Saturday Night Live

Now *that's* funny.

I hate Jimmy Fallon.

D: Jaret's Room, Mango, Adam Sa...I mean, Jimmy Fallon's guitar parodies

I think Jimmy Fallon is rather funny, but not nearly as funny (nor original) as he seems to think he is.

Actually, I think the plight of SNL is that they have some extremely talented cast members, but don't have the solid writing to back it up like in some days of yore. There are sporadic bits of amazingly funny stuff ("I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!"), but it's just not SOLID.

Weekend Update is awful, sorry. There's no bite to the jokes. they seem happily surprised if a joke does well, and if it doesn't they lean reaaaal hard on the "it's not funny; isn't that funny!?" thing that is the death-knell of television comedy (cf Johnny Carson, Conan's monologue)

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.

"oh come on, you sat em next to each other?"

"I'm just interested in A.I."

also I'm impressed they just let the concept of the sketch sit instead of playing everything to death, it's not like them to do that, dare I say the current crop of SNL writers are good at comedy

Exactly - it has almost an "alt comedy" vibe that I don't associate w/SNL... take a silly/random idea, and do it justice without overplaying it. A few of the sketches in the Kristen Wiig episode were like this as well (though I didn't think they were as funny).

(The "Jumanji" sketch from that ep. resonated for us, because we have that Ticket to Ride game sitting on our shelf; we played it once...)

The first Lisa from Temecula sketch was another one where I was like, wow, they're going to actually let the funny just be funny here and not step on their own toes

A. Whitney Brown on the new WTF

...and it's really good. Brown's a terrific storyteller, and Maron generally stays out of his way.

Joke Swap!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPH0HgotIE4

Che looked genuinely nervous about that Kendrick joke

Audience doesn't even know what the space laser shit is

most of that jewish stuff did not land at all.

generally pretty bad episode esp compared to the last few.

kendrick bit was funny though.

Bringing in a rabbi to do anti-semitic jokes in her presence is... not that funny?

I find Che and Jost to be so unpleasant 90% of the time. I would really like to see them both gone next season.

This episode was not that funny overall, but I appreciate that Jake Gyllenhall committed to every bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ9O_tl5Npk

Jason Reitman movie about the 90 minutes before the premiere.

Jon Batiste as Billy Preston!

More info and set photos:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/saturday-night-first-look

Weird that Nicholas Braun is playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson

Weird that people are hiring him.

aha JK Simmons as Uncle Milty

https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/66b128ddfee63a046034cd5d/master/w_1600,c_limit/SNL-First-Look-11.jpg

It doesn't fit chronologically, but perhaps they could do a sequel about Berle's episode, if only for the scene of Gilda Radner accidentally walking in on him and Alan Zweibel.

looks so bad. like a bad t.v. movie. could be a good cringey double-feature with the late night wars leno/letterman movie.

How much of the drug use are they going to depict, I wonder

it only covers the hours before the first episode so my guess is....a lot? dunno

a couple of them sort of look like the cast members if you squint, idk

xp - obviously I knew about Berle's infamous endowment, but I'd never heard that story and Gilda and Zweibel before, that's funny

Heard some Nickelback at lunch, brings me back to perhaps Melissa Villasenor's finest moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXjO8cqvNo

Speaking of Miltie ep---here's music guests Ornette Coleman & Prime Time:

what's it doin---anyway, if this don't show, it's still on Vimeo (I watched it; they're playing "Times Square.)
https://vimeo.com/20656866

Weird that Nicholas Braun is playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson

OK, so apparently Benny Safdie was originally cast as Kaufman but had to drop out, which is too bad because I would've liked to have seen that.

funny, because that's the only thing that's caught my interest in seeing the movie.

It doesn't appear to be produced by Lorne Michaels, so maybe it won't be 120 minutes of blowing smoke up his ass (but it probably will be)

^^Apparently it is.

https://www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/saturday-night-movie-review-snl-jason-reitman-1235042845/

Subheadline:

Jason Reitman's love letter to Lorne Michaels has 1,000 great actors, about 10 decent laughs, and absolutely zero interest in anything beyond itself.

Can't say I'm surprised. He seems like a nice guy with good intentions, but I've never been a fan of his work. I hope he outdoes himself some day but there's something too calculated and too safe about his films to the point where they felt really shallow and never really engaging, if that makes any sense. In this case, I was expecting a feel-good Valentine to Michaels and the show as if he was getting on his knees and thanking them for everything they've done for comedy and by extension all of humanity.

*they feel really shallow

I’m curious how his father would have rendered this

New cast members:

https://deadline.com/2024/09/snl-season-50-cast-marcello-hernandez-ashley-padilla-1236079790/

In addition to the departures of Molly Kearney and Punkie Johnson, it came out today that Chloe Troast is also leaving--which especially sucks because I liked her a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDxYe2-8sI0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5E5DkBXyfw

Yeah I’m genuinely confused why they would let Chloe Troast go so soon, she’s great.

Maybe Troast realized that the writers had little idea how best to use her except as filler in the background of skits. It's a punishing grind to work there, so why keep on going if you think you're just spinning your wheels?

Her post was “unfortunately I was not asked back” rather than “I’m leaving for greener pastures” though.

Then I think we can blame Lorne. Again.

That's a pity, I thought Little Orphan Cassidy was the best thing anyone did in the last series, the jumanji sketch was the only other thing that came close

Good lord that moon sketch! Teary hysterics right now.

man, no doubt ... based on that skit, i'd say she's too good for this show. (and i generally enjoy the show.)

I thought she was used a bunch of always singing.

Yeah, it seems like either she'd be singing or playing kinda straight but skewed roles like the girlfriend in this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVjQImP8x5s

This one and "Lake Beach" were both such killer Country parodies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLQnU63I3IQ