Beck/Smith Hollywood

John Pinette

The very funny funnyman John Pinette, whose “Still Hungry” special has its Comedy Central premiere tonight (7/29), is about to take a month off the road from his normal hectic itinerary of standup dates.  He’ll get “back on some kind of schedule” and have a chance to get in better shape as well, he lets us know.   Rotund as he is, “I don’t want to glorify being heavy,” he insists.  “I laugh about it, or talk about it as I would any trial or tribulation in life.”

But weight-related jokes are his stock in trade.  Aren’t those on the un-PC list nowadays?

“I would say the weight jokes are really more like food-oriented jokes,” Pinette differentiates.  “I did ‘Show Me the Buffet’ in ’98.  Now we have three shows on about cake, and 14 stars out there that — they make food, and that’s all they do.  I actually prefer to think about it as I was ahead of the curve.”

He also notes, “The parameters of what makes people laugh, you could drive a 747 through.  There’s room for all kinds of comedy.  I try to be a little bit cleaner than some, a little bit more family-oriented.  I’m not St. Francis up there, but I try to have some respect where maybe you can bring your kids, and Grandma won’t go screaming out of the room.”

Cedric the Entertainer NBC photo

Cedric the Entertainer not only has his NBC “It’s Worth What?” game
show newly on the air this summer.  The King of Comedy will also show up as a character on TV Land’s “Hot in Cleveland” next month.  And, he reveals, if things go according to plan, that character will land in a spin-off sitcom of his own.

 ”TV Land got very excited about developing a show based on the
character,” says Cedric.  He describes his role as a hot R&B singer-turned-preacher — ala several real-life recording stars — who “has a real-world, modern kind of point of view that clashes with that of my father, an old-school minister.”  As far as when the show might debut, “We’re in the early stages of development.”

Meanwhile, he has a slate of standup gigs this summer, and the “It’s Worth What?” show — that has already spawned a drinking game wherein participants take a sip each time he utters “Whaaaat?”  Cedric is well aware “It’s Worth What?” faces stiff competition (including Chef Gordon Ramsay), but points
out, “With our show, people can have fun playing along.  Everyone thinks they
know the prices of things, but everyone gets surprised.”  Items from Roy Rogers’ taxidermist-treated Trigger to a flying saucer home are the big lure, he feels.  “We have plenty of fun stuff ahead – items that are quite amazing.”

For Cedric, the timing of “It’s Worth What?” was “very serendipitous,” since “I definitely wanted to find another way to get back into television.  I had a deal at ABC for the past eight years to do a sitcom for them, but we never found anything that would stick,” notes the former “Steve Harvey Show” and “Cedric the Entertainer Presents” star.  “I see the fun my good friend Steve Harvey is having doing ‘Family Feud,’ Howie Mandel on ‘Deal or No Deal,’ Jeff Foxworthy on ‘Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader” and doing a game show looked interesting.  When this came up, I thought, ‘Okay, I’m out of my box right now.  Let’s try it.”

Lea Thompson Hallmark Channel photo

Lea Thompson says she didn’t have to think twice about the prospect of making the Hallmark Movie Channel’s “The Cabin” movie that premieres Saturday (7/30).  The actress of “Back to the Future,” “Caroline in the City” and her current “Switched at Birth” series fame points out, “I’ve done so many movies, and so many TV movies, but oddly enough, never a romantic comedy.  So to get one in my late forties is kind of appealing.”

The movie has her as a divorcee who takes her children to a gathering of the clan and sporting competition event in Scotland — only to find that her cabin has been double booked with a family headed by handsome-but-difficult single dad Steven Brand.  Lea found the Dundee, Scotland-born actor to be “really funny, and really sweet” — and their interaction fun to play.  There were, however, unexpected challenges on the production, which actually took place in Ireland, Scottish tartans notwithstanding.

“There’s a good reason why Ireland is not Hollywood; the weather is so uncooperative,” Lea observes.  “It was really cold and really wet.  They were like, ‘It’s a vacation movie.  It’s summer vacation.’  And I was like, ‘These leaves are pretty orange.  Can we put on a sweater?’”

“The Cabin” also demanded a great deal of physicality.  “They must have said, ‘We need someone to toss the caber.  Let’s get Lea!’  Crazy, huh?  I wondered how much they were going to let us do, but we did all that crazy stuff.  I was so amazed that no one got hurt.”  The one-time ballerina also got to show off her footwork in a dance sequence.  She notes, “The crew always appreciates it when you do something physical.  It brings everyone together.”

It was a special family time for Lea herself.  “I brought my sisters along — Colleen and Shannon.  All my life I thought they had Irish names, and now we find out that they’re fake Irish names.  Real Irish names are much more interesting.  We are Irish, so it was really a dream come true to be there together.”

