Saturday Night Live

this piece kinda sucks however, djp otm

jack allison is very annoying, SNL is intolerable and must die, I will not be reading this but I hope everyone involved loses

a lot of people on this thread have placed weird expectations on snl. It's fine. Some weeks are better than others. even some of the gilded periods were kind of iffy. I enjoy watching it on Sunday morning. I didn't read that article because I had thought the guy who wrote it had been the one engaged to Lena Dunham. I am wrong.

it's terrible and should be put out of its misery

The Hartman-Carvey-Meyers era is p good. The Sandler-Spade-Farley era is awful, most of the 80s stuff is awful, the original cast has some very high bright spots and a lot of garbage. Peak was actually the Fey-Farrell era. Everything after has been diminishing returns, and the Trump episode was the point of no return.

I am trying to think of a show I hate watch. hmmm. I did watch a bunch of episodes of Say Yes to the Dress the other day Sometimes I want to poop all over the OA thread but I didn't watch it past the first season.

I haven't watched this show since they announced Trump would be on. I've seen clips and tweets and shit like that I guess.

Hartman-Carvey-Lovitz-Dunn-Hooks-Nealon-Miller-Jackson era was great. Myers came in a bit later but really added to it nicely. Sandler/Spade/Farley/etc was a decent crew but it started to be less of a great ensemble and more of an outlandish highlights reel in terms of the characters. Fey/Farrell/etc is ok. I think the ideas they came up with were more inspired than the execution a lot of the time. those two are fine but v overrated in SNL history. the original SNL troupe was great most of the time though some of the material falls flat. and Dennis Perrin....otm....about Jane Curtin upthread.

(xpost to shakey) ^ This. As a life-long minor league SNL obsessive (even while acknowledging its plentiful flaws), it's still occasionally stunning to me how quickly and easily I walked away after Lorne pulled that shit.

Random bite-sized notes on other eras while we are unmoored from the present moment: I really like about 1/3 of the Doumanian cast (I rail every chance I get about Gail Matthius being robbed of the career she deserved due to being shackled to that doomed season), and Danitra Vance (RIP) was an MVP in Lorne's first season back while Robert Downey, Jr. shocked the hell out of me by being quite possibly the worst cast member in SNL history.

Danitra Vance was great, never got her due.

Downey was awful, but worse than Anthony Michael Hall?

good observation there, YMP

only if your exposure to comedy is watching rich people do Netflix specials. PEBCAK, not with "most comics".

xpost Yes. Downey was a terrible comedic performer in that context and perpetually seemed like he just didn't want to be there.

"I'm not a Michael Che booster or anything but I got about a third into that article and my overwhelming takeaway was "white man mad he can't say any old thing to black man and not get called on it""

he wasn't really saying anything to Che though. Che just jumped on him for criticizing the show.

that said I think Che is great on SNL, as is Jost.

che seems like a sad fuck tbh

he's better than jost but that's "best dressed man in albania" territory

Yeah I think Che is clearly weird as hell and mocking people through Instagram stories filled with twitter screenshots would seem to be the dumbest way of engaging with criticism. On the other hand when I look at Jack Allison’s twitter he’s posting links to discussions of this drama on fucking livejournal.

I think I dipped on twitter as this beef was starting, but Leslie hitting Che with the Dan Crenshaw zing is 😙👌

On the other hand when I look at Jack Allison’s twitter he’s posting links to discussions of this drama on fucking livejournal.

lol

imo reflects even worse on Che that this is his nemesis

lol I can get behind that

OK this is one of the best monologues in a while

actually a decent episode overall

Lorne all in for Bloomberg?

what gives you that idea?

this was probably the best episode of the season, even Lovitz was good as Dershowitz.

I promise Nora that her re-education camp will have an improv class. https://t.co/edxzOJFH98

— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) February 6, 2020

Lorne is totally not a 1% shit

well this is totally horrific https://t.co/K8hksyjLpN

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) February 9, 2020

that cold open was strong, sharp writing, what's going on

it's just lazy, so lazy all the time

how about *not* recreating a debate?

"I'm George Stephanopolous" HAHAHAHA

oh look they have wigs and voices

it's gotta be accessible and light-hearted. what do you want?

oh does it

that's what made it a landmark in '75, sure

ayway accessible+lighthearted ≠ calcified

Morbius and Dennis Perrin: wishing it was still 1975 since...well...

Is Bernie the most popular Dem candidate on 4chan? Seems like his demo, tbh.

watching chevy as ford from season 1. yeah, it's better. there's just a feeling that's so palpable that the performer and the audience are one, there's no separation or condescension. that's the main thing that has been lost (for the most part)

xp it's yang

According to the 1 minute of “research” I’ve just done it seems everyone on 4chan is a Jewish hating Nazi so it’s inconceivable Sanders could have support there. I guess 4chan is different than what I thought it was.

it's ron/rand paul but they're not running

Actual power rankings

1. Hitler
2. Trump
3. Yang https://t.co/MSPzQmYssf

— Krispy Scream (@mitchysuch) February 9, 2020

im against "accessible and light-hearted" in political sketches

also against unperson

Watched the debate skit
This show is fucking embarrassing

debate skit was mostly dumb but rest of the episode was great.

at present this show has as much satirical teeth as idk a mildly amusing super bowl ad or Ellen's Oscar group selfie, and it's as eager to please the norms as both.

opinion: shit is so dire irl that this piffle serves as a needed tonic

one point of comparison between now and "the old days": back when Reagan was president, there was that sketch w/Hartman playing Ronnie as a secret geopolitical evil genius whose doddering persona was just a front for his agenda, which gave it more of an edge bc it served to highlight the reality better (he was both doddering and yet executing an agenda). w/Trump it would have more teeth to play him completely differently from the amped-up sputtering manbaby Alec Baldwin portrays (i recognize the reality yes) and go in another more creative direction. maybe not a facsimile of the Reagan evil genius thing but something that would be at least a little more interesting, comedically speaking. and be more insidiously accurate. the Baldwin thing is just embarrassing but then again i also find most of the present cast and the celebrity ringers who are basically acting as secondary cast members to be a little embarrassing too.

sudeikis reprising biden is much much better than the weird woody harrelson impression they trotted out earlier in the campaign. dratch really does have a resemblance to klobuchar, so i understand the impulse. but the message it sends when you don't use regular cast members for these roles is "our non-kate cast members aren't worth watching...and look we hired an asian guy!"

extremely popular major-network television in not being subversive enough SHOCKA

I'm reading Chris Kattan's autobiography, and he reveals something I find absolutely fascinating:

Lorne Michaels had a rule that the poster for any movie he produced had to have the characters in front of a blue sky with fluffy white clouds. It's true! pic.twitter.com/OiXOF4rTzr

— Mike McGranaghan (@AisleSeat) February 9, 2020