"Daily Show" senior correspondent Hasan Minhaj took aim at President Trump during the White House correspondent's dinner. Trump did not attend, and instead held a rally in Pennsylvania.
Here are some of Minhaj's best jokes from his 25-minute set.
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We're in the heat of the season of TV renewals and cancellations. And while the people behind the shows are awaiting the networks' decisions, viewers are also feeling the tension.
While Business Insider has already weighed in on the shows that we predict are going to be canceled, it's interesting to see what viewers are thinking (and worrying about).
Business Insider partnered with Amobee Brand Intelligence— a company that provides marketing insight and measures real-time content consumption across the internet — to find out which TV shows are most mentioned on social media as "on the bubble," which means the shows that are in danger of being canceled.
Here are the shows that people think are most in danger of being canceled:
SEE ALSO: RANKED: The 13 most popular Netflix original shows
DON'T MISS: 18 TV shows you're watching that are probably going to be canceled
The clues for the cancellation of "Elementary" are all there and the viewers are clearly picking up on them. While CBS has been the most-watched broadcast network for years, its audience traditionally steers older than the under-50 crowd advertisers are aiming for, so it doesn't have much patience for low-rated shows, and "Elementary" is the network's lowest-rated returning show.
The network may let it finish its current fifth season because that makes it ripe for syndication sales. But it may not be worth keeping for a sixth.
People are probably seeing red flags for "2 Broke Girls" because it wasn't included in the 18 show renewals CBS announced in March. The fact is that "2 Broke Girls" has lost nearly 18% of its audience from last year and that's bad news. The good news is that CBS has plenty of other shows it needs to ax before "2 Broke Girls."
It isn't hard to see that "Sleepy Hollow" should have been put to bed after its low-rated third season. Fox renewed the show anyway, with a pretty major reboot, but it didn't work. It's Fox's lowest-rated show, and it has lost nearly 40% of last season's audience.
Ricky Whittle is the lead of potentially the biggest new franchise on television, "American Gods," which premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on Starz. But the road to landing the coveted starring role on the series wasn't easy.
"I was the first cast. I went through five months of a crazy process," Whittle told Business Insider of the audition process for Shadow Moon on the series when we recently met with him and costar, Ian McShane, in New York City.
"They put you through it," McShane, who plays the character of Mr. Wednesday, added of the 16 auditions Whittle endured to capture his role.
Executive producers Bryan Fuller and Michael Green received about 2,000 audition tapes submitted by actors for Shadow Moon. They narrowed the tapes to about 1200 and were only able to actually meet half of those actors.
"He was the last man standing," Fuller told Business Insider when we asked him and Green why Whittle was cast in the role later that same day in New York City.
"Meaning he literally had to slaughter them," Green interjected.
"Yeah. It's 'Hunger Games,'" continued Fuller. "Every time he came in, he grew into the role and showed us new colors of who Shadow could be and his storyline and jumped through 16 hoops. And some of those hoops were on fire. And some of them were over shark pits. But he just continued with the discipline of an athlete to work on this character and earn this role. So how did Ricky get it? He earned it."
The stakes were high. "American Gods," which is already renewed for a second season, is adapted from Neil Gaiman's popular 2001 novel of the same name. The novel tells the story of an impending war between the multicultural gods of history who were brought to America by immigrants and the gods created out of our modern worship of technology, media, drugs, and celebrity, among others.
Having built a dedicated worldwide following since the novel was published, the pressure of casting the right person for Shadow Moon was intense.
Described as having skin the color of "coffee and cream" in the novel, Shadow Moon had to be played by a person of color. Fans wondered if a TV adaptation would instead cast a Caucasian actor, which fueled worries that Starz would whitewash the character, a route many other Hollywood productions have taken in the past. The casting of Whittle, a British actor whose mother is white and whose father is Jamaican, fit the bill.
But Whittle's racial makeup was just the beginning. Aside from an early modeling career and starring among the ensemble cast for CW science-fiction drama, "The 100," he was a virtual unknown. For TV, Shadow Moon would have to show a more expansive range of emotions than the brooding ex-convict in the book. And Whittle had to prove he could deliver that.
