But overall the show was great. Reunion shows usually suck but this one pulled it off with style and only a few sorry performances.
Thanks!
If they aired that jam session it probably would’ve done better than the SNL special itself.
Thanks! Well worth a watch.
I’m old and she’s looked 15 for most of her career. Now I can ogle her without feeling icky.
Norm MacDonald posted a long series of tweets about the days leading up to the show. He talks about writing the sketches, and about plans for Eddie to be in the Jeopardy bit.
And here’s a link to the actual skit itself.
TIME has put together some interesting top ten lists about SNL. Link below, but before clicking, try guessing which cast member has been in the most sketches.Kenan ThompsonWhich cast member has averaged the most sketches per episode?Charles RocketWhat celebrity has been impersonated the most times?Barbara WaltersWhat politician has been impersonated the most times?Bill Clinton
link: Saturday Night Live Rankings: Kenan Thompson, Alec Baldwin, Clinton | Time
Wow, I’m a bit surprised to see Kenan Thompson gets the nod for most distinct impressions with 114. Mostly because all of Kenan Thompson’s impressions are basically Kenan Thompson in a wig. He’s been on a long time though so there’s that longevity thing.
The one exception being his impeccable Steve Harvey, playa.
Did you catch the part about the stage manager telling Jimmy to wrap it up so that the DJ could get started. Dude! All these celebrities are having an awesome jam session and you want them to get off the stage so that a DJ can play some CD’s?!?
I took this off the replay last night.
Personally, I thought her Foley impression was better than Foley.
In what way? I haven’t seen anything she’s in; I’ve only seen her photos on the entertainment news sites. I thought she did an excellent job, which really surprised me. I had thought, “How can anyone come close to the original?” But she did, and even made it fresh. It was a very good tribute to Gilda.
Perhaps the explanation is that McCarthy and Stone are actors, not improvisers or sketch actors.
I thought the too-brief clips of audition tapes were interesting. Many showed fully-formed characters or impersonations that ended up on the show. I imagined that the cast members developed the characters after being hired, but it seems many of them were already developed.
I really had hoped the online version had cut off something funny but outrageous that Eddie Murphy had said. It’s not how long they held on him that was the problem. It was the huge build up. He needed a speech or to announce something or at least do a few impressions. Heck, just acknowledge the tribute. It makes the stuff about not wanting to do Cosby seem more like an excuse to not do anything than an issue of integrity.
I thought Emma Stone’s impression was good, the problem was that she didn’t have enough material. It was like she’d just established the character but didn’t do anything funny with it. Melissa McCartney’s work did a much better job at that, I think.
And I thought Paul McCartney sounded amazing! Maybe he’s sounded better in the past, but that much voice out of that older man was phenomenal. I was expecting to cringe and fast forward, but I really enjoyed it. The only real problem was the same problem they had sporadically all night, where they didn’t crank up the vocalist enough.
I also expected to fast forward through Miley’s song, but it was pretty awesome. Just picking a song that changes like that is great. And she looked and sounded like a country star, not like she’d gone all pop like, say, Taylor Swift. But it’s that low female country, the kind I really like.
The musical performance I did skip was Kanye’s. It looked pretentious, and the lyrics sounded pretentious. Plus, I always skip the musical acts, so having one that I actually skipped seemed appropriate.
The only skits that bugged me were where they completely redid two skits without putting even a slight spin on them. It sorta worked with the “News for the Hard of Hearing sketch” because it was at least a bit unexpected. But redoing the Bassomatic without varying it up at all just did not work. It should have either taken it further or had something go wrong. I also think the Airline hostest thing fell flat because they just did not have enough material.
But, all in all, I thought it was pretty good–if a bit filler heavy with all the speeches. Hearing “Ladies and Gentlemen, Famous Person” got old. At least that could have been varied up.
Overall, I thought there was a bit too much filler with announcements where they could have gotten more sketches.
Many of those characters were developed while working at Second City (Chicago & Toronto) or The Groundlings (LA). It is interesting to see how many of the cast members came from these 2 institutions of improv and comedy.
