s cartoons get turned into live action films. The saddest part is that I remember how excited I was when I first heard there was going to be a Transformers movie. Then I watched the Transformers movie and died inside. The original Transformers cartoon movie had a more mature plot… and a lot less LeBeouf.

Hollywood comedy is in serious trouble. This month, a study by Japan’s Nomura Research Institute showed that America’s four biggest film studios had massively cut back on comedy production: in 2010, the genre accounted for 44 per cent of Twentieth Century Fox’s releases, for example, but only 8 per cent of their releases this year so far.

And last year, box-office analysis website, The Numbers, found that audiences for comedy were duly plummeting, too; whereas comedies contributed 25 per cent of total US cinema ticket sales a decade ago, they now contribute in the region of 12 per cent.

The people responsible, industry commentary has concluded, are those pesky, non-English-speaking foreigners. As the expanding Asian market becomes more and more crucial to Hollywood’s success, studios are focusing their energies, and dollars, on cartoons and effects-packed blockbusters, both of which sell easily overseas. Transformers: Age of Extinction is now the highest-grossing film ever released in China after a matter of weeks. Comedy, meanwhile, just doesn’t travel as well.

In Hollywood, Apps Like Whisper Dish Dirt
LOS ANGELES — A ripple of dread rolled through Hollywood’s power publicist ranks in February. For the first time since its 2012 debut, the anonymous secret-sharing app Whisper had ensnared an A-list star.

Gwyneth Paltrow, according to a Whisper post, was cheating on her husband, the Coldplay singer Chris Martin, with an entertainment lawyer. Ms. Paltrow’s media bodyguard, Stephen Huvane, immediately rejected the rumor as “absolutely 100 percent false.” But the fuse had already been lit. Ms. Paltrow’s private life was now the subject of a tabloid brush fire.

UPDATED: The ABC fairy-tale drama debuted a brief scene of Anna and Elsa in the season four premiere.

Once Upon a Time returned to Comic-Con, and the Ballroom 20 crowd was treated to special treats — including an exclusive Frozen first-look scene from the season four premiere.

The clip opens with Frozen's Anna (Elizabeth Lail) and Elsa (Georgina Haig) putting flowers on their parents' gravestones, with Elsa telling her sister, "Anna, they would be so proud of you." But that's not all, Elsa breaks the news that she has a surprise for Anna, but not just any surprise—it's for her wedding. The Frozen story line on Once will take place after the events of Disney's Oscar-winning film.

Once again Israel is being forced to defend itself from the terrorists who run Gaza.

Once again Israel has had to drop bombs and send tanks and ground troops into Gaza to blow up tunnels and destroy the missile sites Hamas has been using to rain hundreds of rockets down on Israel’s farms and cities.

And once again the Jews of Hollywood are silent.

Where are Spielberg, Streisand and David Geffen? Why haven’t these famous liberal consciences of Hollywood stood up to show their support for Israel against the terroristic attacks of Hamas?

The producers, directors, actors and studio moguls of Tinseltown are always quick to voice their political support for their candidates and pet causes.

Age is just a number when you’re in love! ‘Scarface’ star Steven Bauer is now dating Lyda Loudon, who is 39 years younger than him!

Steven Bauer, 57, has a new lady in his life: Lyda Loudon, 18! The Scarface and Ray Donovan star stepped out with his much younger girlfriend at the Magic in the Moonlight premiere on July 21. And no, your eyes are not deceiving you. There’s a 39-year age difference between Steven and Lyda.

Steven Bauer: ‘Scarface’ Actor, 57, Dating Young Lyda Loudon, 18

The cast and producers of "Constantine" and "Arrow" also showed up for the largest gathering of panelists ever gathered in the hall.

An army's worth of DC superheroes invaded Hall H Saturday night.

Fans were treated to screenings of the pilots for The CW's The Flash, Fox's Gotham and a new trailer of NBC's Constantine. There was also 15 seconds of new footage from The CW's Arrow season three. (See the Arrow footage here.)

Gotham earned major applause for moments showcasing Alfred (Sean Pertwee), a much less cuddly version tof the butler. Gordon's (Ben McKenzie) hard-nosed heroics also went over well. On The Flash side, fans seemed enthused by the special effects, particularly during the pilot's climactic battle.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD >> A woman was seriously injured during an attack at a North Hollywood home today and police have detained a man for questioning.

