I love Seth Meyers, but he’s like Tina, really about the news and head writer. Bill Hader is funny as hell and the best thing about him: Range! Everyone seems to love Kristin Wiig, but while I can enjoy some of what she does, I find there’s too many mannerisms and vocal things that sound the same. (Favorites: the password theatre actress, Suze Orman, and the freaky 4th sister in the lawrence welk singing sisters. Lease favorite: Gilly and the Walmart lady.)
Hader has real range and he just cracks me up. His Assange was brilliant, I Stefon (and I love that Hader can’t keep it together when he does him) he was subtly terrific as the producer in the audience for that dumb one-note sketch on the sex columnist filler… Vinny Vedicci isn’t a fave but he’s a great character, he’s terrific.
I also love Andy Samberg, but he can be a little repeititve. He’s really the only person who has ever been genuinely witty in doing rap satire, though. And he will live in my heart forever for Dick in a Box.
Everyone else… competent. Jason Sudakis is very workmanlike, the new Pharoah kid does fantastic impressions - his Denzel is nothing short of brilliant - but I don’t know how funny he actually is. I’ve always had a soft spot for Armison, but he’s getting a little tired.
I hadn’t watched an SNL in a very long time. The Thread here about McCartney’s performance inspired me to check out that episode on the SNL website. (I was just going to watch the musical performances, but the video section only had two songs as stand-alone videos, the Thread talked about 3+ songs from McCartney, so I went to the full episode listing to try to see all 3 songs- still only found two).
Anyway, to get to the point, I saw Bill Hader and thought to myself “Damn, he’s still on this show?”
I would have thought he’d have shaken the show by now. He’s more than ready to go onto the next phase in his career. The performances he’s turned in so far in movies have been great.
You forgot to mention his Vincent Price impersonation, which IMO is consistently hilarious, and is even more hilarious because, really? An impersonation of an old dead guy that used to appear in horror movies that many people watching the show are too young to even remember? This should not be funny. But Hader’s impression sells it, every time.
No no no. . .you guys didn’t get the memo. The cool kids always say that SNL sucks, that it’s been shitty since (fill in the blank) left.
NSFW language
Hader is funny as hell, and the “Greg is not an alien” sketch was a gutbuster for me. I guess this is the early-evening run-thru of that sketch, or did they did a version without Dewayne Johnson?
Stefan is gold. I don’t know anyone like that guy, but he’s convinced me that they’re real.
The Vincent Price specials are priceless. The whole concept of Price being the normal celeb who’s constantly flustered and embarrassed for everyone else is fantastic.
Agreed. It says volumes that Stefon is still funny even though every sketch is exactly-the-same-as-every-other-Stefon-sketch (“We want things for real people/New York’s hottest club is ____”). This is only because of Hader and not the writing.
Also he’s really hot. And he was even hysterical as Les Grossman’s toady assistant, a role many people would have disappeared altogether in.
Wait, really? I can’t stand any sketch in which her character is the lead. As a supporting character, she’s okay, but my fiance and I fast-forward through most of her sketches as soon as she appears.
Bill Hader is awesome, though! I have a minor celebrity crush on him. His impressions are top-notch. The only one that bothers me is Julian Assange - his Australian accent doesn’t sound very good to me, although I’ve never heard an audio recording of Assange, so maybe Hader’s spot on and I just don’t know it. Any other American trying to do an Australian accent, it wouldn’t bother me so much, because it’s notoriously difficult for Americans to hear the differences between Australian and British accents, but it’s the only time I’ve seen one of Hader’s impressions come up short.
Hader’s Assange accent sounds almost like a New Zealand accent to me. (I am, of course, intimately familiar with New Zealand accents thanks to “Flight of the Conchords”.)
It’s funny you should say that, because as I was watching the sketch, I was wondering what was up with his odd British accent until it dawned on me that it wasn’t British, it was Australian.
I just saw this week’s on Hulu. The guy was a riot. And I agree with Sampiro that he makes even bad writing funny. They should have used him in that principal sketch.
Although, to be fair, he wasn’t trying to generically do an Australian accent. He was supposed to be doing Assange’s accent.
Assange’s accent has more than a bit of his own affectation, certainly not a manly Paul Hogan Australian accent, more of a fey Bond villain. To just do a broad Australian accent would have missed the mark.
I get positively giddy whenever Stefon shows up on Weekend Update, just waiting to see what increasingly absurd things his coked-up gay Candy Land will include next. And, like Stoid, for once I actually love that he can’t seem to hold himself together while doing the character. (I’m actually kind of surprised they let him keep doing it - Lorne Michaels is notorious for hating “corpsing,” the slang term for breaking character/laughing at one’s own jokes.)
Both Assange skits have been EXCELLENT so far - I’m still laughing when “Ever seen the fourth season of Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper? You’re about to - it’s at the top of everyone’s queue” pops in my head.
And let’s not forget he’s responsible for one of the funniest parts of every “What Up With That?” skit - the standoff between the host and the ever-silent Lindsey Buckingham.