The daily gossip: December 3, 2019

(Image credit: Disney Plus)

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1. There's a Star Wars game show on the way
2. Josh Brolin doesn't recommend perineum sunning
3. They changed the CGI in Cats after the first trailer freaked everybody out
4. Mariah Carey says she hangs out with Santa Claus every Christmas
5. Laura Dern says she saw Baby Yoda at a basketball game

published 3 December 2019

1. There's a Star Wars game show on the way

If you've always wanted to be a Jedi Knight — and happen to be padawan-aged — you're in luck. Disney has announced a new game show called Star Wars: Jedi Temple Challenge, which will take children and pit them against each other in a series of physical challenges set in a forest planet, a star cruiser, and a Jedi temple. The series will be hosted by actor Ahmed Best, who played Jar Jar Binks in the Star Wars prequel trilogy — but he won't be hosting as Jar Jar Binks, because Disney actually wants people to watch this show.

The latest and strangest wellness trend is "perineum sunning," in which you expose your naked behind to the heavens and pray you don't get the most unpleasant sunburn of your life. Alas, that's the sad fate that befell Josh Brolin, who says he attempted the new fad with dismal results. "My pucker hole is crazy burned," he posted on Instagram, adding that his plans to go shopping with his family had to be canceled so he could apply "aloe and burn creams" to his rear. Hey, at least he missed those Black Friday crowds.

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Halloween may be over, but there's one truly terrifying movie still on the horizon: Cats, a big-budget adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, which asks, "What if all of your favorite celebrities were covered in fur?" But if you were creeped out by pointy-eared Taylor Swift and James Corden strutting and slinking around, never fear. Director Tom Hooper swears the reaction to the first trailer gave him all the feedback he needed to fix the dodgy CGI. "When you watch the finished film, you'll see that some of the designs of the cats have moved on since then," says Hooper. You might expect more from a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster, but you know what they say: Purrfect is the enemy of good.

The hit single "All I Want for Christmas is You" turned Mariah Carey into Christmas royalty, which surely comes with a few perks. But as the elusive chanteuse herself tells it, she's essentially Mrs. Claus, literally spending the season surrounded by reindeer in snowy Aspen, and hobnobbing with Santa Claus himself. "You might think I'm making this up, but this is true. You know, I'm kinda like the hotline for Santa Claus," says Carey — so reroute those hundreds of sacks of letters accordingly.

If you, like the rest of the world, have fallen for Baby Yoda — and can't wait for new episodes of The Mandalorian to get more of him — actress Laura Dern has a deeply confusing suggestion for where you might find him. When asked about Baby Yoda at a recent event (because she was in a Star Wars movie one time, we guess?), Dern gave the truly inexplicable answer that she spotted Baby Yoda "at a basketball game." When pressed for details, she added, "That's all I'm going to say." And while Baby Yoda probably isn't tall enough to make it to the NBA, you have to imagine using the Force could lead to a pretty wicked jump shot.

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Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.