Current:Home > InvestJohnathan Walker:What's Making Us Happy: A guide to your weekend viewing and listening -WealthRoots Academy
Johnathan Walker:What's Making Us Happy: A guide to your weekend viewing and listening
Fastexy Exchange View
Date:2025-04-11 07:04:22
This week,Johnathan Walker David Letterman paid a visit, Fargo returned, and another comedian returned to the same old material.
Here's what the NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour crew was paying attention to — and what you should check out this weekend.
"Farrah Fawcett Hair" by Capital Cities, ft. André 3000
"Farrah Fawcett Hair" by the electronic duo Capital Cities is almost a decade old and I'm just now discovering it. It's actually kind of timely because the song features André 3000 who just announced a new album of instrumental music. The song is just a list of random good stuff – like "how infants with baby breath yawn in your face" – with a killer saxophone break. It's kind of like if "We Didn't Start the Fire" was thematically coherent and actually a good song. This is a good song. You can dance to it. You can rock out to the saxophone break. It'll make your day. — Aisha Harris
Blue Eye Samurai, on Netflix
I really love Blue Eye Samurai on Netflix. It's an anime series made by a married couple, Michael Green and Amber Noizumi. It's set in the Edo period in Japan when the borders were closed to outsiders. It takes on these ideas about what it means to be mixed race, about immigration. All the voice actors are racially correct; all the little things that I've grown more and more passionate about in the last several years — this series honors them. Kenneth Branagh plays maybe the most evil character I have encountered in any medium for several years – he's so good as a voice actor. I just started watching the show and it's beautiful — I didn't expect to love it as much as I do. — Walter Chaw
Ghosts UK on CBS
Last week, as a companion to the delightful sitcom Ghosts, CBS started airing reruns of the U.K. sitcom Ghosts, which the U.S. version is based on. Ghosts is a very charming show in which a couple comes to own a big, spooky haunted mansion. After a near-death experience, the wife finds she can commune with the ghosts who occupy and haunt the property. Part of what is so delightful about these two shows is that while they share a basically identical premise, they are completely different characters. Each one has its own well-rounded set of foibles and powers and goofiness. I love the idea of networks and streaming services dipping into the waters of TV produced in other countries and sharing those shows with U.S. audiences. — Stephen Thompson
More recommendations from the Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter
by Linda Holmes
Slate's Joel Anderson, who hosted an entire excellent season of the Slow Burn podcast about the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, wrote this week about the recent lawsuit against Sean Combs and why the allegations didn't surprise him. I strongly recommend the piece, which is thoughtful and, like the podcast season was, great at providing necessary context to a big story.
Mike Birbiglia has a new special on Netflix called The Old Man & The Pool. Like all his work, it's impeccably structured, very funny and very personal.
I've been watching a lot of old episodes of House, starring Hugh Laurie as the Sherlock Holmes-ish doctor who diagnoses different offbeat diseases every week. With the pretty major caveat that the show ran in the early aughts, and the misanthropic House's racism and sexism and other offensive comments would probably not make the cut today, it has certainly been a fascinating opportunity to see what a mystery/procedural show looks like when it's not about the police.
Beth Novey adapted the Pop Culture Happy Hour segment "What's Making Us Happy" for the Web. If you like these suggestions, consider signing up for our newsletter to get recommendations every week. And listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
veryGood! (74)
Related
- Newly elected West Virginia lawmaker arrested and accused of making terroristic threats
- Meg Ryan Returns to Rom-Coms After 14 Years: Watch the First Look at What Happens Later
- Nick Saban refusing to release Alabama depth chart speaks to generational gap
- A man is arrested months after finding a bag full of $5,000 in cash in a parking lot
- Head of the Federal Aviation Administration to resign, allowing Trump to pick his successor
- Muslim call to prayer can now be broadcast publicly in New York City without a permit
- Election deniers rail in Wisconsin as state Senate moves toward firing top election official
- Hurricane Idalia tracker: See the latest landfall map
- John Galliano out at Maison Margiela, capping year of fashion designer musical chairs
- Idalia projected to hit Florida as Category 4 hurricane with ‘catastrophic’ storm surge
Ranking
- Costco membership growth 'robust,' even amid fee increase: What to know about earnings release
- 2 killed when chopper crashes into apartments
- What does Florida’s red flag law say, and could it have thwarted the Jacksonville shooter?
- What does Florida’s red flag law say, and could it have thwarted the Jacksonville shooter?
- A Mississippi company is sentenced for mislabeling cheap seafood as premium local fish
- Boston will no longer require prospective spouses to register their sex or gender to marry
- Climate change makes wildfires in California more explosive
- Family of South Carolina teacher killed by falling utility pole seeks better rural infrastructure
Recommendation
Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
When's the best time to sell or buy a used car? It may be different than you remember.
TikTok has a new viral drama: Why we can't look away from the DIY craft controversy
Myon Burrell, who was sent to prison for life as a teen but set free in 2020, is arrested
Grammy nominee Teddy Swims on love, growth and embracing change
500 flights cancelled as U.K.'s air traffic control system hit by nightmare scenario
Alligator on loose in New Jersey nearly a week as police struggle to catch it
Hurricane Idalia menaces Florida’s Big Bend, the ‘Nature Coast’ far from tourist attractions