Results tagged “saturdaynightlive”

After news that Goldman Sachs (and Citigroup) received 200 swine flu vaccines out of 5,400 requested, which is the same amount as Memorial Sloan-Kettering received for its 27,000+ request for its workers, Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update decided to tap into the populist outrage.

In an exclusive interview with NY1, Governor Paterson discussed his 2010 prospects and revealed that he wouldn't mind appearing on Saturday Night Live, which has skewered him repeatedly. In fact, Paterson also dissed the show, "I've offered to come on 'Saturday Night Live' because I thought I would help them get the ratings. Because clearly that humor that they had when they first had Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi... has gone [with] this [current] cast of characters. I thought I would show some benevolence as governor and help them out a little bit."

Was James Franco getting ready for his return to TV (he's got a General Hospital stint coming up) by appearing on Saturday Night Live? Of course, in the "What Up With That?" skit, about a BET show that answers the issues of today with soul, Franco didn't actually have any lines but he looked pretty good just being there.

It's been a year since Tina Fey's spot-on version of Sarah Palin hit the small screen on Saturday Night Live, and now word is she's bringing it back this season... maybe.

Last week's season premiere of Saturday Night Live may have had America's Most Overhyped Sexpot Megan Fox as host, but this week's second episode ended up being the true Ladies Night, with divas in full force. Host Ryan Reynolds did that thing you do when your spouse is an even bigger star than you and brought along his wife (and soon-to-be Broadway actress) Scarlett Johansson, who reprised her role as a local saleswoman pitching "Chandeliers!" for dad Fred Armisen's Long Island business, that has now apparently expanded to porcelain fountains.

The good news for Big Terrific co-host Jenny Slate is that the morning after her debut, everyone is talking about her ad-libbing skills. The bad news is that the talk is around whether Slate might be fired or punished after accidentally dropping an F-bomb on the show's season premiere last night. You can see Slate immediately realize what she's just done in the clip below.

"Brooklyn comedy" might officially be (back) on the map today with news that comedian Jenny Slate will join the cast of Saturday Night Live when it premieres with Megan Fox and U2 September 26th. Slate is best known around town as the co-host of Big Terrific, the weekly free stand-up show that has been drawing big names into small spaces in Williamsburg for the last two years. Slate, who talked to us a couple months back, performed her show Dead Millionaire at the UCB Theater this past spring. With the other new cast member Nasim Pedrad having performed at UCB LA, the theater continues to show its dominance over the comedy scene this decade. Last year UCB's Bobby Moynihan (the pride of Yonkers) joined the cast and in recent years, the theater has funneled through Abby Elliott, Casey Wilson, Rob Riggle and of course, UCB founding member, Amy Poehler. As for Big Terrific, co-host Max Silvestri says, "Jenny will be back at Big T soon to tell lots of showbiz stories about what Megan Fox smells like and how Ted Danson always has mints handy or whatever."

After a showstopping debut that broke Amy Poehler during a sentimental farewell and pissed a lot of people off by using the governor's blindness a punchline, Armisen's send-up might have finally begun running out of steam. Last night's appearance saw him as one half of a comedy duo, alongside his predecessor Eliot Spitzer (played extra creepily by Bill Hader). The New Jersey punchlines were back in full effect, along with the idea that Governor Paterson's best chance at getting reelected is that New York voters will enter the booth next November with a "Sanjaya mentality."

Maybe what upsets Governor Paterson most about the Saturday Night Live portrayals he says crossed the line and hurt him isn't so much their content, but his frustration in wishing that he was the one who was sitting at the Weekend Update desk. After seeing him send up the infamous health care union 1199 ads over the weekend, we think Paterson could put together a pretty solid audition tape.

The rollout of Eliot Spitzer 2.0 continued with an appearance on last night's Saturday Night Live. All right, so it may not have been the actual "Love Gov," who has been popping up recently on various talk shows. But even just having Bill Hader as Spitzer show up in a signature left field ending in this underage bar sketch last night felt like further confirmation that the former governor has returned to the conversation.

Tracy Morgan was back in the building last night to relive his SNL glory days as host of the show he was a cast member on for seven years. But getting through that NBC security has become no easy task since the anthrax scare of 2001. Just as he does with sometimes questionable material though, Morgan somehow found a way to make it work. Here's last night's SNL cold opening, which reminded us a little of Alec Donaghy's Hulu ad, and had cameos from WWE Superstar John Cena (who the audience didn't recognize) and Tina Fey (who now may have topped Jon Lovitz for most appearances by a former cast member in one season).

