Our last show before our 18th Anniversary is also our last show to be recorded via Skype! It’s also an action-packed 72 minutes that boasts the return of “Lawsuit of the Week”, where Dean and Phil get down and dirty discussing the Paramount merger with Skydance, the fate of CBS’ long-running “60 Minutes”, DEI initiatives, the FCC and Trump advisor Stephen Miller. Several films get discussed in depth, including Easter Parade, Diary of a Mad Housewife and Meshes of the Afternoon – each of which leads to discussions about husband-wife creative teams. In “Live Event(s) of the Week”, the delightful TCM host Ben Mankiewicz and the super-talented “Medicine Woman” Veronica Osorio both get celebrated. “Celebrity Deaths” this week is a lightning round quiz edition featuring remembrances of a game show host, a child star, a TV cowboy, a Canadian movie director, an Emmy Award-winning dramatic actress who starred in and co-created one of the most legendary dramas of all time, a Tony-winning composer and lyricist, a rock drummer, and a neo-expressionist painter. Finally, Dean discusses the Seth Rogen-starring Apple TV+ series “The Studio”.

Dean is in Tokyo, but before departing the U.S., he recorded a grand conversation with Phil for this week’s show! Jeremy Saulnier’s Netflix original Rebel Ridge, the comedy Thelma starring June Squibb, the sports-based love triangle Challengers, and the Netflix documentary Will & Harper are just some of the new and recent films they discuss. Then, they take the time to celebrate the lives and legacies of Broadway actor-singer-dancer Adrian Bailey, groundbreaking vocalist-turned-actress Cleo Sylvestre, French-Italian singer (who recorded in 11 different languages) Caterina Valente, bossa nova and samba icon Sergio Mendes, musical star Mitzi Gaynor, and beloved actors (and Eddie Murphy co-stars) John Ashton and John Amos in “Celebrity Deaths”. Finally, friend of show Marc Hershon drops by for his now monthly check-in to discus the latest and greatest in streaming episodic programming (you know, what us older folks might still refer to as “TV shows”!).

It’s all classic comedy, classic television and classic movies on this week’s show! The truly legendary Carl Reiner gets celebrated. Then, Dean and Phil compare the years in film 1982 and 1974 with 1962 to see which year they think was the best year ever for movies!

After a cold open in which Dean Haglund and Phil Leirness celebrate the fact that YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour becomes a teen-ager this week, they launch into what they do best, trying to make sense of a (Covid-19) world gone wild with humor, insight, irreverence and inspiration. In the return of “Wingnut of the Week”, Dean and Phil offer a wag of the finger at Covid-19 conspiracy theorists and a doff of the cap to UFO “truthers”. In “Celebrity Deaths”, they pay tribute to a true titan of comedy publishing and filmmaking, an international star who broke big in both Bollywood and Hollywood, a character actor-turned-casting director, an influential folk singer, and the musician who turned Hugh Grant into a pop star! Then, your friends in podcasting tackle how Covid-19 will affect the up-coming television season, and how it will affect the Oscars, before turning their attention to what years in cinema might rival 1962 as the best year ever for movies! 

Sure, Covid-19 may be no laughing matter, but Phil Leirness gets things started with a quarantine lockdown joke nonetheless before he and Dean Haglund dig down into the protests surrounding stay-at-home orders, the hopes they have for how society might change in the long-term, and about the dangers of placing your faith in “distrust”. Ageism in Hollywood gets discussed, and then “Star Trek: Picard” and season 2 of “Star Trek: Discovery” get compared and get praised before the commercial break. In the back half of the show, Phil regales Dean with “Star Trek”-related tales involving the likes of JJ Abrams and … Toshiro Mifune?! In “Celebrity Deaths”, two of the all-time great character actors, three legendary jazz musicians, a ground-breaking sculptor, a pop-culture influencing illustrator, an award-winning cinematographer, and a glass-ceiling breaking animator get remembered. Keep calm, stay safe, and enjoy YOUR Chillpak Hollywood Hour!