The Last Days of Regis PhilbinS

One of morningtime's most familiar faces will be gone in just a matter of weeks. Also today: a literary adaptation with some promise, Jay Mohr tries again, and the board game craze continues.

  • TV's wacky great-uncle who smells like pimentos and tells "Chinaman" jokes, Regis Philbin, has finally announced the official date of his last episode of Squawk Talk with Kelly Ripa. The 113-year-old cracker salesman will hop into his Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight Royale and putter off into the sunset on Friday, November 18th. Ripa will then try out guest hosts before settling on a permanent one, who we all know will just be Regis wearing a blonde wig and new dungarees and saying "dude" a lot in a bizarre and unsettling attempt to seem younger. Eventually New Regis will forget where he is entirely and spill water on Ripa, causing her circuitry to catch fire and it will be the Coconut Grove all over again. But that's in the distant future. For now, we'll focus on November 18th. We'll miss you, Reeg! [THR]
  • Hm. Noah Baumbach is teaming up with super-producer Scott Rudin to develop an HBO television pilot based on Jonathan Franzen's boffo novel The Corrections, a sprawling family epic about lots of Franzenian things like ambition, regret, and very specific details about very specific things. And rumor has it that Anthony Hopkins is interested in playing the patriarch of the family. Could be interesting! I like the idea of a series rather than a movie, as obviously things can be more slowly and richly developed over a longer period of time. (Amazing and innovative narrative analysis there, I know.) But is the combination of Jonathan Franzen and Noah Baumbach maybe a little too, well, too? Y'know? Like what's next, is David O. Russell going to start doing Gary Shteyngart adaptations? It could be a bit much. Though considering there was also talk of a Visit From the Goon Squad cable series, it could be fun to watch everyone get hyped up about the Franzen show only to have Jennifer Egan sneak in there and snatch all the glory. [Deadline]
  • Hey Anglophiles! And hey teen-obsessed weirdos! There's good news coming out of England. It seems that because the movie version of the gleefully filthy coming-of-age show The Inbetweeners has performed so well in the UK, there might be a small US film release. Imagine Simon, Jay, Neil, and all the rest up on the big screen! Saying "clunge" and "minge" and other filthisms in surround sound! It could be glorious. It could also be kind of weird, especially if you've previously only watched the series furtively on YouTube alone in your apartment. [Daily Star]
  • Perpetually struggling comedian/actor Jay Mohr has just joined the cast of ABC's new sitcom Suburgatory, playing a womanizing businessman whose wife (Cheryl Hines!) has the hots for the new neighbor, played by Jeremy Sisto. So good for him. It's no bringing back Action, but it's something. [Deadline]
  • Well, Ridley Scott is going ahead with his movie adaptation of the board game Monopoly, because of course that's what the world has been clamoring for forever. He's hired the guys who wrote, bizarrely, Ed Wood and The People vs. Larry Flynt to pen the script, so I guess he's going for serious Good Movie instead of schlocky Battleship-style gunk. So... I guess maybe he's just using the name for this thing and nothing else, there won't be some Atlantic City fat cat driving around in a little metal hat buying railroads and building "kiosks." So that's steaming ahead, as are plans for Ouija and Clue, which like I mean they already did that and it is beautiful and could never ever be improved upon I mean come on Eileen Brennan is in it and that alone is enough. Sorry, movies. You've already done Clue and it was great and you can't do it again. Like college. [THR]

[Photo via Getty]