Saturday Night Live

Is there more than three semi-professional improv groups in the US?

Don't know if that's a serious question or not, but yes.

Yes to both questions, actually.

I haven't watched in awhile but I figure SNL must be pretty psyched a recent host is going to be President now. Maybe they'll get a shout-out in the inaugural.

I've watched and have been mildly obsessed with the show (as an institution, if nothing else) since I was like ten or eleven, but I haven't watched more than a handful of clips since they first announced that Trump would be hosting. Lorne Michaels knew exactly what he was legitimizing when he made that decision and I hope he's perpetually haunted by it.

SNL is roughly the comedy equivalent of a local sports team. You follow it partly out of habit during rebuilding periods, and a little more enthusiastically when they have a playoff-caliber year. They probably haven't won the whole thing since the 70s and the owner is often out of touch.

i think you might be overly generous about lorne michaels' ability to engage in honest self-relection tbh xp

lost me when he legitimized Adam Sandler

I thought PTA did that.

Sandler for President, 2020. Or 2018. Or 2012. Or 2016. It doesn't really matter anymore.

Sandler on SNL was so good

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-segment---halloween-costume-ideas/n10483

a lot of the 70's stuff hasn't aged well. i can imagine someone who first sees it now really wondering what the fuss was all about. but back then it was just the novelty of the NatLamp drug comedy thing coming to t.v.

and the live novelty. it felt exciting even when it wasn't great. or it did to me anyway when i was a kid. just staying up that late to watch something on t.v. felt exciting.

it has always been really uneven.

there was always a part of me later on that thought: shouldn't they be better at doing this by now? the flow can be so choppy and erratic. and you would think all the video shorts and produced stuff would buy them all kinds of time to figure out a rhythm.

the show seems to be uneven by design-- perhaps with the idea that a show thrown together in 4 or 5 days will be more exciting, and that the flaws are even a bit endearing

probably less "design" and more like "unavoidable artifact of the process"; I'm pretty sure everyone involved would want the show to be seamless top to bottom but that is very, very hard to make work on that production schedule.

Plenty of people involved in the show have complained that the unexamined tradition of exhaustedly blazing through several days of all-nighters doesn't do much for the quality of the show.

They could change up the production schedule--have the writers work on non-current events related sketches during breaks, etc.--but yeah, I think Lorne keeps it the way it is because that's what he thinks works.

yeah i always felt that, like their offseason is long and most of the material isn't topical - even the weekend update character bits tend not to be timely.

i usually ended up liking it for the people who made me laugh no matter what they did. which isn't an endless list.

top seven people who kinda always made me laugh no matter what awful stuff they were forced to do:

will ferrell
darrell hammond
phil hartman
jan hooks
jon lovitz
amy poehler
molly shannon

that's off of the top of my head. i don't know why i thought of darrell hammond. but he did make me laugh a lot. martin short doesn't really count. he's comedy all time.

They do so many game show sketches because the sets are easy to build in a week.

my friend ted's dad is the set designer. been there since the beginning.

Presidential Medal Of Freedom for Lorne.

"Hallelujah" right on time!

Do people like Michael Che? He's getting TV commercials and his own Netflix special and a lot of press, like he's a breakout star or something

He's a traditional stand-up.

i like michael che

so bummed we lost Jay Pharaoh as Ben Carson

^^^ ditto

Big beautiful boobs and buildings.

i like cecily strong. don't think she gets a lot of attention even though she is a staple of most sketches.

I watched the clip of the Anderson Cooper sketch--there is some kind of lack of giving a shit about making comedy in the writing that must come from needed people to feel like they should chuckle every ten seconds or so. Like, if the joke of the scene is that these media pundits are all robots following a programmed loop then why are they making cracks about how crappy the set is? Or saying "I'm the good one"?

I thought this week's episode was the best this year. It helps to have a pro like Kristen Wiig, of course, so that they don't have to shoehorn in some unfunny celebrity into every sketch.

Far from my favorite character, but can't believe they did a Target sketch and DIDN'T include Wiig's Target lady.

lol this bit rules

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

And the Wiig character they did do was one of my least favorite of hers (the surprise party thing).

OTOH, I think that the Chappelle episode was much better than this one (and the Cumberbatch one, which was even worse than the Wiig).

That Goddesses sketch should definitely have been on instead of that recycled Wiig character sketch. At least they didn't bring back Gilly or the Target Lady.

http://www.avclub.com/article/colin-jost-receives-37-kinds-criticism-transphobic-246323

Is the Jost Tinder joke like the "sleep, that's where I'm a viking" gag in that some people read it one way and other people read it another way; and if you read it the first way (emphasis on "37") it's not TOO bad, but if you read it another way (emphasis on "gender identity") it's pretty much a literal hate crime on live television, and he's so fucking stupid that he never bothers clarifiying and just links to thinkpieces

(just to clarify, the "37" reading is still bad)

gender binaries are dumb but come on, 37? that's absurd.

if u are looking for gender bending solidarity maybe look elsewhere than a 40-year-old establishment comedy show news segment hosted by smug white guy

Just because a viewpoint is the right one doesn't mean it might help you lose an election.

Think I forgot one more negative in that sentence. I'll try again:

A morally-correct viewpoint can still be an election-loser.

i fuckin lost it when they showed the picture of Trump & Obama shaking hands and Jost said "President-Elect Trump showed how brave he is by meeting with the founder of ISIS."

I mainly thought the target was Tinder, as in smug sillicon valley types competing to see who can be the most woke. But then come on, explain the target, apologize if others got hurt. Even if it's true that being pro-transgender helped Trump win, what a smug way to tell a tragic joke.

The only people who should have to explain jokes are people in the Excelsior thread, to me.

"Ok everyone, I just want to be clear about who that joke was aimed at so that you can laugh correctly. Always be punching up, people!"

I re-watched some of Saturday's repeat, the show that aired the week the Access Hollywood story broke. There was no point in the whole election where Clinton winning seemed like more of a sure thing. Watching Kate McKinnon dance around to Kool & the Gang felt so strange.

the episode from the week before, with wiig, is great; particularly the late-in-the-show sketch with the cat adoptions

The two Wiig cut for time skits are as good or better than most of what aired that night.

“We’ve actually tried to make ‘S.N.L.’ a safe space across the political spectrum,” Lorne Michaels, its creator, told me in his office near the “S.N.L.” studio on the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

fuck this show and fuck Lorne Michaels, this false equivalency horseshit got us where we are today.

...NBC and Trump have a 15 year business relationship, there's no 'false equivalency horseshit', he's actually their guy