For those who missed it (or weren't on the east coast) on Saturday night, new SNLer Jenny Slate managed to do something in her first-ever sketch that hadn't been accomplished on the show in 28 years: she let loose with an f-bomb.
In the sketch, Slate and Kristin Wiig play biker chicks, and instead of saying "friggin'" or "freakin'" or any of the other substitutes they were supposed to use, Slate actually uttered the words "and I fuckin' love you for that." See the video below. The look on her face after she just realizes what she did is even more priceless than the f-bomb itself:
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Lorne Michaels goes easy on Jenny Slate for SNL f-bomb
Continue reading Lorne Michaels goes easy on Jenny Slate for SNL f-bomb
Press Kits Unwrapped: Brothers
FOX's new family Friday night sitcom Brothers seems like a relatively (see what I did there?) low key and uninspiring bit of prime time. And that's coming from someone who hasn't seen it yet. Call it my "suck sense." (I see Cop Rock.)It is nice, however, to see the multi-camera, live audience sitcom making a comeback to the big three networks (four if you count the CW). They almost feel like a warm hug from the past, reminding me that they haven't forgotten me or the shows I remembering watching instead of getting regular exercise or dating.
The same things can be said for the show's official press kit.
Continue reading Press Kits Unwrapped: Brothers
Is SNL headed towards disaster this season?
Short answer: no. Longer answer: probably not.It seems that every season is the "Saturday Night Live isn't what it used to be" (aka "Saturday Night Live sucks!") season, but it always survives. And some years, like last season when they had the election to riff on and appearances by Tina Palin and lots of buzz in the news, they thrive. But The Washington Post's Tom Shales visited with executive producer Lorne Michaels and finds that Michaels is worried about the upcoming season.
Continue reading Is SNL headed towards disaster this season?
Conan's problem is ... his location?
I'm not quite sure I get what Tom Shales says near the end of this piece about his recent visit to the set of The Tonight Show.Shales tries to get to the heart of why Conan O'Brien, after a big start (of course), is losing more and more ground. He is even losing to David Letterman when Letterman is in repeats (overall ratings - Conan still wins the younger demographic).
He makes a lot of good points about how the set might be doing him in (too big), how the interviews are too rehearsed, and that there's too much prepared comedy. Those are all things that Conan and his crew will look at in the coming months, I'm sure. (I also think part of the problem is Conan's personality - I think he's more of an acquired taste than either Leno or Letterman.)
Continue reading Conan's problem is ... his location?
Out of the Blogosphere
It's the 60th anniversary of NBC Nightly News. - Today's tip: if you're selling bootleg copies of The Carol Burnett Show, don't use a newspaper's address as your address. [via Lee Goldberg]
- Should CBS show Dexter, even if it is cleaned up?
- Tom Shales is not happy with Turner Classic Movies.
- What did William Shatner, Tina Fey, and Naveen Andrews do during the strike?
- This may be a silly question to ask on a TV blog, but are you a movie person or a TV person?
- Aaron Barnhart has a list of strike winners and losers.
Tom Shales speculates on a Letterman / Shaffer "feud"
From time to time, we get commenters telling us that we write like we're jaded and don't like our jobs. Of course, this couldn't be further from the truth; we all feel very grateful that we get paid to watch and report on one of our favorite things to do in the world. And anyway, there are other writers out there who actually do sound bitter about having to write about TV, and that they'd rather be doing anything else but.Take Tom Shales, the sourpuss who the long-time Washington Post TV columnist. His writing always conveys a sense that he'd rather be writing for the travel or food section, but he's been doing the TV beat so long, he's stuck. On his blog on TVWeek.com, he seems to have conjured up some sort of "feud" between David Letterman and his longtime band leader Paul Shaffer, and he uses that speculation to take a couple of cheap shots at Paul's comedic and musical abilities (Bob mentioned the post this morning in his review of TV-related blogs).
Continue reading Tom Shales speculates on a Letterman / Shaffer "feud"
Is Lauer plotting against Vieira?
That's the theory pushed by veteran TV critic Tom Shales in this piece over at TV Week. The numbers for the Today Show are declining, and Shales thinks that the reasons are twofold. One, viewers haven't warmed up to Meredith Vieira since she took over for Katie Couric. And two, he actually thinks that Matt Lauer is trying to sabotage her work:
If viewers haven't hugely warmed up to Vieira, then part of the reason may be misbehavior by her hammy co-host. Repeatedly and perhaps vindictively, Matt has seemed intent on tripping Vieira up on the air-interrupting, hogging the spotlight, cold-shouldering her, subtly putting her down. Matt perhaps doesn't want to be outshone by a woman once again.
I don't watch the show as much as I used to so I have no idea if this is true or not. Readers?
Shales also doesn't have kind words for the pairing of Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts over at Good Morning America.
[via TV Newser]
Washington Post election coverage care of Jon Stewart?
Rumor has it that The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is in talks with the Washington Post to provide online content for the Post's 2008 election coverage. Neither Comedy Central nor the WashingtonPost.com's editor would confirm the story. As Daily Show followers may remember, Indecision 2004 was released as a DVD and garnered the show's writers and correspondents tremendous critical acclaim. Stewart's deal with the Post would have him providing written, not video, content to the site. It would be a huge coup for the paper and would make it much more difficult for Stewart to maintain his apolitical, "I'm an entertainer; I don't influence the news" claim.Continue reading Washington Post election coverage care of Jon Stewart?
Stroke survivors hail Dick Clark
On New Year's Day, I opened a discussion about how a
post-stroke Dick Clark looked and sounded on New Year's Rockin' Eve. Judging by the comments, many of our
readers lauded Dick for not only getting himself in good enough shape to show up, but for showing himself on TV despite
whatever difficulty he was having. To many of our readers, it was an inspiration, and as this article shows, TV Squad readers weren't the only
ones praising Dick's gumption; many stroke victims and experts alike were wowed by Clark's presence on their screens.
Of course, this article also quotes the less gushy, more objective observations from some leading TV critics, including the ever-perceptive Tom Shales of the Washington Post, who said that Dick's appearance was "a gesture likely to strike some observers as courageous and others as morbid." Morbid. I think that's what the rest of the commenters said. Nice job, Tom.
[Photo: Heidi Gutman / ABC via Getty Images]
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