I’m watching this now and l hate the fact that all I can think is “how hammered is Jimmy Fallon?”. It’s a lovely tribute, but every time Fallon comes on, I can’t concentrate on what he says because he looks like he’s been on a three day bender. The way he blew the intro to Prince’s bit where he said Superstar was embarrassing.
SNL should stick to mocking the political establishment. That’s what they are good at.
I cut him a break because Prince.
I shut it off after the third song and third commercial break in 20min. Not like it was LIVE or something where they need time to create sets. :rolleyes:
You’re not exaggerating about the commercials–it was ‘five minutes of show, four minutes of commercials, five minutes of show, four minutes of commercials’…possibly for the entire 90 minutes. Like you, I made it only through the third song.
Very, very crass. Shame on NBC and on Lorne Michaels.
Fred Armisen as Prince. Ugh.
Seemed okay to me. He captured the spaciness in a mostly non-trite way. I was happy to see SNL include their historical take on The Artist, rather than make their tribute strictly worshipful.
Of course the sketch inclusion, along with the reported overdose of commercials, could be the result of trying to fill too much space with too little available material. (I only caught the last 20 minutes of the show.)
It’s an open secret that Fallon has a drinking problem.
Watching the Armisen scenes all in a row really emphasized how relentlessly formulaic SNL’s writing is. Same skit, different day.
I think this show kinda opens up that “secret” a bit more.
Jeez, how dense am I that I didn’t pick up on Jimmy’s drunkenness :smack: I did notice he looked disheveled and his rambling intros were kind of uncomfortable but I just chalked it up to him being a big fan. I did not know he has a drinking problem.
Agreed, the commercial breaks were excessive and obnoxious, as were the “Prince Show” skits. I hated them the first time around and they have not gotten better with age. Wasn’t Prince actually *in *a few of them?You’d think they would have showed that. On the other hand, if IRC the skit bombed so maybe they thought it would not be a fitting tribute. What surprised me the most is that they didn’t show his a clip of his first appearance back in '81. Holy cow, I’ll never forget my 14 year old self watching SNL with my best friend, laughing at jokes we didn’t fully understand and on comes this. . . creature. We were mesmerized. I didn’t really keep up with Prince after about age 23, though of course his hits never stopped being played, but my first taste of him is an indelible memory.
Yeah, Fred Armisen does a good Prince but every single sketch was “See, it’s funny how weird Prince is.” They didn’t even cap it with the one skit where Prince was actually on it.
I heard Fallon tell that story about Prince playing at the after party so it was pretty cool to see that. It was frustrating sitting there waiting for Fallon to tell his story though; he took a cool and interesting story and made it boring with his mumbling and asides.
I didn’t notice if he was drunk… if he was, that would explain the mumbling.
The afterparty footage was really, really cool. I didn’t care for the slowed-down tempo of “Let’s Go Crazy,” but whatever, it’s Prince.
It didn’t occur to me that Fallon was drunk, but it makes sense.
Maybe I’m unfairly comparing Armisen’s impression to Chappelle’s. But Armisen’s impression seemed half-assed and “The Prince Show” skits were just not funny.
I didn’t pick up on Fallon being drunk/hung over, I just thought he was upset over the death of Prince. That, and the fact that they probably threw this show together at the last minute because originally it was scheduled to be a rerun that night.
Wasn’t the first song, “Party Up,” from 1981? Or are you saying that he did a skit as well?
I found the difference between the 1981 and 1989 performances amazing. In 1981 he was barely above garage band level, a total amateur. In 1989 he was an assured star completely in control of himself and his movements. And that was beside the professionals doing his hair and choreography.
If you guys didn’t love The Prince Show, you must really hate today’s SNL. Those skits were formulaic, as every repeating skit has been since 1985, but the attention to the details and the backgrounds (the perch changing from a carousel horse to a ski-mobile to a cupcake to a moon) are miles above what they’ve been doing lately.
I didn’t think Fallon was drunk, either. Check him out in the 40th anniversary party clip. That’s drunk.
Gosh, maybe my memory of the first time I saw Prince isn’t as clear as I thought because I would have sworn he performed Controversy :smack: Maybe I’m conflating SNL with some other late nigh show like Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert or something.
I was disappointed for a couple reasons. One was that there were way too many commercials and two half of it was Fred Armisen’s not all that funny impersonation of Prince. And third, the Jimmy Fallon ping pong story, which he has already told on his own show. They didn’t have enough material for 90 minutes.
But that’s the reason I have rarely watched the show as it airs in general. It’s funny-to-advertising ratio—like pretty much all late night TV—is way too small.