Posts with tag Darrell Hammond
Posted Nov 16th 2008 1:20PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E08) This episode was warmed up like biscuits.
Dance biscuits. I swear to God, I will find a way to work that into a conversation some time in the near future. This was certainly the strongest episode of the season, as the writers didn't seem quite so afraid to have fun with the more pointless or tasteless jokes. Sometimes, they try to do something bizarre but stop just short of a satisfying pay-off, leaving a palpable awkwardness. In this episode, they really pulled through and, thanks to some special appearances (hello,
Justin Timberlake), gave Mr.
Paul Rudd a very memorable episode. Check out some highlights from the episode.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Paul Rudd/Beyonce - VIDEOS
Posted Oct 24th 2008 11:00AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
Well, that concludes
Saturday Night Live's three week run of "Weekend Update Thursday." There were some good jokes here and there, including tonight's especially strong cold open, but looking back, we really could have done without these three episodes. Most of this material, election-related and otherwise, could have been bumped to the regular Saturday program without any problem. I'm sure we could come up with a list of sketches in the past few
SNLs that deserved to be replaced. Someone fix my time machine and let's get this job done. I don't want to hear any of that "There's no such thing as a flux capacitor" bullcrap.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (October 23, 2008) - VIDEOS
Posted Oct 19th 2008 12:02PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E05) First of all: It felt like Josh Brolin wasn't really hosting the show, but just kind of hanging out until Mark Wahlberg and Sarah Palin got their business done. He did a fair job with what he was given, though. Secondly: Fartface. Why? Why would they do that? I'm glad NBC.com didn't post that video, because it was so bafflingly bad that everyone that was in the room with me, watching the episode, was reeling from the effects. Please note that I am someone who still laughs at "duty," so a sketch revolving around the word "fartface" should have killed me. Instead, it just left me a little confused and wondering what stuff ends up on the
SNL writing room floor. Anyway, this was a big episode, so here are some video highlights:
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Josh Brolin/Adele - VIDEOS
Posted Oct 17th 2008 10:26AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
I liked it. I laughed. Sure. I also laughed last week, but I can't quite remember what was so funny. These specials are pretty forgettable, bleeding into my
Saturday Night Live memory and then dropping into the recesses of my mind. Again, I understand the need to jump on the debate coverage as soon as possible, but I honestly could have held on until Saturday. Or maybe they were worried that everyone would be sick of Joe the Plumber by then. Well... too late.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (October 16, 2008) - VIDEOS
Posted Oct 10th 2008 8:28AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
Well, that was a little strange... and maybe a little unnecessary. All right, it was definitely unnecessary. I wasn't quite sure how they were going to work out these Thursday election specials, because even though they called it "Weekend Update Thursday", I didn't believe they were just going to show a twenty-some minute long "Weekend Update" segment. As it turned out, the special consisted of one cold open and the rest was "Weekend Update." This is where I got super-confused. Half of these jokes had absolutely nothing to do with the election, leaving me to wonder if there is anyone out there that could not have waited until Saturday night to hear the relevant jokes. I don't think anyone's going to forget the election or the economic crisis any time soon, let alone by Saturday.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (October 9, 2008) - VIDEOS
Posted Oct 8th 2008 1:06PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Late Night, Saturday Night Live, Reality-Free
When I watched the Nancy Pelosi/President Bush/Barney Frank bailout sketch on last Saturday's
Saturday Night Live, I had no idea that one of the couples featured in the sketch (played by Darrell Hammond and Casey Wilson) was actually based on a real-life couple, and now that couple is angry at how they were portrayed. And by "portrayed" I mean that
SNL putting up the words "People That Should Be Shot" on the screen while the couple was talking.
NBC has edited the segment (which you can see at the link above) so that the words no longer appear on the screen. In fact, in
this new edited version, you can actually hear the audience laugh at the on-screen joke, even though nothing appears there now.
Continue reading Note: Saturday Night Live doesn't really want you to shoot anyone
Posted Oct 5th 2008 2:02PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E04) This season so far has been more than a little iffy, but Anne Hathaway managed to make things slightly less painful. Even though the writing still wasn't quite spot-on, Hathaway's enthusiasm brought a light to the show that made even the most irritating sketches a bit more bearable. Honestly, I had my doubts about her hosting abilities, mainly because her good girl giddiness clashes heavily with my black-hearted bitchiness, but I didn't mind her. I'm sure she could even easily make the jump from "pretty good" to "absolutely spectacular," given the right material. Also, she managed to read the cue cards without looking like a complete idiot, which most other hosts have somehow turned into a massive ordeal lately. Mmm, literacy plus natural reading: a combination so deliciously rare, the writers don't even know what to do with it.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Anne Hathaway/The Killers - VIDEOS
Posted Sep 14th 2008 11:46AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S34E01) Well, well,
Saturday Night Live is back for another season and we couldn't be more excited. Actually, we probably could be more excited, but we're still tuning in and that's what matters.
