Saturday Night Live

also the never-discussed Bergman parody where Louise Lasser and Chevy Chase fool death by telling him to go pick up a pizza

couldn't guess whether that block quote was gonna be from Mel Brooks or Brooks Wheelan or what

Please, nobody is asking Brooks Wheelan for his take on anything.

a O'Hehir's article was good enough that I was surprised it was him when I got to the bottom. But he forgot the Phil Hartman Reagan sketch, which added something missing from the standard Reagan satire of the time.

b Plenty of reasons why we won't be seeing something like the Pryor-Chase sketch anyplace else either.

c No, comedy is not inherently conservative. But tv shows that become "institutions" are.

d I can come up with many many good SNL skits, and still the crap to quality ratio at SNL has been intolerable and I kind of hate that show.

there's a season 1 sketch called "citizen kane 2," with aykroyd as kane, chevy chase as leland, and belushi as bernstein that is absolutely incredible

Agree with Goodman on the Theodoric of York thing. Totally bizarre and hilarious. They reran that episode recently

I caught the Second City touring company last year --- not the A-listers obviously, but still --- and it was depressing to see most of the performers obviously angling for instantly recognizable SNL type cast niche personas. If they had anything going on you couldn't tell, it was just 'oh she reminds me of that one cast member'.

Add to that the whole come-up-with-a-character-that-Hollywood-will-make-a-movie-of thing dating back even to the original cast, resulting in desolate wastes of tv time spanning four decades.

it's almost like they're treating it like a job or a career

it's almost like I'm a selfish person for not wanting better stuff to watch

come-up-with-a-character-that-Hollywood-will-make-a-movie-of thing dating back even to the original cast

i don't recall an instance of the orig cast coming up with one that led to a film? excepting the bizarre afterthought of a Coneheads movie in the '90. The Blues Bros performances on the show turned out not to be sketches in A&B's minds. There were no Lisa Loopner or Cheezburger movies.

but yes, Michael O'Donoghue loathed having recurring characters.

Blues Brothers, Coneheads both resulted in movies. But yeah, the vibe with the OC was different.

The Blues Bros performances on the show turned out not to be sketches in A&B's minds.

Maybe not sketches, but they were definitely recurring characters on the SNL stage.

the movie factory treadmill wasn't really in place prior to Wayne's World.

The touring company is a completely different scene than the regular Chicago cast, though. For one thing, the Chicago shows have tons of local references that the touring company can't use, but beyond that, they're in the theater they're familiar with, they know their audience, and they can take many more risks.

(Although tbf, I haven't seen Second City in Chicago in years, but every show I saw was better than the best-ever SNL episode.)

multiple xps

I saw Tim Meadows and Chris Farley at Second City Chicago and they were nuclear-bomb funny, to the point where I made a point of remembering their names so I could follow their careers.

The Blues Brothers (1980)
Wayne's World (1992)
Wayne's World 2 (1993)
Coneheads (1993)
It's Pat: The Movie (1994)
Stuart Saves His Family (1995)
A Night at the Roxbury (1998)
Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
Superstar (1999)
The Ladies Man (2000)
MacGruber (2010)

Did WW2 really come ONE YEAR after WW? The only ones of these I've actually seen are the WW movies, the original Blues Brothers and MacGruber.

apart from the first and the last all the movies on that list that I've seen (WW, WW2, Night at the Roxbury, part of Coneheads) basically suck

I'd love to see Toronto or Chicago casts. And the audience for the show I saw was just yelling drunks basically. Still, this thing where performers are supposedly unable to do anything interesting because boo hoo the audience, the audience isn't noticeably more appreciative of predictable junk either so maybe TRY?

it seems weird to complain about seeing a bunch of people trying to launch their careers when you go to see a show by a decades-old institution that is well-known for serving as a career launching pad

IIRC, the first Wayne's was 1st or 2nd quarter '92, and part two was Xmas season '93.

like if you don't want to see character+catchphrase-driven comedy, maybe look elsewhere

xp

I saw part of the Pat movie on TV one afternoon, and it is so much worse than you might think it would be. The idea of an entire Stuart Smalley movie terrifies me.

Stuart Saves His Family is actually good - it's a lot darker than the sketches were.

yeah Stuart's directed by Ramis, I'd watch it if it came on tv

okay sorry I had a wonderful time it was awesome I laughed until my sides hurt I hope they weren't too scarred by my earlier comments not that they would know who they were or anything

both of the wayne's world movies are great imo

I have no memory at all of the 2nd one but I'm sure I saw it.

It's Pat has Ween in it and one moment that got a laugh out of me ("Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" "No, it's a banana"), but yes it is extraordinarily bad

I would still probably sit through It's Pat over Blues Brothers 2000.

