according to NBC’s report on his passing<\/a>, and became its arts editor in 1973, interviewing celebrities and reviewing books as well as films. His role on the show was reduced in his later years and he retired at age 84 in 2010, saying, “It’s \u200benough already.”<\/p>\nShalit was quick to laugh, and his schtick-laden “Critic’s Corner” \u200bsegments on Today brimmed with ebullience. With big glasses, dark frizzy hair sticking out several inches from his head and a massive moustache bisecting his face, he \u200blooked like a lost Marx brother.<\/p>\n
Shalit strove to be as entertaining as the movies \u2060he critiqued and did not \u2060mind being corny. His reviews were full \u200cof pithy comments that a Hollywood studio could easily repurpose for positive advertising blurbs. <\/p>\n
For a 2005 remake of King Kong, Shalit said conventional vocabulary would not suffice so he called it “fabularious” and “a brilliantological humongousness of marvelosity.” <\/p>\n
Shalit reviews were built on puns that played on a \u2060film’s title, such as:<\/p>\n
“Go \u2014 don’t forego – Fargo.””Ishtar is tar-ible.””The Silence of the Lambs may be all wool and a yard wide but it makes a terrific yarn.””This movie (The Mummy) is filled with wonders for every family \u2014 for \u200ckiddies and for daddies and, of course, for mummies.””You know, when it comes to oddball titles, The Men Who Stare at Goats would be hard to bleat.”<\/p>\n
The love of wordplay came early for Shalit \u2014 his column in the student newspaper at the University of Illinois \u200bwas called “What Shalit Be.” <\/p>\n
Guy Ludwig, Shalit’s long-time producer on Today, said the reviewer always approached a movie with “absolute glee” despite having seen so many.<\/p>\n
Shalit \u2060stirred controversy in 2005 when he described one of the main characters in the acclaimed Brokeback Mountain \u2014 \u2060the story of a romance between two cowboys \u2014 as a “sexual predator.” <\/p>\n
GLAAD said \u2060Shalit’s \u2060characterization was homophobic, and he apologized.<\/p>\n
Before Today, Shalit \u200bwas a film critic for Look magazine and also wrote for Ladies’ Home Journal.<\/p>\n
He also compiled the \u200banthologies Laughing Matters: A Celebration of \u2060American Humor and Great Hollywood Wit: A Glorious Cavalcade of Hollywood Wisecracks, Zingers, Japes, Quips, Slings, Jests, Snappers & Sass from the Stars.<\/p>\n
Shalit’s on-the-air style and appearance made him easy to caricature, and he was spoofed on Saturday Night Live and the animated sitcom Family Guy.<\/p>\n
Shalit and his wife Nancy, who died in 1978, had six children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-733463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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