Pandemic News

• MSNBC political commentator Rachel Maddow in staying home and self quarantining after being exposed to Covid 19. She has tested negative but will sit out the remainder of the election coverage.
• During production of “Jurassic World: Dominion” they used 40,000 Covid tests on cast and crew.
• Billionaire SpaceX/Tesla founder Elon Musk develops flulike symptoms he had 4 antigen Covid tests in the same day taken by the same nurse on the same machine. Two of them will positive and 2 were negative.
• Disneyland hotels are no longer taking reservations as California shutdown deepens.
• Good Doctor star Richard Schiff has Covid.

Renewals, Coming Soon, and Casting News

• ABC has ordered a primetime celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
• Netflix has renewed “The Umbrella Academy” for season 3.
• “The Outsider” has been canceled that HBO and is being shopped to other outlets.
• Disney+ has announced the new Marvel Cinematic Universe series “WandaVision” will premiere January 15.
• The launch of NASA astronauts aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 Dragon spacecraft will be aired live Saturday on Discovery Channel and Science channel in addition to the usual coverage on NASA and numerous YouTube channels.
• Dolly Parton will have a Christmas special on CBS December 6
• Comedian ventriloquist Jeff Dunham will have 3 comedy specials on Comedy Central. The first will be Friday after Thanksgiving and the other two will premiere in 2021.
• Reality competition series “Lego Masters” has been renewed for season 2 with host Will Arnett returning. This was a guilty pleasure of mine for season 1 even though I never played with Legos.
• Former “The Walking Dead” star Danai Gurira will appear an upcoming biopic “The Fighting Shirley Chisholm” about the iconic African-American congresswoman.

Politics and Showbiz

• Twitter announced that once Donald Trump leaves office he will no longer be exempt from being banned from the platform for inappropriate tweets. Up until now they’ve simply been flagging is questionable messages but because he is a public figure of importance they’ve not been completely shutting down his account.
• Dave Chapelle is being lauded for his edgy opening monologue on last week’s SNL in which he went from bashing Trump to calling for unity. But I’m surprised there has been no comment about the fact that he dropped the N-word multiple times during the monologue and later as a sketch. This further reaffirms the double standard that black people can use the word but it is so offensive if a white person uses that it can destroy their career. Words either are offensive or they are not. If we’re going to have zero tolerance then let it be zero tolerance.
• CBS has announced that at least 50% of its non-scripted shows such as Survivor, Amazing Race, and Big Brother will be minorities setting a diversity goal.

Miscellaneous News

• The Notre Dame upset of number one ranked Clemson was the highest-rated Notre Dame game in 15 years.
• Former “Prison Break” star Wentworth Miller says no longer is interested in playing straight characters. That means no more sequels or reboots of Prison Break. One can only imagine the outrage if a straight actor declared he would never play a gay character.
• Former St. Elsewhere star Norman Lloyd recently celebrated his 106th birthday.
• Disney+ now has 73.7 million subscribers. ESPN+ tops 10 million.

In Memoriam

• A: The most iconic game show host in history who just passed away at age 80 of pancreatic cancer. Q: Who Is Alex Trebek? Episodes of “Jeopardy!” That he had already taped will air through December 25.
• Norm Crosby standup comedian who was the master of the verbal malaprop. Age 93
• Ken Spears cocreator of Scooby Doo. Age 82.
• Tommy Heinsohn MBA announcer and basketball Hall of Famer. Age 86