Police were dispatched to the home at 11344 Oxnard St. at 2:25 a.m. on an “assault with a deadly weapon” call, said Los Angeles police Lt. Brian Morrison of the North Hollywood station.

Everybody loves a good story, true or not. We tend to think of gossip as a bad thing, But it isn't always negative. Dr. Mike McKee, a clinical psychologist at Cleveland Clinic, says there are two kinds of gossip.

"It's a good thing to tell people, even people you don't know what's going on, if it's a news kind of situation. If it's not a news situation, if it's making up bad things about somebody else, that's really harmful," he explained.

Van Gaal wants £100m to spend on defenders and Di Maria, Liverpool and Arsenal chase Firmino, and lots more..

VAN GAAL WANTS £100M TO SPEND

That's according to The Sun, who claim the Manchester United manager has already seen enough of his squad to know an expensive overhaul is required.

'Van Gaal has told the Manchester United board he needs five more players - and it will cost £100million,' report The Sun.

On Sunday's all-new episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, it will be on between Kim Kardashian and Khloe Kardashian.

Seriously on. Hard.

In Thailand, the sisters will clash over Khloe's desire to go home, with Kim taking a slam at how Khloe is dating like "50 rappers," (even though it's really just one, French Montana) and Khloe bashing Kim for taking so many selfies.

The exchange gets rather personal, concluding with Kim referring to Khloe as "miserable."

HollywoodLife keeps trying to milk a nonexistent Selena Gomez-Taylor Swift “feud.”

The webloid, which regularly lies about Gomez and Swift, spent months telling everyone that the two stars were at war over Gomez’s on-and-off relationship with Justin Bieber.

It was never true, just like a lot of lies told by HollywoodLife to get cheap traffic.

Earlier this week, HollywoodLife got caught.

As everyone knows, Beyonce loves a good surfboard.

On Saturday, the singer took a break from her “On The Run” Tour with Jay Z to share some vacation pics on Instagram — including one shot of her laying on a rack of boards (see right and below).

Beyonce flashes a smile — and some cleavage — in the self-aware pic.

In additional photos, she can be seen having a drink at sunset and hanging out near the water.

For the second year in a row, the Monroe County Fair will kick off with two country music shows the first two days in the newly remodeled grandstand.

And then a familiar versatile all-male variety band — New Odyssey — will return to the fair for the first time in nine years
A new daily free attraction will be hypnotist Richard Barker. Mr. Barker will perform his craft at the corner of LaSalle and Frenchtown Sts. at 4 and 7 p.m. on Sunday and 3:15, 6 and 8 p.m. each day the rest of the week

Post-Dispatch readers usually are not shy about expressing their opinions to our newsroom. And they responded well when we asked for their thoughts about the best places to eat, hang out and have fun in the St. Louis area.

The result is the second annual Go! List, a 28-page special issue of Go! Magazine included Sunday for home-delivery subscribers and available for sale at 54 QuikTrip stores in Missouri.

For the Post-Dispatch features staff, it is a labor of love that culminated Thursday with a party at Plush in midtown for winners, selected by our critics and readers in categories ranging from “best place for a shot and a beer” to “best festival.”

With all the exciting events going on this summer, the possibilities are practically endless. Here’s a look at what’s coming up this week, from July 28 to August 3. In the “Main Attractions” section, you’ll find the region’s biggest festivals, concerts and other events. “A Week’s Worth of Fun” offers ideas for close-to-home fun for the family most days of the week. Finally, “Ongoing Adventures” is your guide to museums, parks and other attractions ripe for a summer visit with your family. Enjoy the summer!

MAIN ATTRACTIONS

Wednesday, July 30: Country Music Artist & American Idol Winner Scotty McCreery in Concert, part of his “See You Tonight” Tour, at the Chemung County Fair; 7:30 p.m. Chemung County Fairgrounds, 170 Fairview Road, Horseheads. $35 grandstand seating, $30 bleacher seating. 734-1203. chemungcountyfair.com.

Here are today’s entertainment picks:

v Serbian Day picnic: Enjoy ethnic foods and music from noon to 9 p.m. at Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church, 39 Laird St., Youngstown.

v Pymatuning Pioneer and Art Festival: Enjoy the surroundings at Pymatuning State Park, 2660 Williamsfield Road, Jamestown, Pa., as you browse through vendor booths or watch the Civil War encampment.

v Sunfest: There will be something to do or see from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Wick Recreation Area, 260 Park Ave., Youngstown. Zumba, crafts, sand sculpture, car show and music will be featured.

