Saturday Night Live

I couldn't tell what happened in the Rock/Jones sketch. Did she miss a line? Did Rock? Was the blocking screwed up? Was it a directorial error?

it seems like someone stepped on someone else's line, and this confused the guy calling the shots (probably the director)

i wouldn't be surprised if they cut that skit from reruns, hulu, etc. b/c it really was a complete abortion

at first i thought maybe they were going for some kind of richard pryor show "you expect this to be funny, but really it's deep" thing so i gave it the benefit of the doubt for a few minutes but no, it was just a horribly misconceived "comedy" skit

nah I saw that one. it wasn't v funny but I dunno it seems like there's always some of those per episode. things I lol'd at - anything involving Kenan, which felt like most of the episode

Yeah, "How's he Doing?" was pretty good.

But man, Rock was the cue-cardingest host since DeNiro.

tbh i liked the laugh-free couple sketch. i found it sort of adorable. if it weren't for the awkward line readings/errors it would've been a nice low-key thing.

i think this is jones' first real acting gig and i think she's still getting the hang of it

also it is nuts how young she looks, can't find an exact birth year but wiki says she was in college in 1987

Goldie Taylor goes off on some weird rant: http://www.salon.com/2014/11/04/leslie_joness_frustrating_performance_why_im_afraid_she_wasnt_the_right_choice_for_snl/

Nothing about that sketch made me not want to see Leslie Jones on SNL as much as possible in future weeks. Except for that oddly flat/stumbling sketch performance, she's been the most fearless addition to the cast since...Will Forte maybe?

My lesser angel wanted to laugh as Jones dropped line after scripted line last Saturday night.

Sheesh, she dropped one line, and we don't even know if she dropped it, or if Rock missed a line that threw her off, or if the director screwed up.

http://splitsider.com/2014/11/snl-review-chris-rock-underwhelms/

We're being told that this sketch was actually written by writers Chris Rock brought in, not the normal SNL writing staff. Comedians bringing in outside writers has happened before (Jerry Seinfeld and Richard Pryor being examples), and it's not something those writers rooms were crazy about. This sketch bombing might be a reason why.

haven't watched this ep yet but that jim carrey pecan pie opener was one recent bit I'd be shocked to learn came from anybody but the host

don't understand splitsider guy saying prince took up extra time when he only did one performance

tbh he should've had more time, why not just give him half the show

Rock monologue>>>>>dumbass jim carrey bs

OTM

Rock was kinda creaky but even still, a million times less painful than Carrey.

I liked the Carrey ep, including the Helvis thing, and I'm not even really a Carrey stan. I'm just weird.

yeah same here. Helvis was a classic example of Carrey elevating something stupid with his total insane commitment to the bit.

i thought it was carrey running a half-idea into the ground until the scene was stolen by bobby moynihan making a funny face

^ what you just explained here is funny to me

tbh i liked the laugh-free couple sketch. i found it sort of adorable. if it weren't for the awkward line readings/errors it would've been a nice low-key thing.

― linda cardellini (zachlyon), Tuesday, November 4, 2014 3:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That sketch was probably the worst thing ive ever seen on the show, and there has been some terrible shit.

i don't know why Gawker held up the farting Grace Kelly sketch as one of the worst ever, considering its probably the funniest sketch in, like, the last 5 years

I dvr'd one of those old episodes they are showing saturday night in prime time and finally watched it last night. Steve Martin was the host. The weekend update with ackroyd and curtain was fucking I-can't-breathe hilarious, i cant even believe michaels is not embarrassed to continue WU at this time. It's easily my least favorite part of the show.

WU is generally one of my favorite parts of the show, as the jokes are actually jokes, and quick to get to the point, but Jost and Che are doing their damnedest to kill it for me.

could easily see jost being gone entirely after this season if the bad buzz about his performance and the show's writing continues. if ONE was working, maybe he'd get to keep the other, but i could easily see lorne deciding to jettison both if something doesn't turn around

eeeasily

"i like colin jost"
About 9 results (0.37 seconds)

(tbf, "i hate colin jost" only has 7 results)

"colin jost is the worst"
14 results (0.52 seconds)

"colin jost is the best"
No results found for "colin jost is the best".