Casey Bond as Chad Bradford in 'Moneyball'

Sounds like Brad Pitt has earned the eternal gratitude of baseball player cum actor Casey Bond, who’s getting his big movie break playing Chad Bradford in Pitt’s Sept. 23-debuting “Moneyball.”

“He was very accessible on the set — a truly great mentor, master of his craft,” gushes Bond, who was drafted by the San Francisco Giants and then played for three years in the minors before switching to an acting career.  “The thing I remember most that he said — after we filmed the first cut of a scene, naturally I wanted to go look at the playback.  He said, ‘Casey, don’t look at the first playback, ever.  It will screw you up every time, I promise.’  No need to go and look and start thinking too much.”

The real-life saga of Oakland A’s manger Billy Beane, who revolutionized the game with his modernized, analytical, sabermetric approach to assembling a competitive baseball team, “Moneyball” also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill and Chris Pratt.  Complete with cameos by some recognizable faces in the sports world, it already boasts more verisimilitude than the average baseball flick.  “Being a former professional baseball player myself, the authenticity of this thing is beyond any baseball movie I’ve seen,” says Bond, who has been amassing credits in commercials and print ads for the likes of Nike and One-A-Day Men’s Vitamins while studying acting.

Bradford is known for his extreme submarine style pitching, which Bond says came pretty naturally to him, “but it was strange to get used to.  When he pitches — when I pitch — his knuckles almost scrape the ground.  After I read for the part, they took me out to see if I could do it,” recounts Bond, who was an outfielder in his professional career.  “After they saw I could pitch, I had a meeting with Brad Pitt.  It was more of a conversation, one person to another, more about getting to know each other than an interview.  I guess if you’re going to be on a film with someone for eight weeks, you want to find out what kind of person they are.  He was extremely down to earth.”

Once Bond (www.thecaseybond.com.) got the part, he went into training to perfect his style.  A current “Moneyball” trailer opens with Bond throwing right into the camera — a shot managed in one take, he says, with the camera safely behind a plexiglass shield, of course.

Brenda Strong

“Desperate Housewives” Emmy nominee Brenda Strong is thrilled with her nod from the Television Academy, but hard-pressed to come up with a reason why she’s been singled out for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance honors this year and not the other six years the series has been on the air.  “I have no idea.  Did somebody on ‘Family Guy’ not submit?” she asks wryly.  It could be just an accumulation of appreciation, friends have suggested to  her, or it just might be her turn.

Strong, who narrates the show as deceased housewife Mary Alice Young, will be appearing in front of the cameras more often as flashbacks begin to reveal more “Desperate” secrets come fall.  “Mary Alice is book-ending the season.  We have to act like it’s the last season, because we don’t  know if it is or not,” she says.  As for herself, “I would be happy to be Mary Alice Young ’til somebody sent the cows home and turned out the lights.”

If by chance “Desperate Housewives” did continue beyond what’s expected tobe its final year, Strong would be doing double duty — because she’s heading for Dallas this October to begin playing Mrs. Bobby Ewing in TNT’s 2012 “Dallas” reboot.  But that wouldn’t be a problem.  As she points out, “Technology is such now that as long as you have an ISDN line, you can record voiceovers from Timbukutu if you want to.”

If she does have any concern about work, it’s that audiences that still fondly remember Victoria Principal’s (late) Pam Ewing will accept her as Ann Ewing.  Comments Brenda, “The people on ‘Dallas’ were bigger than life when I was an up and coming actress.  I think it’s a great idea that we get to reshape it for another generation.  I love that we get to explore these real Shakespearean themes with our tongues in our cheeks.  Really, it’s family drama of Biblical proportions.”

Meanwhile, there are the Emmys.  Strong is being escorted by her 16-year-old son, Zakery, who is now also an actor.  Asked about feeling like her fellow nominees in the category are strange bedfellows, she quips, “Yes, but I won’t be sleeping with Porky Pig anytime soon.”  Porky Pig actor Bob Bergen is among the nominees in her category, as is Seth Green for multiple voices on his “Robot Chicken,” Maurice LaMarche for “Futurama,” Dan Castellaneta for “The Simpsons,” and Christopher Plummer for narrating “Moguls & Movie Stars – The Birth Of Hollywood.”

“In a weird way, it takes the pressure off, because they’re not doing what I do,” she says.  “But I’m honored to be in a category with these seasoned pros — and to be in the same sentence as Christopher Plummer, who I have so much respect for, that’s really a great place to be.”

Leslie Ezelle

Leslie Ezelle, tearing through the competition on HGTV’s addictive “Design Star” interior design competition show, has already won acclaim and fans — and is a walking testimony to the power of human resilience.

