Matt Solomon

1 week ago | cracked.com | Matt Solomon

Ryan Reynolds is an unabashed John Candy superfan. “He was so generous with people, and he was a good person when no one was watching,” he told Stephen Colbert last month. That’s one reason Reynold is producing a documentary about the comedian’s life, John Candy: I Like Me, scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival later this year. “Growing up, I had a real obsession, quite genuine, with John Candy,” Reynolds told David Letterman on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Matt Solomon

When John Candy was a newcomer at Second City in Chicago in 1973, he was paired with another rookie comedian. “I started the same day as John Candy,” said Bill Murray on The Tonight Show last year. Candy and Murray on the same stage? Sounds terrific — but Murray says it was anything but. “We were both terrible,” he confessed. “We were both lousy, and no one would work with us.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Matt Solomon

For years, Sam Fragoso reminded Seth Meyers this week on the Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso podcast, people have been speculating that either Meyers or Tina Fey would be the logical successor to the 80-year-old Lorne Michaels on Saturday Night Live. Since Meyers already had a tryout with Fey to host Weekend Update back in the day, said Fragoso, would Meyers consider auditioning with Fey to share the SNL producer job if and when Michaels left?

1 week ago | cracked.com | Matt Solomon

When Mel Brooks made movie parodies, his inspirations were obvious. For Blazing Saddles, he borrowed from old Westerns like The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. For Young Frankenstein, the original Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein were the road maps. High Anxiety found its inspiration in pretty much everything Alfred Hitchcock ever made. So when Brooks decided to appease his son Max, a Star Wars nut, with sci-fi parody Spaceballs, the logical inspiration was Star Wars, right? Nope.

1 week ago | cracked.com | Matt Solomon

Memorial services generally aren’t a barrel of monkeys, but when a famous comedian passes away, your laugh mileage may vary. After Norm Macdonald passed, several prominent funny people spoke at his service, including David Spade, Conan O’Brien and Macdonald’s Weekend Update co-conspirator Jim Downey. But the funniest part of the occasion didn’t come from someone’s prepared remarks, said Spade this week on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast.