Saturday Night Live

I liked the Sad Mouse thing.

Wow, Stefon moved to tears.

hader to the rescue

Yeah, Sidney Appelbaum more than made up for Bruno Mars.

lol'd like twice, terrible ep

cant wait 4 louie

Yeah, it only got good when Bruno Mars was marginalized or absent altogether. Some high highs but overall the worst episode I've seen in a long time. Like in several years.

who would've thought that bruno mars would produce something horrifyingly terrible

Was Kenan even there this week?

Just in the opening monologue.

Good to see Aidy Bryant finally get some airtime, though. And the Donkey Punch The Vote sketch at the end was funnier than about 90% of the rest of the show.

I still think Sad Mouse was sweet, if not really funny. Also, Stefon. Also, the debate cold open.

The rest...what a disaster for NBC.

Why do they gotsta ruin my Louis C.K. experience with fundot at the musical guest? This is why we can't have nice things.

Their last good musical guest was Meat Loaf in 1981, so who cares.

who would've thought that bruno mars would produce something horrifyingly terrible

Oh, I predicted garbage from the day it was announced, but I live to be proven wrong and pleasantly surprised (a la Seth MacFarlane). It's just that it was so much worse than I'd imagined.

But, yeah, edit this down to the cold open, Stefon, maybe Donkey Punch and the haunted ride (I really love that bit but I can dig that it might not be everybody's groove) and you've got a solid half hour amidst the crap. I can always find something to love in even the worst episodes.

I can always find something to love in even the worst episodes.

Lorne designs them that way. I'm sure good stuff gets left in the writers' room every week.

Well, I live in hope that "Bruno Mars does shitty singing impersonations for ten minutes" and "the Raping Yeti" weren't the cream of this week's writing crop.

Oddly, the frontpage ad on Hulu for the Bruno Mars SNL seems to be taken from a sketch that didn't even air.

people still say "mulatto"?!

no, just cankles

I'mma give 'Sad Mouse' another chance. I checked out about halfway through the Pandora sketch so I wasn't a particularly receptive audience at that point, but in theory, it fits the bill for the type of slightly more dramatic work SNL used to feature all the time but slowly moved away from (like this classic short). And I really want to support any move in that direction. Even if Bruno Mars is unfortunately a part of it.

Oh, for anyone who's curious (especially since, to my knowledge, there's never been any follow up publicity about his exit), Paul Brittain is back doing regular improv gigs at iO in Chicago.

I think you're all being to hard on Bruno. He was a fine performer, he didn't fuck up or look like a deer in the headlights, I mean, would you rather have a sports figure (excepting the few who are actually entertaining). The material was mostly pretty week but I'm not blaming him for it.

And mulatto? That's weird.

I'll admit to coming into the episode with a pretty strong bias against Bruno Mars. But the same was true of the Seth MacFarlane episode and he definitely pulled that one out. I know nothing about sports and the sports dudes are usually stiff as hell when they host but they don't usually come across as so completely in love with themselves as Bruno does so it's more fun to see them goofin' around out of their element.

It is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between being in love with what you are doing and being in love with yourself.

bruno mars hosting gig due to whatever internet input they were soliciting (purely speculative on my part) and hopes for another timberlake probably right?

also w/ athletes hosting i think there's been a big difference between major pro team athletes hosting (a la barkley, the mannings, or oj and fran tarkenton way back when) and olympic athletes (phelps, kerrigan), the pro athletes have had alot more experience w/ media, building their brand, major ad campaigns, etc. by the time peyton hosted he'd already been in nearly an hour's worth of awful awful snl type sketches for oreo or whoever. these guys also have big, well known personas or auras that snl can play off even if the athlete host isn't a natural (eg michael jordan).

good point. Barkley and the Mannings were relatively great, Phelps was terrible.

Man there have been some awful sketches this season: Pandora, My Kitty Cat, Foot Locker/Gangnam Style, Haters, Dance Studio...

I liked My Kitty Cat for no defensible reason.

kitty cat will probably be seen as a beloved classic 10 years from now

It's funny to imagine the writers watching alien and thinking, "who brought the cat?" The parodies of various aliens crew members were also good. Already a beloved classic imo.

Yeah, I liked it.

And I know everyone thought I was crazy by noting how little Vanessa there was last week. Well she barely did better this week.

SNL is a total Rorschach test. Quality-wise, I don't think there's anything universally agreed upon except maybe that the late '80s/early '90s era was the show's peak. The highly subjective and wildly differing opinions of what works and what doesn't and what's good and what isn't is probably due to some formula Lorne's worked out that keeps the show successful. "There are too many highbrow sketches this week. We need something dumb that some people will love and that other people will spend all week complaining about on the internet."

I think valuing Sandler/Schnieder/Spade/Farley over, say, the first five years would be pretty far from universally agreed!

meyers, carvey too?

Oh, for anyone who's curious (especially since, to my knowledge, there's never been any follow up publicity about his exit), Paul Brittain is back doing regular improv gigs at iO in Chicago.

I saw he and J3t Ev3l3th were doing a two-person thing, but I had the impression it was a one-off -- he's not, like, on a team, is he?

and yeah, the cat sketch is like the only memorable bit this season.

xpost

Yeah, he's back in Challenger!

I think valuing Sandler/Schnieder/Spade/Farley over, say, the first five years would be pretty far from universally agreed!

Dude, yr chronology is effed. That's early to mid-'90s. I'm talking about Hartman/Hooks/Lovitz/Carvey et al.

And anyone who still trumpets about the first five years as Best Evah!!! probably watched the show at the time and not once since and also complains about how music went south ever since disco happened. IMVHO.

This show sucks.

I've watched the last few episodes after staying away for about 5 years--and it seems like the show has improved quite a bit.

I think you're all being too hard on Bruno.

^^ This

11/10 - Anne Hathaway / Rihanna
11/17 - Jeremy Renner / Maroon 5

Just watching the Bruno episode, hes great so far wtf

hes fine but u cant think those are good sketches

I'll agree to that

lol apparently there was a "Help Get Jeremy Renner to Host SNL" Facebook campaign? wtf

yeah i didn't mind the bruno episode much at all. lightweight material but dude was game

yeah went better w/ him than it probably would've with any other recently minted pop stars i can think of

lol apparently there was a "Help Get Jeremy Renner to Host SNL" Facebook campaign? wtf

Avengers superfans are some of the interwebs craziest people.