I was just wondering because years ago I once thought of a possible SNL sketch where Pat introduces their co-workers to their similar but hot-tempered cousin, Jamie (played by guest host Joe Pesci).
Pat also had a similarly androgynous significant other named Chris, played by Dana Carvey. There was one scene where they were making out on the couch, and Chris squeals, “Ooh, you’re squishing them!” Women assumed that Chris was a man, and men thought Chris was a woman LOL.
I was in college when the “Pat” thing was an ongoing sketch, and I got a blue shirt and brown pants that were several sizes too big, wrapped a beach towel around my midsection, and went to several Halloween parties at Pat, despite my (at the time) long hair.
It didn’t have to age badly. The movie was a dud.
The movies based on SNL sketch characters has decreased to almost nothing. They quit making money or being rated well. For that matter, there are much fewer recurring sketch characters to make any movies about:
Right, it would have ruined the joke – which as mentioned was on the whole notion that everyone else was awkwardly wondering, and did not want to misgender Pat but would not dare be so rude as to ask directly. It’s one of those “scenes that wouldn’t work the same in the 2020s” scenarios.
Of course it wouldn’t work in the 2020s, now that declaring one’s pronouns is common.
…and so is demanding to know what kind of genitals you’re packing.
“It’s Pat!” today would be just an endless series of MAGA types harassing Pat everywhere they go.
Did your dad give you strong evidence to counter the accepted explanation, or was it just a variation of “Don’t trust The Man, man!”?
Or Ray Mears. That man has never missed a meal in his life. an ideal companion for a trip into the wild.
A contemporary sketch to the “Pat” sketches was “Lyle, The Effeminate Heterosexual.” Which is summarized by the title. Dana Carvey (Lyle) has effeminate mannerisms while consistently showing interest in masculine activities, drinking beer, playing poker, looking at Playboys, getting caught in bed with another woman, etc. But everyone, including his wife (once played by Julia Sweeney) thinks he’s gay anyway. That sketch might be more acceptable today because the landscape there (wrongly assuming orientation) hasn’t changed.
And the more recent counterpart to Lyle might be the sketch where a group of burly, tough-talking men at a body shop reveal themselves to be huge fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race, despite their efforts to deny it:
Yeah, my girlfriend loves that show. I think it’s on VH1 now? It used to be on, Logo, I think?
Yeah, I like Trinity Taylor. But she’s on the pageant circuit and those bitches never win it all. Or, I heard someone say that once, I think.
If we’re talking “problematic” Dana Carvey recurring characters, it’s hard to top Ching Chang (i.e. “chicken make lousy house pet”). It was a jaw dropping racist caricature even for the time, yet they ran the character on at least four episodes. NBC seems to have gone out of its way to burn the clips from existence.
I had to stop listening to the “Fly on the Wall” podcast, the one with Carvey and Spade about SNL, partly because they told the same stories every other episode, but also because they were doing way too much “They couldn’t do THAT sketch today!” horseshit yelling at clouds. At one point that awful character came up, and I think Carvey did a whole “Oh, no, I really shouldn’t, I’d totally get cancelled, oh twist my arm…” and launched into it. Yeah, I’m done with those two. Their completely uncritical showcasing of Rob Schneider didn’t help either.
This amuses me. That’s a better way to do it.
Do you remember “Brain Injury Guy”? If you don’t, keep it that way.
If you mean Massive Headwound Harry, ugh.
The couple of times I’ve seen Carvey asked about “Ching Chang” in interviews, it’s clear he knows he’s supposed to disavow the character but he can’t for the life of him understand why it’s offensive. For those who haven’t had the pleasure I did manage to find a video:
The 2008 film “Swing Vote” couldn’t be made today but that’s entirely because it was a dumb premise in the first place.
Kevin Costner plays a guy who’s vote in a fictionalized 2008 US Presidential Election gets corrupted and apparently literally the entire US Election is a tie literally everywhere, and he has to cast the tie-breaking vote to determine the President since apparently his was the only vote that wasn’t properly tabulated.
What was depicted as a wacky political comedy today would be a film about everybody trying to blackmail or kidnap Kevin Costner to try to get his vote. Can you imagine if a single man’s vote could throw the election in the 2020 Presidential Race and EVERYBODY knew it?
I think the upcoming film Fly Me to the Moon is just going to gain more followers for the Moon landing conspiracy.
It concerns an attempt to have a backup fake Moon landing staged in case the real one fails.
Capricorn 1 (despite being about a Mars mission) also fed this nonsense.
It’s not a documentary folks. The whole point is that it’s a comedy, you know, a joke.
I saw this previewed, and wondered how they will handle the notion that there are incredulous people oir there, if they do at all.
Great example for this thread.