EDDIE MURPHY will host “Saturday Night Live” this season for the first time in 35 years. Eddie hosted once, in 1984. He never went back until the 40th anniversary show in 2015. Woody Harrelson kicks off the season on September 28th. On October 5th it’s British actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Taylor Swift. David Harbour from “Stranger Things” will host on October 12th, with Camila Cabello. Kristen Stewart hosts on November 2nd, and Eddie makes his return on December 21st.
At the “VMAs” last night, JOHN TRAVOLTA almost gave TAYLOR SWIFT’s award to a drag queen. MISSY ELLIOTT put on the performance of the night before accepting the Video Vanguard Award, and MILEY CYRUS sang her new breakup song, “Slide Away”.
The female celebrities men are most likely to fantasize about are Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Aniston, and Jennifer Lawrence . . . while the ladies chose Channing Tatum, Ryan Gosling, and Adam Levine.
A list of actors who auditioned for one role but got another includes Rainn Wilson trying out for Michael on “The Office” before landing the part of Dwight, and Heath Ledger trying out for Bruce Wayne in “Batman Begins”, before landing the role of The Joker in the next movie.
Random” TV and Movie facts: The last name of Woody from “Toy Story” is PRIDE . . . “Leave it to Beaver” was the first TV series to show part of a toilet . . . the producers of “The X-Files” wanted Pamela Anderson to play Scully. After “I Love Lucy”, Vivian Vance and William Frawley were offered their own spin-off called “The Mertzes”, but Vivian said NO, because in real life, Ethel HATED Fred, and didn’t want to work with him again. In “The Empire Strikes Back”, when Leia says “I Love You”, and Han replies “I know”, that was an ad-lib by Harrison Ford. George Lucas hated it, but test audiences LOVED it . . . so it stayed in the movie. The boots Michael Keaton’s Batman wore were actually Nike sneakers.
TAYLOR SWIFT is the Highest-Paid Woman in Music. She made $185 million over the past year. BEYONCÉ came in second with less than half that . . . $81 million. RIHANNA is third, with $62 million.
We’re just over a week away from the start of the NFL season, and CARRIE UNDERWOOD is teasing her new version of the “Sunday Night Football” theme, which will also feature JOAN JETT. Carrie is going back to doing “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night”, which was used as the intro song from 2006 to 2015. The song was inspired by Joan’s “I Hate Myself For Loving You”, and that’s how Joan got involved this year. Yesterday, Carrie posted a clip from the intro, and captioned it, “Tune in September 8th!” That’s the first Sunday night game, and it’ll feature the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New England Patriots. In 2016, Carrie changed things up with a new song called “Oh, Sunday Night”, which was a riff on her hit “Somethin’ Bad” with Miranda Lambert. That went over okay . . .But last year, she changed it up again with “Game On”. And that one was ROASTED on the Internet.
VIOLA DAVIS will play MICHELLE OBAMA in a new Showtime series called “First Ladies”.
The “Tennessean” is wondering who should be on the ‘Mount Rushmore’ of country music . . . and they’ve asked a few artists for THEIR opinion. Here are some of the responses they got:
Midland: “George Jones, George Strait, Willie Nelson, Gary Stewart, Waylon Jennings, and Keith Whitley.” That’s six, and the real Mount Rushmore only has four spots, but Mark Wystrach said, “If it’s our mountain, we can put as many statues as we want.”
Rascal Flatts: “Us and Garth [Brooks]. That’s it.” They also suggested George Jones, alongside Loretta Lynn, Tanya Tucker, and Dolly Parton.
Brad Paisley: He needs it to include Glen Campbell – “[He]’s one of them that when they find the right block of granite, his face should go on it.”
Kane Brown: He said he’d have trouble narrowing it down to just four, and suggested it should start with Keith Whitley, Kenny Chesney, and Randy Travis.
Thomas Rhett: Eric Church to go alongside outlaw legend Merle Haggard.
CODY JOHNSON pretended like he was going to perform “Old Town Road” at a recent show, and then stopped. He said, “If that’s country music, I’ll line up after the show, and I’ll kiss [every one] of y’all’s [backside].” He added, “Don’t be mad at me just because I’m standing for something. I ain’t saying it ain’t a good song, it’s a great song, but it’s NOT country music. Call it what it is. Stand for something.”
LAUREN ALAINA had to reschedule her tour after she was cast on the new season of “Dancing with the Stars”. Hope she doesn’t get booted on Week One.
HUNTER HAYES says his new album “Wild Blue, Part I” was written as if no one would ever hear it. That way, he could remove his own filters, and get real. He adds, “It allowed me to start writing about things, again with the safety net that I don’t have to release it if it’s too personal.”
TANYA TUCKER posted some footage of the first time she met BRANDI CARLILE, who helped produce her new album. The footage is from an upcoming documentary project called “Delta Dawn Then and Now the Return of Tanya Tucker”. There’s no release date yet.
MIRANDA LAMBERT shared a shirtless video of her husband Brendan McLoughlin with a weed-whacker.
Pee-Wee Herman, a.k.a. Paul Reubens, is 67. Jeff Cook from Alabama is 70. Barbara Bach is 72.
