Saturday Night Live

you know what is good comedy? those Bob Newhart one sided phone conversations

I don't think the idea is that you must do that, I think the idea is that you should be *able* to do that.

At any rate, the SNL thread is clearly the most appropriate venue for discussing the pros and cons of confrontational, boundary-pushing comedy.

Maybe they're trying to be anti-comedy.

you know what is good comedy? those Bob Newhart one sided phone conversations

Does anybody *not* love those things? The adman explaining jokes to a dumb Abe Lincoln always slays me...

(One embarrassing corner of the internet are the comment sections under clean comedy routines on Youtube where the most likes are garnered by "And not one curse word! Not like these comics today". I'm convinced it's the same person posting this under one hundred different aliases.)

Going back to SNL, it's becoming clear that all of the late 80s/early 90s male perfomers that I always found stellar on the show -- Lovitz, Spade, Schneider, Norm, Sandler, even Carvey -- are firmly in the "you can't say anything anymore!" white bro culture camp. Burr, Seinfeld, all these people now. I find this sort of self-righteous martyrdom posturing very annoying.

I get the larger point, which is that they want to be forgiven for workshopping heinous shit while they are building their A+ material. My point is, I am still gonna dock points for heinous shit and I would have done that 20 years ago during your halcyon "you could say anything days".

Like, I still think Eddie Murphy's homophobic Honeymooner's routine is funny. The real joke in it is the repurposing of the "homina homina homina" bit but that shit makes me break every single time. It's extremely out-of-fashion humor but I still hear jokes and see where the humor is. There wasn't any humor in Gillis's podcast. "Yelling is gay" isn't a joke; "Ralph Kramden says his catchphrase when he cums" is.

I am trying to get through the Bill Burr new netflix thing. I think I hate his delivery. Too much overperformative yelling, whining about how unjust it all is.

Gillis performed in NYC this week. He really needs to tighten up his jokes.

It’s funny to hear so many people these days be like, ‘I’m not racist,’ ” he continued. “Are you sure? Being racist isn’t a yes or no thing. It’s not like you have it or you don’t have it. Being racist is like being hungry. You’re not right now but a cheeseburger could cut you off in traffic and you could get hungry real quick. You didn’t even know you were hungry for that type of cheeseburger. The cheeseburger’s not Asian in that joke.

yeah that's the problem with "racist jokes", if there aren't any jokes you're just being racist. when I listened to those clips of Gillis it reminded me so much of the town I grew up in.

^^^ this, Gillis just reminds me of the morons that will lecture you about how you "don't get humor" if you call them out for their obvious shittiness.

Bill Burr is definitely an about-to-have-a-heart-attack yeller. That's his stage presence. Aggrieved.

yeah, I was thinking that list above of the snl bro culture comics that were great on the show kind of were great because they cultivated interesting, whimsical characters and didn't resort to such knowingly mean spirited, basic shit. It's so lazy.

yeah, often sketch people seem more recognizably human than stand-up people

SNL is mostly responsible for blurring the lines between those groups

Going back to SNL, it's becoming clear that all of the late 80s/early 90s male perfomers that I always found stellar on the show -- Lovitz, Spade, Schneider, Norm, Sandler, even Carvey -- are firmly in the "you can't say anything anymore!" white bro culture camp. Burr, Seinfeld, all these people now. I find this sort of self-righteous martyrdom posturing very annoying.

amazing because all of these people have been given tons and tons of chances despite some sketchy material in the past. its almost as if the public kinda understands that not all humor lands & some of it winds up coming off cruel?

Everyone in this thread trying to pinpoint exactly what moves the needle from "funny" to "racist" is some real

everyone should have to read the lindy west column from 2012 about how daniel tosh does rape jokes the wrong way and louis ck does them the right way before making any declarative statement about comedy in public https://t.co/MjZOIFY9TA

— suspense none the richard (@Lowenaffchen) September 19, 2019

I find Shane Gillis' racist bit terrible and lame. But I find this equally(?) racist thing funny. Comedy itself is not something that can be easily boiled down to a chart/graph about punching up and intention and meaning and context. Sometimes you're just a lame!

