upworthy

television

Celebrity

Robin Williams and Martha Stewart can hardly keep it together in this classic cooking segment

"I feel incredibly honored to have grown up in an era where we had this wonderful man."

Robin Williams making Martha Stewart crack up.

It's hard to believe it’s been over 10 years since the great Robin Williams left our world. The man left a fantastic legacy of laughs, from his time on TV’s Mork and Mindy to his performances in comedy hits such as Mrs. Doubtfire and Disney's Aladdin.

Williams was also an incredible dramatic actor, giving memorable performances in films such as Dead Poets Society and Good Morning, Vietnam.

But the Comic Relief star always shined brightest when he improvised on stage, whether on talk shows or in stand-up comedy. One appearance on Martha Stewart Living from 2004 has been making the rounds recently because of how quickly he improvised jokes while cooking with Stewart. It’s also great because Stewart plays the perfect straight woman to Williams, although she has a tough time holding it together.

Whenever Stewart mentions an ingredient, whether cumin or brown sugar, Williams turns it into a comedic riff. He also jokes in Spanish and does a few accents that feel off-color over 20 years later, but they’re delivered with the best intentions. Williams also walks a bit of a tightrope during the segment while he tries to keep his humor appropriate for daytime TV while reacting to Stewart, who is “rubbing the meat.”

  - YouTube  youtu.be  

 

"I feel incredibly honored to have grown up in an era where we had this wonderful man," the most popular commenter on the YouTube video wrote. "His ability to change characters on the fly is remarkable," another added. "His spontaneous humor is unmatched! He was an incredibly smart, kind and funny man. He is sorely missed!" another commenter said.

Who were Martha Stewart’s favorite guests on her show?

Years later, Stewart would admit that Williams was one of her favorite guests on the show. "We had so much fun because he was the fastest wit and the fastest mind and his mind was like a computer," Stewart told AOL in 2022. "No matter what I said, he had a retort and he was so quick. I was marinating meat and he loved that—can you imagine what he did with 'marinating meat' and 'rubbing the meat' and 'ooh la la?' Watch the segment; it's really good."

 

What’s The Many Lives of Martha Stewart film about?

Although Martha Stewart has rarely been out of the spotlight over the past five decades, she’s been in the news recently after releasing the new Netflix documentary about her life, The Many Lives of Martha Stewart.

The film follows Stewart’s journey from teen model to Wall Street stockbroker to the queen of entertaining and good taste. Eventually, she would become America’s first self-made female billionaire. The documentary also discusses the insider trading scandal that sent her to prison in 2004.

The film also reveals Stewart’s guiding philosophy. “I have two mottos. One is: Learn something new every day. And the second one is: When you’re through changing, you’re through,” Stewart says in the film. “Change that garden if you don’t like it. Rip it out and you start all over again.”

If you want to relive the hilarious moments between Stewart and Williams in your kitchen, here’s a recipe for the Chili Espresso Steak Rub.

This article originally appeared last year.

Fandom.com/@francescascottspamtiktok/TikTok

A still Adam Scott playing Mark S from Severance

You might expect Adam Scott to make an appearance on television, but on a teen girl’s TikTok? Not so much.

But lo and behold, Scott’s daughter, Frankie Scott, recently featured him in one of her videos (a great honor that Gen Z bestows only to the worthiest of parents) and it had fans understandably shook.

The clip, captioned “Me informing my dad about my weekend plans,” starts off with Frankie lip syncing to audio from Keeping Up With the Kardashians, saying, “I have a busy week.” Then, BOOM, that camera cuts to Adam, mouthing “Do you?” followed by a conversation about Vegas and spray tans.

It’s a cute clip regardless, but the unexpected reveal of Scott was the real kicker. That, and the grade-A Parks & Rec and Severance comments it inspired.

“Ur dad is so good at this he should be an actor.”

“It’s hard for him to relate because he doesn't know what he does at work.”

“So this is what his outie does”

"The weekend is mysterious and important.”

“Mark S is your dad?”

WHAT THE HELLY”

“Wait, your dad is the 18 year old mayor who created Ice Town?”

“How’s his claymation project going?”

Please tell me your mom is Leslie Knope.”

 adam scott, parks and rec, severance, frankie scott, adam scott age, adam scott kids Ben Wyatt, from Parks & Rec media0.giphy.com  

Also, special shoutout to the person who wrote “do you have the plug on Catalina Wine Mixer tix?” in reference to his role in Step Brothers.

But by and large, the thing on everyone’s mind was the truly shocking realization that Adam Scott is, in fact, 52, with a teenage daughter. Not perpetually in his mid thirties.

