Saturday Night Live

Everyone keeps banging on about SNL and I've never seen it - indeed, living in the UK with no Sky means I probably never will. Is there like a SNL Best Of DVD around? Or should I not bother - is it over-hyped rubbish?

I liked the bit about Larry David. The part with him and Dick Ebersol standing by the elevator sounded just like something out of "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

make talk about the old snl. converse about the dim bulb sketch.

The M'OD bio "Mr Mike" is worth a read. He bitched when the original cast started to do recurring characters, cuz he thought that was too much like Carol Burnett etc.

the writers' terror of offending anyone makes most of the sketches heavily dependent on unfunny gimmicks and repetition, much like conan o'brien's show these days.

(i ACTUALLY roffled the first time i saw this sketch)

-- joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 25 May 2005 04:22 (2 years ago) Link

was actually bumping thread to say i have a crush of shame on kristin wiig

why shame?

maybe shame bc she's totally annoying?

yeah, that

shes kinda horsey too

i dunno i used to get real madtv vibes & think she was really untalented but now i kinda think shes the funniest person on the show

she never tina fey

the hot air balloon thing sealed it for me

she def. cracks me up with the penelope skits.

the hot air balloon was totally a rip-off of Tim and Eric style bad TV. Tonight wasn't so funny. Cold open was pretty weak and the game show too. Steve Martin and Tina were good in the intro. I also liked Tina's Hillary rant. What's the story on the new girl?

i watched snl tonight for the first time in a while!! it was not that good but when is it ever. tina fey was only really good in the monologue.

the there will be blood thing cracked me up tho.

and ya what IS up with that new chick?> is she secretly fergie

bret michaels sketch was awesome. the girls on snl roxxor.

so's maya rudolph gone?

I couldn't remember seeing new girl in the earlier episodes this season and then noticed half way through the show that maya hadn't shown up at all.

new girl is not funny

two of these are new to me, i know dratch and wiig basically.

goddamnit darrell hammond is going to outlive us all

I love Fred Armisen, and I understand that they're kind of in a pinch, but his Obama is horrible.

darrell fucking hammond.

he is responsible for like 25% of the suckage in any given year

fuck, i was just thinking that. he's been on for 13 years, hasn't he...

xp

glad i misssed the obama thing. his gene simmons was way off at first but it got funny.

His fake Gene Simmons hair is sadly better than Gene Simmons's real Gene Simmons hair.

maybe shame bc she's totally annoying?

-- tehresa, Saturday, February 23, 2008 10:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

kristen wig is beautiful and funny.

this week has been the week of gnar ilxor girls telling dudes which girls they should like.

Mike Huckabee -- great timing!

xp: huckabee was pretty good. a shame about his beliefs and politics.

the fake ad was funny. the new girl did a hateful rachel ray, so she's ok with me. but overall should've been better with a couple months' vacation. i hear they're only doing eight more episodes for the season.

the hot air balloon was totally a rip-off of Tim and Eric style bad TV.

but kinda funny instead of not funny at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AUHHOVtNqo

http://www.adultswim.com/video/?episodeID=8a25c3921788d9d5011789462b940066

just because...

yeah weirdly no major freak out about this aside from the standard utterly-missing-the-point-SNL-not-funny-since-1979-no-one-knows-who-this-host-is stuff on instagram

Sarah Sherman talks movie posters for Mubi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOWuhum5b4w

...and then there was this:

https://ew.com/snl-stars-react-to-tiktoker-saying-no-hot-women-cast-on-show-8624164

While the TikToker, who goes by the name Jahelis, clarified that they were "not saying that every single woman who has been a cast member on SNL is ugly," the post prompted strong reactions across social media — and a couple of funny ones from its stars.

Current cast member Sarah Sherman, who joined the show in 2021, responded on X, saying, "Just found out I'm not hot. Please give me and my family space to grieve privately and uglily at this time."
Meanwhile, new cast member Chloe Troast stitched in the TikToker's video before singing Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful," an ode to celebrating beauty in all shapes and forms.

In the original video, which has been viewed more than half a million times on TikTok, Jahelis elaborated, using Heidi Gardner as an example, saying the actress often plays "super-hot and super-dumb" characters, even though "she's not that pretty" but "I guess, technically the most conventionally hot person — like, hot female — on this cast."

