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SNL is Friggin' Horrible! Except when Timberlake is hosting. (2 Viewers)

Long Ball Larry said:
Che and Jost will man the WU desk again.

http://splitsider.com/2016/06/colin-jost-and-michael-che-will-remain-on-snls-weekend-update-next-season/

Matt, of Matt & Oz, who were behind many of the great video pieces of the past few years, unfortunately just passed away. 

http://splitsider.com/2016/07/matt-villines-of-snls-matt-oz-passes-away-at-39/
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I'm not in love with the Che+Jost combo.  Each has some humor, but I think Jost could do better when he's the "straight man" and Che...after a few years he still has trouble spitting out the jokes sometimes.  I'm ready for something else on WU.  I could live with Jost+something new but would also be fine if they were both replaced.  I'll backpedal a bit to re-emphasize that they are ok and WU has had worse (hello, Norm McDonald).  I just think there's room for improvement and I don't expect these two to improve much at this point.

 
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VandyMan said:
I'm not in love with the Che+Jost combo.  Each has some humor, but I think Jost could do better when he's the "straight man" and Che...after a few years he still has trouble spitting out the jokes sometimes.  I'm ready for something else on WU.  I could live with Jost+something new but would also be fine if they were both replaced.  I'll backpedal a bit to re-emphasize that they are ok and WU has had worse (hello, Norm McDonald).  I just think there's room for improvement and I don't expect these two to improve much at this point.




 
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Norm was - is - and will always be ...####### awesome.  

You have a ####ty sense of humor.

 
I appreciated Norm, and Colin Quinn, retro-actively after they both left SNL and I got a better feel for what kind of comedians/performers they were. Knowing Quinn only from Remote Control and McDonald from this bit that was all over Comedy Central in the early 90's, I thought both didn't "know how to do update." I had just gotten so used to Miller and Nealon's styles that those two having wildly different deliveries than what I was used to probably turned me off to them. But seeing those styles, outside of Update, I think both are hilarious now and when watching them on SNL re-runs think they were great.

 
I really like Taran...don't understand where his push went.

The guy really takes over a screen when he's on...

 
Taran Killam still needs work. He peaked 2-3 seasons ago and his work this past season was not all that impressive. 

Jay Pharaoh was pretty meh IMO, show won't come to a halt. They could lose that other news guy too and no one would shed a tear. Seth Myers shoes are still very empty.

Back in My Day we had folks like Phil Hartman, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, real talent. 

 
tdoss said:
I really like Taran...don't understand where his push went.

The guy really takes over a screen when he's on...
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Killam referenced being a first-time film director, and I have read in other places that Lorne Michaels is not keen on cast members working on outside projects during the season. He thinks it's distracting and uses up energy that should be focused on the show. Even prime cast members like Wiig and Ferrell got lectured about this, and Killam is not on their level. The show is off the air from about the first week of May until the middle of October, so Michaels thinks that is plenty of time to do other things. 

 
Encyclopedia Brown said:
Killam referenced being a first-time film director, and I have read in other places that Lorne Michaels is not keen on cast members working on outside projects during the season. He thinks it's distracting and uses up energy that should be focused on the show. Even prime cast members like Wiig and Ferrell got lectured about this, and Killam is not on their level. The show is off the air from about the first week of May until the middle of October, so Michaels thinks that is plenty of time to do other things. 
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I really can't stand Lorne but I can't argue with that policy to be honest...

 
Couple things mentioned on the latest post-show recaps snl podcast:

1) the culture of upper management at snl so indirect that killam may have thought it was totally cool to do his side projects, when in fact it wasn't (though you would think he would have been able to figure it out through other channels.)

2) the complete absence of jebediah Atkinson this season may have been a harbinger of this departure, because there's seemingly no way it wouldn't have happened without a problem on the side of killam or the writing staff or whatever.