"It appears that I’ve severely underestimated Adam Scott’s age.”

“Adam Scott is old enough to have a baddie daughter what?”

“This was me finding out he’s 52 omg he hasn’t aged since parks and rec.”

“Adam Scott has been 35 to me for the last 20 years. Paul Rudd level aging.”

Seriously, did he and Rob Lowe go in on some Death Becomes Her-type potion while working together on Parks and Rec? It’s the only explanation for their faces never changing.

But get ready to be even more blown away. Frankie, 16, is actually Scott’s youngest kid. Scott and his wife Naomi also have an 18-year-old son named Graham.

What comes as no surprise is that Scott passed down his sense of humor. While appearing on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2023, the Party Down alum shared how Frankie collected "unflattering" screenshots of him from their FaceTime calls, and used them all to create an, ahem, creative gift.

 
 @fallontonight #AdamScott’s daughter collects unflattering FaceTime screenshots of him. 🤣 #FallonTonight ♬ original sound - FallonTonight 
 
 

"'When you're doing FaceTime, it's not like you're on a fancy zoom, and you have a ring light, and you, like, primp yourself," he told Fallon. "You're, like, getting ready for bed or eating or whatever. It's family time. Every single time I see that flash on the screen, it's just like, Jesus, really? And so this past year, they made a calendar of all of those photos."

Scott might never age, but thanks to his kids, he’ll also always stay humble.

NBC6 & Canva Photos

John Morales stopped his report to educate viewers on what budget cuts really mean.

I hardly ever watch the news on television, especially not for the weather. It's just so much easier to pick up my phone and check Google or The Weather Channel. I just want to know how warm it's going to be or how likely it is to rain. These days, I can find that out in about 10 seconds and go about my day.

But when there's potential danger—hurricanes, storms that might knock out the power of topple over trees, tornado warnings, or threats of ice and snow—my trusty local meteorologist or weatherman is always there. All of that said, I've never once considered that I might not be able to get my weather forecast from either source, at least not accurately. It's 2025—our weather modeling should be better than ever, state of the art, right?

John Morales, a meteorologist and hurricane specialist with NBC6 in South Florida, was reporting on an upcoming storm when he suddenly shifted gears, right in the middle of the broadcast.

 weatherman, weather, meteorologist, news, tv news, news anchor, viral videos, trump, doge, government Without good data, we can't accurately predict the paths of hurricanes.  Photo by NASA on Unsplash  

Morales explains that in his 34 years of presenting the weather, he's always been able to confidently tell his viewers when a hurricane might hit, or when it might turn away. He's always been able to stand behind his data, modeling, and forecast in order to help protect the people of South Florida.

"I am here to tell you that I am not sure I can do that this year."

Why? "Because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general."

 Babbel, language, learning language, deals, sales A person uses the Babbel appBabbel

Babbel’s Biggest Sale of the Year: Get 67% off. Lifetime Subscriptions For $199

Morales then pulled up a graphic instead of his usual weather map. It laid out some stark realities about severe understaffing of the National Weather Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Between brutal layoffs, employees accepting the recent DOGE buyout, and straight-up resignations, the agencies responsible for collecting weather data have lost hundreds and hundreds of valuable experts.

He also explained that due to federal government budget cuts, there's been a sizeable decrease in weather balloon launches across the country. Weather balloons are instruments that take crucial measurements of the upper atmosphere and send data that helps with forecasting. With less data available, and lower quality data, Morales say that "the quality of forecasts is becoming degraded."

That's a pretty scary thought, especially in a place like South Florida. What do you do when your local meteorologist can't predict what a powerful hurricane will do next?

"This is a multi-generational impact on science in this country," Morales warns.

Watch his passionate plea here:

Almost nine million people viewed the powerful clip on X. It was reshared over 26,000 times. Morales' message is definitely getting the attention it deserves.

It's not just the National Weather Service that's bleeding. In the name of efficiency, The White House has slashed budgets at the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and more. Trimming the federal budget sounds well and good until you realize that we won't be making any major cancer breakthroughs any time soon without funding the research. And we won't be able to protect people from hurricanes and tornadoes without complete weather data.

(And yes, even the Weather app on your iPhone needs a database to pull from.)

Meanwhile, we're spending $1 trillion—yes, trillion— per year on our military. This is the anti-science, anti-expert sentiment Morales is talking about. It's been building for years and is just now coming to a head in the worst way.