"The show basically strayed away from the book Shadow, who's very internal, stoic, and blasé quiet," Whittle said. "But that's not something people want to watch. We had to adapt this to TV, so we added layers, charisma, made it more real."
On "American Gods," Shadow Moon is released from prison after hearing the news that his wife, Laura (Emily Browning), had been killed in a car accident. He then soon meets Mr. Wednesday, who hires him as his bodyguard. Shadow accompanies McShane's mysterious character on a cross-country journey to recruit old gods for a war with the new ones – details Shadow has to piece together for himself amid strange and seemingly supernatural experiences along the road trip.
"We gave him anxiety and fear that these things are happening," Whittle said. "He kind of goes along with the kind of magic. And in real life, we wanted to make that more real. So you need to fear a little bit more, maybe you're going crazy and it's not the world that's crazy. And that's his struggle on the first season."
Watch the "American Gods" trailer below:
SEE ALSO: 5 reasons so many moms are obsessed with Starz's sexy historical fantasy show 'Outlander'
DON'T MISS: Here are all your favorite TV shows that are coming back for another season
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Meet the star of 'American Gods' — your next TV obsession
What costs $60, is adorably small, and is no longer available? If you guessed "A limited-edition Furby," you'd be wrong, unfortunately.
Indeed, the NES Classic Edition — a $60 game console with 30 classic games, from the original "Super Mario Bros." to "The Legend of Zelda" — is what we're talking about. Sadly, Nintendo discontinued the console in mid-April.
But why? It's... complicated.
But one of those reasons certainly isn't a lack of interest from consumers. The console has been sold out everywhere since launching late in 2016. And now we have official numbers to put to that: 2.3 million.
According to Nintendo America president Reggie Fils-Aimé speaking with Time Magazine, more than 2.3 million units of the console sold between November 2016 and April 2017. And now? Those 2.3 million consoles are collector's items — Nintendo says it won't make any more as of this month.
Nintendo's new $300 console, the Switch, should be able to play classic Nintendo games (like those offered on the NES Classic Edition) at some point this year when it's able to access the Virtual Console service — a digital storefront Nintendo operates that sells classic games from various Nintendo consoles, from the NES to more modern stuff.
That service is expected to arrive on Switch later this year.
SEE ALSO: 7 reasons Nintendo is discontinuing its ridiculously popular $60 game console, the NES Classic
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NOW WATCH: Unboxing the Nintendo NES Classic Edition everyone's going crazy for
The epic Neil Gaiman novel has finally made its debut on Starz. The episode was pretty bloody, and there was a lot going on, especially for people who have not yet read the book. Here's a closer look at the episode and a few things you might have missed the first time around. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
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Fyre Festival organizers Billy McFarland and Ja Rule are facing a major lawsuit.
The pair, who attempted to put on a music festival in the Bahamas last weekend only to have it collapse before it began, are the target of a new lawsuit filed Sunday in the US District Court for the Central District of California, according to Variety.
The suit was filed by celebrity trial lawyer Mark Geragos, who is seeking class-action status with an anticipated 150 participants, according to Variety. The plaintiff is Daniel Jung.
The suit alleges that the "festival's lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees — suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions — that was closer to 'The Hunger Games' or 'Lord of the Flies' than Coachella," according to Variety.
Jung is accusing the organizers of fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith, and negligent misrepresentation, according to Variety. The suit is seeking at least $100 million in damages. This is based on an estimated 6,000 tickets sold for the festival. Ticket prices started at $1,200, though some reports say that prices for luxury packages ballooned to over $200,000.
Festivalgoers arrived on the island of Great Exuma on April 27 but found a lack of food, shelter, and organization. As it became clear that the luxury music festival would not happen as planned, efforts to leave were hampered by a lack of infrastructure for getting people off of the island.
The suit also mentions the models Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Emily Ratajkowski, who appeared in ads for the event. They are currently not a part of the complaint.
McFarland apologized to attendees in an interview with Rolling Stone on Friday. He promised refunds and a ticket to next year's festival, which he is still planning.
"We were overwhelmed and just didn't have the foresight to solve all these problems," McFarland said, adding that they were "a little naive" to think they could pull off the festival.
McFarland is also the founder of Magnises, a social-networking startup that charges members a $250 annual fee for discounted access to exclusive events. In interviews with Business Insider earlier this year, former members said the company offered them tickets to exclusive events like "Hamilton" or the Super Bowl but canceled shortly before them.
