Saturday Night Live

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

Used to find it funny - the height of 2016 lib smugness etc - that SNL stunt casted all the candidates they assumed wouldn't beat Hillary/Kate, and then when she lost they were stuck working around Alec Baldwin's schedule for their most important character. Now it's 2020 and he's the one of the only draws in the fucking cast.

I am really into the staging of this first David Byrne performance. The monologue/stand up was so great. The boomer dads cramming for a WWII exam/trivia was spot on.

Also the Bernie hand washing Stalin joke in the opening made me snort.

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

oh and the Laguardia sketch! so good.

Mulaney hosting the show generally guarantees a base level of quality although this time around wasn't quite as good as the last two, despite having a great monologue. Laguardia sketch was the highlight.

I thought that was a video of Jim Bakker's son at first.

i made it about 2 minutes into that youtube video, which is less time than he made it into that episode of SNL, so what is this annoying guy's point?

i only watched the first 10 seconds to see if it was a religious thing. I don't know how people have the time to listen to stuff like that. If I wanted to just tune out people's chattering I would call my mom.

hahaha

Remember how people used to freak out about having to give a 2 minute speech in class. And now we are awash in people soliloquizing for 15-20-80 minutes.

In class, you're standing in front of other people and you can't edit or redo if you stray off course

Also in class, someone is right there to call you out for wanking under the table while you're talking

this sounds specific.

That’s when you have to do the magicians trick of making some mesmerizing hand shape with one hand so nobody notices what the other hand is doing

So I’ve been told!

The three of us here who at least occasionally keep up with SNL thought this episode was largely a stiff. Byrne aside, of course. No one's fault, really; we like Mulaney. It was just boring and not especially funny.

Airport Sushi number was the only one that felt written by Mulaney; didn't approach the heights of his last two production numbers, but was fun and the Sack Lunch Bunch energy of Byrne and Gyllenhall helped out. Uncle Meme sketch was a decent premise and OK jokes, but dead in performance. Byrne songs were great (! that he's doing Toe Jam as part of American Utopia). Other sketches were barely written, Che and Jost should be fired, the former into the sun.

no discussion of the quarantine episode? Actually thought it was one of the better episodes of this season despite the obvious hurdles. Don't know why they started with that Drake spoof, but Pete's later "i've got 2000$" hip hop video was better. Kate and AIdy killed the zoom meeting, which cracked me up. RBG was surprisingly good, AIdy's visualization bit was great. Overall surprisingly good.

i mentioned it on the slack. i liked the middleaged mutant ninja turtles.

The Drake thing was a very weird choice to start.

yeah this was pretty good.

my first thought was "tom hanks and rita wilson have a really small kitchen"

I think we gave up on it pretty early. The Zoom one in particular was just a variation of lol old people can't use computers. I did like Chole Fineman's impression bits. She's generally pretty underutilized. There were a few MIA cast members, weren't there? Cecily? Melissa? Were they in there anywhere?

akm otm, I'm guessing that might be a second house for them?

Fineman is great and I'm glad to see them finally using more of her impressions. I thought this was surprisingly well put together and worked more often than not, the Zoom call was actually one of the weaker skits.

I was afraid they were going to limit their Hal Willner acknowledgment to one of those psot-commercial title cards, but I thought that tribute was sweet and surprisingly well put together given then resources and timeframe. Good song choice too.

That tribute has my crying.

Also, why do I suspect that Pete Davidson sent in like 15 of those rap videos and told them to just pick whatever?

I tried to watch the Pete netflix thing because I generally like his weekend update bits but I only lasted like 20 minutes.

goddamn it the one good thing about the 'ronnie was that it meant no SNL.

xpost, yeah the Hal Willner tribute was very very sweet.

is Davidson a Make a Wish kid that they never asked to leave?

He's like a Make a Wish kid whose wish was to be asked to leave, but then he got better and they didn't grant his wish and it broke his heart.

I started cringing during Tom Hank's bizarre Letterman impression.

It only seemed to get worse from there, had to bail during Kate McKinnon's RGB thing. You see, she lifts weights with Q-tips because ha she is VERY OLD but also somehow ROFL she's horny and sassy ha ha ha

I mean good for them for giving it a go but

The RGB thing was terrible, I hate that McKinnon spends so much time on that character. Feel like she could have brought something better.

Aside from whether the jokes were funny or not, it was interesting that pre-taping and editing allowed the show to be punchier and faster-paced than usual. Didn't think having a laugh track Skypeing in during Weekend Update really helped, though.

i'm a fan of the RBG character. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Eh, RBG was like most of latter-day Kristen Wiig's characters - funny the first time, interminable by the 15th.

there were some good jokes in this week's rbg thing.

I did like it the first time.

Kate McKinnon seems super smart and seems like the obv. heir/anaolog to Kristen Wiig...but she always seems to stop short of disappearing into a character and just defaults to mugging?

McKinnon is warmer, sunnier, and way more engaging than Wiig.

When I complain about SNL taking one joke and flogging it to death, I am often thinking of Wiig characters like the horrid cashier or the "just kidding" lady or the singer who pretends a song is written and makes it up... plz god no. Funny once or twice; after a while I start fast forwarding.

I think Wiig is maybe my all-time fav snl cast member...along with Phil Hartman

the target lady wiig character, i never understoof. I figured it must appeal to some demographic.

not her best character, I didn't really get that either

Yerac have you lived in the upper Midwest?

^^^ There is a specific regional thing with that character that makes her super funny to me

I didn't have a problem with the character at first, it was just killed via repetition and that period where all of her "new" characters were basically variations on Target Lady and/or "just kidding" lady.

yeah i am from virginia although family is from michigan. I figured the target woman was just something I was missing for it to be so popular.

the best wiig character is that weird lady with the tiny doll hands

cecily and kenan both mostly absent this week.

xp dooneese!