Couldn’t they have picked a better candidate, like … anyone? Hell, if they were going to bring in Mike Myers to do a cameo with Kanye West, he could have stuck around to do “Weekend Update” as well.
It’s to bad they didn’t have someone around with experience doing segments on a satirical faux news program.
Horatio Sanz sullies everything.
Wait, I missed it last night… Was this the season premiere? And is this a permanent thing until Tina Fey and Amy Poehler come back from maternity leave? I hope not… did he do that thing where he almost laughs after every line? Grrr…
It was the season premiere. It’s also their first show in hi-def. Sanz refrained from being a giggling ninny, but he still sucked. Fey should be back in a few weeks.
Or someone who has played a newscaster in two movies (Anchorman and Bruce Almighty).
Why is Amy Poehler in every sketch? She does OK in some, but others are just mugging for the camera.
Horatio had a “deer-in-the-headlights” look during the news, and his jokes just got token applause. Fey got a better laugh, and she wasn’t even there!
Hey, it could have been worse. It could have been Mike Myers and Horatio Sanz as the anchors on Weekend Update. They would have spent the entire time trying to break each other up.
Sanz wasn’t terrible…but he wasn’t great. I want to know what the deal was with the “Impression-Off.” Who the hell thought that was funny enough to put on the air?
I have to say that I really like Amy Poehler. She fills in the gap left by Cheri Oteri and also I’ve liked her since Upright Citizens Brigade. And I think she’s kind of hot (not as hot as Tina Fey, though…rowr).
It seems to me that the Daily Show covers much the same news parody territory as Weekend Update, except four nights a week instead of one, and actually much, much better; funnier and more insightful.
In my perception, SNL has a history of not being at their best in the season premieres. It takes them a week or two to get back into the groove. So it may not be fair to judge by this week’s episode. But if I were judging, I’d say SNL was just coasting at this point. Nothing was horrifically bad or painful to watch, but nothing, with the possible exception of the Kanye West bit, made me think “I’m glad I didn’t miss seeing that.”
Let’s be honest, the only really great anchors have been Kevin Nealon, Norm MacDonald, Dennis Miller, and Tina Fey.
It’s sad that they can’t be as funny on one night a week as Daily Show almost always is.
I’d personally whittle that down to just Tina Fey and Norm McDonald.
The people on SNL seem to think that airing intentionally unfunny sketches somehow makes them funny. I assume they’re trying to work the uncomfortableness angle, like The Office, but all they end up doing is wasting our time. They put on enough unintentionally unfunny bits without having to subject us to something that they mean to be unfunny.
Sanz might not have started laughing during Weekend Update, but I think he was when he played Aaron Neville in the Anderson Cooper skit. The actors aren’t supposed to laugh at themselves, which is what makes it funny. If there is a rare crack once in a while (See Stephen Colbert eating a banana), it can be really funny. Laughing at every stupid voice or impression is what kids do.
The impression off was terrible, I thought the one guy did a pretty good job earlier with his Al Pacino impression, but the other guy isn’t very funny. I was all set to start an “Is SNL back?” thread, but I can’t remember anything good, other than the Kanye-Myers thing. What was the joke (assuming there was one) on the variety show with everyone dressed in lavender? I missed the first 10 seconds, but I can’t believe they would have made any difference.
Did anyone else see Ashlee Simpson is scheduled to be the musical guest for next week? What is that all about? After the nonsense from last time, why do you bring her back – I mean, other than a cheap attempt for grabbing ratings? Whatever happened to blackballing someone? And do you think they’ll play up some kind of stupid joke around the lip synch goof from last time? Maybe if we’re really lucky the writers will gear the entire hour and a half around Milli-Vanilli jokes and hoe-down dances.
Man, they missed a golden opportunity by not having Steve Carrel sit in for Tina Fey. I’m sure he would have been hysterical. What were they thinking? Horatio Sanz is about the last guy on the cast I would have put in a Weekend Update chair.
Best anchors ever, in order: Dennis Miller, Norm Macdonald, Chevy Chase, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler. Then all the rest.
Oh, and I’ve gotta say, the Mike Myers bit was awesome. And I think I like the two new guys on the cast. The impressionist is fantastic! And the other guy seems really engaging too. I hope to see big things from those two. Good move, Lorne.
They were especially weak in the impression department. Darrel Hammond is good, but he’s been in the cast forever and his impressions are getting a little stale. And impressions are critical for a show like SNL with topical humor.
His timing didn’t work very well. Fake news has a certain way it needs to be delivered and his wasn’t the way to do it.
Girls Gone Wild: Hurricane Katrina. SNL at least had some edge to it.
I think their logic is “this material sucks anyway, we might as well pretend we’re sucking on purpose.”
You’re right, they definitely have a history of that. There are some comedians that can work the unfunny bit, mainly through repetition. Not so much SNL.
However Norm MacDonald, approriately enough, was pretty dang good (IMO) at playing unfunny bits on Weekend Update. There was something about how he’d say an awful punchline and just sit there and wait…and wait…and eventually it made people giggle. Or he’d make fun of the punchline outright.
Either way, ol’ Normie Mac was my favorite anchor in recent years, followed closely by Dennis Miller.