DON'T MISS: Members of a private club for 'elite' millennials want their money back
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Ryan Seacrest has long been known as a man with many, many jobs. And it was just announced Monday morning that he's accepted yet another one: He's now the cohost of "Live" on ABC with Kelly Ripa.
Seacrest first gained recognition as the host of the hit reality competition show "American Idol," but before doing work on camera he already had a famous radio show in Los Angeles. You can also catch him on the red carpet on behalf of E! before pretty much any big, celebrity-filled event.
Here's everything you need to know about Ryan Seacrest's career so far:
SEE ALSO: Kelly Ripa just announced Ryan Seacrest as her new cohost on 'Live'
Source: Biography
Source: Biography
Source: Biography
In the preview for next week's episode of HBO's "Silicon Valley," the hapless Jared notes that series arch villain Gavin Belson, the CEO of Google stand-in Hooli, is so mean, he once "tossed a sloth down a flight of stairs."
"He said it was an accident, but he had this look in his eyes," says Jared.
This is a deep cut, even for Silicon Valley: Way back in 2013, Digg cofounder and True Ventures investor Kevin Rose rescued his dog from a raccoon by chucking the attacker down some stairs. The video went viral on Twitter and Reddit, and eventually spawned this epic GIF of Rose throwing the raccoon down a stairwell in an infinite loop.
Here's the animation:
And the full video:
And the full teaser for next week's "Silicon Valley," for context:
SEE ALSO: 14 ways HBO's 'Silicon Valley' nailed the real tech industry
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NOW WATCH: This is the worst part of Silicon Valley, according to the cast of ‘Silicon Valley’
Last July, Japanese clothing retailed Uniqlo teamed up with Nintendo to launch a global T-shirt design competition.
Now, the results are in— and they're nothing short of awesome.
Along with a team of Nintendo judges, Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto personally judged the entries, selecting first, second, and third place winners. The winner of this year's contest will receive $10,000, a Nintendo Switch signed by Miyamoto, and a "special commemorative prize," according to Polygon, who first wrote about this year's winners.
Previous contests have partnered with Disney/Pixar and Star Wars, according to Polygon, but Uniqlo received more than 16,000 entries for this year's contest, the highest amount ever. Clearly, Nintendo has tens of thousands of artistic fans worldwide.
Beyond the three prize-winners, there are also several other non-winning designs that will be available for sale in Japan beginning May 19th, although there's no word yet when they'll be available in the US.
For now, take a look at these cool tees.
SEE ALSO: Amazon's new Echo device is a hands-free camera that helps you decide what to wear
"I was extremely surprised and pleased to receive such a prestigious award for my creation featuring one of Japan's most renowned characters, Mario, as a motif," Kawazoe wrote in a statement on Uniqlo's website.
Teens watch about twice as much Netflix as live TV, and they watch even more YouTube, according to new research on more than 1,500 US teens by Trendera, commissioned by AwesomenessTV (which produces video for 31 different platforms).
On average, teens spent 34% of their video time watching YouTube, compared to 27% watching Netflix, and 14% watching live TV. This puts YouTube and Netflix way ahead of their streaming competitors: Hulu and Amazon came in at 4% and 3% respectively.
This isn't the first indication of YouTube and Netflix's ascendence. In a recent survey of US college students, commissioned by LendEDU, only 8% of respondents said they didn't have a Netflix account. This doesn't mean young people actually pay for Netflix, as 54% said they use a friend’s or family member’s account. But at 92%, that is still an astonishing level of audience penetration.
In contrast, a recent Piper Jaffray survey found that 55% of US teens didn't see the need for a cable or satellite TV subscription, a number that has been steadily rising for the last few years. In 2012, only 32% of teens surveyed thought they could ditch cable and still get all the video they wanted online.
As to what devices teens are using, topping AwesomenessTV's list was a smartphone (34%), followed by computer (26%), and TV set (24%).
Here is the full list of video formats teens are watching, from the Trendera/AwesomenessTV survey:
SEE ALSO: Only 8% of college students don't have Netflix, and that's a great sign for the company's future
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: Inside a 500-foot-high glass-bottom swimming pool that hangs over the street
It's a staple at his rallies.