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

yeah that podcast bit was mostly just wack and boring. Like if you heard those guys talking at the next table you'd text someone about the annoying dipshits you're overhearing

taken on its face, that podcast interaction was so unfunny that I thought it was ironic and/or a caricature of dumb guys

self-caricature is one of the hallmarks of dumb guys, so further caricature is kind of superfluous

lol Whiney OTM

i question your love for that south park clip whiney

tbf poop jokes are funny.

I could watch Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris all day long.

I still don't get Billie Eilish.

Zoomers are so mentally exhausted from growing up on the internet that they can only recognize emotion when having a rubbery-faced man screaming at them on YouTube or a girl whispering ASMR.

I still don't get Billie Eilish.

I saw just enough SNL last night to catch Billie Eilish's first set. I had no idea she existed until last night. Nothing I saw suggested she is in creative control of her career, yet. She looked to me entirely like a packaged product, perhaps a Gaga mini-me.

maya rudolph was great

i feel like kate mckinnon only ever plays one character. is that just me?

that is, every character she portrays she plays the same way

are you sure you're not talking about Keenan?

(I love Keenan)

I caught most of Eilish's set on the Coachella live stream and thought she was pretty good. Try that (if still available) to get a better idea of her. I agree last night wasn't that good.

I thought the entire show seemed clunkily executed so eilish may have been hit by that too.

I lol'd at McKinnon's delivery of "I have the energy of a mother of five boys who all play a different sport, let's do this" and Harrelson/Biden's straw joke.

that is, every character she portrays she plays the same way

― Non stop chantar (crüt), Sunday, September 29, 2019 2:59 PM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

YESSS. There's an unappealing thirstiness about her as well

but she's funny so thirsty doesn't seem the right word? I kind of categorize it as a strong confidence in her comedy.

And Bowen Yang wasn't funny at all, the material was poor but he just doesn't seem to be a comic performer.

The material was very poor, but a good actor can add value to bare lines through expressions, gestures, inflections and timing. He had nuthin' to add.

i searched awhile for an image of dan aykroyd doing motion capture expressions for the yogi bear movie

I thought this was a decent enough season starter but they had plenty of good material to use. Keenan still MVP, I don't care if he's the same in every single sketch, guy is completely lovable, which is not a term I'd use for many other cast members in the show's history.

Kyle Mooney's dad rap video was dumb

Other late in the show sketches were pretty good though I think the screw up with wardrobe and the ensuing breakdown saved that one panel sketch.

Billie Eilish's album is excellent, she wasn't a bad performer but singing over a vocal track in Bad Guy was kind of weak.

I figure it would be more efficient for me to start listing times when Mooney is funny instead of bad.

otm. I think the last time I found Mooney funny is that sketch with him and Beck Bennett as the brothers who fight and have to be hosed down (though that didn't work nearly as well the second time, and hopefully won't recur). And the failed comedian guy on Update.

Other late in the show sketches were pretty good though I think the screw up with wardrobe and the ensuing breakdown saved that one panel sketch.

I don't think the screwup was with wardrobe; it was the direction. The camera was supposed to be just on Kenan, which is why the wardrobe person ran on. During that sequence, the camera is never on who's talking; it looked like the director or someone else in the booth got confused and just went for the wide shot, but that happened to be the moment when the wardrobe person needed to help Aidy.

"Hello everyone, I'm so excited to be back and ruin things a second time," David's Sanders says in his opening comments.
"Last time, my slogan was 'Feel the Bern,' " he added. "This time, it's 'Let's burn this place to the ground.' "

Fuck your little neolib show, guys.

"let's bern this place to the ground" was the only part of Larry David's Bernie that got as much as a mild chuckle from me

Very worrisome, given the powerful and determinative role Saturday Night Live has historically played in presidential elections.

a symptom, you knave

Worth a watch re: SNL's role in Trump's election

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gQFvf19Jec

very good, tho i have never seen that Jost guy (v punchable)

I think he just does Weekend Update (he's been a writer since 2005 and became head writer in 2017)

The Rudy Ray Moore/Royal Family skit made me laugh. Kenan Thompson is still the best thing about this show by some distance.

The monologue was great. Very few are.