 
Encyclopedia Brown said:
Killam referenced being a first-time film director, and I have read in other places that Lorne Michaels is not keen on cast members working on outside projects during the season. He thinks it's distracting and uses up energy that should be focused on the show. Even prime cast members like Wiig and Ferrell got lectured about this, and Killam is not on their level. The show is off the air from about the first week of May until the middle of October, so Michaels thinks that is plenty of time to do other things. 
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Did Eddie do Trading Places and 48 hours in his offseason?

 
gump said:
Did Eddie do Trading Places and 48 hours in his offseason?
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I don't know about Murphy, but I believe the policy became enforced when Mike Meyers/Dana Carvey/Chris Farley/David Spade/Adam Sandler all did movies during the season, causing a lot of tension among the other cast members, but especially the writers. Usually when a writer comes up with the idea of a skit they work with the cast member they have in mind to develop it, to see what works, what doesn't. But because a lot of the big names were not always available or available in only limited time, they had to write the skit "blind', which led to a lot of unfunny material. 

 
Encyclopedia Brown said:
I don't know about Murphy, but I believe the policy became enforced when Mike Meyers/Dana Carvey/Chris Farley/David Spade/Adam Sandler all did movies during the season, causing a lot of tension among the other cast members, but especially the writers. Usually when a writer comes up with the idea of a skit they work with the cast member they have in mind to develop it, to see what works, what doesn't. But because a lot of the big names were not always available or available in only limited time, they had to write the skit "blind', which led to a lot of unfunny material. 
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weren't all of those lorne michael procutions though?

 
New head writers named.  Sarah Schneider and Chris Kelly.

They've written some really funny stuff, but a lot of it was filmed material: the #####cat Dolls spoofs, The Beygency, Bern Your Enthusiasm, Dyke and Fats... also the masterminds behind the high school experimental theater sketches, which don't always play well in the room but I could watch for 90 minutes every week.  Also encouraging to have this pair in charge with the election upcoming - they wrote the sketch last season with Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton at a bar with the real Hillary Clinton as the bartender.

With these two in charge, expect the fall to be dominated by political sketches, and a lot of air time for Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant.

Before SNL, Schneider was a writer and performer for CollegeHumor.  Kelly's other credits include writing for Broad City and Master Of None, and directed the movie "Other People", which was well-received at Sundance.
 

 
Long Ball Larry said:
Couple things mentioned on the latest post-show recaps snl podcast:

1) the culture of upper management at snl so indirect that killam may have thought it was totally cool to do his side projects, when in fact it wasn't (though you would think he would have been able to figure it out through other channels.)

2) the complete absence of jebediah Atkinson this season may have been a harbinger of this departure, because there's seemingly no way it wouldn't have happened without a problem on the side of killam or the writing staff or whatever.
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SNL puts so many eggs in the political basket, especially in election years.  Killam has a ton of range, but he was such a dud as Trump they brought Darrell Hammond back to replace him, and he didn't do anything interesting as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  I will miss those Fox News cold opens with Killam, Bayer, and Moynihan: a great format for some quick hits about the week, and the corrections list must have been great competition in the writers' rooms.  

I also wonder if Killam is a bit farther along in life and career to work SNL hours.  He's been with Cobie Smulders for at least 10 years and they have two kids together, so they have plenty of money and responsibilities away from 30 Rock.  

I'll miss Pharoah, but he hit his ceiling.  Awesome impressionist, had difficulty translating that skill beyond WU commentaries.  I remember they tried him as the lead in a sketch with Denzel Washington working the gift wrap station at a department store, should have killed but went nowhere.  

Tough break for Rudnitsky.  Show had plenty of white males in his age range with sketch/improv troupe backgrounds.  Shouldn't have hired him and squeezed him into a crowded space, but if you're in The Groundlings and SNL calls, what do you do?  Say "no"?  

 
Recently caught a couple Jon Mulaney standup specials on Netflix.  Whomever at SNL decided it was more important to keep Colin Jost around than Mulaney needs to have their decision-making power reduced.

 
Bruce Dickinson said:
With these two in charge, expect the fall to be dominated by political sketches,
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I typically find the political sketches to be the most boring part of the episodes.  I'm sure I'm in the minority here since they are often the lead in.

