Saturday Night Live

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bearcuborg
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#51 Post by bearcuborg » Thu Feb 19, 2015 5:21 pm

Koukol wrote:Anyways, SNL has always ripped off pioneers like SCTV even to the point of importing some characters like Ed Grimly. Even before SCTV there was Monty Python where they first spoofed obnoxious performers.( a comedy staple)
Agreed, and I preferred things like Kids in the Hall/State/Ben Stiller when SNL really lagged. Even now, Key Peele deliver on a staggering rate.

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Lemmy Caution
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Slim & Slam ...

#52 Post by Lemmy Caution » Thu Feb 19, 2015 6:49 pm

Gregory wrote:"
Similar to what the Andrews Sisters did with "Hold Tight," the "Solid Potato Salad" song seems lifted straight from Slim Gaillard, who loved the old hipster (when that meant something) word "solid" and sang many bizarre lyrics about food, including potato chips, avocado seed soup, etc., and in "How High the Moon" went off on a tangent about raising huge potatoes on the moon and making a big bowl of potato salad.
Not to mention Dunkin' Bagels ("splash in the coffee"), Tutti-Fruiti ice cream and Matzoh Balls. While in Slim's Jam -- with Bird & Diz -- suddenly in the middle of the tune, Slim's ordering up some food, in jive talk, and later asks for an orange soda... Man I love Slim's version of How High the Moon ("the moon don't care how low you are"), but nobody seems to know it.

flyonthewall2983
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#53 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Mar 12, 2015 11:42 pm

Have they stopped putting out DVD sets?

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Re: Saturday Night Live

#54 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Sun Nov 08, 2015 7:02 pm

So...how bad was it?

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hearthesilence
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#55 Post by hearthesilence » Sun Nov 08, 2015 7:49 pm

Arguably the lowest point in SNL's history, and that's saying a lot.

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The Narrator Returns
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#56 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun Nov 08, 2015 9:06 pm

Much of it was like watching comedy skits as performed by death-row inmates, where you can chart the death of their souls through their eyes, with a few sketches (the cold open, entirely due to Larry David*, the ex-porn stars, and the Good Neighbor bit, the latter two of which would have been C-material on any other night) that didn't make me want to crawl under a rock and die, both of which were ruined by Trump making cameos. The only bit that I would piss on if it was on fire was Drunk Uncle, which is always wonderful but here was like a glass of water after trudging nine miles through a desert.

*I will say that I was amused by how uncomfortable David looked about this whole thing during the farewells.

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gorgeousnothings
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#57 Post by gorgeousnothings » Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:16 pm

The Cold Open was probably the best of the night, thanks to McKinnon's Clinton and Larry David. The White House sketch was unbearable. Pretty much any Trump sketch was unbearable. The Bad Girls sketch was alright, mostly because it lacked Trump, though it felt oddly late as the song came out a couple years ago.

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Roscoe
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#58 Post by Roscoe » Sun Nov 08, 2015 10:22 pm

The show managed to foreground Trump's utter assholishness throughout the evening, and the assholishness of his supporters via Drunk Uncle, and of his sponsors via the Porn Girls, but it still felt rather tentative and surprisingly toothless -- they never quite managed to go for the jugular. Even the briefest of Tina Fey's Sarah Palin appearances had more bite than the entirety of last night's entire episode.

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Brian C
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#59 Post by Brian C » Sun Nov 08, 2015 11:28 pm

I thought it was bad, but garden-variety bad in the way it always is when they have a host that's simply fundamentally incapable of doing sketch comedy. It wasn't all that much worse than, say, De Niro's hosting stints.

The problem was that Trump himself is such an obvious target that naturally there's the expectation that SNL would do something with that, but that was never gonna happen. Trump's not stupid enough to do the show just to have potshots launched at him for an hour and a half. And he's certainly not Sarah Palin, clueless enough to let the cast destroy him to his face like Amy Poehler did to her.

So we just got a lifeless, disorganized show, one of a good 8-10 that SNL has always had per year even in good times. The Drunk Uncle bit was conceptually sound, at least - probably the best bit of political satire they've stumbled upon so far this season.

flyonthewall2983
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#60 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Mon Nov 09, 2015 1:59 pm

Quite ironically, Lorne Michaels is on today's Maron podcast.

terabin
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#61 Post by terabin » Wed Feb 10, 2016 4:23 am

I highly recommend the Larry Sanders episode, particularly for the monologue, the topicality of the FBI cadet segment, and Kate McKinnon's Sturdy Barbie on update. Best episode in recent memory.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#62 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Feb 10, 2016 10:46 am

"Larry Sanders" - ha! And yes, I agree - nearly a perfect episode, and those are few and far between with this cast, unfortunately. (I tend to think the writers might be the issue, but who knows).

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ShellOilJunior
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#63 Post by ShellOilJunior » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:14 pm

More than ever SNL relies heavily on quality guest hosts like Larry David. The cast is just not that talented. Although I think it's been spotty for a while but at least they had talent like Hammond and Hader. MadTV was loaded with talent 12-15 years ago (Sasso, Spears, LaMarr, Wilson, McDonald, etc) and bested SNL for years.

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lacritfan
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#64 Post by lacritfan » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:33 pm


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Re: Saturday Night Live

#65 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Feb 12, 2016 2:09 pm

Hey now, that's interesting.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#66 Post by mfunk9786 » Sat Feb 13, 2016 1:41 am

ShellOilJunior wrote:More than ever SNL relies heavily on quality guest hosts like Larry David. The cast is just not that talented. Although I think it's been spotty for a while but at least they had talent like Hammond and Hader. MadTV was loaded with talent 12-15 years ago (Sasso, Spears, LaMarr, Wilson, McDonald, etc) and bested SNL for years.
This is a very strange opinion that I can't get behind. The best SNL episodes entirely depend on the talent of the cast and finding a good fit for (or hiding) the hosts. Also find the example of Hammond as a reliably great cast member suspect, though considering the affinity for MadTV that followed, I guess there's consistency in bland, obvious impressions/send-ups being your bag.