Confronted by charges of plagiarism, BuzzFeed on Friday fired Benny Johnson, the viral politics editor whose work often typified the website’s energetic storytelling style.

BuzzFeed editor in chief Ben Smith said he and his colleagues had identified “41 instances of sentences or phrases copied, word for word, from other sites, many of them inappropriate sources in the first place,” during a review of about 500 posts by Johnson.

“This pattern is not a minor slip,” Smith wrote in a memorandum to BuzzFeed staff on Friday night. “This is a breach of faith with our readers; a violation of a basic rule of writing; and the reflection of an unserious attitude to our work that is wildly out of line with both our standards and our ambition.”

Panel time! We've watched the "Gotham" and "Flash" pilots and seen hints from "Constantine" and "Arrow," including the reveal that Ra's al Ghul will be the Big Bad on Season 3.

Geoff Johns is moderating and... Let's go!

10:05 p.m. The size of this panel is utterly insane. It's basically the full casts of ALL FOUR SHOWS. In rows. On the Hall H stage.

10:07 p.m. Angelica Celaya is the biggest panel surprise. She's the newest "Constantine" star and she started work yesterday.

Zee Media Bureau/Parul Sabherwal

New Delhi: The most celebrated comedy show of the small screen `Comedy Nights With Kapil` will complete 100 episodes today. The first episode of the show was aired on June 22, 2013.

The laughter riot has seen many ups and downs and has also been surrounded by several controversies in the past one year. Be it the set catching fire or Sunil Grover aka Gutthi`s sudden exit from the show, it has stood firm and has always been their to entertain the audiences.

British actress Kelly Reilly is no stranger to unsettling material. In the ABC drama “Black Box,” she plays a neuroscientist struggling with bipolar disorder, and in the Irish indie “Calvary,” out Friday, she’s the suicidal daughter of a Catholic priest (Brendan Gleeson) who looks likely to be murdered very soon.

Fortunately, she says, the most depressing plots make for the most entertaining sets. “The darker the subject matter,” she says, “the more the messed-up humor. No matter if it’s a play or a film or a show. We all need to have a bit of lightheartedness while we take on material that’s heavy. And, in my experience, in a comedy you’re often surrounded by people who take themselves too seriously.”

Still, it’s a seriously talented cast in “Calvary,” which features Irish actors Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd and Aidan Gillen (a k a Littlefinger from “Game of Thrones”) alongside Reilly, who got her start in the 1995 Helen Mirren TV movie “Prime Suspect: Inner Circles.”

One might say light industry is enjoying a renaissance in Chicago, with that lightest of light industries, comedy, expanding by leaps and bounds as two well-known improvisational theater companies embark on massive expansions.

The globally famed Second City — training ground, since its founding in 1959, for legendary talents from Alan Alda and Ed Asner to Anne Meara and Jerry Stiller to John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd to Shelley Long and George Wendt to Joe Flaherty and Eugene Levy, to say nothing of Bill Murray, Fred Willard, Steve Carell and dozens upon dozens of other notables — is remaining in its longtime home at Piper’s Alley in Old Town but announced this week that it’s adding, according to DNAinfo, some 25,000 square feet of new classrooms, student theaters and other student-oriented facilities plus a screening room and special-events space. The additional space was made available by the departure of a four-screen cineplex.

It does take a rocket scientist to do improv comedy.

It's a Tuesday night at Voodoo Comedy Playhouse, and there on stage is Rob Orlowski, an engineer at Lockheed Martin's human space flight program. "Essentially," as he explained, "we're building NASA's next spaceship."

But at this moment, he's proudly and ridiculously riding an invisible bull. In his invisible trailer park. While his improv partner, playing his had-it-up-to-here wife, is screaming at her dreaming husband to focus on their marriage, but for heaven's sakes to stay on his side of the trailer — there's an invisible line — even when making a rare, ravenous sexual advance.

Disgruntled fans have walked out on the stand-up comedian Carl Barron after claiming they had been misled and used as extras on Barron's debut feature film.

Barron's Facebook page featured criticisms from some fans who said they had paid $75 for tickets to the Friday night show not knowing that after intermission they were to be turned into extras for his film Manny Lewis.

Manny Lewis is about a lonely comedian looking for love, and is directed and co-written by Anthony Mir. Barron stars alongside Leeanna Walsman. Filming finishes on Friday, and the movie is to be released on Australia Day.