I just watched this sketch on YouTube and its really striking how Wiig and Hader are just playing in a different league than these four absolutely interchangeable new people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cdBcfLhJVY

that’s will forte lol

No, it's Hader impersonating Forte

Two of those new people joined in 2019, another in 2018, and another still in 2017.

Anyone who joined after Bobby Moynihan is a newbie to me

*Forte

I thought Andrew Dismukes was really good in this sketch (I think he co-wrote it as well?) - all of the new cast members in the above sketch have had at least couple of moments this season when they've really shone imo. And even in the Wiig/Hader/Forte era there were always journeymen cast members alongside the superstars

Everything in the Mikey Day era is just a blur + Sarah Sherman

Tbf though, Forte and Wiig both have seasoned acting chops and really are on another level than most SNL players.

When I was went to college there was a sketch comedy group that did shows every Friday with about 200 people in the audience. A few semi-successful comics (like Graham Elwood) came out of there. Kristen Wiig was a student at the same time as me, but I'm pretty sure she was never part of the group. I've always wondered if she ever auditioned though.

I really don't know what the right ratio is between "All TV writing/humor is simply bad now because of social media and/or nepo babies" vs. "Kate McKinnon Hillary Leonard Cohen bit was actual neolib jump the shark moment" vs. "I'm just getting old" vs. "SNL has always sucked" is the correct one, but this show seems kind of especially bad

Relatively great episode and def helped by the star power. Esp Will Forte. Army episode was decent as well.

I don’t generally enjoy SNL when I see it, but what I saw of this weekend’s episode was very funny. Has it been like this recently? Should I go back and watch some recent eps? (The last one I saw was Josh Brolin, and didn’t think that was so hot…).

Yes. The Ramy and Kristin Wiig episodes were bother better than average and probably better than the Ryan gosling one, which was also decent. Maybe they’re in a good streak. Relatively speaking.

Agree. The Ayo Edibiri episode was good earlier this season too. By SNL standards I think they’ve got a pretty good average this year

Cool, I’ll circle back!

Sometimes I think the host has a lot to do with the vibe and quality, and sometimes it probably doesn't. Gosling is game but he breaks too much for sure and was causing everybody to break. Sometimes that's fun, sometimes it's annoying. Even Heidi Gardner breaking during the beavis and butthead skit was a surprise, she's usually a pro. Feel like maybe she hadn't seen the full make-up yet and turning around and seeing Mikey Day like that did it.

Brolin is also game but almost too much, too eager and too reliant on the cue cards. That episode wasn't so good. Ramy and Wiig were great, and as mentioned, with all the guest spots and the joy of having her back, I imagine everybody brought their a-game for her episode.

Especially Will Forte who is an all-time genius underrated during his run and since.

I feel like contemporary SNL peaked with the potato chip sketch.

the beavis and butthead sketch was so goddamned funny, made more so by Garner breaking. It takes some kind of balls to make a sketch about B&B 30 years after their heyday.

Yeah, I was just gonna say (xpost) that the laughter during the Beavis & Butt-head sketch was great - honestly it was half the fun of it. (The extras sitting in "studio audience" were extreme pros for keeping straight faces throughout...)

Also, part of what I loved about it was (as you say) the "randomness" of the concept – why B&B? I like that they weren't going for some "larger point" or whatever... also, they knew when to end the sketch. (The cold open was also great, for similar reasons – though a lot of that was also just Kate McKinnon doing her thing, and Gosling not keeping it together.)

But the cast breaking ... that's always funny, but it's not necessarily because the *skits* are funny.

My wife loves the current Weekend Update guys; I think she watches just that segment on YouTube every week.

the caitlin clark appearance this week was good.

probably said above but my favorite WU stuff with Che and Jost is when they write jokes for each other, don't see it before the show, and Jost is forced to say incredibly offensive stuff

I've rewatched it, and seeing everyone break is funny, but I think my favourite part is still the little squint Kenan's character does near the start when he first notices Ryan Gosling

Watching the Kristen Wiig ep. now… dang, these opening monologues are star-studded.