Saturday Night Live

i kinda wonder if relying on cue cards is encouraged just because the sketches are so painstakingly timed for staging/camera blocking and for scheduled ad breaks, it's just another way to keep things humming along.

Hasn't that always been the case? (just ask Elvis Costello)

JH's Old Bette Davis was formidable.

https://screen.yahoo.com/video-000000540.html

So great.

i kinda wonder if relying on cue cards is encouraged just because the sketches are so painstakingly timed for staging/camera blocking and for scheduled ad breaks, it's just another way to keep things humming along.

The show's always had the same set-up (multi cams, studio, sets, etc), but I imagine they do have to work around more commercial breaks now. Still, there's no good reason for such painfully heavy reliance on cue cards. SNL either used to employ a better class of actor or Lorne just doesn't give a shit anymore.

This was a HUGE skit in my household when I was a kid

https://screen.yahoo.com/jan-hooks-snl-skits/peoples-court-000000848.html

Lovitz as the devil was always a win, but Hooks is likewise brilliant.

I was wondering about the cue card thing too, and the only explanation I can think of is that maybe rewrites are happening right up until showtime (cf. Stefon cracking up because he's reading his lines for the first time on the air)...but that wouldn't explain the insane reliance on cue cards for absolutely every single line of every single show.

xp That People's Court sketch is an all time favorite of mine. RIP Jan Hooks.

ahahaha moynihan

https://vine.co/v/OKpwBDQjDVW

haha

http://tadleckman.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/the-devil-on-the-peoples-court/

http://www.vidoosh.tv/videos/14781/the-sweeney-sisters-at-the-emmys

They opened the broadcast with a medley in 1988. Jan Hooks' version of Magilla Gorilla is wonderful.

no onion a/v club, but does anyone remember other sketches used to pay tribute to cast members who passed?

jan hooks got love is but a dream, gilda got dancing in the dark, farley got the farley show with mccartney...

They did a full 'Best of' for Hartman, since he was killed after they wrapped that season.

I thought I remembered them showing an old Franken & Davis sketch when Tom Davis died, but wiki tells me that was in July 2012, so probably not.

This isn't the same, but I seem to recall they shuffled their reruns so they could re-air the Charles Barkley/Nirvana ep on the first rerun slot after Cobain died.

The SNL oldie they showed at 10:00 featured Hooks prominently. (B52s musical guests)

this sketch should've made it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxKZSPELEvs

did anyone notice that in the hollywood game night sketch the crowd screamed suspiciously loud when they introduced "nick offerman"

i think at least a dozen people in the audience didn't realize it was not the real nick offerman

Coal miner sketch would've been the funniest thing of the whole episode imo.

The reaction to "Nick Offerman" was indeed weird. I didn't even think the impersonation was all that great, either.

hollywood game night was funny imo but "a succession of absurd celebrity impressions" is SNL's most reliable formula

The SNL oldie they showed at 10:00 featured Hooks prominently. (B52s musical guests)

Strange how the last cast member in the alphabetical roll call was Kevin Nealon.

Loved that diner sketch ("Sexual Tension Diner"), plus Nealon and Hartman being goobers in the background.

16 year old me didn't get all the jokes in Mike Myers' "Middle Aged Man" character, but 40 year old me was rolling the other night.

Yeah, "Escrow, it's funny because it's true."

Are you looking at my gut? I'm working on it!

did anyone notice that in the hollywood game night sketch the crowd screamed suspiciously loud when they introduced "nick offerman"

― snrub goin up on a tuesday (J0rdan S.), Monday, October 13, 2014 4:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Uh, he's pretty much TV's most baconed actor right now

To a Brooklyn thirtysomething hipster in digital media, yes

ok dude, keep calm and chive on

watching some of these sketches really reminds me how good the late eighties-early nineties SNL crew was acting wise and chemistry wise. I mean everyone is incredible. jan hooks and nora dunn were so underrated too.

I think watching SNL during that era made me want to move to NYC.

Quiz: Without Googling, how many of the four featured-player white guys from the last two seasons who didn't get invited back can you name?

john milhiser
the guy who played a hillbilly next to ed norton, did his stand-up on update and basically nothing else
mike(?) o'brien
the big-faced dude who swapped writer-actor spots with o'brien

Milheiser, the schlumpy dude, the guy who looked like an Addams Family cartoon come to life, and the other one

i believe big-face and o'brien are both back in the writing trenches now, that's gotta be weird

O'Brien is the Addams Family dude

really hoping michael che will get more and more confident as the season goes on, finally forcing lorne to have jost join this list

Bill Murray did a monologue when Michael O'Donoghue died, then they showed 12-yo Jodie Foster sitting on MO'D's lap.

i have no idea who Nick Offerman is.

i knew the fix was in for handsome stand-up dude when they started having kyle mooney play boyfriends in ensemble scenes instead, beck bennett already having taken the "dad" slot

Nick Offerman is Megan Mullaly's husband

He played the construction worker in City Of Angels

did anyone notice that in the hollywood game night sketch the crowd screamed suspiciously loud when they introduced "nick offerman"

― snrub goin up on a tuesday (J0rdan S.), Monday, October 13, 2014 4:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Uh, he's pretty much TV's most baconed actor right now

― ILOVEMASONNA (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, October 14, 2014 7:23 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In October 2013, Offerman released a book titled Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man's Fundamentals for Delicious Living, in which he shares his humorous ruminations on life, manliness, meat, and growing the perfect mustache.

Bacon-bound limited edition first printing, IIRC.

not going to give his name in case people still want to play the game, but featured player i uncharitably described as "big-face" was apparently the first featured player to then be made a staff writer since Brian Doyle-Murray. I could see him playing a lot of referees too.

Big Face has done a few on-camera bits on Late Night with Seth, so he may have made the move over there when Seth exited SNL.

he might be hopping all over 30 rock, but he's still in the mix at SNL. Apparently co-wrote that ad for Whites this season with O'Brien.

mike o'brien's seven minutes in heaven web series was gr8 so i was bummed when they cut him from the cast

i didn't actually see him in any sketches tho looool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqJA0xjD1CM