Mayim Bialik, an actress, author, and neuroscientist, who became a fan-favorite on the hit CBS show The Big Bang Theory as Sheldon's quirky love interest, is starring in a sitcom of her own again.
The show, which premiered in January and titled Call Me Kat, is about a woman who uses her life savings to open a cat cafe in Louisville, Ky. Jim Parsons, who starred opposite Bialik in The Big Bang Theory as the highly intelligent but often irritating Sheldon, is producing the show adapted from the British sitcom Miranda by Miranda Hart.
"He said 'if anyone can pull off annoying but also adorable, I think it's you," Bialik told Cheddar.
In the grand-old tradition of adapting British comedies, the two shows will share more in spirit than in specifics, but both concern a single woman looking for love and employment. What's unique to the American version is the decision to base the show in a cat cafe.
Luckily for Bialik, she's a cat owner herself.
"It's really awesome that I get to play with cats all day at work, and come home and then deal with my own cats who definitely smell the other cats on me," she said.
A stylistic choice that was carried over from Miranda is that Bialik's character will break the fourth wall throughout the show.
"Kat is a character who's alone a lot and tries not to be lonely, so the audience is kind of in on what's going on in her head," Bialik said.
In addition, the cast takes a bow at the end of each episode, which Bialik said has been divisive.
"You don't have to love it, but if you don't, it's not our fault. It's based on Miranda," she said.
The neuroscientist also took a moment to talk about the world outside the silver screen.
Bialik made headlines back in October for posting a video on YouTube clarifying that she was not an anti-vaxxer. She said misinformation had spread about her because her newly-born children were not vaccinated on a regular schedule.
"Obviously my children are vaccinated," she said. "We are a family that supports the vaccine program for this virus."
However, she noted that she was a skeptical person in general and pointed out that the long-term effects of COVID vaccines are still unknown. Nonetheless, she said she got the vaccine in order to reach herd immunity as soon as possible.
"I got the vaccine, and that's something that I decided to share about because there's been a lot of misinformation about me."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018.
Since 2017, the third floor of the iconic Cleveland, Ohio, house that was the fictional home to the bespectacled hero of "A Christmas Story" has been rentable to fans of the classic movie. And this year, the neighboring "Bumpus" house is also available to the more cantankerous among us for overnight stays.
Caliva, a Silicon Valley-based marijuana company, is waging an extensive recruitment campaign to hire drivers from popular ride-hailing and delivery companies, including Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. "What we've found is that a lot of the drivers who normally drive for Uber, Lyft, or DoorDash are really looking to have not just a full-time or part-time job with benefits, but they're looking to be part of something," said Caliva CEO Dennis O'Malley in an interview on Cheddar Monday.
In 2019, 10 minutes out of every hour of media engagement will be spent streaming video on mobile, app market data provider App Annie told Cheddar. In 2018, app downloads hit 113 billion, Levitas said, while spending on Google ($GOOGL) Play and the Apple ($AAPL) app store hit $76 billion. On average, Americans spent three hours per day on apps.
New video-sharing platform Portal wants to help online video creators cash in on their content, says company founder Jonathan Swerdlin. "Portal is the first video sharing platform that everyone can use that completely skips the ad model and introduces really easy ways for users to pay each other," Swerdlin said in an interview on Cheddar. "Everyone can be their own mini HBO."
Christmas is on Tuesday, which means Panic Saturday is upon us. Dec. 22 is expected to be the second-busiest shopping day at stores this year, falling short in foot traffic only to Black Friday. Bill Simon, the former CEO of Walmart U.S., told Cheddar Friday that brick-and-mortar retailers are about to have their moment, since "the online guys are done, they can't get it there in time now."
Fair Financial is riding high on its recent $385 million round of funding. Founder and CEO Scott Painter is even willing to bet the used-car-subscription startup will go public down the line. "In most cases, I think it is really foolish to set a target that says, 'we are going to be a public company,' but in Fair's case, there is quite literally just so much money involved," Painter told Cheddar on Friday. "It will have to be a public company sooner than later."
With just a few days left in the year, Cheddar decided to take a look at the best and worst of what 2018 had to offer in entertainment.
Rather than flee to Neverland, Peter Pan might have enrolled in "adulting" school. And so too can stunted millennials ー daunted by bill-paying, cooking, cleaning, and the like ー if they take a class in adult skills at a new institution in Portland, Maine.
Sixty percent of millennials would have to beg, borrow, or steal if confronted with a mere $1,000 in emergency expenses, according to a new survey from LendingTree, which defines the generation as those between 22 and 37 in age. Brian Karimzad, vice president of research at LendingTree, told Cheddar that millennials were least prepared in part due to the combined $1.5 trillion in student loan debt they are carrying.