"How many people have heard 'The Snake?'" Donald Trump regularly asks his large crowds.
"Do you want to hear 'The Snake?' Do you want to hear it?"
The crowd roars with thundering applause.
"I mean, people love it and I love it because it says what's going to happen to us if we're not careful," Trump says.
And during a weekend rally to mark his 100th day in office, Trump decided to insert a bit of a throwback to his campaign, once again reading "The Snake."
"Does anybody want to hear it again?" Trump asked the crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The response could only be taken as a resounding yes.
The song itself, a 1968 soul hit, tells the story of a woman who takes in a snake and nurses it back to health, only to be bitten by the snake once it's recovered. Trump thinks it's the perfect metaphor for why the US shouldn't accept Syrian refugees and needs to get "tough" along the US-Mexico border.
But the family of the man who performed "The Snake," Al Wilson, said the singer may not have seen eye-to-eye with Trump on his interpretation of the song.
Before speaking with Business Insider in September, Alene Wilson-Harris, a daughter of Wilson, who died in 2008, said she conferred with her father's brother and his best friend to help best come to a conclusion on how her father would've felt about Trump reading the song at his rallies.
"While I think that he would've had, at least some sort of appreciation for the fact that his music is appreciated by Trump to the affect that he would utilize the song, there are some things in my father's life that may have been an interesting perspective for him to have to grapple with in light of how [the song] was used," she said. "And, some of the things that are the platform of Trump."
Born in 1939, Wilson, a black American, grew up in segregated Mississippi. He was from the same hometown as, and was good friends with, James Chaney, the Civil Rights worker who's killing, along with two others, led to the infamous "Mississippi Burning" trial.
His family later moved to California with the hope of finding better living conditions.
"My father, well, he grew up in a very volatile time for a young black man," she said. "And, he was, unfortunately, in a position to have to know what it was to actually leave a place because there were life-threatening circumstances and hardships and all of those type of things in order to try and make a life for yourself somewhere else where those factors didn't exist."
The perspective he had after living through that, she said, would put him on the opposite side of the refugee issue as Trump, who has peddled the song as the perfect refugee metaphor.
"I think that there would be some perspective issues and compassion that he would have in regard to anyone in that position," she said. "And my father also has multiple conversations with people, including my father's best friend and my father's brother, just regarding different hardships he had seen around the world in traveling."
"He was a very outward and loving people person," she continued. "He was an embracing type of person to fans and friends and things like that."
She told the story of a trip Wilson took to Curacao, the Caribbean Island, where native peoples of the island approached him as he was staying at a resort area and pleaded with him to come and see their living conditions.
After visiting with them in their homes, Wilson-Harris said he was later brought to tears by the "extremes" they were exposed to while recounting the story to his brother.
"And so things like that, are things that not everyone necessarily knows about my dad, but there's a depth of perspective there when it comes to certain issues that are really hot points right now," she said.
"And so, again, while my father was very embracing of all his fans, and very appreciative of all of his admirers of his gifts and talents and music, I'm not sure exactly how he would have responded to that," she continued. "But I can only give perspective to kind of give a little insight to his position in life. And what his heart might have said."
But, she added, some members of her family are "at least at this point ... possible Trump supporters."
Wilson-Harris also said her father was a regular call-in on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, which she only recently found out while talking to other member's of her family about Trump's use of "The Snake."
In using the song, which Trump has at many of his rallies, he sometimes credits it to Al Green, another famous soul singer of the same era. He's also said the song, which he calls a poem, was written in the 1990s.
"So this is called The Snake and this has to do with people coming into our country, and I'll think you'll enjoy it," he said before reading the song's lyrics at a Florida rally in September. "Let's see. And more important than enjoy, I think it'll make a point."
During his rendition, Trump takes a couple of liberties with the lyrics, such as adding in a "like we're doing," after reading the line, "Oh well, she cried, I'll take you in." He also added "vicious" in front of "snake" during one of the songs final verses, seemingly to make an added point.
"It's amazing, going to happen unless we get very very smart," he said at one campaign stop, after finishing his reading of the lyrics.
Taking a more poignant stance against Trump's use of the song was the family of Oscar Brown Jr., the man who wrote the song in the early 1960's. He died in 2005.
