Saturday Night Live

I love the one he did praising Bonnie Raitt as DJT. Trump as a big “Nick of Time” fan makes me feel like I’m on a really mild but pleasant edible

I forced myself to watch 3 minutes of The Sarah Vaccine, she might be good with other people doing the writing.

I literally had no idea who Lauren Holt was and, having now googled, still really don't. Was she in a single skit?

Here and there mostly just bit parts on skits

Watched the whole Sarah Squirm thing ooof that was not funny

Wonder if she started doing bits between weird bands, has that "friend's band" vibe but for comedy sketches

She wrote for Eric andre

I made it two minutes in. It was reeeeeally unfunny, but hey! It was a different kind of unfunny than SNL, so... the show will continue to suck, but maybe have some gory parts and some of that "kids' show, but fucked up" feeling that People Younger Than Me have apparently been really, really into for the past decade or so?

I like Sarah Squirm. I'm not going to actually watch SNL to see her appear for 30 seconds all year.

She has a pretty sizable Twitter following, no? Be interesting to see if Twitter stan culture cuts loose on SNL and Lorne when she doesn't actually appear on screen until about episode 6.

My kids were really into Miranda Sings. She seems akin to that, but by way of Stuart Gordon.

Seems like whatever happens, her profile will be heightened, and she will always be able to put "SNL alum" on her resume. I have no strong opinions but it seems to be a pretty good resume builder in the standup/sketch space.

I literally had no idea who Lauren Holt was and, having now googled, still really don't. Was she in a single skit?

yes she was in several but rarely as a main person and I feel like they hired her because Aidy Bryant was out half the season shooting Shrill and they hoped no one would notice if they hired someone who looked a lot like her.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/comedy/saturday-night-live/horatio-sanz-sexual-assault-snl/

Last week an anonymous woman filed a lawsuit alleging that comedian Horatio Sanz groomed and sexually abused her 20 years ago, when she was 15 to 17 years old and he was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in his early 30s. The allegations against Sanz—apparently corroborated both by contemporaneous emails and by text messages he sent her in 2019 apologizing for his conduct—are nauseating enough, and they are only the tip of the iceberg

ugh

so this was good this week.

A short documentary about one of the two or three times SNL had a musical guest worth a shit, 40 years ago this week:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AumYnYlG9fg

Fear is a tough one for me because I can't get past "that's the guy from Clue"

Fear , DC punks, a pumpkin and the NY Post. Nice doc about 40 years ago on the Halloween SNL

Credit where credit is due:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exSZQICbSb8

that was good, I assume she was telling a personal story. Cecily is probably the most political person in the cast now and you can tell she personally cares deeply about these things; it could be easy for them to slip into polemic without any comedy but she's always able to balance that really well.

The cold open this week with James Austin Johnson's Trump doing those incredible digressions was pretty good despite me not really wanting to see anyone do Trump ever, regardless of how good they are.

I almost got the feeling the audience was completely taken aback by his eerily accurate impression, like staring into the uncanny valley. It was as if they were processing in real time, wait, is this really Trump? And they weren't sure how it made them feel. A lot of online people of course know his impression well, but I think the vast majority of people have never seen any of those rambling monologues.

I saw a clip of the Trump--it really was pretty great, also the Wilbon-styled checklist of topics.

I'm sure that even the thought of this is going to drive some of you up the wall, but I'm going to watch the heck out of this:

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/snl-kyle-mooney-bento-box-ben-jones-netflix-series-saturday-morning-all-star-hits-1235109402/

Man, I had an idea for this like 10 years ago about doing the same for '80s/'90s music video shows... Should have followed up on it!

Must be based on Chip and Pepper’s Cartoon Madness, in which twin blond Canadian tie-dye purveyors hosted reruns of old cartoons.

Must be based on Chip and Pepper’s Cartoon Madness, in which twin blond Canadian tie-dye purveyors hosted reruns of old cartoons.

That opening last night, "Ted Cruz Street," has to be some kind of comedic nadir. I couldn't stop watching it was so awful.

yeah that blew, rest of the episode was generally better, highlight was Sarah Squirm on Update though, that was a really strong bit that felt like classic SNL.

Squirm's bit was great, probably the best part of the episode. I really can't stand those new pseudo-Lonely Island guys, though. Their sketch last week was awful, and the video with Davidson was pretty hacky.

