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Pop Culture Happy Hour: This Is Your Life, And TV Pool Knockouts

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Fortunately, Glen is back this week after two weeks away, and if you don't check out his mother's ceramic goose dressed up for Thanksgiving, you're just not living right.

Look, we know that you already heard that the Lindsay Lohan vehicle Liz & Dick, about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, wasn't very good. But we watched it, and we felt the need to tell you about it, and we felt the need to use it for good. So we talk this week about what makes a good biography project in film. What do you have to do with the performances? The story? The caftans? (That might just be this one.) Glen brings Mummenschanz into it, by the way, and he wasn't the only one. I went with a more television-true reference.

After that, we'll update you on what's happened since we made our fall television predictions. Once again, my effort ended badly, but this year, I had a teammate in terrible-ness! (Note that Stephen's pick has fallen off some since I last looked at its ratings, it seems, and my assertion that I thought its ratings were "fine" was a little optimistic, so Stephen is in trouble, too.)

And finally, we talk about what's making us happy this week. Glen is happy about Maria Bamford's latest endeavors (even if he does say "bite me Christmas" in the process of saying so). Trey is made happy by perhaps the greatest and most wig-tastic recap of Liz & Dick you'll ever read, plus this great article by Emily Nussbaum about Ryan Murphy. Stephen is happy about rediscovering David Mead's terrific album Indiana, while ... driving through Indiana. (To completely editorialize, my favorite off that album is one of the songs he mentions, "Queensboro Bridge," which is a stunner.) The first thing that made me happy was Les Mis-rolling Stephen, but the second is an excellent documentary for the football fan and non-football-fan alike.

Please keep in touch with us — you can find us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter: me, Trey, Glen, Stephen, Jess, and our producer emeritus and music director Mike.

If you don't follow us on social media, you won't have seen it on our Facebook page yesterday, but we have some fun news. We're doing a live show!

NPR is having a Warehouse Sale and very nifty community event at our DC headquarters on Friday, December 14 and Saturday, December 15, where you can get great stuff and also meet plenty of NPR personalities (more on the scheduling to follow). And on Saturday afternoon, December 15, at 2:00, Team PCHH will be appearing to do a live show and a Q&A and whatever else we can think of that seems like a good idea between now and then. We'll have more details as it gets a little closer.

If the show isn't enough to brighten your weekend, there will be raffles (win an autographed Carl Kasell pillow!), hot cocoa and treats for sale, and the opportunity to grab plenty of NPR Shop merchandise. (Wouldn't your relatives love some nifty mugs? Shirts? CDs? CARL KASELL PILLOWS?)

Come one, come all. We'll see you there.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Linda Holmes is a pop culture correspondent for NPR and the host of Pop Culture Happy Hour. She began her professional life as an attorney. In time, however, her affection for writing, popular culture, and the online universe eclipsed her legal ambitions. She shoved her law degree in the back of the closet, gave its living room space to DVD sets of The Wire, and never looked back.