Luaine Lee | Tribune News Service (TNS)
Strike up the band, pack up that picnic lunch, pull out the Sousa score, it’s that time of year again. On Thursday, America will celebrate its independence from those tax-lovin’ limeys and light up the skies with fireworks and charcoal briquettes.
To commemorate the holiday, PBS will be presenting its annual “A Capitol Fourth” extravaganza with talent like the legendary singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson, award-winning actor Darren Criss (“Glee”), the Queen of Percussion Sheila E., platinum-selling singer and actress Fantasia, multiplatinum-selling band Fitz & Noelle from Fitz and the Tantrums, Sister Sledge ft. Sledgendary, Olympic medalist Shawn Johnson East, recording artist Loren Allred, choreographer Britt Stewart and, of course, maestro Jack Everly conducting the National Symphony Orchestra.
All these proceedings will take place live from the lawn of the United States Capitol, and back to host the event will be Alfonso Ribeiro, famous as the enthusiastic emcee of “Dancing with the Stars” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
Ribeiro, first popular as the moppet from “Silver Spoons,” the preppy son from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and the clinical doctor on “In the House,” had no intention of becoming a TV host.
“It wasn’t something I ever thought, ‘I should pay attention to this.’ But in my career, I’ve always felt I wanted to do many different things — being an actor and singer and dancer; stage performer, television, movies, now directing and producing — I’ve always felt I wanted to put my hand in every aspect,” he says.
“I want to know, ‘Hey, can I do that? Let’s try it. Why not? What’s the worst that can happen? If I don’t succeed, OK, I don’t succeed.’ I’m not the kind of person who feels he has to be successful at everything. I work hard at it but if I don’t make it, I don’t, so I don’t go in with that pressure.”
Ribeiro is used to pressure. His parents introduced him to showbiz when he was in grade school, and he captured his very first role when he was 9.
For years his dad served as his manager, and Ribeiro worked most of the time. “One of the theories my dad shared with me as a kid, there’s two ways to think about life: you can work really, really hard in your youth to make sure that when you’re older you don’t have to work hard. And you won’t really enjoy your youth as much, but you’ll have a much better life when you’re older. Or you can enjoy your life young and roll the dice when you’re older and know you had a great time. I went with the latter,” he says.
“I probably would be much more successful and have a lot more money if I went with the first one, but I feel like I’m the luckiest person on the planet because I get to do all the things I love to do. And I get paid for it.”
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Even so, when Ribeiro was 16, he decided to end his career. “I quit the business for about two years between the ages of 16 and 18. I’d finished doing ‘Silver Spoons’ I was obviously a kid and I decided I wanted to go to high school and be like a normal kid for a little bit.
“Then I went to college for a year, and I said, ‘I don’t know if I really want to do this (acting) for the rest of my life. I want to venture out and see what the world possibly has for me.’ I realized very quickly — I went to college and went, ‘Yeah … not so much. This whole thing — no, I’m good. I’m going to call my agents and tell them to send me on auditions.’”
But he didn’t have to audition for this show. “I’m incredibly excited and honored to be host of ‘A Capitol Fourth’ once again,” he says. “It is going to be a great Fourth of July party, and we’re going to get everyone in our nation’s capital and all those watching at home on their feet dancing!”
Rousing patriotic favorites performed by the U.S. Army Band (“Pershing’s Own”) and the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets will cap off the musical finale and the eye-popping fireworks display, presented by the National Park Service, will rain over the National Mall and Memorial Parks and the D.C. skyline. The show will air on PBS and stream on YouTube and www.pbs.org/a-capitol-fourth on Thursday, July 4, at 8 p.m. ET.
King Krabs is back at ‘Kamp’
Mr. Krabs will be back sponging off SpongeBob and all the other undersea denizens when Paramount+ presents the new season of “Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years” on July 10. All the animated favorites will assemble including Tom Kenny as the square-panted SpongeBob, Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick, Rodger Bumpass as Squidward, and, of course, Clancy Brown as Mr. Krabs.
While Brown has done extensive work voicing many projects, he is probably better known for his roles in “The Shawshank Redemption,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Billions” and “John Wick: Chapter 4.” Though he’s always been interested in acting, he comes from a family of politicians as both his dad and grandfather were congressmen.
“Politics and government was in the family. My dad was really a public servant. The politics of it was not like it is today. Back then it was really advise-and-consent government. It’s not a game that ever interested me,” he says.
“The public service part — you get those pangs of making the world better for everybody — but the politics of it is ugly and not fun and dominated by machines — the old boy networks. And I’m just not one of those dudes.
“I’ve always liked acting, you like to tell stories and be part of good storytelling mostly, and it’s fun to not be yourself every now and then.”
Brown found himself in jail for his first role.“They were doing a youth drama with this guy named Sean Penn, and it was a prison thing. And they needed a bunch of young men and couldn’t get real 16-year-olds, had to get somebody slightly older. So every guy my age auditioned for it, and I just got lucky and did it.”
While he’s an imposing presence, it’s his baritone voice that has sustained him. “I got interested in voice-over when my daughter was born, and I wanted to stay in town,” he says.
“And I’ve always been a big fan of cartoons and animation. My wife was a newsperson, so she did a lot of announcing and she made me take a class with her — which I was not very good at. She got an A, but I didn’t. It was a voice-over class.”
Star of ‘The Bear’ not perfect
One of the real hits among the streamers is Hulu’s “The Bear,” now enjoying its third season. The show is about a prize-winning chef who must return to his hometown to run his dead brother’s sandwich shop in Chicago.
The series stars Jeremy Allen White as the perfectionist chef who is in over his head in his chaotic kitchen. White tells me that he does not share his character’s predilection for perfection. “I am so the opposite. Like, I think that I … it’s something I admire a lot about (his character) Carmy, and I think it’s something that I try and I strive for in my life. But no, that’s not a quality that I think Carm and I share. I struggle often.”
Home cooking acknowledged at last
It’s about time that American home cooking was recognized for what it is: innovative, practical and delicious. “The Great American Recipe” is celebrating just that with home cooks competing every week on PBS with their own special concoctions until the top three earn the chance to win the competition.
Next Monday the hopeful chefs will display their bake-sale expertise and also present a yummy baked breakfast item.
Among the judges this year is Los Angeles chef and restaurateur Tim Hollingsworth.
Hollingsworth confesses that it was his mother who first inspired him to become a chef.
“My mom was a stay-at-home mom, so she raised us, and she cooked everything from scratch,” he says.
“We had things like chicken and dumplings, Sunday pot roast, some Tex-Mex chili tacos.” Born in Houston, Hollingsworth moved to California when he was in the second grade.
“I loved to eat,” he says, “I love food and food was a big part of my family. It was the one time that we would sit down as a family and have dinner. It was pretty important to my mom and everybody had a specific job — whether it was setting the table or helping my mom prep the food or cleaning up afterwards, washing the dishes, so that was the time in my life when all the family was together. As a young man I didn’t understand that until I got older and appreciated it.”
(Luaine Lee is a California-based correspondent who covers entertainment for Tribune News Service.)
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