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Trending news, culture, and entertainment from Hearst producers around the country.

Bumper crop of Super Bowl teaser ads

Matthew Broderick’s Ferris Bueller tease is just one of the Super Bowl ad promos hitting YouTube. Here’s a selection of them, including one from Volkswagen that looks something like an Alpo ad for the Empire.





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Matthew Broderick teases Ferris Bueller Super Bowl ad

Bueller? Bueller? The web is abuzz that Ferris himself may return during the Super Bowl, or maybe even to theaters, after a cryptic video was posted on YouTube today.

The video shows Matthew Broderick throwing open some curtains and asking, “How can I handle work on a day like today?” The very Bueller “Oh Yeah” song by Yello plays as the date of the Super Bowl is flashed. Is the tease for a big-budget ad or maybe even a much-belated sequel? The former is more likely than the latter, but we’ll just have to see. A note posted with the video says, “We hate to be such a tease, but on a day like today, we just have to. Stick it out until the Super Bowl, or take a ‘day off’ on Monday and catch the big reveal.”

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Paula Deen caught on video chowing down on cheeseburger

Paula Deen isn’t letting Type 2 diabetes keep her down.

Splash has posted a video of the celebrity chef, who has come under fire for promoting a diabetes drug and hiding her disease, enjoying a cheeseburger and fries during her annual Paula Deen Party at Sea cruise. TMZ also has a photo if you want to see the massacre up close.

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Girl collapses after eating mostly chicken nuggets for 15 years

Nugget of goodness (Chronicle file photo)

In a chicken-flavored version of the “Super Size Me” documentary, a British girl is apparently dealing with the consequences of eating nothing but chicken nuggets and french fries for 15 straight years.

According to tabloids The Sun and the Daily Mail, 17-year-old Stacey Irvine of Birmingham has been eating chicken nuggets since the age of 2. Recently, she was rushed to the hospital after collapsing at work. Doctors found she had anemia and swollen veins in her tongue. But of course, that could prove to be merely a bump in the road for her nugget-mania. She told The Sun:

“I am starting to realise this is really bad for me. McDonald’s chicken nuggets are my favourite. I share 20 with my boyfriend with chips. But I also like KFC and supermarket brands. My main meal is always chicken nuggets every day.”

Irvine’s mom Evonne is — like any good parent whose daughter has eaten chicken nuggets for 15 years – exasperated:

“It breaks my heart to see her eating those damned nuggets. She’s been told in no uncertain terms that she’ll die if she carries on like this. But she says she can’t eat anything else.”

Those damned nuggets. This makes Morgan Spurlock’s hamburger-infused “Super Size Me” diet seem positively healthy. At least burgers have lettuce, right?

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Wal-Mart removes store greeters from overnight shifts

(alaspoorwho / Flickr Creative Commons)

The beloved Walmart greeters, who welcome shoppers as they enter the automatic doors and grab their carts at the big-box store, will no longer be there to say hi during all hours of the night, Bloomberg News reported.

After three decades, the company decided to remove greeters from the 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift at U.S. stores as a way to save money and use staff more efficiently.

From the story:

Founder Sam Walton added greeters in 1980 to make his giant low-price stores friendly and welcoming. Cutting back, even during the early morning hours, shows Wal-Mart is rethinking longheld traditions to boost profit margins and guarantee low prices, said David Strasser, an analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott LLC in Philadelphia.

“It’s risky,” Strasser, who recommends buying Wal-Mart shares, said in a phone interview. “Consumers have been going to Wal-Mart for years, and greeters have become an expectation. To a degree it defines Wal-Mart.”

Bruce Plummer, a greeter on the first shift at a Wal-Mart in Fort Worth, Texas, said the company stopped scheduling third- shift greeters at his store in recent weeks.

“It’s important that they have it,” Plummer said in an interview. “Our job is to ask people if they have receipts. We also make them feel welcome and safe.”

The greeters can face difficult or even violent shoppers, like the New Yorker who punched a 70-year-old greeter asking for her receipt in December or the Ohio woman who choked a greeter earlier last year.

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Leprosy group wants ‘Pirates’ to walk the plank

The British animator Aardman will change a scene in its upcoming film, “Pirates: Band of Misfits,” after objections from leprosy advocacy groups, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The 3D animated film voiced by the likes of Hugh Grant, Salma Hayek, Jeremy Piven and David Tennant is due in theaters April 27. The groups that came out against the scene include Lepra Health In Action and the International Federation of Anti-Leprosy Associations.

In the trailer the Grant-voiced Pirate Captain lands on a ship demanding gold, but is told by a crew member: “Afraid we don’t have any gold old man, this is a leper boat. See.” After issuing the explanation, the sailor’s arm drops off.

Leprosy groups expressed concern that the scene could increase the stigma and discrimination felt by people suffering from leprosy.

The filmmaker will alter the scene “out of respect and sensitivity for those who suffer from leprosy,”  Aardman said in a statement.

-Anna Gallegos

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A star is born: New dad freestyles to fetal monitor

As he waited for his new son to arrive in the delivery room, U.S. Air Force Sgt. Charles McDaniel didn’t pick up a magazine or grab the TV remote.  Instead, he filled the room with a freestyle rap to the cadence of the fetal monitor, MSNBC is reporting:

McDaniel, an Air Force staff sergeant based in Aviano, Italy, noticed that the monitor, which had slipped out of place, was pulsing in a rhythmic beat. While waiting for medical staff to fix the problem, the father-to-be decided to distract his wife, LaQuita, from her contractions with a little freestyle rap.

“I just, you know, started singing,” said McDaniel, 32, who hails from Houston.

More precisely, he launched into a riff on contractions, cervical dilation and other delivery-related issues, all with the aim of welcoming son Kingston Josiah into the world.

McDaniel’s new-baby rap video had been viewed more than 150,000 times on YouTube as of Thursday morning.

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14-year-old Utah boy killed by tiny replica cannon

Utah police are investigating how a tiny replica cannon accidentally fired at a 14-year-old boy and killed him, according to an ABC News story.

Robby Ostberg died Monday when an 18th century cannon he was holding fired accidentally, the news agency reported. Ostberg was dead when police arrived at the home.

The cannon was a .50-caliber weapon designed to be fired with black powder. Police did not know what type of propellant may have been in the cannon Monday or if there had been a projectile in it, police said.

Trever Steinlicht, a neighbor, said the cannon could send a projectile through a wall or kill small animals. He said they are known to accidentally go off.

“All it takes is for something to slip and the hammer to drop on it and it will go boom,” Steinlicht said.

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