Posts with tag DarrellHammond
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 3rd 2008 10:02AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Late Night, Saturday Night Live, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities
It wasn't April 1st so it couldn't be April Fool's Day. It was March 1st. Still, there she was, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton saying those famous words, "Live from New York, It's
Saturday Night Live."
In an unannounced and potentially savvy political move,
Senator Hillary Clinton, appeared on the NBC late night comedy and showed that she can laugh at herself. This surprise appearance, coupled with her agreeing to be on Monday's
Daily Show with Jon Stewart, can only help her in Tuesday's primaries in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. It's pretty much desperation time for the Clinton candidacy and if Hillary wants to make it to the Denver convention with a chance to beat Barack Obama, she must win Texas and Ohio -- the big states -- decisively.
Continue reading It's Hillary, Live from New York, on SNL
Posted Feb 29th 2008 11:01AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video
In today's
Washington Post,
Saturday Night Live kingpin
Lorne Michaels defended his choice of Fred Armisen to play Barack Obama, starting with
last week's episode. After the much-publicized search for an Obama impersonator (or
Fauxbama, as some are calling it), Michaels decided on Armisen, who is of white and Asian origin. Armisen, who's talented enough to do excellent imitations of people ranging from Prince to Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did a credible job playing Obama, a man who is somewhat hard to pin down, imitation-wise.
But some critics,
including the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan, have very bluntly wondered why an African-American didn't play Obama. "They couldn't find an African-American performer who was funny enough to play the junior senator from Illinois? They couldn't find one in New York? Not anywhere in the country?
Really?" wrote Ryan on her
Tribune blog.
Continue reading SNL's Michaels defends choice of Armisen as Obama - VIDEO
Posted Nov 4th 2007 12:21PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S33E04) From Brian Williams' guest spots and cameos on
The Daily Show, I already knew he was a surprisingly funny guy. He has an incredibly dry delivery and that level of newsman integrity paired with any remotely dirty joke is absolutely hilarious. That said, I still was not sure how he would deal with a live show. After all, even the funniest of comedians or most polished of actors can fall flat on their face when pressured with the threat of no edits, no do-overs.
I am very happy to report that Mr. Brian Williams did a spectacular job. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up joining the ranks of hosting gods Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin some day. His performance was crisp and professional, and I'm sure people that only know him from his news program were caught completely off guard. Too bad the writing this week was below average.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Brian Williams/Feist
Posted Oct 7th 2007 12:24PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S33E02) "A Message From K-Fed": I suppose it would have been tough to avoid covering the news about Britney Spears losing custody of her children to K-Fed, but was it really worthy of a cold open? The sketch managed to make me crack a smile, but I didn't even come close to laughing, which is disappointing because K-Fed is already inherently hilarious.
"Monologue": Seth Rogen shared the
Saturday Night Live monologue that he's supposedly always dreamed of doing, complete with Bill Hader as Steven Segal. It was cute but, again, didn't get huge laughs. I could tell that Rogen wasn't going to be one of those guests who lose all sense of comedic timing and rhythm on live TV, though. Honestly, I would have been crushed if that was the case. Oh, and speaking of Rogen and Hader, I totally expected more of them working together. I was pretty disappointed by
Superbad (sorry, Michael Cera, I still love you), but Rogen and Hader were great as a team, with or without McLovin.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Seth Rogen/Spoon
Posted Sep 30th 2007 12:01PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S33E01) "All-But-Certain-To-Be Next President" (Cold Open): This was a funny piece, but it didn't pack the punch I would have expected for a season premiere open. Oh! Hi, Darrell Hammond. Still here, huh? No, it's not a problem, man. It's just that you've been crashing here for a while and, well, you haven't really been doing much to contribute. And we've kind of been wondering when you'd be moving out -- Yeah, I guess your Bill Clinton voice is still pretty funny and I guess it'll come in handy some time in the near future. Okay, I suppose it's okay if you stay for a little while longer. Just try not to creep out the younger folks, okay?
With the announcer not cutting in until about halfway through the cast, it must have sucked to have such a slip-up this early in the episode. Was that even Don Pardo doing the voices for the cast intro? At first, it sounded like someone doing an impression of him.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: LeBron James/Kanye West (season premiere)
Posted Oct 25th 2006 11:02AM by Anna Johns
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Celebrities
Darrell Hammond, the longest-running cast member ever on
Saturday Night Live, is finally getting his own highlights episode.
The Best of Darrell Hammond will air on Saturday, November 4th, ahead of Tuesday's primary elections.
SNL will honor Hammond's years of political impressions, he is perhaps best known for his impressions of Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore ("lock box"). Hammond has been on
SNL for an amazing eleven years. He is the first cast member to get a retrospective while still working on the show.
Besides politics, the retrospective will also include sketches where Hammond impersonates Regis Philbin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris Matthews and a kick-ass Sean Connery on
Celebrity Jeopardy! I'd love to see the one where he plays Richard Dreyfus auditioning for the role of C-3PO on
Star Wars. It's uncanny!
Posted Jul 27th 2006 10:09AM by Richard Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, Saturday Night Live, Music and Variety, Watercooler Talk
With the recent departures of Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch from Saturday Night Live, and the announcement of (wink, wink) budget cuts by executive producer Lorne Michaels, one begins to ponder what SNL will look like once the bloodletting is complete. So, my dear TV Squad fans, I pose a question to you: if you were in Mr. Michaels' seat who would stay and who would go?
Continue reading SNL: Who should stay and who should go
Posted Dec 27th 2005 7:01PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, NBC, Late Night, Talent, Saturday Night Live, TV Squad Polls, Music and Variety, Web, Watercooler Talk
A little over a week ago, we gave you folks an opportunity
to select the
Saturday Night
Live cast members that you thought might be leaving at the end of this season, based on a remark Lorne Michaels
gave to
The New York Times. We let you choose more than one person, since it looks like more than one person
is going to leave.
So, who did you think was going to go? Well, there's no surprise here: Darrell Hammond
and Horatio Sanz received the most votes, with the still-on-maternity-leave Maya Rudolph coming in third. It makes
sense; Hammond's been on the show for eons and is basically down to doing impressions of Chris Matthews and Donald
Trump, and Sanz is... well, let's just say he's not the most popular member of the cast. The surprise was the lack of
votes for Seth Myers, even though his name has been coming up quite a bit in the rumors surrounding Michaels'
pronouncement.
Full poll results are after the jump.
Continue reading Buh-bye, Hammond and Sanz: readers pick who SNL should boot
Giveaways reminder: Office, Eli Stone, Supernatural, South Park
Giveaway Thursday: Tickets to the New York Television Festival ... all of it!
I miss the media-friendly John McCain - VIDEOS