I have no memory at all of the 2nd one but I'm sure I saw it.

Same.

all I recall are Alice Cooper and a bad Jim Morrison impersonator

hm wait no alice is in the first one right?

yup

best parts i can recall from the second are a few roadie jokes, the garth/kim basinger scenes and christopher walken responding to "asphinctersayswhat?" with "you want me to say 'what' as if I don't know what you said"

I just read the wiki synopsis for WW2 and none of it sounds familiar to me, but there's no way I didn't see it in 1993. I must have blocked it out.

it is a decent time capsule of pop metal guys slowly realizing there was no place for them in the grunge era

well aerosmith did ok

fittingly, there's a scene where wayne promises aerosmith, nirvana and pearl jam at the big free concert and the big victory at the end is just aerosmith

myers wanted neil young and pearl jam doing "rockin in the free world" to be the big single a la "bohemian rhapsody" but neil chickened out and instead they made a video for "I Love Rock'n'Roll" with Joan Jett

I saw Tim Meadows and Chris Farley at Second City Chicago and they were nuclear-bomb funny, to the point where I made a point of remembering their names so I could follow their careers.

― "Go pet your dog" is the name of my dog (DJP), Tuesday, February 17, 2015 5:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too (saw them/made a point of remembering their names)! They did a hilarious Wrigley Field security guards sketch, the details of which I've forgotten, but it killed.

Re: Second City, getting on the main stage is such a sadly prescribed hoop-jumping process these days (training program, conservatory, Tour Co. and/or the cruise ship circuit, optional Etc. Stage, and then maaaaaybe main stage) that it weeds out all but the most career-minded performers. You'll probably never see another Farley come out of that place. Also, a lot of the material Tour Co. and the cruise troupes do is "classics from the Second City vaults!". Which seems depressing to me, but to each their own. But at any rate, there's probably a reason why more people have come out of iO than SC in recent years.

Funniest thing I remember from Second City Chicago was a sketch with Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert who were playing (I think) a father and son arguing. Colbert said to Carell, "You don't know shit about fuck."

(ok, it was funnier in context/with Colbert's delivery)

No, I can hear Stephen Colbert say that line in my head and it's cracking me up.

And the improv sets were always killer. First SC I went to, the cast included Richard Kind, Bonnie Hunt, and Dan Castellenata. During the shout-out-a-topic part of the improv, someone yelled "bracket creep!" No one knew what the fuck that was, but apparently it was some income tax term. So Hunt comes out and says, "'Bracket Creep' was the nickname my classmates gave me in middle school for my excessive use of parentheses..."

(again, much funnier in person)

Me too (saw them/made a point of remembering their names)! They did a hilarious Wrigley Field security guards sketch, the details of which I've forgotten, but it killed.

OH MY GOD YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES

I just read the wiki synopsis for WW2 and none of it sounds familiar to me, but there's no way I didn't see it in 1993. I must have blocked it out.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, February 17, 2015 5:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This. I saw it once and barely remember anything

I'm having a hard time imagining Tim Meadows as nuclear-bomb funny. I like him, but that doesn't really seem like his thing.

Funniest thing I remember from Second City Chicago was a sketch with Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert who were playing (I think) a father and son arguing. Colbert said to Carell, "You don't know shit about fuck."

(ok, it was funnier in context/with Colbert's delivery)

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, February 17, 2015 5:23 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And the improv sets were always killer. First SC I went to, the cast included Richard Kind, Bonnie Hunt, and Dan Castellenata. During the shout-out-a-topic part of the improv, someone yelled "bracket creep!" No one knew what the fuck that was, but apparently it was some income tax term. So Hunt comes out and says, "'Bracket Creep' was the nickname my classmates gave me in middle school for my excessive use of parentheses..."

(again, much funnier in person)

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, February 17, 2015 5:26 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Am I witnessing something here?

I saw Tim Meadows and Chris Farley at Second City Chicago and they were nuclear-bomb funny, to the point where I made a point of remembering their names so I could follow their careers.

― "Go pet your dog" is the name of my dog (DJP), Tuesday, February 17, 2015 5:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too (saw them/made a point of remembering their names)! They did a hilarious Wrigley Field security guards sketch, the details of which I've forgotten, but it killed.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, February 17, 2015 6:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is on youtube btw:

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

i was dragged to 2nd city shows three times in the mid-late 1990s and i found them almost completely unfunny :(

That Second City clip a good example of how bad improv can be when there's one guy not pulling his own weight.

Here's another one, from Best of Show. From the DVD commentary, apparently "Jack" was some local who got his one shot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiHtd8S_3I4