Saturday Night Live

Morbs please: Norm's "homosexual child molester" joke was a spokesman for MJ explaining the separation from Lisa Marie Presley on account of their moving in different directions: "She's more of a stay-at-home mom, and he's a homosexual child molester."

Nothing about the joke suggests a link between homosexuality and child molestation. It's funny because LMP is not a man or a child.

But if you find a comic unlikeable it doesn't matter. I laugh just watching NM chew gum.

I was never a huge Norm fan, but he was probably the funniest guest I've ever seen on The Daily Show. It couldn't have been more than a week after the Crocodile Hunter guy died, and Norm riffed on him for maybe five solid minutes ("He was 44 years old; that's a ripe old age for a crocodile hunter!") I swear Stewart was weeping with laughter.

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

I was a big Norm fan before he got the SNL gig. Strangly people I talk to irl all seem to think his WU was the show's nadir, or perhaps a notch above Colin Quinn.

That's because his Weekend Update was terrible and only slightly better than Colin Quinn. I never saw Rocket so I can't compare to his tenure but I liked every other WU anchor I've seen more, including Brad Hall and Kevin Nealon.

i love norm. every time he speaks i laugh. and his burt reynolds is hilarious too.

Prefer norm WU to Quinn and nealon for having a strong comic persona but compared to a lot of others his WU was pretty monotonous. Part of why he's so good at mocking letterman and Reynolds' indifferent reliance in shtick is cuz he relates

Colin Quinn is one of the worst comedians I've ever seen, not because he has no jokes but because he seems to be physically incapable of delivering them.

^^^^

his ability to have a career at all baffles me

yeah for me it's

quinn: "jesus can you get the fucking out joke out you incompetent..."
nealon: "hey dude got any jokes for me?"
mcdonald: "yeah that was a good joke the first dozen times you told it...ok stop looking at me, dude, and tell the next one...c'mon"

did Jane Curtin make the anniv? She sniffs quite a lot about SNL, i guess cuz two tripe sitcoms made her rich.

she did WU with poehler and fey

talked about showing her boobs

CQ is pretty funny on Twitter though

Norm's 'Me Doing Standup' is my favorite comedy album. I don't remember his WU very well. I'm looking forward to any Norm bits in the Miller and Shales book.

Norm on WU is the thing I most looked forward to during that era of SNL. Granted, there wasn't much else to look forward to during that era of SNL.

I like Colin Quinn. On Weekend Update and in general.

Jane Curtin got a lot of time doing WU w/ Tina and Amy and a much reposted joke Fox News.

The thing I like about Norm is the perpetual glint in his eye, like he knows he's going to far and is willing to be not funny just for the sake of that knowledge. Like his infamous roast performance, or this, which actually is funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F6dXcW-_Fc

Harry Shearer had some fun anti-SNL and Lorne stuff on yesterday's WTF episode.

lol at Shearer's bit about Lorne's "I've never hired a Jewish male before"

I completely forgot that Norm HOSTED in 1999?!

Like riding high on the non-existent success of Dirty Work and the Norm Show?

Shearer provided a pretty good explanation of why no one has their lines memorized---Lorne waiting til the last minute to decide which sketches will run

xp yeah i remember he mentioned in the monologue about being fired the year before, but now suddenly being "good enough" to host the show and how weird it was

Speaking of getting fired, everyone's been focusing on Eddie but it's kind of a big deal that Sandler came back for the anniversary, too. Hadn't he pretty much washed his hands of that place?

Sandler always kept ties to the show by employing his castmates

Murphy never did this

Spade, Rock, Schneider etc. - Sandler keeps these guys working

(well ok maybe not Rock)

see why would we beat up on Norm when Schneider exists

I wish we'd seen more of that copy guy character

It's never too late for a movie.

I went to look up Rob Schneider's filmography and was slightly floored by the fact that dude is 51.

anyway his last starring role was as recent as 5 years ago, which I find amazing

maybe there's hope for The Hot Chick 2

He had a TV show called "Rob" as recently as 2012

Copy guy character easily the height of his career.

SNL for so long has just underscored the futility of the whole process. Go figure, it turns out the more time you put into refining and improving something the better it gets. The whole artificial deadline of OMG we only have a week ... there's a reason the fully scripted/realized commercials and filmed bits were and always have been highlights. How's the saying go? Composition is just very slow improvisation?

one illuminating thing from the special was how many fantastic skits/characters were taken entirely from the performers' auditions and built directly into a sketch

pretty much all of rob schenider's higher-profile roles from the past decade are in movies produced by adam sandler

otherwise it's mostly voice work for mexican cartoons

they should tell a Weekend Update joke about Schneider's career and then see if shows up at the next anniversary show

left an IMPORTANT hs football game with a friend to see The Animal at an actual theater. it was my first hate watch.

sandler always looks to me like a guy weary of friends asking him for favors

Gary Kroeger's POVL
http://garyhasissues.com/2015/02/backstage-at-snls-40th/

I loved reading that

thank u, Eazy

ditto

Norm's 'Me Doing Standup' is my favorite comedy album. I don't remember his WU very well. I'm looking forward to any Norm bits in the Miller and Shales book.

― you can buy your hair if it won't grow (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 20 February 2015 17:19 (2 days ago) Permalink

Me Doing STandup is my favorite comedy special since Killin' Them Softly

1 great article, heartwarming.

2 The Harry Shearer interview was terrific. I had been wondering about whether there would be more Christopher Guest movies and he explains why they are so hard to do and why there probably would not be more. Which I had figured on, but it's depressing anyway.

3 This led me to the Andrea Martin interview. Which is sweet and uplifting in so many ways yet - to think that Andrea Martin could feel bad for a minute about not being on SNL - when she was essential to the exponentially more valuable SCTV --- makes me go all Hulk Smash irrational anger crazy like arrgh, crush SNL, crush SNL, crush SNL, crush SNL.

does anyone else ever see this at Whole Foods and think "SNL musical guest"?

http://villagefarmgrocery.com/media/catalog/product/cache/2/image/34cbcb55cdc7f11f2af756fd8a287707/o/n/once_again_creamy_peanut_butter_16oz_3.jpg