🔥🔥 @SarahSquirm 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/qWfQewSEwT

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) November 14, 2021

The Sarah Sherman was the first authentically funny thing I've seen on SNL in years, that feeling of "I'm going for it" that basically every other sketch lacks. I did actually like the "three sad virgins" but more in a "this is clever" kind of way, "that's my actual doctor" was quite good and unexpected. Cruz Street, spooky kids truly weak, I guess there must have been other sketches but I cannot bring them to mind.

ps there have been lots of sketches, especially political sketches, just as bad as Ted Cruz Street! They're all like that!

probably lookist and hey I’m no prize pig myself but Jost’s face is off-putting to me. like the same way Marjorie Taylor Greene’s is

That Sarah Squirm thing, that's some of that there "anti-comedy", isn't it? I could tell because the performer was dressed like a children's TV host and shouting way too loud for someone in a room full of microphones, and a three-minute bit felt seven hours long.

i don't think it was anti-comedy, i mean she was explicitly delivering punchlines in the weekend update style! obviously though she goes for a sort of divisive kind of personality. one might say that you were... idk... squirming thru the bit? i thought it was funny tho. interesting juxtaposition w/ the other new guy who never gets put in sketches who did some real conceptual update bit that kind of bombed, feel a bit bad for him.

i thought this was a funny episode. i like please don't destroy, the hard seltzer skit they did earlier in the season was great.

i've been wondering recently ... has it always been standard for the cold open to be a riff on political/topical news even if there isn't actually much news to riff on, and so the show ends up doing some terrible/hacky/boring bit about, like, filibusters or some other actual political policy that has no comedic value? my earliest memories of SNL are when darrell hammond as clinton and will ferrell as bush actually gave the the show a good reason to do political cold opens. but there must have been periods around that time and before/after in non election seasons or w/e where there wasn't an obvious political sketch to do... did they ever do cold opens that were just funny sketches not explicitly tied to some news event from the preceding 4-5 days?

I can't remember a cold open that's ever been set in an abstract. They've always been current events-related, though not always specifically political.

i def remember older snl bits that opened with non-political sketches, but i wanna say that changed during the clinton impeachment years?

interesting juxtaposition w/ the other new guy who never gets put in sketches who did some real conceptual update bit that kind of bombed, feel a bit bad for him.

I thought that bit - the AI/robot comedian - was very funny and well done. Purely on a technical level, the way he used his voice was really impressive, and the way it built to a punch line like the machine had learned something from the interaction was really sharp.

yeah i liked it, it was clearly well thought out & he performed it with aplomb. i bet he auditioned for the show with it. but it was prob just not for the right crowd for it, i mean these are ppl who scream at the top of their lungs for colin jost’s jokes y’know

I didn’t think Athari’s bit bombed at all. Obviously it wasn’t easy following Squirm, and it was more impressive than funny, but the audience seemed into it. And I thought his previous sketch (“Angelo” on the Rami Malek episode) was really solid. Kid’s going places!

Even in the first year they opened with Gerald Ford stuff iirc

I remember Wayne’s World — after it had established itself/been run into the ground — getting at least a couple of cold opens.

That Sarah Squirm thing, that's some of that there "anti-comedy", isn't it?

No, it was pretty straightforward joke writing and comic delivery, she yelled in an exaggerated way and said funny things and I laughed, it was about as straight down the lane as comedy gets.

The "anti-comedy" version of that bit is David S. Pumpkins, which I appreciate, but didn't really laugh at and don't need to see again.

Yeah I like her a lot. I’m a little more ambivalent about her extreem gross out stuff (although well-executed) but I think she’s funny and cool and charming

ps there have been lots of sketches, especially political sketches, just as bad as Ted Cruz Street! They're all like that!

Oh, I believe you--I don't tune in that much. (Not sure why I did last night.) Cecily Strong's Marjorie Taylor Greene in the midst of "Cruz Street" wasn't that bad, though I'm sure they could do better.

Checking the "One SNL A Day" review blog, the first political cold open was in the fourth episode, with Chevy as Ford:

https://www.onesnladay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/11.8.1975_0.00.50.00.jpg

And the second was two episodes later, with Chevy again doing Ford:

https://www.onesnladay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/11.22.1975_0.00.17.00.jpg
https://www.onesnladay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/11.22.1975_0.00.17.00.jpg

Oops

https://www.onesnladay.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/11.22.1975_0.00.23.00.jpg

Seems to me they initially started really leaning into the political cold opens with the '88 Election launching the Poppy Carvey Interzone (so much so that in the last one of his administration, Hartman as Clinton swoops in and does the "Live From..." line, it's followed up by Carvey lamenting, "I used to get to say that."

sarah squirm must be really excited to be on the show. 2010s SNL is one of the strongest influences on her comedy