Next week kicks off another season for the Charlotte Knights at BB&T Ballpark, and to help us celebrate we've brought in a guy whose hijinks at the park have already become urban Uptown legend.

Joe Gillespie, aka the Homer Thief, subject of the most-read story Creative Loafing has ever published, has hooked up with JD Harris, founder of Charlotte-based Glory Days Apparel, to bring the city something they didn't know they needed for the upcoming baseball season.

Yes, Gillespie is bringing back the mullet-and-mustache combo seen 'round the world, but that ain't all. You'll have to wait until Creative Loafing brings you the full story on Monday, but until then, catch up on the legend as it was originally told, and check our guy in the teaser below...

Who said the local film industry is dead?

A new web series that debuted at the Spectrum Center over the holiday weekend is filmed wholly in Charlotte and aims to raise awareness for a problem that has plagued our local NBA franchise for years: no players in the All Star Game.

Let's just sidestep the fact that Charlotte was in line to host the upcoming All Star Game until House Bill 2 inspired commissioner Adam Silver to move it — lost to New Orleans just as the franchise itself was in 2002.

The more immediate problem faced now by the Hornets — one that can potentially be fixed without having to deal with slithery members of the NCGOP — is a six-year drought in sending a Charlotte player to the NBA All Star Game. The last player to make it was Gerald Wallace, who appeared in the 2010 game as a representative of the Charlotte Bobcats. It's been 14 years since a player went as a Charlotte Hornet, when point guard Baron Davis repped the Hornets in 2002, their last year before moving to New Orleans.

Now in steps a brave new point guard — one who has arguably proved to be the best at his position in franchise history in five-and-a-half seasons — with a cowboy hat, a duster and a seemingly magical basketball.

Over the weekend, the Hornets debuted the first two episodes of Walker, Charlotte Ranger, a web series that parodies the awful '90s Chuck Norris vehicle Walker, Texas Ranger. In it, Walker stars as the namesake of the show alongside his deputy, played by the goofy Hornets big man Frank Kaminsky.

SPOILER ALERT: In the first two episodes, Walker assists a young Hornets fan in distress with a simple bounce pass of his basketball, then saves Hugo from three bad guys — conveniently wearing shirts that read Bad Guy 1, Bad Guy 2 and Main Bad Guy — with juke moves. The main bad guy then makes off to New Orleans, where Kaminsky promises Walker will eventually follow. The acting is laughably bad throughout and can be hard to watch, but that's what makes it fun. There won't be any Webby awards handed out for these performances, but the Hornets are hoping the awkwardness of it all will lead to a trip to New Orleans for Walker.

The series is meant to inspire fans to vote Walker into the All Star Game. Corny but fun campaigns like this have become the norm for the Charlotte marketing team. In 2014, they launched a "Big Al's Paint" website in an attempt to make the case for Bobcats center Al Jefferson to be named to the All-NBA team. He was named third team All-NBA that year.

Near the end of the 2014-15 season, the Hornets launched a "MKG Security" campaign complete with commercials and a press kit seen below. That campaign to get Michael Kidd-Gilchrist named to the NBA All-Defensive team was not successful, although it appears MKG will reprise his role as "chief security officer" in an upcoming episode of Walker, Charlotte Ranger.

Creative genius from @hornets on Michael Kidd-Gilchrist for All-Defensive Team campaign http://t.co/e0MlS5FK1S pic.twitter.com/zo40HNphBs

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) April 2, 2015

The Hornets are expected to release new episodes at upcoming home games on Thursday night against the Miami Heat, New Year's Eve against the Cleveland Cavaliers and Jan. 4 against the Oklahoma City Thunder. All-Star voting ends on Jan. 16.

For Manisha Parekh, a member of the local Charlotte Roller Girls roller derby team, being on an episode of Jeopardy has been a lifelong dream. Tonight, that dream becomes a reality.

Parekh, known on the track as Not So Sari, has been watching Jeopardy for as long as she can remember. Growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, she participated in every quiz bowl through middle and high school.

But tonight, at 7 p.m. on WCNC, she’ll go pro. That’s when an episode (and hopefully more) that she taped in January will air.

“This was a lifelong bucket list item dream. I knew the odds were slim. It was a dream of mine and I just didn’t think it would ever happen,” Parekh said before the show airs. “This has been a day of trepidation, of excitement and a whole bunch of feelings wrapped up into one.”

The process took about three years from the moment she decided to make a legit stab at being on the show. She first tried the online test in January 2013, but didn’t do well enough to receive a call. When a new test was released a year later, she was able to try again. She soon received a call to attend an in-person audition in Raleigh, and made her way there in March 2014.

“When I finished there they were clear in telling us, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you,’” she said.

Then the waiting game began. Parekh was told she had been entered into a pool of potential contestants that would remain open for 18 months. She tried to keep it in the back of her mind while going about her normal life in Charlotte. She joined the Roller Girls in September 2014, but was just "fresh meat" during last season and took some time to learn the game. In December 2015, she passed final assessments and will be on the track with the team this year. 