No results found for "colin jost? more like colin toast".

No results found for "horribly formed jost".

No results found for "colin jost? more like colon joke".

Some rough line readings and either the audience wasn't on board or the laugh sign was on the fritz, but the rock episode was probably my favorite of the season.

i kept waiting, honestly a little excited, to see this atrocious rock/jones sketch people had talked about, and really the only "problem" was that it didn't have a really strong "game" in terms of letting the audience know what they'd be laughing about. if it'd been written by the regular writers, the daughter would have come out early on to say "you guys keep fighting! break up!" telegraphing that the sketch is a "these old people keep fighting, so laugh when they do that" sketch - instead it wasn't clear whether that was just set up for a bigger game, esp with uber dude coming in early on. a dropped line (which i didn't actually spot) or awkward cue card fixation (which is admittedly inescapable now) would barely matter if the audience was on board in the first place.

they've had the same director since 2006, so I'm curious if there's some more recent adjustment to the schedule that increases the likelihood of missed cues, unpracticed lines, etc

Did you see the east coast live version of the fighting couple sketch or the taped dress rehearsal version they plugged in for the west coast and online repeats?

lol wait it's official they did that? cuz then, yeah, west coast.

ohhhhhhh shit

http://www.pajiba.com/saturday_night_live/two-explanations-emerge-for-one-of-snls-worst-sketches-ever.php

watching the embed in that link, i vote either someone put the cue card in the wrong place or she forgot to look in the right direction, but the degree to which jones lets you know SHE doesn't know what's going on...supporting ensemble players are supposed to be better than that

point remains that when the audience knows what the fuck is going on in a sketch and laughing, someone on screen can forget for a couple seconds and it won't really matter

i feel like the show went from "everybody know your lines" to "everybody know your lines, host - if you're an athlete, just read the cards" to "everybody know your lines, host read the cards" to "everybody read the cards"

and it's not like people from second city, ucb, esp stand-ups, got the job because they were great at reading cue cards

Yeah, Michaels' no-improvising rule makes a certain amount of sense for technical reasons, but it makes no sense when the cast is almost entirely coming from improvising backgrounds. "Wow, you won ImprovOlympic? Cool, welcome aboard! And remember: never improvise!"

I thought Lorne loved it now when actors flubbed their lines! Looks like Leslie Jones could be the next host of the Tonight Show!

i cant even believe michaels is not embarrassed to continue WU at this time. It's easily my least favorite part of the show.

che's got potential. the whole show is so far removed from its best days that it's hard to single out weekend update, tho that segment's especially antiquated given all the better competition (e.g., daily show, colbert report, real fox news).

there are skits every week worse than "Patio Party" (referenced in the pajiba link above).

i gotta wonder if a big problem with this is that the writing isn't done until the last minute... i feel like if the writers of some of these jokes, particularly che's reading at WU, heard him read them weird once, they'd correct him and they'd hit right. doesn't work if you're writing it while he's in makeup or whatever tho. i like michael che, i think he could be great on WU, i think jost reallllly needs to do something different if he's gonna be good... but it's the writing pipeline that i'm really concerned about. this show is 2 weeks on, 1 week off at this point, right? could maybe the writers who got their dream gig on SNL uhhh write through the one week off so there's something prepped by the time the actors start getting back?

I'm guessing that people who are calling that sketch one of the worst of all time probably started watching in the late 2000s and/or have seen, like, 15 episodes total.

Show them a) De Niro hosting; b) 1980.

This is a show that's been on longer than any cast member has been alive! I've been watching reruns since childhood and I'd still have no place saying what the worst one ever was. Or even comparing the consistency of averages episodes as most reruns are trimmed.