Growing up in the early 80s, Cheech and Chong were one of those forbidden acts that my parents didn’t want me to know about. But when they were away or in bed, I would sneak to the den and listen to my dad’s Cheech and Chong albums and laugh my middle-school ass off. So when I read that Cheech Marin and Tommy chong were getting back together and touring, naturally I was gleeful.

Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong are seizing the moment.

Thirty years after firing up the stoner comedy genre with their first feature, “Up in Smoke,” the duo are reuniting for their first comedy tour in more than 25 years.

If the B.O. success of the “Harold and Kumar” pics and the anticipation for Judd Apatow’s pot-fueled romp “Pineapple Express” are any indication, pop culture would welcome a fresh dose of Cheech and Chong. And given the strong biz that top comedy tours are harvesting these days, the B.O. potential for such a legendary team is no pipe dream.

Plans for the Live Nation-promoted comedy tour, dubbed “Hey, What’s That Smell?,” will be unveiled Wednesday at a news conference at West Hollywood’s Troubadour, where Cheech and Chong’s druggie buddy act first gained traction in the early 1970s. From 1972-85, the pair released nine comedy albums and eight features, all of which were helmed by Chong.

Since they parted ways in the 1980s, Marin has carved out a niche as a character thesp and become a prominent Latino arts advocate. Chong’s career has been choppier, hitting a low ebb in 2003 when he was arrested and subsequently served a nine-month prison stint after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to distribute drug paraphernalia through his Nice Dreams-branded water-pipe business.

[From Variety]

I always thought that Chong’s bust was a farce. There are head shops all over the country selling bongs - for tobacco use only, wink, wink- but because Chong is such a high profile advocate of marijuana use, he was used to make an example. I am glad the guys are back together because they really are funny - drugs or no drugs. Maybe if the tour goes well, they’ll make another movie!

Cheech Marin is shown on 6/21/08 at the Wall E premiere. Tommy Chong and his wife are shown on 4/7/08 at the Bra Boys premiere. He is also shown alone on 6/28/07. Credit: WENN

After months of speculation, the reunited early-90’s boy band New Kids on the Block performed live this morning on the Today show. Throngs of screaming 25-35 year-old women braved the rain to catch a glimpse of the “Kids” and a chance to relive their adolescence. However, the jury’s still out on whether the performance was a success.

Flashback!

New Kids on the Block performed together for the first time in 15 years on Today this morning.

The boy band sang and danced their way through a medley of old and new hits — including “You Got It (the Right Stuff),” “Hangin’ Tough” and “Step by Step.” (Watch below)

Despite the rainy weather, over 3,000 fans cheered on the band — one of the show’s largest turnouts for its outdoor concert series. Some fans had even camped out overnight.

“I’m going to spend the night just to be ready so early!” joked Joey McIntyre to Usmagazine.com on Thursday.

[From Us Weekly]

I saw the performance live this morning, and to be perfectly honest, I thought they sucked. I have never been a fan, but I always gave the group props for performing live back in the day (when many other acts were lip-syncing), and for having some pretty difficult choreography to do on top of that. But today, these guys are really showing their age in both their vocal abilities and their dance moves. They looked out of shape, and their voices are not what they used to be. Joey’s famous falsetto doesn’t have that same range- which is understandable, given that he was about 13 when the group first hit it big. It will be interesting to see if these guys have the stamina and remaining fan base to actually take this on tour. My advice to Blockheads: stick with your CD’s and life sized posters, otherwise you might be disappointed.

The New Kids on The Block are shown performing this morning, thanks to WENN.

Eva Mendes seems to be getting back on track after her unexpected trip to rehab earlier this year. The actress has even rekindled her romance of six years with hunky filmmaker George Gargurevich. The pair took a break shortly before Eva quietly slipped off to rehab, but now things are back on.

Eva Mendes is getting her relationship with her longtime boyfriend back on track. Eva and filmmaker George Gargurevich, who have been dating for six years, went through a rocky phase when Eva entered rehab at Cirque Lodge in Utah this winter, says an insider.

“The distance was hard on them,” the source tells Star.

But now that she’s out of rehab and living a clean lifestyle, she and George are tighter than ever. They even adopted a Belgian Malinois pup named Hugo.

“George is a rock for Eva. She truly loves him.”

[From Star magazine print version, May 5, 2008]

While I don’t really get why people make such a big deal out of Eva, I am glad to see that she straightened herself out and seems to be reconnecting with people who are positive influences in her life and encourage her sobriety- unlike other certain starlet rehab vets we could name. Eva and George seem like a low key, loving couple. Hopefully they can work it out.

Note by Celebitchy: Just Jared has photos from two years ago of Eva out with her longterm boyfriend George, but I checked Just Jared and PopSugar and couldn’t find any recent photos of the two together. Star has a photo of them that accompanies this story, but it’s unclear if it’s new.

Eva Mendes is shown on 4/21/08 at the Metropolitan Opera, thanks to PRPhotos.

The New Kids on the Block officially announced that they’ve reunited yesterday morning on the Today show. I wasn’t planning on covering this, but my nine-year-old self got incredibly cranky and threatened to climb into her NKOTB sleeping bag and refuse to come out until I did. My current-age-withheld self was also pretty damn impressed – those guys aged WELL. Despite the painfully obvious abundance of “Old Men on the Block” jokes, there was no denying that even the ugly one is decent looking now. And I’m pretty sure it’s worth it to write all about them for that reason alone. Back in the day, the New Kids sold over 70 million albums, paving the way for such illustrious boybands as the Backstreet Boys, Nsync, and the ultra-prestigious LFO. Now they’re ready to reclaim their rightful place at the top of the charts.