 
Bruce Dickinson said:
Recently caught a couple Jon Mulaney standup specials on Netflix.  Whomever at SNL decided it was more important to keep Colin Jost around than Mulaney needs to have their decision-making power reduced.
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What's the story here?  Mulaney is ####ing hilarious.

 
Bruce Dickinson said:
Killam has a ton of range, but he was such a dud as Trump they brought Darrell Hammond back to replace him, and he didn't do anything interesting as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.  
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I read something different. He was okay as Trump (not a complex persona, it's almost as easy as impersonating Jack Nicholson), but since there was no one else who could plausibly do Ted Cruz during the debate sketches, he volunteered to step aside, and let Hammond reprise his role.

It would suck if Killam lost his job because he was a team-player, but it seems that was part of it.  

 
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shuke said:
What's the story here?  Mulaney is ####ing hilarious.
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Mulaney was a favored SNL writer starting to get some time on-camera doing Weekend Update commentaries as himself.  There was an opportunity to add Mulaney to the cast as a featured player and have him either co-anchor Weekend Update with Seth Meyers or have a weekly commentary slot like A. Whitney Brown and Al Franken had back in the day, but it didn't happen.  So instead of having Mulaney at the WU desk seasoned and ready to take over the lead chair when Seth Meyers got Late Night, they tried Cecily Strong as Seth's co-anchor during his last few months, and promoted Colin Jost to the cast and WU when Meyers left the show.    

ETA: Just wanted to reiterate that John Mulaney is ####### hilarious.  His re-enactment of the pitch meeting for Back To The Future had me laughing so hard I had to replay it a couple times to catch all the jokes.  I'm a few months removed from a painfully inept 9-hour flight delay at the hands of Delta Air Lines, so his bit about Delta's complete absence of helpfulness through a delay just destroyed with me.  And that bit about meeting Bill Clinton, where he kept interrupting the story to describe a scene from The Fugitive, is genius.   

 
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Long Ball Larry said:
2) the complete absence of jebediah Atkinson this season may have been a harbinger of this departure, because there's seemingly no way it wouldn't have happened without a problem on the side of killam or the writing staff or whatever.
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I will miss Jebediah.  I'll bet that was a satisfying character to play, both from all the off-the-wall stuff you got to say while talking #### about the audience and getting away with it.  90% of the time Jebediah accused the audience of "going #####" it was justified.

 
Long Ball Larry said:
Mikey Day joining the cast.

http://splitsider.com/2016/09/mikey-day-and-chris-redd-have-reportedly-joined-the-snl-cast/
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Oooof.  Not a fan of Mikey Day.  Wasn't funny as the Token White Guy on Wild N Out, wasn't funny on Jay Leno, was the diametric opposite of funny on some sitcom that was so bad its make escapes me but he played the doofus husband of Selma Blair and he was brutal on it.  Thought for sure he was gone from SNL when his boy Killam got the boot.  Hope he found a sense of humor since the last time I saw him perform.      

 
Congrats to Kate McKinnon on winning an Emmy for her SNL work last season.

Bill Hader was on Seth Meyers recently, popped the hood on "The Californians".  Said making fun of L.A. people talking about traffic and driving routes was a running gag at the office.  It was something Hader, Armisen, Thompson, Samberg, and Wiig noticed from spending off-weeks in L.A. trying to make off-season and future deals.   Before table reads or other moments where they were sitting around waiting for Lorne, they would try to crack each other up taking on L.A. voices and describing circuitous routes through the city.

Then one day Armisen and one of writers took this inside joke and shoehorned it into a soap opera concept.  

Those sketches rarely got a big reaction from the audience, but hearing this story explains why they did so many of them - the cast loved going out there and doing those characters, and there were plenty of opportunities to go slightly off-book to make each other break.

 
For what it's worth, the Andy Samberg movie "Popstar: Never Stop Stopping" was pretty funny. It bombed at the box office but it's worth a rental if you are a fan of Samberg and The Lonely Island.

