The Humor Mill April 2017 | Page 26

Bill Cosby’s June trial for the alleged 2004 sexual assault of a then- Temple University employee is expected to last about two weeks, a Pennsylvania judge said today. Jury screening for the trial scheduled for June 5 is likely to start May 22 or May 29 in Allegheny County, where the jurors will be chosen, Judge Steven O’Neill said this morning in his Norristown, PA, courtroom. If convicted, Cosby could end up behind bars for up to a decade. Bill Cosby Now that Jordan Peele has a hit movie under his belt with Get Out, he’s officially gotten out of the world where he got his big break. Key & Peele went off the air in 2015 — and now you’d probably have to kidnap and brainwash Peele before he ever went back to the sketch-comedy world. Peele, who’s always maintained that he fell into comedy on the road to making films, has confirmed that his sketch-comedy career is indeed finished. He wants to “focus on writing, directing and producing” instead of playing Barack Obama forever. . Jordan Peele Bill Hader Insecure star Issa Rae is joining Bill Hader in the drama-comedy Empress of Serenity, directed by Me and Earl and the Dying Girl author and screenwriter Jesse Andrews. Good Universe is producing Empress of Serenity, centered on a lawyer who’s coerced into taking an ocean cruise in order to bond with his estranged father. Production is planned for August. Hader plays a man whose elaborate plan to win back his ex-wife is upended when he is guilted into a month-long mega-cruise with his widowed father. Rae plays a reclusive kindred spirit in the cabin next door who becomes both the aid and the obstacle in his plan. 26 Issa Rae