I know! I find myself saying that for no good reason and then just cracking up!
The dirty talk skit had me laughing out loud (not just letters in an email!). “For the purposes of dirty talk, you are always at least 18!”
I love how they have Leslie Jones come out periodically on Weekend Update and not really do a character or anything, just “here’s a minute or two of Leslie being hilarious”
I also loved the dirty talk skit.
Worst part of the night: Cecily Strong’s presidential assassination of To Sir With Love. I don’t know if she was having an off-night, can’t sing in general, or if it was just not the right song for her, but, damn. It improved a bit when Sasheer Zamata, going from bad cheesy misfire to just cheesy misfire, but even as devout an Obamian as I am I thought the entire thing should have been scrapped in rehearsals. (If somehow it was mandatory to fulfill a contract or a prophecy that they had to dedicate that song to Obama they should have just played Lulu to a film clip- during commercial.)
There’s a story about how Janeane Garofalo tried to memorize her lines when she was an SNL cast member. When she forgot a line during a rehearsal, Al Franken screamed “Read the fucking cue cards!” at her. (It’s in this article, which is from 22 years ago, but nothing has changed.)
Finally watched the whole thing. I though it was about average. Which is damn good since SNL is usually quite good these days. I loved the shot of Michelle Obama they used several times in Weekend Update. Just perfect. And I often don’t like Leslie Jones’ “Loud Black Woman” character, but this one was a solid performance. The serenade to Obama at the end was… I had mixed feelings about it. I can understand Liberal New Yorkers wanting to get that in there, but these guys are supposed to be funny, skewering both sides for their foibles. Well, whatever.
I despise Obama for foreign policy reasons but, I have no problem with SNL doing that. It’s not like they havent done variety stuff before. Unfunny muppets, poetry readings, …whatever the hell Loudon Wainwright is.
Funny skit for sure, but I thought the best part was her impression of Owen Wilson - that one got me laughing, as did Weekend Update.
That’s an odd story since Garofalo was famous for using notes during her standup routine. Strange she would try to not use the cue cards.
Someone else may’ve already said, haven’t read whole thread yet, but this is an SNL thing going back all the way to the first season. It bothers some people, especially when think it’s not deliberate, but I’ve grown to see it as part of the gag.
Probably someone from the show has explained why before, but my guess would be it just sort of organically evolved this way because it’s a live show and they’re sometimes changing/adding/tossing out completely skits right up to showtime (have heard many SNL people describe this process, which frankly sounds both thrilling and harrowing from a writer/performer standpoint) – it wouldn’t make sense to memorize a skit, the details and dialogue of which almost certainly will not wind up exactly as first pitched at the initial table readings and may be in flux right up until they get on stage and say the words.
Maybe she was trying to prove what a serious actor she is?
Since he went into politics, my love for Al Franken has grown, while my love for Garofalo started turning to annoyance sometime in the late 90s or early aughts and I can’t pinpoint why. I loved Franken’s questioning of B. DeVos during her confirmation hearing the other day.
That has nothing to do with SNL, I know. Just sayin’. :rolleyes:
Many of us consider Loudon Wainwright’s most significant accomplishment to be fathering Martha and Rufus, who are each more talented than their old man to the Nth degree. Massively talented. Regarding LW, apparently among other things he was one hell of a lousy father. Listen to Rufus Wainwright’s “Dinner At Eight.”
As for the Obama “To Sir With Love” ode on SNL, I started cringing about halfway through it. Not because I thought they shouldn’t have done it, hey, he was a popular president to a lot of their audience. It was Cecily Strong’s voice. She can sing some kinds of songs pretty well. Not a powerhouse or anything, but she can carry a tune. That particular tune started giving her trouble though and it was awful to hear. Then when… Sasheer I think it was?.. joined in, on the harmony parts, OMG it was even worse. CS was all over the place during harmonies and seemed to never get back on firm footing. Since I’ve heard her do ok before, I figure it was a combination of nerves b/c singing “to” the president, and also the song not having a very easy melody line. I tried singing it myself, and it’s tricky. But yeah I felt awful for her because it seemed like a rare time they were playing it straight, going for a poignant moment, and she sounded like a bad American Idol audition.
Glad it wasn’t just me!
Huh, that’s pretty surprising. You’d think a show like that could afford prompters. I stand corrected.
Doubt it’s a question of being able to afford it. Probably more about logistics and the fast pacing of the show, which is done live. Much easier/faster to be able to scrawl new cue cards when dialogue’s changed last minute (literally) than have to reprogram the correct prompter.
It has nothing to do with the budget. Teleprompters require you to have cameras close to the performers’ faces with wide-angle lenses so the teleprompter screen can be seen. That works at a news desk, but not on a comedy show on a large soundstage, where the cameras are necessarily far away, and they move around a lot, and there is frequent switching. Additionally, the logistics of SNL, where scripts are frequently edited and tweaked right up until the last minute, would make loading copy into a prompter in a timely manner very difficult. Basically all TV shows which are shot on a large stage with an audience will use cue cards, even sitcoms which benefit from relatively stable scripts and more rehearsals.
I’d break Half-Dome to sand if Cecily asked me to, but that was fucking awful.
I thought that was it the first time I tried to watch it (and turned it off after the second joke). But I gave it a go one more time here, and that’s not quite the problem.
I could take that character in another place. But here, I wind up feeling sorry for her rather than wanting to laugh at her. Even though I know she’s completely fake.
The only part that worked for me was towards the very end, with the sixth grader and Owen Wilson. And that just made me smile a bit. That was the point where it finally flipped and I could see her as absurd instead of pitiful.
Watching SNL reruns doesn’t seem to show the actors being nearly as obvious that they are looking at cue cards. Current shows are just over the top with it to the point of being annoying.
The first time I remember noticing it was when Frank Zappa hosted, which was late 70s, early 80s I think.
Christopher Walken makes cue card reading look like an art form. Hilariously stilted but in a way that fits his characters. The Continental, the producer who wants more cowbell, etc…