"We don't want him using these lyrics," Brown's daughter, Maggie Brown, told The Chicago Tribune in March. "If Dad were alive, he would've ripped (Trump) with a great poem in rebuttal. Not only a poem and a song, but an essay and everything else."
SEE ALSO: What you need to know about the controversies surrounding the Trump and Clinton foundations
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NOW WATCH: A Yale history professor explains how governments can use disasters and tragedies to control society
On Saturday night, cast and crew from "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II" got together for a screening for the two films and a panel for the closing night of the Tribeca Film Festival — a festival that was started by "Godfather: Part II" star Robert De Niro.
De Niro, Diane Keaton, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Talia Shire, and director Francis Ford Coppola were all on the panel honoring the 45th anniversary of "The Godfather" this year. Director Taylor Hackford led the conversation.
Here's what you didn't know about the "Godfather" movies, from the panel at the Tribeca Film Festival:
SEE ALSO: 35 movies coming out this summer that you need to see
“I was disappointed in the book when I first read it because it’s very long," the director said.
“The studio didn’t want me after they hired me,” Pacino said. “I was living on 90th and Broadway at the time. I walked to the Village and back. I did it every day, thinking about this role. Just thinking where I could go with it. I came, and started filming it. I was dizzy. I was new to film. We were theater actors.”
“I always felt like I was the most outsider, weird person,” she said. “Like, why was I cast again? But then I had a couple good scenes with Al.”
Instead of dancing on the white sand beaches of Great Exuma in the Bahamas, Fyre Festival attendees found themselves stranded in airports, some without any food or water, unable to get home.
The three-day party, organized by Ja Rule and tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland, was supposed to take place on a private beach in the Bahamas for two weekends, April 28-30 and May 5-7.
But guests, most of whom had spent between $1,200 and $100,000 on tickets — some spent more than $200,000— described the festival as a "complete disaster" with half-built tents, delayed flights, and no one around to help.
Now Ja Rule and McFarland, who also owns Magnises and Fyre Media, are the targets of a lawsuit filed on Sunday by Mark Geragos, a celebrity trial lawyer. The suit was filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, and Geragos is seeking class-action status with an anticipated 150 participants, according to Variety.
The plaintiff, Daniel Jung, is accusing the organizers of fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith, and negligent misrepresentation. The lawsuit seeks at least $100 million in damages.
Here's how it all went down:
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Warning: Spoilers ahead if you haven't watched Sunday's premiere episode of "American Gods."
A very startling sex act on "American Gods" had a lot of people talking Sunday during the new Starz drama.
It features the attention-starved goddess of love, Bilquis, whose vagina swallows up her numerous lovers, both male and female, during heated sexual intercourse.
"You don't see a woman owning sex like that often," Yetide Badaki, who plays Bilquis on "American Gods," recently told Business Insider in New York City.
"You see sex as something that happens to us a lot, something people apologize for or shy away from," the Nigerian-born actress said. "Bilquis absolutely owns it and does not apologize for it. And I hope people talk about that."
"American Gods," which is already renewed for a second season, is adapted from Neil Gaiman's popular 2001 novel of the same name. The show tells the story of Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), an ex-convict who meets Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), who hires Shadow as his bodyguard. Shadow accompanies McShane's mysterious character on a cross-country journey to recruit the multicultural gods of history who were brought to the US by immigrants for a war with the new gods created out of our modern worship of technology, media, drugs, and celebrity, among other things.
The beautiful Bilquis, one of the elder gods, yearns for the worship and connection of years passed. She makes up for that by finding lovers who adore her during sex play and then fill the hole created by the modern ways we now connect with one another. As an example, Badaki referenced a New York Times article about how millennials are having less sex in this digital age.
"In essence, they're having less intimacy than previous generations," Badaki said. "There's so much that's changed in the way we connect. So there's that yearning in that sex scene. And it's funny, one of the metaphors that came up for me when looking into Bilquis was also the idea of a starlet from the silent era trying to survive in the day of the talkies. There's something out of time about it and something slightly out of sync."
As intense as Bilquis' sex scenes are, Badaki teases that "American Gods" certainly takes advantage of the freedom a premium cable network offers when it comes to sex.