Ezelle, a beautiful blond 43-year-old former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader,  fought a two-year battle with breast cancer that included a string of serious infections following six weeks of radiation, and six surgeries.  At the same time, she and her family were struggling with financial problems in the wake of the stock market crash.  But then, just four months after her last surgery, she tried out for “Design Star” — on which she’s been impressing the heck out of judges and viewers alike.

“It’s so crazy now, looking back on it.  Cancer was not on my ‘To Do’ list.  I don’t do pink,” she says scoffingly.  However, “When you reach rock bottom, that’s that’s when you ask the soul-searching questions — ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’”  She wanted her own design show.  “I really, really pushed myself.  I wanted to get busy living.  It was the best thing I could ever have done, and thank God I had the courage to do it, to put my craziness out there on national TV.”

Leslie and wife Libby (married in Massachusetts when the state legalized same sex unions) have a blended family of two daughters and two sons, and she admits, “It was a hard decision to be away from my kids so long to do ‘Design Star.’  But I want to tell them, ‘Go for it, go for your dreams’ having done it myself.   Now is the fun part.  We had a benefit for Susan G. Komen — they were really there for me,” she goes on, speaking of the extremely active breast cancer charity organization.  “We raised $25,000.  We had this little private viewing party.  You would have thought it was like Hollywood, baby!  The kids got all dressed up in little outfits and had their friends over.  Oh, my God.  I’m like Beyonce now.  But I turn back into Mommy when I make them mad.”

Fox’s “Dish Nation,” which begins a test run in seven markets Monday (7/25), brings a selection of the nation’s funniest radio show hosts before the cameras to share their snark and silliness with a TV audience.   “I think it’s going to be hot,” says Atlanta’s Rickey Smiley, whose burgeoning “The Rickey Smiley Morning Show” airs in more than 50 markets. 

 ”We do what we do on our end, and the way they edit the show and put up clips — by the time the producers put it together, it’s just a lot of fun.  I’m definitely prepared to keep going,” he says, should the half-hour show’s six-week run prove successful.

 Smiley and his radio cast mates, including two stand-up comics, “have been together almost seven years now,” he tells us.  “Our comedy is just flat-out natural. We are just naturally funny people, not real edgy.”  (On the radio, their shenanigans include phone pranks and Paternity Test Tuesdays, which are just what the name implies.)

 Other radio hosts on “Dish Nation” are more or less edgy:  New York’s Scott Shannon & Todd Pettengill;  Detroit’s Blaine & Allyson; and Los Angeles’ DJ Felli Fel.  Everyone makes fun of the celebrity scandals, awards show nonsense and other news of the day.  (The test markets are N.Y., L.A., D.C., Atlanta, Phoenix, Detroit and Baltimore.)

 Smiley’s own life sounds like it’s ripe for a reality show unto itself.  He’s the single father of “five, two grown and three smaller kids.  So, you know, I  cook a lot and I love to do laundry and all that stuff” — in-between making people laugh.

Lee Thompson Young TNT photo

Lee Thompson Young tells us he’s been getting particular enjoyment out of shooting this season of TNT’s hit “Rizzoli & Isles” because, “Everyone’s life is getting filled out, and that’s really interesting to play as an actor.”

He points out, “Obviously Sasha (Alexander) and Angie (Harmon) are fabulous and they will always be the core of the show.  But there are other avenues to explore with the rest of the ensemble, and they’re doing a good job of showing each person’s character.”  He says we’ll see a “deepening and strengthening of the relationships between the people inside the homicide unit” as the season unfurls.  Also, there are “definitely some partner dynamics” ahead between Angie Harmon’s Rizzoli character and her former partner in the homicide detective squad, played by Bruce McGill.  “There’ll be workplace shifts, too.”

Young, who plays Harmon’s current partner, the corpse-averse, technology whiz Det. Barry Frost, tells us he was caught off-gaurd by the way the show became a hit last year.  “And the size of the response we had was a pretty big surprise to all of us.”

The personable actor and USC grad, who was once known as the title tween favorite of the Disney Channel’s “The Famous Jett Jackson,” has been busy elsewhere between “Rizzoli & Isles” camera calls.

‘I did ‘The Good Guys’ on Fox, then an episode of ‘The Event,’  then came back to ‘Rizzoli and Isles,” says Young, whose credits also include the big screen “Friday Night Lights” and “Akeelah and the Bee.”  “It’s nice to mix it up a little bit, and get a fresh perspective every time.  It’s like a palate cleanser.  I like to fight against routine and getting stale.”

cast of TNT's "Dallas" for 2012

TNT sneaked a teaser of its planned 2012 reboot of “Dallas” last week  – and apparently sparked a colossal commotion among fans of that granddaddy of prime time serials.  “It’s unbeliveable,” Patrick Duffy tells us.  “All around the world, people I’ve had contacts with through the years are already planning how they’re going to have their traditional ‘Dallas’ dinners and parties to watch it.  On the Facebook page, they’re so excited.” reports the actor still remembered as the relatively nice Ewing brother, Bobby. 

