Saturday Night Live

and it's not like people from second city, ucb, esp stand-ups, got the job because they were great at reading cue cards

Yeah, Michaels' no-improvising rule makes a certain amount of sense for technical reasons, but it makes no sense when the cast is almost entirely coming from improvising backgrounds. "Wow, you won ImprovOlympic? Cool, welcome aboard! And remember: never improvise!"

I thought Lorne loved it now when actors flubbed their lines! Looks like Leslie Jones could be the next host of the Tonight Show!

i cant even believe michaels is not embarrassed to continue WU at this time. It's easily my least favorite part of the show.

che's got potential. the whole show is so far removed from its best days that it's hard to single out weekend update, tho that segment's especially antiquated given all the better competition (e.g., daily show, colbert report, real fox news).

there are skits every week worse than "Patio Party" (referenced in the pajiba link above).

i gotta wonder if a big problem with this is that the writing isn't done until the last minute... i feel like if the writers of some of these jokes, particularly che's reading at WU, heard him read them weird once, they'd correct him and they'd hit right. doesn't work if you're writing it while he's in makeup or whatever tho. i like michael che, i think he could be great on WU, i think jost reallllly needs to do something different if he's gonna be good... but it's the writing pipeline that i'm really concerned about. this show is 2 weeks on, 1 week off at this point, right? could maybe the writers who got their dream gig on SNL uhhh write through the one week off so there's something prepped by the time the actors start getting back?

I'm guessing that people who are calling that sketch one of the worst of all time probably started watching in the late 2000s and/or have seen, like, 15 episodes total.

Show them a) De Niro hosting; b) 1980.

This is a show that's been on longer than any cast member has been alive! I've been watching reruns since childhood and I'd still have no place saying what the worst one ever was. Or even comparing the consistency of averages episodes as most reruns are trimmed.

only bobby and kenan were alive for the first lorne period. aidy, jay and sasheer were born during the second lorne period. that pete davidson could have been conceived during an opera man sketch.

You were on thin ice from that first sentence, but it was the image of Pete Davidson's parents fucking in front of a CRT television showing Adam Sandler that made me almost FP you.

btw, who is Pete Davidson.

a guy on snl, stay with us gramps

well shut my mouth...leslie jones (whose age is not on wikipedia) might be considerably older than everyone the cast if the credits on her imdb page are legit. would have played a police sergeant in 1998

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428656/

her website bio claims she was on an episode of coach AFTER college so....take heart, olds

http://web.archive.org/web/20140109052827/http://www.sandiego.com/articles/2011-11-03/leslie-jones-craft-comedy

Do you remember the first time you did stand-up?
Leslie Jones: Yes, it was in Colorado. I was playing basketball. I was on a scholarship actually. One of my friends signed me up for a contest and didn’t tell me until a couple of days before the contest. She was like, ‘I think you’re really funny and I signed you up for this contest.’ And I was like, ‘Are you crazy!?’ She’s like. ‘No, I think you can do it. I think you’re really funny, just go up there and talk like you talk to us.’ And I did, and won the contest and have been a comedian ever since.

What year was this?
LJ: 1987.

Jones started to do stand-up comedy in college in 1987, when a friend signed her up for a "Funniest Person on Campus" contest

That would put her damn near 50 years old!

Black don't crack, y'all. (I could tell she was older than the average SNL cast member, but I wasn't sure by how much.)

Definitely old enough to be fucking while watching Opera Man.

If she's somewhere in her 40s, she's surely the oldest person to be brought on as a featured player right? That's cool imo.

michael mckean was only 46 when he joined in the 90s, and i think he went straight to cast

wonder if they'll actually announce the record being broken if she's bumped up

I just now realized from those biographical details that I already knew of Leslie Jones from her WTF interview a couple of years back.

Show them a) De Niro hosting; b) 1980.

― the man with the black wigs (Eazy), Sunday, 9 November 2014 23:06 (Yesterday) Permalink

there's that sketch in the peter sarsgaard ep taking place in a hotel room that fails from just about every angle iirc

But that episode had Peter Saarsgaard's SARS Guards so everything else was forgiven.

I'm old and have been watching since the early/mid 80s and I'm on the side of thinking the Rock episode might be one of the worst of all time.

I liked the Rockbama sketch though.

Jones turned 47 just before the season began, which does make her the oldest person ever to join the cast:
http://www.allamericanspeakers.com/celebritytalentbios/Leslie-Jones
https://www.facebook.com/LeslieJonesComedy/info

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/1041961/stephen-malkmus-talks-to-squir-o.gif

haha

TS: Scott Weiland vs. that squirrel

lol what is that from

joey gladstone era snl

btw Harry Shearer says everyone on the show has been reading off cards for 30+ years

lol what is that from

The "Stereo" video.

what the fuck series of events transpired in 2006 that resulted in peter sarsgaard hosting snl

am i forgetting a period of time in which peter sarsgaard was popular enough for that

dude didn't even have a movie coming out. like edward norton last year i think sometimes they just get a new york based actor who likely attends their after parties.

He hosted in 2010, and I think he was coasting off An Education and Orphan and was ramping up for Knight and Day.

Oh wait, y'all are right. Wikipedia says 2010, but imdb says 2006. So fuck if I know.

Jarhead I guess? Came out in late 2005 and he hosted in January 2006.

am i forgetting a period of time in which peter sarsgaard was popular enough for that

I remember the sketch where he was an invited guest at a pirate convention. "saaaARRRRRsgARRRRRd"

i remember the Peter Sarsgaard SARS guard. they probably asked him to host just for that and the pirate thing.

he'd won a few awards and been in a bunch of 'big' films -- Jarhead, Kinsey, Shattered Glass etc -- plus he can also act and be funny, so yeah, why the fuck wd SNL need that in a host?

Seriously. I heard Guy Fieri's interested.

That reminds me, it's been too long since Moynihan has played Guy Fieri.

even for their "love that guy - he's got a week off, doesn't need a hotel room" slow week choices like malkovich, norton, buscemi etc saars is pretty low profile, though

prob most audience knew him (if they did) as the guy who turns around slowly while squinting at the twist of The Skeleton Key and Flightplan

srsly dude is really good at the "actually i'm the bad guy" face

he's no Josh Hutcherson-level superstar, it's true

"he's exactly a Josh Hutcherson-level superstar" seems to be the point everyone is making