No entry for this celeb on ‘The Simpsons’ show
Over the last 28 years, a glittering roster of celebrities have popped up in cameos on The Simpsons. The show’s appeal and popularity is so massive that some big names have signed up to voice characters — often poking gentle fun at themselves. Ringo Starr, Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close, Danny DeVito and even Michael Jackson have all been part of the cartoon’s most memorable appearances. While it may seem as if the producers are pretty generous with their cameos, there’s one celebrity whose offer to feature was politely declined. During a Comic-Con panel session, executive producer Al Jean was asked if the series had ever turned down a celebrity who wanted to voice a character. The answer was yes.
According to the Wrap, Jean paused briefly before, then answered, “let’s just say he’s the President of the United States.”
The Simpsons and Donald Trump do have a history of sorts. While the show has rejected Trump’s offer to voice a character, he has appeared in the show. There was the now-infamous and spookily prescient episode from 2000 when lisa Simpson becomes President of the US, taking over from “President Trump”.
Dan Greaney, a writer on the show, said the episode was meant to show a vision of the country “going insane”. Matt Groening, the show’s creator, backed this up, saying: “We predicted that he would be President back in 2000 — but (Trump) was of course the most absurd placeholder joke name that we could think of at the time, and that’s still true.”
(Mirror)
Wild rabbits surf on sheep to flee flood
It was a woolly ride, but three wild rabbits managed to escape rising floodwaters in New Zealand by clambering aboard sheep and surfing to safety on their backs. Ferg Horne, 64, says he’s been farming since he left school at age 15 and has never seen anything quite like it. He was trudging through pelting rain to rescue a neighbour’s 40 sheep from the floodwaters at their South Island farm near Dunedin when he spotted some dark shapes from a distance.
He was puzzled because he knew his neighbour, who was away in Russia attending a nephew’s wedding, didn’t have any black-faced sheep. As he got closer, he thought it might be debris from the storm, which had drenched the area and forced Horne to evacuate his home. Then he saw the bedraggled rabbits hitching a ride — two on one sheep and a third on another sheep. “I couldn’t believe it for a start,” he said.
Nobody else would believe him either without proof, he thought, so he got out his phone to take a photo, an image he figured his grandchildren would enjoy. In fact, he inadvertently shot a short video.
(AP)
Man smuggles cobras in cans
A man was arrested on federal smuggling charges after customs officers intercepted a shipment with three live king cobras hidden inside potato chip canisters that were being mailed to his California home, US prosecutors said. Rodrigo Franco, 34, was scheduled to be arraigned in los Angeles on a charge of illegally importing merchandise. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.
The three king cobra snakes — each about two feet — were found in March when Customs and Border Protection officers inspected a package that was mailed from Hong Kong, prosecutors said. There were also three albino Chinese soft-shelled turtles in the package, authorities said.
Federal agents removed the cobras but delivered the turtles to Franco’s home in Monterey Park. The agents later served a search warrant there and found tanks with a live baby Morelet’s crocodile, alligator snapping turtles, a common snapping turtle, and five diamond back terrapins. Prosecutors say all of the reptiles are protected under US law.
Franco admitted to an agent from the US Fish and Wildlife Service that he had previously received 20 king cobras in two other shipments, but he said they all died in transit, according to court documents.
Federal agents also searched Franco’s phone and found that he exchanged messages with an individual in Asia about shipping turtles and snakes between Hong Kong and the US, prosecutors said. Franco said in those messages that he had previously received live cobras and planned to give five of the snakes to a relative of the contact in Virginia, court papers said. If convicted, Franco faces up to 20 years in prison.
(AP)
Mountie in red serge uniform chases bear out of a park
A Mountie, wearing a formal uniform, was spotted chasing a bear out of a national park in a “very Canadian” moment. Damian Gillis shared video of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in his red serge uniform attempting to shoo a black bear away from Waterton lakes National Park townsite in Southern Alberta. “Nothing more Canadian than an RCMP officer in red serge and a black bear,” Gillis said. “Truly Canadian image to celebrate Canada 150.”
The officer featured in the video, Sgt. Clayton Wilbern, said he was trying to find the owner of a lost wallet when a paramedic told him a bear had been spotted in the area. “It was heading towards a playground where there was a whole bunch of kids playing. So we tried to get it to go around the playground, which luckily we did,” said Wilbern.
(UPI)