 Patrick reports that production is due to begin in October, and he and his wife Carlyn are moving to Dallas for the duration of the first 10-episode season shoot.  As “Dallas” followers are already aware, this time around, much of the action will center on the young generation of the rich and rowdy Texas oil clan (played by Josh Henderson, Jesse Metcalfe, Jordana Brewster and Julie Gonzalo) — with dastardly J.R. (Larry Hagman), his ex-wife Sue Ellen (Linda Gray) and Bobby all still on the scene.

 ”The three of us will be integral to the storyline, but not overpoweringly so.  We will be pulling our end of the wagon,” says Duffy.  Brenda Strong of “Desperate Housewives” is playing Bobby’s wife of 15 years, Ann. “We’re already a long-established married couple,” he notes.  As far as his beloved Pam (Victoria Principal), Duffy reminds, “Pam actually died on the show, so her participation was never an option.  It’s the same with Mama and Daddy not coming back.  That’s not to say that certain old cast members won’t appear.”

Hagman, Duffy and Gray have remained close pals since the original “Dallas” finsihed its run in 1991.  According to Duffy, “Over the years we’ve been approached about redoing ‘Dallas’ in some form, but I never read a script that was not laughable, and that includes the feature scripts involving film stars,” none of which ever saw production.  The new “Dallas” Executive Producers Cynthia Cidre (“The Mambo Kings”) and Mike Robin (“The Closer”) “wrote to all three of us simultaneously.  They knew we would talk amongst ourselves first, and we did; we discussed and tore apart the script.  We all knew we were going to do it.  We all felt Cynthia had finally gotten it right and come up with the perfect way to bring ‘Dallas’ into a new generation.  We are totally committed to this project.”

It’s definitely a walk down memory lane kind of time for Duffy, whose first TV movies and series, “The Man From Atlantis,” have been remastered for a new DVD release Tuesday (7/26) through the Warner Archive Collection on-demand online service (www.warnerarchive.com).  Though the show lasted but one season, it gained an avid cult following and proved popular internationally, including in China.  Duffy played an amnesiac amphibious guy who just might be the last citizen of the lost continent of Atlantis. 
 ”The most discomforting thing was the lenses in my eyes; they covered the entire eyeball and were put on with suction cups,” he says.  Also, to get an electric green look “they were colored with what was essentially airplane paint and another clear layer of airplane paint covered that.  That was the worst part.  My eyes just burned at the end of the day.  They threw me out in the bay in September, October, November and it had to look like a day in the park, but it was cold,” he recalls.  “I couldn’t do it now, at 62, but, you know, at 28 you’re bulletproof.”

Navy SEAL-turned-TV personality Richard “Mack” Machowicz admits he had a skeptical first response when told that the third season of Spike TV’s popular “Deadliest Warrior” would include the show’s first fantasy matchup — “Zombies vs. Vampires.”

Mack Machowicz Spike photo

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh.  Are we jumping the shark here?’” recounts the former “Future Weapons” host, who takes over as “Deadliest Warrior” frontman with the new season premiere tonight (11/20).  “But I live to learn, and I do read the message board, I do read the fan pages, and I think people are interested in trying something different with the show.  When Spike said, ‘Let’s have some fun with it,’ I thought, ‘Why not?’”  The show’s producers enlisted experts in fantasy lore to put together the matchup.

Machowicz adds, however, “I think the shows that most resonate with me are the historical matchups, like Ghengis Kahn and Hannibal, or Washington and Napoleon.”

The series that creates “What If?” battles between famous warriors who actually never met — utilizing experts on their strategy and weapons, with ballistics tests and other data fed through computers — is a multi-platform hit.  Not only has it spawned video games, it’s also the basis of a feature film in the works at Paramount, with Shawn Levy (“Night at the Museum”) attached to direct.

The new season also marks the first appearance of a female “Deadliest Warrior” contender.  Will there be yelps of protest about that from Spike’s mainly guy viewership?  Machowicz answers, “People underestimate the power a woman can bring to the battlefield.  Look at Joan of Arc, what she brought as a leader, in terms of technology and flat-out aggressiveness.  Psychologically, she was absolutely committed, absolutely certain God had given her this mission.  When people believe they’re absolutely right, watch out.”

Machowicz says he took on the job of “Deadliest Warrior” host for several reasons, one being that “It’s a great show.”  He notes, “We had gotten out of the Discovery contract, and were looking at new deals with Discovery, History and Spike to do more producing and other things, too.  Of all the negotiations, all the deals on the table, Spike’s was the best, an executive producing, developing and hosting deal.  They were the most enthusiastic.”

Yes, he does have other shows in the works with Spike, he says, but it’s too early to talk about them.