While Will Farrell is allowed to make mediocre comedy after mediocre comedy, Jan Hooks hasn't worked since 2004. Yes, SNL has launched the careers of countless male superstars, but what has it done for the women? Pretty much bubkas. There are a few notable exceptions—Tina Fey, Gilda Radner, Amy Poehler, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for instance—but whither Ellen Cleghorne, Victoria Jackson, and Julia Sweeney? From the show's original cast, Jane Curtin may have gone on to several sitcoms, but Laraine Newman has been doing little more than guest spots and voice work for the better part of the decade.

Luckily Ana Gasteyer and Christine Ebersole went on to find steady work on Broadway, but that's kind of like being the chastest girl at a Sex-aholics Anonymous meeting. Why can Jimmy Fallon get his own late-night talk show, when Nora Dunn and Cheri Oteri are at home waiting by their phones? And for every Janeane Garofalo — who fled 30 Rock after one season, allowing her to escape with her career intact — a dozen Siobhan Fallones or Mary Grosses float out of sight. Maybe they should have taken the Maya Rudolph route and married a hipster director and done a drama. Now people are talking about how she's an "actress" instead of a comedian.

And it's not that these women aren't funny; they did scale to the very pinnacle of their trade by earning their places on the show. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with funny women. After all, it would rather have an attractive but bland actress playing the female lead on a sitcom rather than someone who has actual comedic timing. Look at who is starring in this season's romantic comedies: Amy Adams, Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston, three ladies who never let themselves get pigeon-holed as "funny."

Don't worry, Casey and Michaela, just remember that there was a little girl named Sarah Silverman who got fired from SNL after one season too. She went out there and did her own thing, and in the end talent won out, and now she has her own show on basic cable! Look at how far you can go!

Celebrities Die in Miserable Trios
No one really knows where this theory came from, though we suspect it may have something to do with the Wiccan Rule of Three. The Rule is pretty simple: once one celebrity dies, inevitably two more famous deaths will follow soon after. Speculation and dot-connecting can reach a fever pitch, even if the "celebrity" status of those considered can be a bit tenuous at times. Some sort of sane person may say that, you know, people die in an unending flood of thousands, every unforgiving day. But most of those people are poor and uninteresting. So, yeah. Important deaths happen in threes. The rest is just population control.

Carol Ann and the Poltergeist... Poltergeist
When filming the gruesome "swimming pool full of dead people" scene, the crew used actual corpses (though they were union, at least.) A series of unfortunate events followed, as chronicled by the AJ Benza of unfortunate events, Lemony Snicket. OK, that is not at all true, but, yes, tragically several people involved with the production died suddenly. Dominique Dunne, the 22-year-old actress who played the eldest daughter of the haunted family, was murdered by her boyfriend soon after the movie was released. Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Ann, died suddenly of a septic infection. Two other actors died shortly after. It makes me icky to think about it, so let's end there. You can read more about it here.

Billy Bob Thornton's Bad Juju
Many of the skinny, weird actor's costars have died: JT Walsh, John Ritter, Heath Ledger (who also died in the movie he made with Thornton), Bernie Mac, and Jim "Ernest" Varney. On the Billy Bob boo-boos list are Shia LaBeouf and Morgan Freeman (both car accidents) and his Waking Up in Reno costar Patrick Swayze is suffering from pancreatic cancer. Why are you doing this, Billy Bob? What have these people done to offend you so? Is this why Angelina wore your blood 'round her neck, to ward off your bad magicks? Read more on Defamer.

The Dark Knight Curse: The Revenge of Katie Holmes
As I've already expounded upon it beautifully, I won't go into the nitty gritty specifics of this latest Hollywood hex. All you need to know is that Heath died, Christian Bale threw his elderly saint of a mother out a window and then peed on her, and then Morgan Freeman took an ill-advised shortcut. Note the overlap between the DK jinx and Thorntongate. One party is responsible. You decide which one it is. But, chose wisely.

The Kal-El Katastrophes
The Superman franchise is also doomed. George Reeves, who played the blocky stocky rocky socky space nerd on television in the 50's was killed in a suspicious (probably Lex Luthor-related) suicide. His memory was further desecrated when Ben Affleck was chosen to play him in the film Hollywoodland (I kid, I kid. Affleck was good in that.) Richard Pryor, from the 70's films, got sick and died. Margot Kidder wandered into the woods of her mind and was never heard from again. And of course the eerily similar-named Christopher Reeve was in a horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed. He died a few years later. Recently the latest Superman, Brandon Routh, was diagnosed with a severe case of No Career.

Writing Devil Checks Your Life Can't Cash
Roman Polanski directed the howlingly funny Rosemary's Baby, about a woman who is the mutha of Satan's child. A year later, his young wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by members of Helter Skelterist Charles Manson's Fruitcake Crazy Society. Later Polanski sexed a ten-year-old and had to move to France. Meanwhile Brandon Lee, playing the lead role in the Godless resurrection/undead goth fest The Crow, was shot and killed during filming by a bullet that was supposed be a blank. Unlike everyone else on Earth, Lee's father Bruce Lee also died once.

Linda Blair Was Not the Only Creepy Thing to Come Crab-Walking Out of The Exorcist
The William Friedkin documentary, about hell demons living in Washington DC, was overtaken by a curse that affected many cast and crew members' lives. There were fires on set and some "four to nine" crew members died during the filming of the movie. Linda Blair's grandfather passed away, as did the brother of 326-year-old Swedish actor Max von Sydow. Loads of other creepy stuff happened, not the least of which was the execrable (hah?) prequel Exorcist: The Beginning.

So there you have it. Awful, terrible no good things. I'm sure I've missed some. I've heard rumors that people who costar with Debra Messing are doomed to play grating, sexless lawyers and that if you undo Diane Keaton's tie, her head falls off.

What have you heard?

Strange how many Billy Bob Thornton co-stars have died prematurely (Ritter, Bernie Mac, J.T. Walsh, Heath Ledger). Thank goodness Morgan Freeman (Levity) and Shia (Eagle Eye) survived their crashes and Patrick Swayze (Waking Up in Reno) is coming back from cancer or we'd be talking about the Billy Bob Curse. Not trying to make light, just think it's eerie.

And don't forget Jim Varney, whose final role before dying at 50 was Thornton's film Daddy and Them. Eerie, indeed — and we're not afraid to call it the curse that it is. So please see above for Defamer's unsettling reference to doomed and/or endangered Thornton castmates. And be careful, Hollywood!

• Bernie's Out [Hollywood Elsewhere]

'There was quite a lot of blood and it was decided he needed to go to hospital for emergency treatment,' explained a member of the Bond production team. 'Some people are beginning to believe the film is jinxed.' ...

At the weekend a fire broke out and caused severe damage on an outdoor Bond set at Pinewood. The 007 studio at Pinewood had been open for only a year after it had to be rebuilt after a previous fire destroyed a giant replica of Venice during filming of the last Bond film, 'Casino Royale.'

Two stunt men were hurt in separate car accidents while filming Quantum of Solace on location at in northern Italy in April. British engineer Fraser Dunn, 29, was left fighting for his life after he crashed a £134,000 Aston Martin DBS into the water at Lake Garda in northern Italy. During the same shoot an unnamed Greek stuntman suffered serious head injuries in a car crash.

We also recall Craig having lost a couple of teeth back in 2005 when shooting a Casino Royale fight scene, but no dental crises or torn, bleeding flesh are enough to keep the blonde Bond off the set — at least not when taken with the film's Paul Haggis script credit. Some films just jinx themselves.

• Curse of Bond strikes Again... [Daily Mail]