"I love the sex positivity in this show in that taking the stigma away from actually talking about it is a very powerful thing," she said. "And we also have it in a beautifully safe space. We have these incredible artists that have created this lovely artistic bubble where everyone can come in and really be vulnerable in all states. And it's incredibly inclusive. It's equal-opportunity. Yes, this scene is interesting but there will be plenty more that people will be talking about."
The actress also says we'll learn that Bilquis has a lot more to offer than sex tricks.
"You will definitely learn a lot more about where Bilquis has come from," Badaki told us. "And I can say in this season, you will get an idea of where she is going and how she is an integral part of this war between the new and the old gods."
SEE ALSO: 'American Gods' star Ricky Whittle describes his 'crazy' 16 auditions for the coveted role
DON'T MISS: 5 reasons so many moms are obsessed with Starz's sexy historical fantasy show 'Outlander'
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: 7 details you might have missed in episode 1 of 'American Gods'
Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs" turns 25 years old this week. To celebrate, the Tribeca Film Festival held a special screening of the film on Friday at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
Afterward, the director and cast — Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Harvey Keitel, and Tim Roth — took the stage for a panel to discuss the film. They shared a few interesting stories about the movie.
Here's what we learned:
When "Reservoir Dogs" played at the Sundance Film Festival for the first time, everything that could go wrong did.
Tarantino allowed the film festival to screen the film despite the fact that the fest did not have a CinemaScope lens projector. Because the film was shot with a CinemaScope lens, the director explained that the screening looked like "caca" all the way through.
But the nightmare was only getting started.
"That would be bad enough, but then it gets to the final climax and all of the sudden the lights come up," Tarantino said. "And somebody realized, 'Oh s---, what's going on?' And they bring the lights back down. Then everybody has their guns pointed on everybody else and right at the height of that scene, there’s a power outage and all of the power goes out. It was a f---ing disaster."
"I was at that first screening," Buscemi chimed in. "[Tarantino] didn't want me to go because he said it would be bad luck."
It's easy to forget, 25 years after the fact, that "Reservoir Dogs" was an indie film. The producers were working with a limited budget and, as such, were mainly casting actors from the Los Angeles area where the film was shot.
Brooklyn native Harvey Keitel, who played Mr. White and also produced the film, insisted that Tarantino give New York actors a chance to audition. When Tarantino explained that they simply didn't have the money to go to New York, Keitel paid for their flights and hotels.
It ended up being the right move, as they found their Mr. Pink that weekend.
"I enjoy reminding Steve Buscemi that he owes me his career," Keitel said.
Before "Reservoir Dogs" became a cult classic, before Tarantino was a household name, he was just another director who had another film at a film festival.
“The thing about it is, at a film festival screening sometimes no one really knows what they’re going to see,” Tarantino said. “They just get the program and hear a synopsis and that’s that. So it’s understandable somebody gets a ticket at a film festival and maybe this is not what they want to see and they have to leave.”
For some viewers, the infamous torture scene was too much to bear. When it premiered at Sundance, Buscemi informed Tarantino that people were saying the torture scene ruined the film.
"What are they talking about?" the director replied. "It's the best scene in the f---ing movie! Did you see how many people walked out? That's the s---!"
So divisive was the torture scene that Tarantino started keeping track of how many people walked out of each screening as he took the film on the festival circuit. During one screening, the director counted 33 audience members who got up and left.
When he took the film to the Stiges Horror Film Festival, Tarantino thought he had finally found an audience that would sit through it. Alas, five audience members left once Michael Madsen started his shuffle, including the king of horror himself: Wes Craven.
"The f---ing guy who did 'The Last House on the left' walked out?! My movie was too tough for him," Tarantino said.
It's been 25 years since the first "Mario Kart" game launched on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System: A quarter century of cheap, last-second red shells; of increasingly-complicated drifting; of yelling and laughing alongside friends; of Luigi death stares.
Given all that time, it's amazing that the latest entry in the "Mario Kart" series is also the greatest entry in the long-running racing franchise. Few games perpetually best their predecessors.
"Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" is a delightful exception to that rule.
Here's why "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," a brand new Nintendo Switch game that just launched, is so incredibly good.