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movielocke
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#67 Post by movielocke » Sat Feb 13, 2016 3:35 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
ShellOilJunior wrote:More than ever SNL relies heavily on quality guest hosts like Larry David. The cast is just not that talented. Although I think it's been spotty for a while but at least they had talent like Hammond and Hader. MadTV was loaded with talent 12-15 years ago (Sasso, Spears, LaMarr, Wilson, McDonald, etc) and bested SNL for years.
This is a very strange opinion that I can't get behind. The best SNL episodes entirely depend on the talent of the cast and finding a good fit for (or hiding) the hosts. Also find the example of Hammond as a reliably great cast member suspect, though considering the affinity for MadTV that followed, I guess there's consistency in bland, obvious impressions/send-ups being your bag.
Honestly, I've always thought the complaints about the cast not being good as it once was were shit. it's the same refrain every year and it's wrong every year.

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domino harvey
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#68 Post by domino harvey » Sat Feb 13, 2016 8:20 am

MadTV in its prime was a lot like In Living Color: broad performers who frequently got carried away and copious stereotyped and casually racist characterizations, but when they were on, they were on and the hit to miss ratio was pretty solid. Certainly I think back fondly on more MadTV skits than I do anything SNL ever did, and like In Living Color, much of it is still laugh out loud hilarious. Like anything relating to comedy, YMMV

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Luke M
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#69 Post by Luke M » Sun Feb 14, 2016 4:08 pm

I think SNL has always been hit or (mostly) miss but they've been nailing it lately with Bern Your Enthusiasm and last night's The Day Beyoncé Went Black.

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ShellOilJunior
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#70 Post by ShellOilJunior » Mon Feb 15, 2016 8:52 am

mfunk9786 wrote:
ShellOilJunior wrote:More than ever SNL relies heavily on quality guest hosts like Larry David. The cast is just not that talented. Although I think it's been spotty for a while but at least they had talent like Hammond and Hader. MadTV was loaded with talent 12-15 years ago (Sasso, Spears, LaMarr, Wilson, McDonald, etc) and bested SNL for years.
This is a very strange opinion that I can't get behind. The best SNL episodes entirely depend on the talent of the cast and finding a good fit for (or hiding) the hosts. Also find the example of Hammond as a reliably great cast member suspect, though considering the affinity for MadTV that followed, I guess there's consistency in bland, obvious impressions/send-ups being your bag.
Ultimately, this comes down to opinion. Although, I suspect my opinion struck a nerve going by the little dig you took at me in the last sentence.

That aside, please give examples of these "bland, obvious impressions/send-ups" you speak of with such condescension. I'm curious.

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Feego
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#71 Post by Feego » Mon Feb 15, 2016 1:39 pm

I think one basic problem with comparing MadTV and In Living Color to SNL is that SNL is live while the former two were not. Both MadTV and ILC had the advantage of choosing the best takes to perfect their skits. Blooper episodes also reveal that the actors on both shows were free to improvise, and they would change up their lines from take to take which made them consistently fresh. I've heard that Lorne Michaels is very strict about sticking to the script, and since the performers read from cue cards, it often leads to wooden delivery and rigid body movement (the actors have to face the cue cards almost the whole time).

I do have to defend MadTV though, as that show was dynamite from about 1999 to 2001. In those seasons, there was not a weak link in the cast, and they created some truly indelible characters. I've always been perplexed as to why performers like Mo Collins, Debra Wilson, and Michael McDonald did not go on to the kinds of careers that Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, and hell even Rob freaking Schneider have had (although Lorne Michaels is probably the major force behind those actors). After that high point, though, MadTV fell fast. It was miserable in its final seasons, but that probably had more to do with the writers than with new cast members. It's telling that what little I've seen of Key and Peele is far better than anything they did on MadTV.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#72 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Feb 15, 2016 5:20 pm

I'm very pleased with the way the SNL cast is beginning to gel - the Larry David and Melissa McCarthy episodes were both excellent, the best of the last few years - and cast members like Leslie Jones and Pete Davidson who weren't doing much of note outside of Weekend Update appearances really seem to be coming into their own. I hope they keep this chemistry together for one more year before any major changes happen.

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gorgeousnothings
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#73 Post by gorgeousnothings » Mon Feb 15, 2016 7:48 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:I hope they keep this chemistry together for one more year before any major changes happen.
I would still like them to oust Jost, if not shake up the entire Weekend Update desk.

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Andre Jurieu
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#74 Post by Andre Jurieu » Mon Feb 15, 2016 8:04 pm

Jost is kind of generic (though I do enjoy his repeated Ronnie Chieng-esque jokes about his father not showing him enough affection), but I get continuously frustrated at Michael Che's inability to read off his cue-cards. He's gotten better lately, but for a while there it felt as if he was reading the jokes for the very first time during Weekend Update and he would routinely straight-up butcher the timing/cadence/delivery. I honestly think that the writers and/or Michaels requested that Bobby Moynihan pop up on Weekend Update repeatedly as that Riblet character just so they could keep showing Che how easy it was to read off the cue cards and deliver the jokes properly. Since Che's improvement, Riblet has shown up less, which is probably a good sign. Yet I still think Che could polish up his cadence a bit more and/or the staff could spend more time preparing him.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Saturday Night Live

#75 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Feb 16, 2016 12:07 am

"Riblet has shown up less" is a very funny sentence fragment, even when in context

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