Saturday Night Live

yeah the mr chamillionaire/ scoooby doo guy is the funniest and best Trump impression

Yeah not indefensible by any stretch, agreed that we don’t need another Trump thread, but at that time a Thomas Friedman-ass “lets all hope this confused man rises to the occasion” position about a guy who was taking about sending Obama back to Kenya in 2012, from the guy who is supposed to be famous for telling it like it is it felt like a very disappointing cop out, another celeb on SNL trying to thread the needle

The bits of David Letterman's interview with Chappelle that I've seen represent what I like about him much more than that monologue did.

40 years of statements also had lots of instances where he'd seem

I disagree, but am happy to strike "statements" from my post.

Thing was when Chappelle did that first monolog, Trump was going to be president whether you liked it or not for the next four years. I guess hoping it did not end up the sh1t show it did kind of blows away hoping for the best.

I would have thought it to be ugly and dumb as a stump, but gotdamn king cheetio brought the stupid and malice in equal doses unrelentingly so nearly every single day for 4 years. And the thing ultimately was the dude was able to expand the cult of MAGA another six million votes. WTF...scary.

Whatever the results for 2020 election, I think we got off lucky he did not accidentally start a war and Biden at least defeated him period. It's going to take a good while for the slime that has been brought up from the dregs to settle back down. Democrats better get good at going to the polls and that is the only way to turn this tide, considering the never ending propaganda and money that will flow into every election.

On the off-chance you haven't seen it, I think it's worth looking at the 2016 monologue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--IS0XiNdpk

After an eloquent, lengthy story about visiting the White House himself, Chappelle concluded with this:

"So, in that spirit, I'm wishing Donald Trump luck. And I'm gonna give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too."

I find zero fault with that. Under the circumstances--speaking to an audience and a viewership that was almost to a person nauseous and in shock--I think it's pretty great.

("That don't mean I'm in the Wu-Tang Clan" kills me.)

agree

Ta. If the general audience could be expected to have your level of recollection, he would have missed two big opportunities for callbacks in last night's show: his shock at "a white riot in Portland the other night" hits different in November 2020.

And one wonders if he remembered saying, there, that ongoing mass shootings were a bigger problem than anything Trump might do to the country, when he was writing last night's joke about it taking an unchecked pandemic to slow down mass shootings in America.



(I was startled at the number of N-words last night, and he got a couple in the old one too - are these bleeped on TV, or is there a watershed NBC's allowed to skate or pay fines for, given the specifically off-junction start time?)

I found those unsettling too (not bleeped)...and, last night, not particularly funny.

(I wasn't unsettled, just surprised, given received wisdom on US TV standards.)

yeah I was kinda surprised by the n-bombs too, but maybe we just don't understand Black people

still, no more offensive than Pete Davidson intentionally spitting out his Count Chocula fangs when he broke character like the phony-ass Jimmy Fallon biter he is

Contemplating the presupposition that there's a genus of sincere, honest Jimmy Fallon biters.

She needs better material to work with, but does Maya Rudolph ever have Kamala Harris's voice down. Caught the (not-very-good) VP debate on repeat last night.

How in the world is Morgan Wallen not actually an SNL sketch?

Nice to not have Baldwin/Trump in the cold open!

yes, but it was still not funny. which is something considering the source material.

really, maybe they should have taken this year off.

farting Giuliani!

yes and still less funny than the actual event. SNL seriously hamstrung by the absurdity of the actual proceedings which transcended satire

I've said it before but political satire on SNL was funnier when the state of the state was more benign. I get very little relief from the Trump sketches cos the reality is pretty damn scary.

i do wonder how much last minute rewriting they have to do on SNL these days due to the fact that by the time Saturday rolls around, 75% of the potential jokes about anything topical have already happened on Twitter and elsewhere

I don't think that stops them from using those same jokes.

It doesn't stop Weekend Update, for sure.

Weekend Update wouldn't be funny with good material due to the terrible delivery of each joke

https://i.imgflip.com/1kec70.jpg

I love that he was the one guy that would say "here's the fake news"

and explain half of the jokes

Caught the opening last night. I don't know all the cast members now, but the guy who does Pence might be the worst political impression they've ever regularly aired. These can work because someone looks the same, sounds the same, or says funny things that are either lifted verbatim or--even better--are purely imaginative but capture something elemental about the politician. The best ever for me remains Tina Fey's Palin, which covered all four. The Pence guy isn't even close on a single count.

that's Beck Bennet; that sketch sucked like all their political sketches lately (and moffat isn't filling me with confidence with his Biden either) but he's done a better job as Pence in the past. Pence is so absolutely personality free it's kind of hard to parody him.