SAN DIEGO >> The Emmy-nominated Comedy Central show “Key & Peele” will be back with hilariously edgy sketches in a couple months, but until then the comedy duo satisfied fans’ need for laughs during a panel at Comic-Con International on July 24 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Indigo Ballroom.

Moderated by comedian Tom Lennon, best known as Lt. Dangle on the Comedy Central series “Reno 911!” and a cast member of “The State” on MTV, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele and series director Peter Atencio premiered two new sketches and answered some tough questions before dozens of fans.

There's an epidemic sweeping this nation: grown-ass men, unable to take even the most basic care of themselves. For just the cost of a cup of coffee every day, you can help these adult dudes act like adults. Won't you please call today?

For the rest of this week's top comedy videos, head on over to SplitSider. Now for the news!

The model Andreja Pejić has come out as a transgender woman. Away from the glowing testimonials, the fight for trans equality remains gritty.

Over the past year, it seems as though transgender issues have finally begun to resonate with the public consciousness. From Laverne Cox’s Time magazine cover and subsequent Emmy nomination to the release of Janet Mock’s stunningly successful memoir, by outward appearances, the state of trans issues seems to be improving at a rapid pace.

Beneath the stories of success and recognition, however, is an epidemic of discrimination, assault, poverty, and murder. While both Mock and Cox have taken up the mantle of activist, working tirelessly to highlight these oft-overlooked issues, the question has to be asked: how much can celebrity role models and figureheads impact the devastating legal, criminal, and social issues facing trans people? Going further, how much of an obligation do openly trans celebrities have in efforts to advance trans rights?

Celebrities often complain about damaging stories and negative comments about them on the Internet.

Now the rich are hiring companies to influence what comes up on a Google search.

Chris Dinota, CEO and founder of Solvera Group, said, “Suppression is the traditional method that reputation companies use, they’ll typically try to push the information down on a Google search result page by flooding in new content. We work with Google to de-index the link,” removing it from search results.

Bangin’ babes in black!
Selena Gomez and Megan Fox didn’t fail to bring the glamour this week. Seriously, they were werking it and then some!

Unsurprisingly, the 22-year-old dropped jaws when she arrived in this slitty, cleavage-flashing gown, while Megan hypnotized with her sexy stems.

Celebrity model Andrej Pejic has successfully undergone gender transformation and as a result wants to be known as Andreja. Pejic in times past has walked the runway as a man and woman but moving forward will only be modeling women’s clothing. The model who has been featured on the cover of major publications such as French Vogue and Elle said she has always dreamed of being a girl.

The 22-year-old was born in Serbia and said as a little girl she remembers putting on her mother’s skirt and spinning around trying to look like a ballerina. Pejic said that she knew as early as 13-years-old that she was different and that a “transition” was something she would one day embrace. She went to the library and googled “sex change” and instantly her life changed. The results of her search yielded a flood of relief because the internet gave her the sense that what she was feeling was not as strange as she assumed and there were actually words and medical terminology to describe her feelings.

Mark Zuckerberg launched a new app for celebrities — and Captain Kirk immediately blasted it with his phaser.

OK, so it wasn’t a phaser. It was a blog. Still, Facebook’s new app for famous people to interact with fans free of other Facebook clutter, called “Mentions,” had only just been released when actor William Shatner tore it down on his Tumblr blog.

“I’m not quite sure why Facebook released this app for ‘celebrities,’ ” Shatner said on the blog. “It seems to be ill-conceived.”

The farmer's daughter gets down and dirty with pigs

“What did I just get myself into?” I thought as I walked toward the gated pigs.

I was about to participate in the Celebrity Swine Show at the Shawnee County Fair, and as a farmer’s daughter, you would think this would be something easy for me. Did I mention my dad raised crops, not animals?

As the group of celebrities — including myself, district attorney Chad Taylor and Shawnee County Register of Deeds Becky Nioce — gathered around to see the demonstration of how to make a pig run in a figure-eight, I thought, “This can’t be too hard.”

In November 2013, news broke that New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter would be spending his postcareer years as a book publisher, heading up his own imprint, Derek Jeter Publishing, at Simon & Schuster. Jeter isn’t the first star to be granted his own unit: in recent years, celebrities across the entertainment industry have been given imprints at major publishing houses. We checked in on five ventures led by celebs—including a headliner of a late-night talk show and familiar faces in the culinary world—to see which books each has released, what’s worked, and what’s in the pipeline.

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