SEE ALSO: 7 reasons Nintendo is discontinuing its ridiculously popular $60 game console, the NES Classic
Listen, if you've managed to make it this far without learning what "Mario Kart" is, we're impressed.
The long and short is this: It's a racing game starring Nintendo's most popular characters, from Mario to Donkey Kong to Link. You and 11 other racers (either controlled by actual humans or by a computer) compete for first place on a variety of race tracks. In the process, you pick up usable items — like a heat-seeking red shell, or a limited-time fireball, among others — to slow other racers. It's a game of skill, no doubt, but it's also a game of luck.
Do yourself a favor and play any of the half dozen "Mario Kart" games that've arrived in the past 25 years. They're all pretty similar, and they're all pretty wonderful. The series appeals to so-called "hardcore" game players and more casual players alike. The latest iteration, "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," is no exception.
If, on the other hand, you're getting some serious déja vu from hearing about "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe," it's likely that you spent some time with the Wii U game. That feeling you have is spot-on — "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" is very similar to the 2014 game for the Wii U. In fact, "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" is the same game. The difference is in a handful of tweaks, and a new Battle Mode (we'll get to that in a minute).
Here's what isn't different about the "Deluxe" version of "Mario Kart 8": No new race tracks.
That might be huge to you. If you played "Mario Kart 8," and played the additional content Nintendo sold after the game came out, you shouldn't expect a bunch of new race tracks here. Nintendo's banking on you not having played the game on Wii U, and that's a pretty good bet considering how few Wii U consoles were sold.
Yes, the original version of "Mario Kart 8" came with a Battle Mode, but it was a shadow of its former self. Instead of dedicated Battle Mode courses, Nintendo simply walled off a few race tracks and hoped that would be enough. It wasn't — fans and critics celebrated how wonderful "Mario Kart 8" was at launch, but lamented the hobbled Battle Mode. Previous games in the series included dedicated Battle Mode maps, but they were absent in "Mario Kart 8."
"Mario Kart 8 Deluxe" fixes that in a beyond-satisfying way: by creating five new Battle Mode maps, and re-making three beloved ones from previous games.
There's a growing gulf in cable TV between "live" programming like news and sports, and "non-live" programming like scripted dramas, according to a new report from industry analyst Michael Nathanson, pointed to by Broadcasting & Cable.
Nathanson looked at the first quarter of this year for the top 20 networks, and it's bad news for shows where "live" isn't a core component.
Here's a summary of how each type of programming fared:
The takeaway: People aren't watching as much programming on TV that they can easily get elsewhere.
That makes intuitive sense, but the real fear for cable TV should be that younger generations might sour to the whole idea of live TV in general. A recent survey found that US teens spent, on average, 34% of their video time watching YouTube, 27% watching Netflix, and 14% watching live TV. And Piper Jaffray recently found that 55% of US teens didn't see the need for a cable or satellite TV subscription, up from 32% in 2012.
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The team behind the doomed Fyre Festival have been banned from doing repeat business in the Bahamas, TMZ reported, citing sources at the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism.
The Fyre Festival, which was supposed to be a weekend of luxury and music performances on Great Exuma in the Bahamas, had been organized by rapper Ja Rule and tech entrepreneur Billy McFarland.
What happened instead was an epic disaster, with stranded attendees complaining of half-built tents, inadequate food and drinks, and canceled performances.
According to TMZ, the Bahamas tourism board also plans to be more strict when vetting future festivals to be planned there, and will check in with organizers several times in the process.
Ja Rule and McFarland, who is also the founder of Magnises, are now facing a lawsuit filed on Sunday by Mark Geragos, a celebrity trial lawyer. The suit was filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, and Geragos is seeking class-action status with an anticipated 150 participants. The plaintiff is Daniel Jung.
Jung is accusing the organizers of fraud, breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith, and negligent misrepresentation. The lawsuit seeks at least $100 million in damages.
"More troublingly, Mr. McFarland and Mr. Atkins began personally reaching out to performers and celebrities in advance of the festival and warned them not to attend — acknowledging the fact that the festival was outrageously underequipped and potentially dangerous for anyone in attendance," the lawsuit says. "Nevertheless, defendants refused to warn attendees about the dangerous conditions awaiting them on the island. Defendants only 'canceled' the event on the morning of the first day — after thousands of attendees had already arrived and were
stranded, without food, water, or shelter."