Other than that sketch, this episode was good almost the entire way through which is some kind of achievement for this year, even if some of the recycled Wigg bits weren't really different from the past. She's just really good.

Did Jim Carrey cancel at the last minute or was it just a coincidence they had Biden and the Grinch on that ep

Jim Carrey said some time ago he wasn't going to do Biden on an ongoing basis.

I think last week's episode was good? I can't even remember. But last night's definitely was; lots of credit to Dan Levy who was pretty effortless in everything. Does anyone who isn't an asshole dislike Dan Levy?

I love Phoebe Bridgers but her voice sounded kind of weak last night, not sure if it was the mix or what. Smashing the guitar was funny, wish she hadn't had to cut a whole verse out of that song for time though.

Can't speak for the whole episode, but I thought the Super Bowl opening was pretty bad; didn't hang around any longer.

oh yeah that sucked, it was one of the worst parts of the show as almost all cold openings have been for years now. There was some bad direction happening too (I think this happened last week also) where the camera didn't cut to the right person while talking.

That’s been happening all fucking season and it’s kinda embarrassing

Haven't watched a new episode since the Eddie Murphy one, but the recent (I'm guessing?) clip of Bowen Yang as Fran Lebowitz that my husband showed me was pretty great.

the zillow ad made my morning.

I keep on getting suckered into watching clips from this show and they're never very funny (sorry but the Zillow ad is just the latest example.) The Fran Lebowitz thing was -- well, to be honest, it wasn't exactly funny, but at least it was an impersonation that showed some real study had gone into it.

the zillow ad was so well done. I am a basic bitch like that.

the zillow ad was v funny

eephus is a tough audience and knows it. nothing wrong with that.

Dear @SNL, since you stole my Zillow joke last night please Venmo me the sum of 1 million dollars. My full special Cut/Up is on youtube if you need more ideas. pic.twitter.com/lC3yBpcs1h

— Ted Alexandro (@tedalexandro) February 7, 2021

tell it to eephus, ted.

nah, this is a pretty zeigeist-y joke, thus the basic bitch comment. the entire commercial was still really funny. TO ME, not a tough audience.

The Lebowitz impression worked for me entirely on the strength of Yang's impersonation, though I did enjoy some of the non-sequiturs: "Gender doesn't exist anymore. You know why? Ed Koch died."

i like his zoomer Chinese trade rep weekend update character too.

I bought a house last year and I have two friends that were/ are actively looking (one’s closing in the next few weeks) in the same general area and price range. Suffice to say there have been a lot of horny house-hunting Zillow texts between us. We all three got a pretty good chuckle out of this clip.

However (bc I’ve probably had too much coffee) I’m going to be annoyed that they have to tell you the joke. Like explicitly: “the pleasure you got from sex now comes from looking at other peoples houses”

Yeah. No shit. That’s the joke. that’s the whole joke. You don’t have to pre-digest it so I know what I’m watching. You can trust me to “get it”.

It’s a dumb weird mostly inconsequential thing to harp on for an otherwise relatable and funny bit, but I just don’t think it was always like this? Is it internet meme brain? Sound bite for viral traction? Idk it’s just weird. And I feel like current day SNL is the worst offender.

the surprise of what the ad was for caught me by surprise when I watched it. I drink a lot of coffee. So it's probably you.

fair enough

Yeah. No shit. That’s the joke. that’s the whole joke.

Yup. But it wasn't the punchline, which was delivered in the first ten seconds when it was revealed that it was an ad for zillow. By the time the "other people's houses" line was delivered they'd been ringing the changes on the original joke for a couple of minutes already.

xxpost This was perhaps one of the better SNL episodes of the year. You can tell when a performer is also a talented TV writer like Dan Levy. Even the bad sketches (outside the cold open) had little funny bits. But I hear what you're saying re: telling the audience the joke. And they're totally shooting for a younger audience, hence the ascendance of Pete Davidson or Keenan playing straight man and basically telling the audience how to react in every other sketch. 22 year olds are dumb

ftr i think Lorne is dumber than most 22 year olds