The undeniably aged entertainers, reunited 22 years after first forming and 20 years after the release of their debut album, Hanging Tough, are apparently more than willing to embrace their status as the elder statesmen of teenybop pop. (Jonathan Knight’s the eldest, at 39; [Donny] Wahlberg and [Danny] Wood are both 38; Jordan Knight is 37; and [Joey] McIntyre is the baby, at 35.) Asked what they had in store for long-suffering fans on their new album, McIntyre teased, “Three things: the economy, health care and job security.”

“We’ve got some new material,” Wahlberg said. “We’re going to dance, we’re going to sing, we’re going to do it all.” Once the man band was unveiled—with a drumroll and from behind a red-velvet curtain set up outdoors—Wahlberg wasted no time in getting down to the business of the announcement. “We started recording in August,” he said. “Really, it was music that brought us back.”

Wahlberg also noted that the reunion announcement, which has been in the ether for months, was something the group wasn’t planning on confirming so early on, but felt they needed to after word began to leak out in January. “We really weren’t going to announce this yet,” he said, adding that the boys-no-more band ultimately decided to confirm the rumors for their fans’ sake. “The fans got a little excited, but they got a little unsure, so we thought we better come out and let them know it’s official. We hope to tour in the fall—we’re already setting up limited dates.”

[From E! News]

I’m embarrassed to say I probably started that rumor. I’ve been working on it for the last six or seven years. I figure if you tell enough people, it’s bound to come true eventually. The New Kids will launch their tour by performing on the Today Show’s Summer Concert series on May 16th. Which I’m pretty sure I’m going to be getting up at 4 in the morning to attend. I’m only doing it for nine-year-old me. Not because I’ve had a mad crush on Donny Wahlberg since he starred in “Boomtown.” And certainly not because I want to get any of them to autograph my neon orange NKOTB water bottle. Because that would just be lame.

We reported that a New Kids on the Block reunion was in the works on Jan. 28 - a full two days before People Magazine “broke” the story. A lot of people didn’t believe it, but now it’s happening: the members of the late-80s/early 90s boy band will be appearing together for a performance on the Today Show- this Friday. Commence screaming, ladies!

Looks like the Today show’s got the right stuff: All five original New Kids on the Block members – Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, Danny Wood and brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight – will appear together in the morning show’s courtyard on April 4, a source tells PEOPLE.

After months of speculation, PEOPLE confirmed in January that the band is reuniting – just in time to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of their mega-hit album Hangin’ Tough. The group also recently updated its Web site, nkotb.com.

The boy band, which made legions of tweens swoon in the early ’90s, selling more than 50 million albums, became a worldwide phenomenon before calling it quits in 1994. Since then, the oldest “Kid,” Jonathan Knight, 39, retreated back to Boston to become a real estate developer. Former members Wahlberg, 38, and McIntyre, 35, have seen acting success, while Wood, 38, has worked as a music producer and Jordan Knight, 37, has continued to record.

[From People]

One thing that surprised me after the first story we ran on the Kids was the number of closet fans who still carry a torch for the guys. “Juno” screenwriter Diablo Cody wrote a funny column in Entertainment Weekly a while back about how many female hipsters, herself included, still had a thing for the band. True story: Jordan Knight once hit on me in a Boston bar- and he was terrible at it. He was rather drunk and kept staring at my chest while he spoke to me. I didn’t know who he was until after I turned him down, when my squealing girlfriends informed me of his identity as we were leaving. I stand by my decision– I read a couple of days later that he was engaged.

Both Celebitchy and I grew up watching “Family Ties” and were excited to see the cast have their first reunion in 18 years this morning with Matt Lauer on the “Today Show.” The actors were clearly happy to see each other and very much at ease, and it was interesting to hear the stories of how each was cast. I think I must have missed a lot of the premise of the show, which I guess is fair since I was 8 when it went off the air. I had no idea the parents were supposed to be really liberal with fairly conservative kids. To me they were just boring, regular adults. Though I did have a crazy crush on Alex P. Keaton. I think I had a thing for blazers with elbow patches for years as a result.

The cast reunited to help producer/creator Gary David Goldberg promote his new autobiography “Sit, Ubu, Sit: How I Went From Brooklyn To Hollywood With The Same Woman, The Same Dog, And A Lot Less Hair.” Goldberg was also the creator and producer of Michael J. Fox’s “Spin City,” and before that, one of my favorite shows that no one’s ever heard of “Brooklyn Bridge.” Fox and Goldberg discussed their strained relationship on “Spin City,” with Fox explaining that it was uncomfortable for him to go from the father-son type relationship they had on “Family Ties” to a relationship where they were equals, like on “Spin City.” He said he and Goldberg made the conscious decision to work through it because they were important part of each other’s lives, and hearing them describe it sounds like they really are talking about family.

Goldberg also noted that he didn’t want to cast Fox for “Family Ties” because he played the character a little too snaky in his first audition. His casting director insisted Goldberg let Fox audition one more time, and luckily the second time he was great. Goldberg also noted that the show was originally supposed to focus on the parents and the kids were supposed to be more ancillary figures. However after the fourth episode, it became clear to Goldberg that the audience really loved Fox, and the show’s focus shifted to the kids.

Matt Lauer didn’t touch on the rueful mistake of adding youngest son Andy Keaton to the cast. The kid went from a baby to a five year old in two years. I’d say that’s about when “Family Ties” jumped the shark. Brian Bonsall, the actor who played Andy, was arrested last year after he poured a drink on his girlfriend while she was sleeping, then put her in a chokehold. You can see why NBC chose not to mention him. They kept the interview light and heartwarming, and it was fun to watch the cast, who clearly enjoy each other.