Posts with tag darrell hammond
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
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 Mar 2nd 2008 10:02AM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews
(S33E06) Let me preface this entire review by saying that I've seen
Juno multiple times and greatly enjoyed each viewing. I think Ellen Page is a talented actress and
Juno would not have been as successful without her. I'm saying this because I'm worried that my review of this episode might make it look like I'm part of the online
Juno backlash.
Man, this was a terrible episode. The writing was weak, but Page's awkward performance(s) didn't help the situation. I found myself almost instantly annoyed with Page's voice. "There's going to be another hour and fifteen minutes of this?!" I thought during the monologue. It's like Page can't help but talk like a rough-around-the-edges teen in skinny jeans all the time. It makes me wonder if that's all she's going to be able to play in films. Perhaps she was just really nervous and it made he scream a lot. Either way, it totally made my ears want to bust out of my skull, home skillet. Honest to blog. Obviously.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Ellen Page/Wilco - VIDEOS
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 Feb 24th 2008 1:14PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Video, Episode Reviews
(S33E05) Cold Open (CNN Democratic Debate): After seeing all those rumors about adding a new cast member to specifically play Barack Obama, I had resigned myself to seeing a new black guy. Hey, don't pretend you didn't think the same thing. In my mind, Fred Armisen never, ever entered into the equation, so imagine my surprise when Armisen popped up on screen next to Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton and was immediately identifiable as Obama. It was the ears and the super-serious look of concern, I think.
This sketch was all about the some members of the "unbiased" media's blatant negligence of Clinton. Yeah, the content was all right, but I spent most of my time trying to figure out if I liked Armisen as Obama. He had the look down, but only part of it. Obama's frowny face was pretty spot-on, but what about his signature grin? And the voice didn't work at all. Perhaps this will improve with time, because I don't think it's likely that Armisen expected this new role and didn't have much time to intensely study Obama's voice and mannerisms before the end of the writers' strike.
Continue reading Saturday Night Live: Tina Fey/Carrie Underwood - VIDEOS
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