We still need meteorologists and weather experts like Morales. We still need scientists.

 weatherman, weather, meteorologist, news, tv news, news anchor, viral videos, trump, doge, government We still need human scientists and experts that can compile and read maps like this one.  Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash  

ChatGPT can pull weather data from Google and tell you if there's going to be a thunderstorm, but can it tell you when the data behind that forecast is incomplete or unreliable? That's the reality we're facing right now, and we might not know the forecast isn't reliable until it's too late in some cases.

TV weathermen who live in our communities and can put crucial context behind the weather and help keep us safe still matter. Not only that, but they are ambassadors for science, and they still have a big platform in many communities around the country. Morales is making sure he makes the most of his.

Television

Watch the tense moment Lucille Ball tells a host to take his hands off female audience members

It was common for male hosts to kiss, hug, and touch women in the 70s. It was not common for a woman to publicly challenge them.

CBS Television (Public Domain)
Lucille Ball was a powerhouse both on screen and off.

According to her daughter, Lucille Ball never considered herself a feminist, but there's no question she blazed many a trail for women. A working mother in real life, she depicted issues facing housewives with her brilliant television comedy and became the first female studio head in Hollywood. She broke glass ceilings but wasn't particularly outspoken about women's rights. In fact, in a 1980 interview with "People," she said, “They can use my name for equal rights, but I don’t get out there and raise hell because I’ve been so liberated, I have nothing to squawk about.”

Ball empowered women by example—and by speaking her mind. Carol Burnett shared a story on PBS about how Ball was unhappy with a script for her new show, but women at that time didn't raise concerns about such things. Men could express criticism and demand changes, but women simply didn't. Ball did—and firmly—despite being non-confrontational by nature. Later she told Burnett, "Kid, that's when they put the 's' at the end of my name."

A video has been circulating on social media showing Ball's no-nonsense way of speaking up when she felt the need to, and people are gushing over it.


Lucille Ball, 70s, 80s, 60s, I Love Lucy, television, actress, hollywood, sexism, misogynyLucille Ball was a massive star, but perhaps best known for the show 'I Love Lucy'By CBS Television - Public Domain

In 1978, Ball participated in a Q & A session with UCLA theater arts students on the television program "America Alive!" The viral clip shows Ball repeatedly telling one of the hosts, David Sheehan, to take his hands off of female audience members when they were asking a question.

"Will you take your hands off, David?" she says as he introduces one young woman. "Take your hands off of her," she says again as he places his hand on the shoulder of another. "David, would you take your hands away?" she says as he places his hands on another woman in a sparkly gold dress.

Watch:

@femalequotient

We love Lucy ❤️

People laughed every time, but Ball didn't so much as crack a smile during her clear, simple, repeated "hands off" admonitions.

For 1978 especially, her advocacy for the women in the audience was extraordinary. Sheehan wasn't touching these women in a lewd or sexual manner, but he was touching them in a way that he wouldn't have touched a man who was asking a question. Most people wouldn't have thought much of it at the time, but Lucille Ball immediately noted it and didn't let it stand.

"I love that she didn't even laugh when the room was," shared one commenter. "She was not joking."

"'Take your hands off her, David,' should be a sound AND a t-shirt," wrote another.

"He kept trying. She kept telling him. Love her," shared another.

"Lucille Ball always reminds me of my grandma," offered another. "She hated to be seen as delicate, and she hated men that would touch her even more. She would say, stone-faced, 'Get your paws off.'"

Here are a few more of the best comments:

"the audience laughed and she said 'ain't nothing funny.' love her"

"This happened to me so much growing up and I noticed from very young the boys weren't treated this way."

"Even then she knew how the industry was I LOVE IT AND LOOOOVE LUCY SO MUCH"

A commenter on Reddit noted that Ball started her career as a chorus girl and dancer. "She knows every creepy man trick in the book"

Television and game shows from the 70s and 80s are an incredible time capsule of the culture and norms of the era. Sheehan wasn't the only one who tended to get a little handsy.

It was common for male hosts to kiss female contestants. Richard Dawson, host of The Family Feud, was famous for it. Even our beloved Bob Barker of The Price Is Right often had women suggestively reach into his jacket to fish out their $100 bill.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

There's a casual lecherous-ness that famous men seemed to get away with easily at the time. For anyone to publicly challenge them on their behavior was absolutely shocking.

Even if Sheehan was casually touching those women out of habit and not ill intent, it's laudable that Ball made a point of making him aware of it. Unfortunately, women are still having to deal with men touching them without being invited to, but seeing Lucille Ball's serious face while calling it out is a good reminder that women have been fighting this battle for a long time. Good for her for using her microphone and the respect afforded her to speak up for the young women in her audience.

This article originally appeared last year.