Oscars Ads Sell Out Unusually Early

Marking the earliest sellout in recent years, the ABC network has sold out virtually all of the available advertising for the March 2, 2014, Academy Awards

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Bart Simpson Actress Remembers Marcia Wallace

"Marcia would come in, and she was always a ray of light," Simpsons star Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, tells The Hollywood Reporter of her late co-star. "She’s in 178 episodes -- a lot more than people might think. That’s more episodes than most standard shows. Marcia was always a very big part of the group. Always a treat. The room was always a little bit better with her in it."

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The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic

The supposed panic was so tiny as to be practically immeasurable on the night of the broadcast. Despite repeated assertions to the contrary in the PBS and NPR programs, almost nobody was fooled by Welles’ broadcast.

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Google and Twitter Overhaul Photo Sharing in Combined Assault on Facebook

Let’s start with Twitter. Today it began adding previews of photos and videos directly into tweets. That means the main timeline will now look more like the Discover tab. Photos and videos will display automatically, there’s no more click-to-expand.

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Edna Krabappel will be retired on "The Simpsons"

"Simpsons" producer Al Jean released a statement saying he was “tremendously saddened” at Wallace’s passing at the age of 70, adding, “We intend to retire her irreplaceable character.”

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R.I.P. Marcia Wallace, a.k.a. Mrs. Krabappel

Although she'd had a long, busy career before she started working on The Simpsons in 1990—including, most notably, a high-profile role as the secretary on The Bob Newhart Show in the '70s—Marcia Wallace will likely be forever known as Edna Krabappel, the weary, cynical, but good-hearted teacher and foil of Bart Simpson.

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'Despicable Me' Creator: Animation Market Is Cannibalizing Itself

Addressing the volatile state of the industry, he warned that the animation community "releases too many films and there’s not enough room. They are going to cannibalize each other; we are already seeing that. We are also competing against the big live action films."

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'12 Years A Slave' Leads Gotham Awards Nominees

Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave led the field as nominations for the 23rd annual Gotham Independent Film Awards were announced today. The Fox Searchlight release, which offers a searing look at slavery in the American South, claimed three nominations -- best feature, best actor for Chiwetel Ejiofor and breakthrough actor for Lupita Nyong’o.

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Why TV Networks Are Bypassing Pilots for Direct-to-Series Orders

Blame the shift on the influx of TV competitors, from Netflix to WGN America, that are elbowing their way into the game by offering massive commitments. "A lot of this is about getting people to come to us over cable," says a network source of the broadcast buys, with another pointing to Netflix's 26-episode order for House of Cards as the game-changer.

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Apple Just Ended the Era of Paid Operating Systems

Prices of Apple’s Mac OS X have long been on the wane. After four releases that cost $129, Apple dropped the operating system’s upgrade price to $29 with 2009’s OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and then to $19 with last year’s OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. Microsoft — the king of the operating system in the ’80s and ’90s and on into the aughts — still charges PC makers who sell the Windows OS preloaded on their desktop and laptop machines, but that business is shrinking, thanks in large part to the continued success of Apple.

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R.I.P. Anthony Hinds, chief architect behind Hammer horror

Film producer and screenwriter Anthony Hinds has died at the age of 91. Hinds was the son of Anthony Frank Hinds, who co-founded Hammer Films in 1934 with Enrique Carreras. (“Will Hammer” had been the elder Hinds’ stage name when he performed as a music hall comedian.)

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Academy Reveals Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting Winners

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a feature-length screenplay during their fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

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Nickelodeon Touts $475 Million in Retail Sales for Relaunched 'Turtles' Franchise

Nickelodeon parent, Viacom, acquired the franchise in October 2009 for $60 million and launched a new animated show on the kids network last fall. Since then, Turtles consumer products have brought in more than $475 million in global retail sales, according to the company. That includes about $250 million from the U.S., with the rest coming from international markets.

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Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, KISS, N.W.A., LL Cool J Among Rock Hall of Fame Nominees

More than 600 voters will determine the class of 2014. Inductees will be announced in December and a ceremony will be held next April in New York. The induction will be aired on HBO in May.

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Popcorn Makes Moviegoers Ignore Ads, Study Finds

Researchers invited participants to watch a film in a cinema preceded by a series of ads for new, unknown products. Half the audience was given free popcorn to eat during the ads; the others got a small sugar cube that dissolved in their mouths within a minute.

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Twitter TV Ratings Are Here, But What Do They Mean?

Take look at the Breaking Bad finale: While it came in No. 1 on the list as the most tweeted about show in America, its traditional TV ratings didn’t even crack the top 10.

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Superman: 75 years of heroic history in 2-minutes

In honor of the hero’s 75th anniversary, Man of Steel director Zack Snyder and DC animated universe maestro Bruce Timm have crafted this two-minute animated short, which blasts through the highlights of the character’s many incarnations, from comics, to movies, video games, and even pop art.

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Clive Barker: Why I Once Gave Up Horror Movies Entirely

Up until that point I had been an enthusiastic, even obsessive, consumer of horror movies.

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'Walking Dead' Producer Gale Anne Hurd Talks Spinoff, Showrunner Turnover and Refusing to Work With 'A--Holes'

Hurd, 57, is still one of the few female producers working in the sci-fi genre. And her AMC zombie drama The Walking Dead, which premieres its fourth season Oct. 13, remains TV's top-rated series in the 18-to-49 demo, with more than 10 million total viewers each week and a spinoff in the works.

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Oscars: Eight Documentary Short Subjects Make the List

The eight films were chosen from 40 eligible entries. Three to five films will be nominated in the documentary short subject category when nominations are announced Jan. 16.

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TV Stars Pay Tribute to James Burrows

Winner of 10 Primetime Emmy Awards, four DGA Awards and a member of the Television Academy Hall of Fame, Burrows has directed such hit shows as Taxi, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, The Big Bang Theory, Mike & Molly and the new CBS series The Millers -- along with more than 50 pilots.

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John Lennon's Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Defaced

Two days before what would have been his 73rd birthday, unknown vandals scribble on the late Beatle's star outside the Capitol Records tower.

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Author Tom Clancy has died at age 66

Clancy launched his writing career with The Hunt for Red October in 1984, which garnered a positive review from President Ronald Reagan (who called it a “perfect yarn”). By the time his second novel Red Storm Rising was released in 1986, some military officials suspected that Clancy had gained access to classified information on weaponry, but in fact, he had just pieced together the information through extensive research and informed guesswork.

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