A host of supermodels had promoted the festival on social media, including Kendall Jenner, Hailey Baldwin, Emily Ratajkowski, and Bella Hadid. Blink-182, Major Lazer, Migos, Tyga, and Disclosure were among the artists scheduled to perform, according to the festival's promotions.
Tickets started at $1,200, but reports have said some attendees paid close to or over $100,000 for the weekend.
SEE ALSO: Organizers of the doomed Fyre Festival warned celebrities not to attend, lawsuit claims
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Twitter is ramping up its live video efforts with the announcement of more than 12 media partners that will stream content on its network this year.
The new slate of content includes live news shows around topics like business and sports from BuzzFeed, The Player's Tribune, Bloomberg, and others. Entertainment partners, such as Live Nation and PGA Tour, will stream sports games, pop culture talk shows, and music concerts.
Twitter sees live video as a new growth opportunity for its struggling ad business. During the company's last earnings call, COO Anthony Noto boasted that more than 800 hours of live video were streamed during the quarter. Those live videos drew 45 million unique viewers, up 31% from the previous quarter, according to the company.
Here's Twitter's description of its new lineup of live shows:
SEE ALSO: CEO Jack Dorsey just bought $9.5 million worth of shares after Twitter beat on earnings
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Fyre Festival's leaked advertising pitch reveals a lot about what the festival runners had planned.
The leaked document, first reported by Vanity Fair, lists "Fyre Starters" as the event's main form of advertising, with slides dedicated to 400 social media personalities — including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Hailey Baldwin — who would be paid to drum up sales by posting about the event.
Aside from these so-called Fyre Starters, the pitch does not seem to include any other form of advertising.
Also, according to Vanity Fair, many of these brand ambassadors did not note that they were advertising for Fyre Festival when they posted promotional pictures and videos for the event, which is required by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In effect, they could have been accused of misleading their fans if they didn't note that the post was an ad.
The document also reveals the company planned for five festivals over five years in honor of the five elements of the earth, saying in the pitch, "Throughout the next five years, we will traverse the globe to find untouched lands and convert them into unparalleled experiences."
This year was supposed to be water-themed.
After a few slides about the the festival's business model, the pitch featured slides that were likely meant to be inspirational, but after the event's catastrophic weekend, are anything but. For example, one slide simply reads:
"WHAT IF WE REIMAGINED WHAT IT MEANS TO ATTEND A MUSIC FESTIVAL?" over a picture of an outdoor concert. But after the festival's fast flame-out, the phrase takes on a whole new meaning.
So they charged 10k and this is what people got in return??? #FyreFestival !?? Is this for real??? pic.twitter.com/XizkpbNubm
— purplemiami (@purplemiami) April 28, 2017The next slide is just as unfortunate given the new context: "THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE EXCEEDS ALL EXPECTATIONS AND IS SOMETHING THAT’S HARD TO PUT TO WORDS," the slide reads. Fyre Festival-goers who were stranded for hours without food, water or shelter might have a different take on that.
Under "Summary," the slide states: "These weekends go beyond the beauty of a remote beach, its vast landscape and perfect waters. The focus is on a global audience coming together in sharing a life changing experience."
Beyond the beach may be correct. The fans who showed up barely saw a beach before having to wait in a crowded airport to get a flight home.
Ultimately, Vanity Fair said it best when it described the pitch deck as "an amalgamation of a Miami Beach spa package with selfies you might find saved on a teenager’s smartphone," not like something to actually invest in.
Fyre Festival is now facing an $100 million lawsuit after fans, who had spent between $1,200 and $100,000 on tickets, were stranded on an island with no festival, no shelter, and no food and water — until the cheese sandwiches pictured above were handed out.
A statement on the Fyre Festival website reads that the team was "overwhelmed" by the amount of people coming and the amount of work that had to be done to retrofit the island for the festival. All guests this year will be recieving a full refund, according to the website, and VIP passes to next year's Fyre Festival.
After the fiasco, the Bahamas reportedly banned the festival organizers from doing further business on the island, according to TMZ. Neither Bahamas tourism officials nor Fyre Festival officials were immediately available for comment. The festival's website says next year's event will be at a US beach.
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