Saturday Night Live

Anyway, I used to be a "why can't SNL be good like it was when I was an adolescent" guy but now I realize looking back that it was never very good. Was Phil Hartman a genius? Yes. Is the concept of "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" brilliant? Yes. But the actual sketches are belabored workings out of a single idea that can't bear the weight, just like sketches are now. Maybe "never very good" is too harsh. It was a live show! It was meant to be performed and watched in the moment, not forever! It was good at being the thing it was being. But I'd rather watch "Trading Places" than anything Murphy did on SNL ever. That was made to last, and it did.

Lol

In reruns, the "O'Callahan and Sons" sketch is replaced with the short film Vacation because Jay Mohr admitted plagiarizing "O'Callahan and Sons" from comedian Rick Shapiro.

what's weird is I believe and kind of vaguely remember that was a bad year of SNL but on the whole that's a lot of very funny people!


Yeah, that ‘94-‘95 season is pretty weird (and bad) in how Michaels seemingly tried to emulate Ebersol’s strategy in ‘84-‘85 of bringing in some ringers, but with decidedly less success. I love Chris Elliott, but 10 years after he’d established himself as a solid comedic presence (and just 2 years after he starred in his own well-received sitcom), it seemed like his talents would’ve been put to much more effective use pretty much anywhere else. Adding him to the cast felt desperate (more on Lorne’s part than Elliott’s).

S20 is such a trainwreck: Farley's coked up; Sandler & Spade in particular are frequently checked-out; McKean's there to do Clinton and also play Spade's Dad; Myers is waiting for his next movie; Nealon's wishing he left a year earlier; Elliott & Garofalo don't really fit anywhere; Meadows hasn't blossomed yet...

I assure you all that nothing in that cast list stands out as much for an American as Morwenna Banks does for someone watching a lot of UK comedy - four seasons of Absolutely then three episodes of Saturday Night Live.

But I'd rather watch "Trading Places" than anything Murphy did on SNL ever. That was made to last, and it did.

I mostly agree (I can probably recite Trading Places from memory at this point), but I still think the “White Like Eddie” short film, from when he hosted in late ‘84, is the greatest thing Murphy’s ever done.

S20's sign-off sketch...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wf31yBoGA4

the only thing I recall seeing from that season is this sketch with Mark McKinney (as DaRYL from KITH), Chris Elliott and Janeane Garofalo about internet chatrooms, and it's funny but I never would have guessed it was from snl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MibMGMSZWg

Iirc, this was their first internet sketch.

S20's sign-off sketch...

this week's episode was great!

“Thank you Rob Schneider for your years of courage” might be the funniest sentence in human history pic.twitter.com/XRx6pv6wex

— Drew Landry (@MrDrewLandry) June 26, 2023

Who’s Afraid of Lorne Michaels?

(not the best article, restates much of what we already know, but unequivocally for the record: Lorne Michaels sucks)

#onethread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNnpxFhgWc8

Another season, another Sarah Sherman Jost Roast

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QlNBlBMN6Q

Saying Jost's face looked like Thomas the Tank Engine was funny. The rest was just throwing her arms around and yelling.

JOKE SWAP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NE_kbJQ8r8

reliably the funniest thing on the show year after year

Having to do a little business at the Verizon store, and they just had to have security escort out a real life Kathy Ann (Cecily Strong's junkie Weekend Update character). It was *uncanny*.

I wasn't watching but I guess Haley made a surprise appearance to zing Trump and offer a mea culpa. I imagine the backlash will fade as quickly as her campaign.

Yup, cold open:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPQn7i-6JQ

In other news, a new chapter in the Jost-Sherman Saga

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

wtf, Shane Gillis is hosting an upcoming episode?

man, this was actually the funniest episode of SNL this season, in large part because Ayo Edebari is so good; good thing too because I actually forgot about Haley showing up pretty quickly, normalizing that shit could have tanked the whole thing. Glad she didn't pop up again later in Update or something.

Nikki Haley cameo was very odd, would like to read a step by step account of how that came to happen.

Nixon famously did a cameo on Laugh-In in 1968 and it was so unexpected that it drew a lot of punditry about how it helped his stodgy image. Ever since then presidential candidates have tried to duplicate that, mostly badly.

