Saturday Night Live

The biggest tells are "forehead" and "orange," imo. Cracks my wife up (I'm from the Philly area).

Didn't see that sketch, but watched a bit of this last night, because of Bruce and because the timing was right. Pretty much not funny, if not totally miserable. "Meet Your Second Wife" had an edge I don't usually see from the show. A whole lot of kids used as props in this ep.

Not the best episode. Sometimes I think the more they put into a video, like the tina/amy and their posse video, the less time they have to work on actual skits.

Maya stole the show though, esp with her drunk singer flashback bit.

none of your "all time" faves predate 2002, right guys

I like Kenan, but that "Jeffersons" skit with he as a director telling actors filming a serious period piece movie to do "Jefferson" tv show bits, was not funny.

Maya was good.

Paul McCartney always looks happy showing up--in the closing Springsteen "Santa Claus" number last night.

none of your "all time" faves predate 2002, right guys

Lost count of how many times you've brought this up now, but everything about the show's first five years being untouchable has to do with context. Decades removed, almost all of that era of the show is garbage.

Jay Mohr brought up something interesting during a podcast I was listening to a couple weeks ago, and it's that the show rides a pendulum back and forth between eras where the humor is writer-driven and where it's character-driven and for the past several years it's been almost completely writer-driven which, in his opinion (and maybe mine too), makes it less engaging. The show is always funnier and more vital when it has a Church Lady or a Gumby or whatever to hang its hat on.

Best era:

http://i.imgur.com/WUsdzTM.jpg

^true

Actually, I might swing a couple seasons earlier, but that whole general timeframe is right.

The Nealon-Farley Overlap is what the scientists call it.

SNL peaked with Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer

seems to be predicated on when Victoria Jackson left

or maybe Lovitz playing the devil. xp

i watched this conversation between d. spade and d. carvey in which they talk about how farley was pissed he only had one line in a "pepper boy"s kit, but farley was determined to kill it anyway . . . his lines fail to bring the house down but almost break sandler out of character; dana is forced to whisper "don't-a braaaake" under his breath, something i never caught before. anyway good stuff. here's pepper boy

hahahaha

What the hell was that accent Tina was trying to do in the Bronx Beat sketch? Granted, I've only been to Philadelphia once, but I think I'd remember it if I'd heard people talk like that.

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Sunday, 20 December 2015 07:36 (Yesterday) Permalink

guessing Philly Boy Roy gave voice lessons for that sketch

she's from upper darby

Decades removed, almost all of that era of the show is garbage.

see we don't have to remove anything to take out this era

Farley was fat, not funny

pplains otm. Mid-'80s-to-early-'90s is the scientifically-proven superior era.

bcz all of you had hair then

It's harder for me to watch the show these days because my toupee's constantly slipping down over my eyes.

Farley Belushi was fat, not funny

fixed.

No.

I wasn't just saying that to poke at Morbs. I honestly have never gotten what people like about John Belushi.

his physical comedy is so fucking good

i mean if you appreciate that in farley then idg how you can't see it in belushi

but each to their own i guess

idg physical comedy i mean at first they are talking about force and velocity and shit and then they wanna tell you about how women are different from men it is just exhausting

actually enjoyed Carvey in that clip that rip van winko posted. i've seen him in a couple of things recently (interviews, clips of his 90s show, etc) where i found him much funnier than i remember him being in his heyday.

quite the inverse for Myers. listening to that dude whine on WTF was kind of a drag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAhGUXeOz0U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlBr2fyqn9g

Carvey was relatively restrained early on iirc but just kept going bigger and broader as time went on.

I think I've seen him say as much in an interview, where he sketched out the evolution of his "Nah gah dah!" Bush.

wrt Mike Meyers, there's this bit of Second City lore that gets bandied about regarding the importance of specificity in improv. In a scene where a lesser improviser would've asked someone to pass the ketchup, Meyers instead asked someone to pass the Heinz. And, lo, it was a brave choice, which I've heard from various teachers and read in several books except who even talks like that is the thing. Which is kind of my thing with Meyers in a nutshell: who even talks/acts/interacts like that, dude. He did some good stuff, though, when he was able to tone down his more alien impulses. And the goddamn catchphrases.

ppl behave in all kinds of unpredictable ways

"realism is good, ineteresting is better" - Kubrick

also no human being ever behaved quite like Cagney, and he's maybe the great American film actor

(it usu does drive me crazy when someone orders 'a beer' in a bar scene)

Unpredictable, I love. But the version of unpredictable as practiced by some of these outsized SNL dudes...well, I have a little movie here called Master Of Disguise that I think you'll love, Morbs. It was made by aliens.

(It also drives me crazy when people order 'a beer'.)

This is always the main thing I think of RE: Master of Disguise:
"The scene at the Turtle Club happened to be filming on September 11, 2001. When word of the terrorist attacks reached the set, the cast and crew observed a moment of silence."

eddie and phil were the funniest two. is it hot in the hot tub? i've got chunks of guys like you in my stool

xpost Ha yeah for a decade+ on Cheers they apparently had only that one generic brand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne9xPugjv4U

of Christmas and Candice Bergen

http://www.avclub.com/article/two-isaturday-night-live-ichristmases-1975-and-197-66318

I kinda hate the Spade-Farley-Sandler troika tbh (especially Spade and Sandler). To me the peak is actually Ferrel/Fey era, but I have a lot of love for the grit n grime of the original cast (not so much season 1, but after that they're p consistent).

Aside from the Pryor episode and a few other highlights, season 1 is not good.

yeah the Pryor episode is really good

i think if you take out the doumanian year, the first year of lorne's return, and maaaybe the ebersol years the gulf between the peak years and the trough years is overstated. i go w/ the carvey-hartman years when they had smigel, odenkirk, and conan writing as the peak but that's also when i was the age you're convinced this snl is the best snl ever so i'm not as firm on that as i would've been.

i've gone back and watched the classic seasons and there has always been mostly duds and unfunny sketches and a few standouts right from the start.

http://www.avclub.com/article/i-wish-it-was-christmas-today-has-grown-novelty-so-229872

Have you guys weighed in on this? I remember seeing this "song" when it came out. It sort of completely encapsulates Fallon's not-that-funny-but-well-meaning-indie-guy-teacher's-pet schtick.

As well as crafting the joke w as little effort as possible and coasting on charm/smarm.

And just like that, SNL mined another profitable nugget of comedy gold. The audience’s initial silence soon gives way to laughter because many of them have probably seen this sort of thing before—the flubbed notes, the MIDI file rendered even more laughable by a key change, the inexplicable elephant trumpeting. The only difference is that the crowd’s used to seeing such amateur ditties performed by kids at home, not full-grown men in front of a nationally televised audience. You could call it genius absurdism, or you could call it what it is: four comedians channeling their inner middle-schoolers—and having the time of their lives while doing so.crap

balls and Adam otm - this show is p consistently inconsistent over the years.

xp