Saturday Night Live

Now *that's* funny.

I hate Jimmy Fallon.

D: Jaret's Room, Mango, Adam Sa...I mean, Jimmy Fallon's guitar parodies

I think Jimmy Fallon is rather funny, but not nearly as funny (nor original) as he seems to think he is.

Actually, I think the plight of SNL is that they have some extremely talented cast members, but don't have the solid writing to back it up like in some days of yore. There are sporadic bits of amazingly funny stuff ("I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!"), but it's just not SOLID.

Weekend Update is awful, sorry. There's no bite to the jokes. they seem happily surprised if a joke does well, and if it doesn't they lean reaaaal hard on the "it's not funny; isn't that funny!?" thing that is the death-knell of television comedy (cf Johnny Carson, Conan's monologue)

Everyone keeps banging on about SNL and I've never seen it - indeed, living in the UK with no Sky means I probably never will. Is there like a SNL Best Of DVD around? Or should I not bother - is it over-hyped rubbish?

I liked the bit about Larry David. The part with him and Dick Ebersol standing by the elevator sounded just like something out of "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

make talk about the old snl. converse about the dim bulb sketch.

The M'OD bio "Mr Mike" is worth a read. He bitched when the original cast started to do recurring characters, cuz he thought that was too much like Carol Burnett etc.

the writers' terror of offending anyone makes most of the sketches heavily dependent on unfunny gimmicks and repetition, much like conan o'brien's show these days.

(i ACTUALLY roffled the first time i saw this sketch)

-- joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 25 May 2005 04:22 (2 years ago) Link

was actually bumping thread to say i have a crush of shame on kristin wiig

why shame?

maybe shame bc she's totally annoying?

yeah, that

shes kinda horsey too

i dunno i used to get real madtv vibes & think she was really untalented but now i kinda think shes the funniest person on the show

she never tina fey

the hot air balloon thing sealed it for me

she def. cracks me up with the penelope skits.

the hot air balloon was totally a rip-off of Tim and Eric style bad TV. Tonight wasn't so funny. Cold open was pretty weak and the game show too. Steve Martin and Tina were good in the intro. I also liked Tina's Hillary rant. What's the story on the new girl?

i watched snl tonight for the first time in a while!! it was not that good but when is it ever. tina fey was only really good in the monologue.

the there will be blood thing cracked me up tho.

and ya what IS up with that new chick?> is she secretly fergie

bret michaels sketch was awesome. the girls on snl roxxor.

oh, Kath Barbadaro was the person I saw going off on bluesky about people being weird about coming to Yang's defence, glad to see she wrote more about that.

"I don’t get too worked up about what someone who isn’t those things says onstage, as long as they’re stopping short of advocating fascism or war crimes"

per that, I saw at least two people on instagram claiming Gillis was a facist. That word is losing all meaning among some people.

Yeah, otoh the weird glee the Gillis fans had over him using the r-word in his monologue seemed to miss the point that he was advocating for people using it to be beaten down.

ScarJo really nailed Katie Britt

rowr

A good essay about Shane Gillis, Bowen Yang, SNL, and 'comedy fans' whose brains are broken.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Saturday, 9 March 2024 00:11 (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

More importantly, he is by all accounts a good guy to work with, encouraging of younger performers, someone well regarded in the scene he came up in, and to my knowledge, no one has has ever accused him of being a sex criminal. There are enough actual rapists, abusers, exploiters, and just generally toxic people in comedy that I don’t get too worked up about what someone who isn’t those things says onstage, as long as they’re stopping short of advocating fascism or war crimes or something.

I get the impression that there are a lot people like Gillis for similar reasons that people liked pre-cancellation Louis CK, that he manages to thread the needle of not being a 'woke comedian' while not being an 'anti-woke' comedian either? But then Louis couldn't fill that niche any more after the sexual misconduct scandal because he lost the seems-like-a-basically-decent-guy-I-guess thing that Barbadaro refers to above

You know, I’d forgotten that Michaela Watkins only got to be on SNL for a season and am now upset all over again

I saw a little blip on talk show where they played a clip of Ted Cruz interviewing Katie Britt on his pod about the SNL parody (she was delighted BTW), and he bitched about Aidy Bryant playing him back in the day, and I realized that part of hiring Shane Gillis in '19 was probably in part to have him take over Cruz as Bryant winded down her tenure.

That essay on Gillis was indeed good. I find it hard to hate on him much after seeing his standup. I wanted to see some just to get a sense of what kind of comedian he is and wound up watching the whole thing because he was actually pretty funny. It sucks that he got fired from SNL - I don't think they should've offered it to him in the first place, but offering it and then rescinding it only ensured he'd wind up with a built-in fanbase of trangressive shitheads.

NPR praised and shared this on their socials this morning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_Ae2uz4IJU

that was pretty good though it could have been better. I was mostly impressed with how well they remade that desk as a set, and wondered how fast they were able to load up all those shelves

Colin Jost and Michael Che with with eh jokes using Key Bridge in Baltimore collapse to take shots at Boeing and Biden connecting with Black communities, respectively

Well, yeah...but that Hootie one!

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/snl-cold-open-revels-politics-ramy-youssef-prays-palestinians-hostages-rcna145759

"Please free the people of Palestine, please," Youssef said, recounting his prayers. "And please free the hostages. All the hostages. Please."