I understand why Haley would want to do it, was thinking more of the motivations of the snl people, Ayo Edebari etc. I wonder if there are diverging motivations e.g. Lorne + other senior people on the show inviting Haley on in the old-school spirit of the show being outside/above partisan politics, Ayo and the cast going along with it on the reasoning that Haley attempting to laugh off the civil war thing just makes her look like an asshole?

wtf, Shane Gillis is hosting an upcoming episode?

note the sturm und drang of squirm & yang at left here:

Thank you, Dakota Johnson, @jtimberlake, @jimmyfallon, @BarbaraCorcoran, @mcuban, and @TobeNwigwe! Goodnight! pic.twitter.com/hsklV8ZraU

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) January 28, 2024

Nixon on Laugh-in was from an extremely different era, when there was more cross-aisle collegiality than we can muster now. At that time, people could disagree strongly but then go have cocktails together. That is a vanished world.

Sarah Palin on SNL was a cheap-as-fuck stunt but, in retrospect, comparatively harmless. She lost and never regained a position of influence that would allow her to significantly harm people that I love.

Obama slow-jamming the news is a bit cringe but I don't really care because, again, harmless. No one got hurt by that.

Trump on Fallon getting his hair fluffed? For some reason I just think that's unforgivable because Trump is unforgivable. He harms people I love.

Haley? I dunno because I just don't think she has a lot of power to harm people I love. She'll be off the national radar in a month or two and we will have much, much grimmer things to focus on.

i'm not sure what you're indicating, I don't see anything weird there? (xpost)

thought this was a pathetic bit of image laundering

I mean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziwYbVx_-qg

It's partisan as hell but... hey, remember when this shit was at least a little bit fun?

Now it's just a grim slog until we die in fire, thxbye

i'm not sure what you're indicating, I don't see anything weird there?

I agree that their reactions to an anti-trans activist wandering onstage, despite not appearing on the show, to wave at America because their boss invited him to a party, are entirely normal

Lorne Michaels has lived deep inside the celebrity world bubble for decades and has lost all sense of life outside it. If someone is welcome at a Park Avenue penthouse cocktail party, then they are acceptable anywhere.

tbf I had to watch the clip a second time after reading sic's post before I noticed Chappelle on the far right of the stage. (easy to miss him if you are looking at Sherman and Yang on the far left, as instructed.)

Lorne Michaels has lived deep inside the celebrity world bubble for

Lorne Michaels actively, specifically and repeatedly platforms racists and fascists.

If you're watching Saturday Night Live in 2024 you're far more likely to be a Dave Chappelle fan than not.

Yes, and they are all well within the celebrity-sphere, like Chappelle, as opposed to your run of the mill neo-nazis like Richard Spencer. I think there is reason to doubt whether he chooses to platform them specifically because they are racist and fascist and he ardently desires to further their racist and fascist ideas. I think he invites them to the show because - hey, they're celebrities! - and his general obliviousness to their more vile opinions because - hey, they're celebrities!

Also Richard Spencer's last Netflix standup special bombed hard.

Dan Crenshaw has gone from strength to strength since his celebrity blessing.

ah I forgot about chappelle showing up there and then didn't notice him in this because yes, I was looking at yang and squirm. it's totally weird that he was on that stage; why? he wasn't in the show. He's not one of Dakota Johnson's friends. I'm unaware of him being close with Fallon. It's like he just wandered the fuck out there.

more obvious here

https://x.com/FunBobby/status/1751733032057250138?s=20

Yeah, him and Sarah talking about it was fairly conspicuous. pic.twitter.com/ibxKh9giF2

— FunBobby (@FunBobby) January 28, 2024

someone on reddit said he's friends with Tobe Nwigwe who performed with Timberlake and that's why he was there. Which is pretty lame and obnoxious

Shane Gillis fans certainly seem really cool and well adjusted

Trying to get members of the SNL band for not laughing during his crappy monologue

The only good joke I recall from last night was Jost remarking that after the Supreme Court of Alabama ruled that frozen embryos were children they ruled that Black embryos could be tried as adults.

I personally found Gillis funny and he was really good in the sketches. the over the top reactions both pro and con on social media are illustrative of how fucking stupid social media is.

I love how people only realize now that this show is reactionary bullshit

Gillis is a puddle of unfunny

akm otm