Iconic Sidekick Ed McMahon Dead at 86

NBC musical dazzles critics... mostly

(NEWSER) - If you watched the Super Bowl, you just might have heard of Smash, NBC's new drama about the making of a Broadway musical. It premiered last night, and critics are (mostly) giving it a standing ovation:

• The buzz has gotten so intense that the conversation isn't even about whether it'll be good. "Good? Darling, it's great!" gushes Mary McNamara of the LA Times . The creators have "managed to capture the grand and sweeping gesture that is musical theater and inject it with the immediate intimacy of television," an impressive, unprecedented feat.

Police believe the 75-year-old committed suicide

(NEWSER) - Soul Train creator and longtime host Don Cornelius was found dead this morning in his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home, in what police are calling an apparent suicide. Law enforcement sources say the 75-year-old died from a single gunshot wound to the head, which they believe was self-inflicted. Cornelius' Soul Train holds the title of the "longest-running first-run nationally syndicated show in television history," reports the Los Angeles Times . Its 35-year run began in 1971, and in 2010 Cornelius told the paper that he was working on a sort of biographical movie about the show. More»

Robert Hegyes played Juan Epstein

(NEWSER) - Robert Hegyes, who co-starred with John Travolta on the 1970s TV show Welcome Back Kotter, has died at 60, apparently of a heart attack. His health had been suffering for years, his brother said; he died yesterday at his home in the New Jersey town where he grew up. On Kotter, Hegyes played Juan Epstein, a Jewish Puerto Rican remedial student who was one of the show's "Sweathogs." Hegyes once wrote that he based his character on Chico Marx: "They were immigrant Jews, and I was an immigrant Italian. Groucho, Harpo, Chico, Gummo, and Zeppo were intellectuals ... They all played the piano and took music lessons, and they were all juvenile delinquents; I could definitely relate." More»

The Office firm to put 'quabity first' in Staples deal

(NEWSER) - Fans of the Office will soon be able to buy paper made by their favorite company—though instead of purchasing it from Dwight Schrute, they’ll have to get their reams through Staples. The office-supply giant’s Quill.com has reached a licensing deal with NBCUniversal to sell Dunder Mifflin paper, the Wall Street Journal reports. The letterhead must have been approved by Michael Scott: It carries slogans like "Quabity First" and "Get Your Scrant On." More»

Viewership down 9.3% from year before

(NEWSER) - NBC’s long-struggling ratings are only getting worse as the new television season gets under way. Some 3.3 million 18- to 49-year-olds have been tuning in to the network's primetime offerings over the past four weeks, a 9.3% drop from the year before, the Wall Street Journal reports. And if you leave out NFL games, viewership is down 16% from a year earlier, with just 2.2 million viewers. More»