Any reaction to this in the media? Denunciations, acknowledgement, support?

This is the first thing I’ve seen about this

Ramy was really good on pretty much that whole episode, but his monologue was especially really well done.

yeah weirdly no major freak out about this aside from the standard utterly-missing-the-point-SNL-not-funny-since-1979-no-one-knows-who-this-host-is stuff on instagram

Sarah Sherman talks movie posters for Mubi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOWuhum5b4w

...and then there was this:

https://ew.com/snl-stars-react-to-tiktoker-saying-no-hot-women-cast-on-show-8624164

While the TikToker, who goes by the name Jahelis, clarified that they were "not saying that every single woman who has been a cast member on SNL is ugly," the post prompted strong reactions across social media — and a couple of funny ones from its stars.

Current cast member Sarah Sherman, who joined the show in 2021, responded on X, saying, "Just found out I'm not hot. Please give me and my family space to grieve privately and uglily at this time."
Meanwhile, new cast member Chloe Troast stitched in the TikToker's video before singing Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful," an ode to celebrating beauty in all shapes and forms.

In the original video, which has been viewed more than half a million times on TikTok, Jahelis elaborated, using Heidi Gardner as an example, saying the actress often plays "super-hot and super-dumb" characters, even though "she's not that pretty" but "I guess, technically the most conventionally hot person — like, hot female — on this cast."

I just watched this sketch on YouTube and its really striking how Wiig and Hader are just playing in a different league than these four absolutely interchangeable new people

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

that’s will forte lol

No, it's Hader impersonating Forte

Two of those new people joined in 2019, another in 2018, and another still in 2017.

Anyone who joined after Bobby Moynihan is a newbie to me

*Forte

I thought Andrew Dismukes was really good in this sketch (I think he co-wrote it as well?) - all of the new cast members in the above sketch have had at least couple of moments this season when they've really shone imo. And even in the Wiig/Hader/Forte era there were always journeymen cast members alongside the superstars

Everything in the Mikey Day era is just a blur + Sarah Sherman

Tbf though, Forte and Wiig both have seasoned acting chops and really are on another level than most SNL players.

When I was went to college there was a sketch comedy group that did shows every Friday with about 200 people in the audience. A few semi-successful comics (like Graham Elwood) came out of there. Kristen Wiig was a student at the same time as me, but I'm pretty sure she was never part of the group. I've always wondered if she ever auditioned though.

I really don't know what the right ratio is between "All TV writing/humor is simply bad now because of social media and/or nepo babies" vs. "Kate McKinnon Hillary Leonard Cohen bit was actual neolib jump the shark moment" vs. "I'm just getting old" vs. "SNL has always sucked" is the correct one, but this show seems kind of especially bad

Relatively great episode and def helped by the star power. Esp Will Forte. Army episode was decent as well.

I don’t generally enjoy SNL when I see it, but what I saw of this weekend’s episode was very funny. Has it been like this recently? Should I go back and watch some recent eps? (The last one I saw was Josh Brolin, and didn’t think that was so hot…).

Yes. The Ramy and Kristin Wiig episodes were bother better than average and probably better than the Ryan gosling one, which was also decent. Maybe they’re in a good streak. Relatively speaking.

Agree. The Ayo Edibiri episode was good earlier this season too. By SNL standards I think they’ve got a pretty good average this year

Cool, I’ll circle back!

Sometimes I think the host has a lot to do with the vibe and quality, and sometimes it probably doesn't. Gosling is game but he breaks too much for sure and was causing everybody to break. Sometimes that's fun, sometimes it's annoying. Even Heidi Gardner breaking during the beavis and butthead skit was a surprise, she's usually a pro. Feel like maybe she hadn't seen the full make-up yet and turning around and seeing Mikey Day like that did it.

Brolin is also game but almost too much, too eager and too reliant on the cue cards. That episode wasn't so good. Ramy and Wiig were great, and as mentioned, with all the guest spots and the joy of having her back, I imagine everybody brought their a-game for her episode.

Especially Will Forte who is an all-time genius underrated during his run and since.

I feel like contemporary SNL peaked with the potato chip sketch.

the beavis and butthead sketch was so goddamned funny, made more so by Garner breaking. It takes some kind of balls to make a sketch about B&B 30 years after their heyday.

Yeah, I was just gonna say (xpost) that the laughter during the Beavis & Butt-head sketch was great - honestly it was half the fun of it. (The extras sitting in "studio audience" were extreme pros for keeping straight faces throughout...)

Also, part of what I loved about it was (as you say) the "randomness" of the concept – why B&B? I like that they weren't going for some "larger point" or whatever... also, they knew when to end the sketch. (The cold open was also great, for similar reasons – though a lot of that was also just Kate McKinnon doing her thing, and Gosling not keeping it together.)

But the cast breaking ... that's always funny, but it's not necessarily because the *skits* are funny.

My wife loves the current Weekend Update guys; I think she watches just that segment on YouTube every week.

the caitlin clark appearance this week was good.

probably said above but my favorite WU stuff with Che and Jost is when they write jokes for each other, don't see it before the show, and Jost is forced to say incredibly offensive stuff

I've rewatched it, and seeing everyone break is funny, but I think my favourite part is still the little squint Kenan's character does near the start when he first notices Ryan Gosling

Watching the Kristen Wiig ep. now… dang, these opening monologues are star-studded.