Saturday Night Live

Yeah, it's weird that Clint Eastwood never had a leading role in a movie prior to Unforgiven.

lol

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dd/Mattwalshcomedy.jpg

this guy has been in a shit ton of successful comedy movies but if he ever got top billing in a movie that made $200 million i would be comfortable in saying it was a breakout role without going 'omg but he was in other movies before that!'

plus, in terms of what Deric was saying to begin with, most of Wiig's previous movie roles were pretty wacky and were practically little sketch-like scenes within those movies anyway

xp the difference being that UCB and SNL aren't even on the same level of exposure. Matt Walsh is just an "oh, that guy!" and Kristen Wiig is "oh, Kristen Wiig!".

But I think some dude's point is that pre-Knocked Up, Wiig was probably an "oh, that girl!" for those who didn't really keep close tabs on SNL.

Yeah, and SNL superstardom doesn't necessarily translate into film superstardom (although it's possible that Master of Disguise did much better overseas than I realize).

Beyond being solidly entertaining, it has the best use of a Yes song I've ever seen in a movie.

I didn't like the movie, but "Heart of the Sunrise" in Buffalo 66 inches past "Seen All Good People".

I didn't watch SNL when Fallon was on, but I did recently watch SNL's Best of Jimmy Fallon on Netflix and found most of it pretty funny. Maybe my love for Late Night has made me predisposed to like him, though.

yeah i've watched that best-of special a few times and they did a good job of cherrypicking, some good sketches in there

star wars, those crazy star wars

jason sudekis please leave eastbound

cant ever go wrong w/ a nutshot sketch

That was one loose and freewheelin' and ramshackle show. But it was a pretty fun episode of The Jonah and Kristen Experience, all told.

I don't know why I loved the Liza Minelli sketch so much, but I did.

Love that talkative six-year-old bit.

taran's rush opener was hilar imo

This probably means little to most of you at the moment (and it may turn out to not mean anything, period), but Jet Eveleth has apparently gotten a callback for a possible cast slot at SNL. If she gets hired, that'll make her the third cast member to come out of iO Chicago (after Vanessa Bayer and Paul Brittain) in a very short time. I reeeeally should'a stuck it out there...

It means something to me -- for a little while Jet dated the friend of mine through whom I met Paul B. (Wondering now if you know the friend: M@rk P13b3nga.)

Hmmm, no...a quick Facebook stalk-a-rama suggests that we might know some of the same people, but that whole crew is a "generation" or three ahead of my peers (who started 5B shows tonight...sigh) and I.

Perrin on the less yuks-oriented material of the early era, esp Marilyn Suzanne Miller's:

http://splitsider.com/2012/03/when-snl-was-about-more-than-just-jokes

http://marilynhagerty.areavoices.com/

her latest video misues "hoi polloi". i guess we should be sneering after all!

er, wrong thread.

To be fair, that era extended into at least the late '80s (thinking Hartman and Hooks in "Love Is A Dream"). I have been thinking lately that the current era would be more well-rounded if it had a pinch more bittersweetness. But that doesn't really seem to fit with what SNL has morphed into, for better or worse.

Actually, this is kinda just the way (popular) comedy has trended in general, and I would say it's for the worse (for instance, attempts at the promotion of dramatic improv in Chicago were a real pain in the ass).

And FURTHERmore: so many of those early SNL-ers worked with or were inspired by the work of Del Close and his ilk, but the material coming out of Second City and iO (two fairly rich SNL talent mines) these days bears very little of his mark. There are a lot of talented performers and some clever conceits, but the majority of the stagework is "Just For Laffs!". I have no problem with "Just For Laffs!", but I wish there was more of a balance.

that's actually a nice piece by perrin

so you did improv in Chicago for X years?

yeah I can't see Close OR O'Donoghue recognizing much influence these days.

About 3 years. I'm on 'sabbatical' until I figure out what the next step is gonna be, but it probably won't be in Chicago and it probably won't be boilerplate improv.

Deric, I haven't seen TJ & Dave in a long time, but I feel like their approach is more lived-in and less madcap than some other acts.

Oh, yeah, TJ & Dave is one of the definite exceptions. But then Pasquesi, for instance, is pretty heavily involved in straight theatre.

(Not meant to challenge your general point, btw! Just wondering if you agreed.)

Jet seems pretty funny, but still a little raw if youtube clips are any kind of a good judgement method. I'd love for SNL to bring in Emily Tarver.

every once in a great while SNL does something a little less laff-y. i'm thinking of a skit with maya rudolph and tracy morgan as two run down drunks in a bar that was pretty touching tbh

very much the exception tho

I probably haven't seen that Spacek-Belushi sketch in 30 years; it doesn't seem to be online.

it seems like the only old SNL stuff online is on Hulu, it's not much, but even that's blocked for non-US people

xpost to jaymc

Nah, it's cool, and I really should emphasize how many awesomely talented people there are doing work in that whole arena. I just wish more of them would take a page from TJ & Dave and have the courage to let things breathe and allow for quiet moments and refrain from desperately pouncing on the joke. To be fair, audiences are occasionally awful and implicitly demand less-than-stellar work.

xp it's on Netflix too but not for free

new featured player, kate mckinnon, starts next week

http://splitsider.com/2012/03/meet-kate-mckinnon-snls-newest-castmember/

She seems reasonably funny, but all of the impressions they featured in that article were terrible.

i lol'ed at the liz taylor one

i have high hopes for her, based solely on those videos i think she might be able to lighten wiig's workload a bit

haha, never mind! wiig, sudeikis and samberg all leaving:

http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/kristen-wiig-andy-samberg-jason-sudeikis-to-leave-saturday-night-live-201244

oh noes

I guess most of the lady roles will be Fred Armisen in a wig now?

Meanwhile, Sudeikis has a new movie in the works, Relanxious, where he will star opposite his real-life love Olivia Wilde.

this is one of the worst movie titles ever btw

that seriously must have been named by sifting through the discard pile in the 30 Rock writing room

had no idea he was dating Olivia Wilde, dude is lucky

I still appreciate dude as a comic actor, but irl Sudeikis is a dickweed of the highest order. He hops from starlet to starlet after leaving his wife "because he could get hotter chicks".

No results found for "because he could get hotter chicks".