May 2005

Chappelle Goes AWOL MAY 4

Shooting of the highly anticipated season 3 of Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show is shut down, and the May 31 premiere date canceled, when $50 million man Dave Chappelle abruptly takes off to South Africa. Chappelle tells TIME that he went on a ''spiritual retreat'' to flee the stress of high expectations. Production of Comedy Central's highest-rated series is eventually shut down altogether, delivering the worst blow to the network since BattleBots' Techno Destructo announced it wouldn't fight anymore following a conversion to Buddhism.

Raymond Tunes Out MAY 16

Thirty-two million viewers catch the final episode of CBS' Everybody Loves Raymond, which bids farewell this year along with HBO's Six Feet Under, CBS' JAG, ABC's NYPD Blue, and UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise. Perhaps someday viewers mourning these shows will have their voids filled when a network airs a comedy about over-mothered Navy lawyers from the future who investigate coroner crime while occasionally flashing their butts. But until then, they can suck on The War at Homelike the rest of us.

The Last Star Wars Film Opens MAY 19
Director George Lucas' Revenge of the Sith is released, garnering a record four-day take of $158.4 million. Eventually the movie will make $380 million thanks to the sheer number of SW fans who have waited 28 years to find out what turned Anakin to the dark side. For 10 bucks they finally get the anticlimactic answer — some old dude made him paranoid and he fell into lava — as well as the uneasy sensation that someone just threw their childhood into a wheat thresher.

Taradise Is Born MAY 20
E! announces that Tara Reid will be the new host of Wild On, a title they change to Taradise because their first choice, Lush Life, wouldn't be kosher with Nat King Cole's estate.