Saturday Night Live

gawker said he knocked over some pencils

The last episode that had a skit where everyone couldn't stop corpsing was another Lohan-hosted one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7bf-3uL2gg

i'm not sentimental but it's sorta painful seeing lohan like that

Bill Hader as James Carville on the news segment was the best bit.

i only made it through the first 30 minutes of this, but i still feel hungover from it. isn't the show supposed to be front-loaded with the best bits? whatshisname's shepard smith bit was indistinguishable from his keith morrison

they really need to ditch the obligatory political cold open

Hader's done Shepard Smith before, but that's the first time I can recall them adding the "Psycho" element to it.

Holy shit, Scared Straight was so utterly awful and embarassing. Rape jokes really creepy and nagl in any context tbh

Yeah, but that skit is nothing new, its been around for a couple seasons now and really the only funny part is waiting to see when Hader breaks.

Why is it funny to watch an actor laugh?

I've been disappointed that Lorne Michaels has relented and allowed his program to turn into "The Carol Burnett Show".

Most television should strive to be even half as good as The Carol Burnett Show, ffs.

the orig point of 'scared straight' wasn't really the rape jokes in and of themselves, but to see how far from scary the movies they riffed on would be and how dumb the puns were in consequence. just busting out "you'll get aids" is uh taking the low road with it. not that they weren't prison rape jokes all along, idk why i'm defending this really.

I love how SNL writers think that prison rape is somehow different than "regular" rape and therefore totally OK to make jokes abt, especially if they throw in a character who mildly chastises them

It's not just SNL, tbh. Prison rape is considered funny throughout much of comedic tv for some reason.

that clip is such a strange time capsule.

prison rape is a thing that is generally considered funny "in the culture" because people are uncomfortable with the notion of men being in a position to be victimized in that way and need to turn it into a joke to be able to put it to rest. it sucks.

well i think maybe part of it is that some people are very comfortable with the notion of that happening to a guy who's in prison and presumably did some bad things to end up there and 'deserves' it

Any way you slice it, the "joke" is lazy as fuck.

but people make those jokes even when the conversation isn't about actual prisoners (i'm thinking young dudes here.) i think it bespeaks a larger anxiety about masculinity compromised and a real aversion to imagining men in a sexually victimized position. (cf. the benito martinez rape storyline in The Shield for just one example that popped into my head.)

but yes, i think part of it is about dehumanizing prisoners

IMO the joke is about how tortured/labored Kenan's shoehorning of a prison rape comment into whatever subject he's talking about is, which problematically minimizes the seriousness of prison rape even more than what you guys are talking about

to be fair i didn't see the SNL episode in question i am just blabbing

but i think it's a bigger phenomenon than SNL for sure

i wonder how much those kinds of scared straight programs lean on prison rape tbh

When I was in 8th grade, a cop spoke to our class about jail, but he stopped just short of explicitly mentioning rape. He said, "You will be your cellmate's date! You'll be his date for the evening!" I remember thinking, so I'd have to get dressed up or something? That doesn't sound too bad.

(i feel the need to be pedant here so forgive me) to be fair to SNL the setup for these skits is that:

1. kids are being 'scared straight' for some minor crime, 2. kenan thompson tells them about what he did to get into prison and what prison is like, saying 'this is real', 3. he's obviously describing the plot of a recent movie, 4. the movie is not remotely criminal or hard, 5. the puns about prison violence/rape are a ridiculous stretch based on the lightness of the movie.

like "the king's speech" was used, and the line was "it's not gonna be helena bonham carter, it's gonna be hella boning in your farter". which i admit cracks me up. yeah they are still prison rape jokes, but it is usually about a level of wordplay that is a step above the "you're gonna get aids" crap in the last one with lindsay lohan

I admit that cracks me up, too

Why is it funny to watch an actor laugh?

I love when ilx gets incredibly reductive about an argument and removes the entire idea of context completely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fcu1nCphbQ

Why is it funny to watch actors on Saturday Night Live break character and laugh? I hated it when Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz did it and seeing Hader lose it - a guy who light years funnier than those other two when they were on the show - is disappointing.

I assumed that my "Why is it funny to watch an actor laugh?" question would be read in the context of this thread, but w/e.

Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz would break just because they were goofballs. Watching Hader do it is because you know someone (be it Kenan or, in the case of Stefon, one of the writers) is pushing him to his limit.

Its not so much watching Hader in the act of laughing, its seeing what Keenan did to make him laugh. But I do like when Hader cracks up at the Stefon stuff.

Johnny Fever otm.

It's much the same as when Will Ferrel would purposely try to get fellow cast members to break in sketches a) just to do it and b) to see how much they could withstand.

i assumed you were asking an honest question!

if someone who i think is funny breaks, i end up thinking it's funny along with them. because usually it means something has gone really off the rails anyway. hader always breaks during the stefon bits but that's kind of part of it now.

fallon and sanz weren't funny and their breaking seemed really self-congratulatory to me.

xps

there was a recent special where they talked about the Stefon skits and Hader's breaking; basically Hader and this other dude sit down and write out the clubs etc for the sketch for dress rehearsal, and then the other dude changes all of the clubs in between the dress rehearsal and the actual show with the express aim of making Hader lose his shit during the sketch

My understanding is that John Mulaney often whips up new Stefon jokes on the spot with the intention of making Hader break character as he recites lines he hasn't seen before.

Well, x-post!

both correct

haha sorry JF, next time I will pay more attention to yr parenthetical

Reminds me of Hee-Haw or something, I don't know, different strokes it's cool.

Oh, since I don't think it's been mentioned here yet: Abby Elliott did a pilot for a new Fox sitcom, so chances are good that this is her last SNL season.

she broke up with armisen, so i think that was a given already

did she break up his marriage with moss?

I heard about that. Did she and Armisen break up yet? He seems overdue.

oh not 'break up his marriage' but you know did he leave moss for elliott

Jimmy Fallon and Horatio Sanz would break just because they were goofballs.

No, it went being on being goofballs -- they came off as so smug and pleased with themselves, they didn't seem to care about making the audience laugh at all. I think that's what made them so annoying and punchable.

"having fun is more important than being funny" is basically the Fallon creed that people love his stupid late night show for

Yeah Sanz and Fallon breaking were totally "haha, look how awesome and funny we are".

He does a lot more on his Late Night show to include the audience/viewer in the jokes, though. What used to be annoying and punchable is now endearing imo.