Latest posts
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Don LaFontaine’s final illness, the family letter, and what ‘in a world…’ came to mean
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Tina Dupuy (2008) · Wayback archive → In late August 2008, the original FishbowlLA post relayed a letter from Don LaFontaine’s family. He had been admitted to Cedars-Sinai with shortness of breath, then deteriorated rapidly the next day with a blood clot in his lung. The letter asked…
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When Fox’s ‘Mike and Juliet’ tried replacing the bleep with a kitten photo
By Cassidy Lee · Originally reported by Tina Dupuy (2008) · Wayback archive → For about a week in 2008, Fox’s syndicated morning chat show The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet experimented with replacing on-air bleeps with a still photograph of a kitten eating spaghetti. The Soup put the clip on television and treated…
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Fox Searchlight sent cease-and-desists over leaked Jennifer’s Body script reviews. The movie got reappraised anyway.
By Owen Reyes · Originally reported by Kate Coe (2008) · Wayback archive → Fox Searchlight’s legal department spent early 2008 firing cease-and-desist letters at blogs running unauthorized reviews of Diablo Cody’s then-unfilmed Jennifer’s Body script. The strategy worked at suppressing pre-release commentary. It didn’t help the movie when it actually came out. And the…
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The November 2008 Feline Butcher trial — holistic-health practice and the celebrity-clientele angle
By Jordan Vega · Republished 2026-05-16 · Originally reported by Dan Cox on FishbowlLA, November 2008 In mid-November 2008, the jury in the trial of holistic-health practitioner Feline Butcher — whose celebrity clientele included Tom Cruise, Lisa Marie Presley, and Queen Latifah — was still deliberating after she faced 17 counts of practicing medicine without…
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When Brian Grazer guest-edited the LA Times’ Current section — a 2007 experiment
By Maya Trent · Originally reported by Kate Coe (2007) · Wayback archive → In March 2007 the LA Times announced that Brian Grazer would guest-edit the Sunday Op-Ed section, Current, for the March 25 issue. The pitch in the paper’s press release was that the Imagine Entertainment chairman’s “endless curiosity” would produce something unconventional.…