 
Bruce Dickinson said:
Congrats to Kate McKinnon on winning an Emmy for her SNL work last season.
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The first SNL performer to win in the decade or so since they were made eligible for Comedy Series, Most of what's been good this century and ALL that's been done the last few years on SNL has been done by women so goodonya, crazyslaviclady

 
eoMMan said:
For what it's worth, the Andy Samberg movie "Popstar: Never Stop Stopping" was pretty funny. It bombed at the box office but it's worth a rental if you are a fan of Samberg and The Lonely Island.
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Just watched this on Sunday.  Agreed. If you like Samberg's brand of comedy, it's worth a watch.  :dinkynuts:

 
And Alex Moffat and first-ever Latina cast member Melissa Villasenor joining the featured players, while Che, Leslie Jones and Pete Davidson get promoted to full cast members.


 

 
Long Ball Larry said:
And Alex Moffat and first-ever Latina cast member Melissa Villasenor joining the featured players, while Che, Leslie Jones and Pete Davidson get promoted to full cast members.


 
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Never heard of Moffat.   Curious what problem he solves.  Does he look like Mike Pence?

I'm a buyer on Villasenor.  She's a strong impressionist and a good singer.  She will get some opportunities on Weekend Update and in taped pieces right away.

 
Alex Moffat is the most mysterious new addition. He has no Twitter account and no real comedy presence on YouTube. But his background is actually the stuff ofS.N.L. legend: Moffat is a Chicago comedian, and an alum of Second City,

 
Alec Baldwin will play Donald Trump on SNL this season.  The arrangement will be similar to the one Lorne has with Larry David to come on and portray Bernie Sanders.

Slightly disappointed in this news as I LOVE Darrell Hammond's take on Trump, but I imagine casting Baldwin as Trump frees up Hammond to walk on as Bill Clinton, which is always welcome.

 
Gonna guess the cold open is going to be The Making Of The Donald Trump Apology Video:

"I said those things, I apologize.  That's in the past, let's move on.  Bill Clinton killed five hookers in Bentonville, Arkansas, and Hillary helped him bury the bodies."

"CUT! CUT! CUT!"

 
I think they played this Pryor ep last year too.  (Was this supposed to be a car race on NBC tonight?)

They did a sketch where Pryor was the author of a book called White Like Me.  This would have been 8-9 years before Murphy's video.  Basically the same thing, but just Pryor describing and acting out the things.

Also did a couple quick-hitter sight gags with police lineups.  I've said this before, but it seems to me like the show used to be more varied in the format.  Now the sketch format tends to be more rigid and repetitive.

 
Long Ball Larry said:
I think they played this Pryor ep last year too.  (Was this supposed to be a car race on NBC tonight?)

They did a sketch where Pryor was the author of a book called White Like Me.  This would have been 8-9 years before Murphy's video.  Basically the same thing, but just Pryor describing and acting out the things.

Also did a couple quick-hitter sight gags with police lineups.  I've said this before, but it seems to me like the show used to be more varied in the format.  Now the sketch format tends to be more rigid and repetitive.
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One thing that's gone that I miss from shows of childhood are pieces driven by people not in the cast or hosting that week.  I remember when the show would give a five-minute slot to standup comedians or magicians.  They would be introduced by the host and go into their act, similar to what you see on a late-night talk show.  

It's also extremely rare to see them do more than one sketch between commercial breaks.  Part of that is the expansion of high-quality taped pieces, for sure.  But they don't do sketch-quick tape-sketch anymore, like they used to do Deep Thoughts By Jack Handey while moving cameras into position and moving set pieces around to ready another live sketch in the background.

Also don't see them tell one joke early in the night to set up another related joke later.

 
I quit last week. After 42 years of religious devotion, i quit after last week's 2nd sketch. All previous seasons, the first sketches after the cold open & monologue have had the mark of months-in-the-making writing that the opening show after a 5 month hiatus should. Last week's first sketch was something that should've been thrown in before the band's 2nd song on a february show and the next sketch was virtually the same bit - making sport of margot robbie's hotitude. I quit. There was a movie on, then the wonderfully-talented-but-underwonderful Rhiannon Giddens was on ACL. Blipped over a couple times to see a li'l Lin-Maunuel but i quit. done -

 
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