Personally, I believe they took a risk in inviting an athlete to open the season with a bang, as I often find their performances super-awkward and damn near unwatchable, but there are folks that go totally nuts when sports people host. Plus, Michael Phelps was definitely the sweetheart of the summer and it was a smart move to grab him before he retired to his giant fish tank in Baltimore. His performance was still pretty awkward, but at least they didn't give him a lot of crazy characters to struggle through.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Michael Phelps/Lil Wayne (season premiere) - VIDEOS
Posted May 18th 2008 1:05PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S33E12) To ensure a strong season finale,
Saturday Night Live made a very smart choice to go with Steve Carell. He is an incredible comedic performer and his first hosting stint went pretty well, so I wasn't surprised to see him pull it off again this time around. Actually, this picture is from the first time Carell hosted
. Is it weird that I've had it sitting on my desktop since then? Yes, probably. Anyway, the material was better than some of the other episodes', with a few spectacular highlights, including the hilarious digital short.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Steve Carell/Usher (season finale) - VIDEOS
Posted May 11th 2008 11:58AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S33E11) I honestly was not worried about Shia LaBeouf delivering a less than stellar performance, as his
first stint on Saturday Night Live showed that he works well with the cast and is naturally very goofy. With a funny guy like this, one can only pray that the writers use him as much as possible and work super-hard to give him embarrassingly crazy sketches. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. Again. The writing was okay, but it did not do LaBeouf justice. Also, there seemed to be a strange flow to the episode, as the energy of sketches would start dying halfway through and eventually end on a really weird line. Let's hope the writers aren't already losing steam. They still have a season finale!
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Shia LaBeouf/My Morning Jacket - VIDEOS
Posted Apr 13th 2008 12:26PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video, The Daily Show, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S33E10) Considering the fact that Ashton Kutcher has hosted the show two times previous to this, I expected a lot more sketches that would let him cut loose and go crazy. We already know that he can be a decent host, and I felt like they didn't use him to his full potential. I also fully understand that I'm simultaneously talking about the importance of range and Ashton Kutcher of
That 70s Show and
Punk'd.
That said, this episode was mediocre, but at least it was consistently chuckle-worthy. There were only one or two sketches that were a bit painful to get through.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Ashton Kutcher/Gnarls Barkley - VIDEOS
Posted Apr 10th 2008 2:04PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Saturday Night Live, Watercooler Talk, Reality-Free
Slate magazine is running
an article regarding how weak most of what passes as political satire on television is. They quote heavily from Russell L. Peterson's new book
Strange Bedfellows: How Late Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke and also take some time to body-slam CNN's new comedy show,
Not Just Another Cable News Show (Wait.
What? CNN has a
new comedy show on it? I thought that was the thing Wolf Blitzer hosted every day. Are you telling me that's
not a comedy?)
Peterson's book, at first blush, seems to be another overly-alarmist, semi-academic attack on pop-culture -- Darrell Hammond is destroying democracy?
Really? -- that I usually just ignore. Well, maybe it's the Tylenol PM I took to ease the pain of being in Utica tonight, but after reading Slate's discussion of it, I started to come around to Peterson's way of thinking...
Continue reading Watercooler Talk: Is toothlesss TV political satire "endangering democracy"?
Posted Apr 6th 2008 1:20PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S33E09) The weird thing about Christopher Walken's legendary
Saturday Night Live performances is that they all suck. Seriously, think about it. His delivery is jaunty and weird, and when he's not awkwardly staring into the middle distance, he's just glaring directly at the cue cards. All these elements combined should throw him in the realm of the crappiest hosts.
... And yet he consistently pulls it off and makes even the worst sketches absolutely brilliant. How is that? Walken is just inherently awesome, I suppose. It's really the only logical explanation. This episode in particular was very poorly written; I'm sure most of the sketches look absolutely pathetic transcribed on paper. However, Walken's aforementioned jaunty awesomeness made it one of the best episodes of the season. He's done it again, folks. I expect a second "
SNL: Best of Christopher Walken" DVD is in the works.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Christopher Walken/Panic! At the Disco - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 16th 2008 11:05AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S33E08) Cold Open: No surprise here, the first thing to get mocked was the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal. Bill Hader's impression was spot-on, as always, and Kristen Wiig did a great job as the pained Mrs. Spitzer. The overall skit was all right, but I wasn't too quick to get my hopes up. After all, the post-strike episodes haven't been too hot, with the last two being particularly hard to sit through, and I wasn't sure how
Superbad funnyman Jonah Hill would fare on live TV.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Jonah Hill/Mariah Carey - VIDEOS
Posted Mar 9th 2008 11:58AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S33E07) I was really hoping that this night would redeem
Saturday Night Live from the crappiness of
Ellen Page's episode, but, boy, was I disappointed. Usually, when an episode is weak, I just shrug it off, write a post about it, and move on. This time, I actually felt a bit of regret when it was over.
"I totally could have been using that time to clean my room," I thought. Obviously, I wasn't particularly fond of this one.
I haven't seen Amy Adams in much apart from
Talladega Nights and
Enchanted and, even though both of these films left me feeling like I could have been using the time to clean my room, I was all right with Adams. Unfortunately, she looked super nervous throughout the episode and sped through her lines so quickly that she would sometimes use really bizarre inflection.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Amy Adams/Vampire Weekend - VIDEOS
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