“Last night was her first scrimmage, but you can tell she is picking up the game quickly and will be an awesome addition to the team,” said Liz McLaughlin, an All Star Jammer with the Roller Girls known as Total Lizaster. “We are all excited to see her compete tonight on Jeopardy and on the track this season.”

Through all of her work, Parekh knew an important deadline was approaching fast. 

“When October (2015) rolled around, I figured, that’s 18 months, I guess I won’t be on,” she said.

Then, in the last few days of October, she got a call asking her to fly to Culver City for taping over Thanksgiving weekend. An unplanned surgery for Alex Trebek pushed the taping back to January, giving Parekh more time to study up. She spent the next two months reading trivia books, taking online tests and having her kids quiz her on a daily basis. Looking back, she didn’t even need to. 

“All of those things I studied, I don’t think any of it helped me one bit,” Parekh said, laughing. “It was just stuff I picked up along the way.”

While on set, Parekh didn’t get to do much speaking with Trebek, although he had a certain interest in her roller derby talent when he finally did approach her.

“At the end of the show when you see him standing in front of the podiums with all three contestants, he asked me to teach him how to do a Derby Whip,” she said, referring to the move in which one teammate slings another ahead. “He was very specific that he wanted to give a Derby Whip rather than receive one. So I put my hands right on his arm and I showed him the right way to do it.”

If not in the same physical way they do on the track, Not So Sari’s teammates will have her back tonight at a viewing party at Fox & Hound at Northlake Mall. She and the other Roller Girls invite any fans or potential fans to join them.

“We’re just going to watch and have fun. The seasons kicks off on March 5 so this is a great chance to get together and hang out with fans and do something that you wouldn’t typically think about when you think about a Roller Girl,” she said.

As might be expected in a sport filled exclusively with badass women, Parekh has experienced her share of quick judgments and misperceptions, and hopes tonight’s Jeopardy appearance can help dispel all of that.

“I think there’s a stereotype that roller derby is not a real sport, but there’s so much strategy and you really have to be on your mental game to do well in it,” said Parekh, a psychologist by day. “Another stereotype is that we’re not well-educated women. We have a couple PhDs on team. We have nurses and teachers. Hopefully, this will change some of the stereotypes.”

McLaughlin agrees, and said she can’t wait to see how the new addition uses her head come March 5 at the Grady Cole Center.

“Roller derby is such a cool sport because it brings together so many different types of people,” McLaughlin said. “From teachers to artists to web developers to lawyers to journalists and even doctors like Manisha.”

Creative Loafing couldn’t get a hint out of Parekh regarding how she did or whether she moved on to the next day (Television secret: It’s not really the next day. They tape five episodes in a row and change clothes in between.) We’ll just have to watch and cheer like the rest of you, hoping to see her on our TVs through the week.

And even if she loses and hip checks whomever wins, we will Not Be so Sari to see that, either. 

We'll start by saying that lists like the ones below aren’t the type of thing you’ll regularly see in Creative Loafing, but following the publication of a click bait listicle titled “The Top 10 Reasons to Hate the Carolina Panthers” by an unnamed alt weekly in Phoenix leading up to the NFC Championship game, we felt the need to stand by our boys.

Now, we could have stooped to that level and tried some similar nonsense tearing apart the Denver Broncos team or Arizona Cardinals fans (although we’re pretty sure there are none left after only two fans showed up to meet them in Phoenix following the loss) but we’d rather stay positive and share the 10 reasons we couldn’t be more excited for February 7.

Enjoy…and Keep Pounding.

10. Michael Oher…The Blind Side guy is finally having his come-uppance

Michael Oher was certainly a big name coming out of the draft; an Oscar-nominated film depicting his life as a troubled black youth adopted by a well-to-do white woman played by Sandra Bullock certainly made him one of the most visible players in the 2009 draft.

He never panned out as the great player fans of the movie hoped he could be, and after being signed by the Panthers in 2015, he made it known to reporters that he was sick of talking about The Blind Side and believes the movie, which he didn't even like, hurt his career.

On Wednesday, Cam Newton said he made an extra effort to recruit Oher to the Panthers, mainly with texts like one saying, “I fucking need you.” He ended up being very right. While Oher has still struggled to be effective as a run blocker this year, he has been a huge help in pass protection on Newton’s blind side (We know, we know).

9. Best uniforms in the NFL

This is not just us talking; the Panthers’ all-black jerseys were literally voted the best NFL uniforms of all time by fans in an NFL.com poll two years ago.

They chose not to go with the all-blacks, however, and will be rocking the black jerseys with silver pants and helmets at Super Bowl 50 in San Francisco on February 7.

The only uniform combination out of the question for the Panthers at the Super Bowl was the all-white pairing they’ve been donning in both playoff wins thus far. As the home team, the Denver Broncos had first pick for unis and went with their own white road outfits, with owner John Elway stating that the Broncos’ 0-4 Super Bowl record while wearing orange played a part in the decision.

With a team like this year’s Panthers, though, who needs superstition?