Saturday Night Live

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".

Not a direct quote obvs, but relayed to me through about six degrees of comedians. Actually, disregard. It's probably bullshit.

In his Maron interview he came across as very protective of January Jones even though they weren't dating anymore.

Really glad that Wiig is finally leaving, but bummed about Samberg and Sudeikis leaving. I know the SNL Digital Shorts have really dipped in quality, but he brought his moments.

I'll miss Wiig and Sudeikis. Samberg, not at all.

He hops from starlet to starlet after leaving his wife "because he could get hotter chicks".

His wife, the beautiful and hilarious 30 Rock writer Kay Cannon. I mean...come on, dude.

I'll miss all three to varying degrees. I think Wiig is moving on to bigger and better things and general stardom. I think Sudeikis is fooling himself a little, because I think he's great on SNL and I think it's the perfect venue for him and I think his film trajectory won't be terribly dissimilar to Joe Piscopo's.

abby elliot may be leaving also depending on if her pilot gets picked up. sudeikis seemed ok on the bs report fwiw, he's norm peterson's nephew iirc.

as long as hader stays i'm fine.

seriously.

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gp/Kay+Cannon+Jason+Sudeikis+married+uuH2x29GiL6l.jpg

as Kenny Powers would say, pretty impressive quality of tail this guy manages to pull for a supposed dickweed

as long as hader stays i'm fine.

― balls, Wednesday, April 4, 2012 10:26 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

kind of amazed armisen's sticking around

probably because he had a better grounding in reality than Sudeikis and Samberg and knows he's probably not going to fly any higher than this and Portlandia

Comparing Sudeikis to Piscopo is f'in weird.

Horrible Bosses made 200 mil ww. I don't think Joe Piscopo's combined filmography made that much money.

i guess it figures after last year was like the first summer in SNL history with no cast changes that this would be the biggest batch of departures since '94 or '95. Samberg is definitely ready to go, the plethora of non-musica 'digital shorts' has been pretty dire lately.

i really had no idea Horrible Bosses made bank like that, damn.