Recently engaged Fred Armisen's impression of Governor Paterson seems to to have really touched a nerve in the zeitgeist. Today the Times was going after the slapstick portrayal saying it was put on by "comedy writers with frat-boy sensibilities " and was a "level of humor might fairly be described as sophomoric were that not an insult to sophomores." Despite this week's sendup focusing on satirizing the governor's penchant for one-liners, the Times echoes some of the same criticisms lobbed SNL's way in December when the sketch was dubbed so offensive by many that even the governor went out of his way to criticize the show's treatment of the disabled. But Armisen has nothing on BBC host Jeremy Clarkson who many across the pond want fired for calling British Prime Minister Gordon Brown "a one-eyed idiot." (He's blind in one eye.) Meanwhile a Newsday blog puts forth a conspiracy theory that a show as big as SNL going after a local figure as Paterson could be revenge for Lorne Michael's friend, Caroline Kennedy.

With Governor Paterson's reelection prospects appearing to dwindle as the months go by, there's a very realistic possibility that he could end up a footnote in history as the man who merely finished up Eliot Spitzer's disastrous administration. But SNL's Fred Armisen seems to be doing his best to see to it that his caricature of the "accidental governor" as a Catskills comedian makes its mark and lives on in SNL political specials and DVD compilations of days to come. Last night Armisen's Paterson said he wasn't too worried about his reelection chances because, "I don't really do elections. I'm more of a 'oh no what are we gonna do?!' last resort type of guy."

Daily Intel reports that spies spotted former Senate aspirant Caroline Kennedy and Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels (and their spouses, plus other people) having dinner at Morandi last night: "Lorne and Caroline were intensely in conversation, to the exclusion of the rest of the table...Near the end of the meal, an affogato was passed to Caroline. They left at around 11. Lorne Michaels paid the check." Daily Intel suspects/hopes an SNL appearance is in short order and so do we: Fred Armisen can play Governor Paterson again and Abby Elliot or Casey Wilson can be Kirsten Gillibrand!

Not surprisingly after two months of buildup and a tumultuous road to get to its finish line, the conclusion of selecting a replacement for Senator Hillary Clinton did not go out with a whimper. Instead, many of the storylines that had manifested themselves culminated this week with Governor Paterson's ultimate selection of Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand.

   

Also this Week:

Saturday Night Live took on some of the more overlooked victims of the economic crisis this weekend: the suffering stars of closing Broadway shows. It was one of those SNL sketches that's hard to hate because it gives just about each member of the cast a chance to have fun with whoever they want to play (unless, of course, they were looking to break out their Piv).

Though some people may have laughed at Saturday Night Live's depiction of Governor David Paterson—which did include Fred Armisen as Paterson stumbling around due to his blindness and saying "I'm a blind man who loves cocaine who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie."—Paterson himself was not one of them.

If Fred Armisen plays any black politician, please let it be NY Governor David Paterson! His impression of our "accidental" governor debuted on Weekend Update last night and it absolutely killed. For reference, we've placed a photograph of Paterson above—compare it to the SNL bit below:

"You thought I was gone, didn't you?" That was the opening line on last night's SNL as Amy Poehler proved reports wrong that she would be leaving the show following the delivery of her baby and the end of the election season. Seeing a svelte Poehler in the cold open as new Secretary of State Clinton as well as back in her Weekend Update chair was a welcome sight after the show had a rough last outing with previous host Tim McGraw.

Vanity Fair’s January cover story is on “America’s New Sweetheart” Tina Fey and (being Vanity Fair and all) it primarily focuses on how Fey transformed from being the frumpy 25-year-old virgin who one agent assumed was having an affair with Lorne Michaels to the sexy librarian The New Yorker recently called “the sex symbol for every man who reads without moving his lips.”

We wondered if last week SNL's Joe Biden cold opening might be signaling the end of Fred Armisen's tenure as Barack Obama. Now word comes that Lorne Michaels is in fact auditioning four black comedians to take over the role. Speculation is that the four contenders are The Colbert Report's Jordan Carlos, The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac, (recently canceled) MAD TV's Jordan Peele and 30 Rock writer/Derrick Comedy's Donald Glover. There's no word if casting for an ebony comedienne to portray Michelle is likely to follow. But with Armisen out as Barack, that's one less politically incorrect hurdle for the show. As for SNL being called out for their recent "homoverload," the show's guy-on-guy action probably isn't going away any time soon. We realized this upon stumbling upon a famous NY Mag cover story on the show from 1995 where then cast member Janeane Garofalo said, “They love the anal sex here. That’s considered incredibly funny.”

SNL Head Writer and Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers told the LGBT-related magazine The Advocate that he "stands behind everything that happened" on last Saturday's show that has many critics crying foul over its reliance of gay jokes in almost every sketch of the night. Meyers takes the "I have plenty of black friends" defense by pointing out that there are gay writers on the show and that SNL is "on the right side of the issue." He also compared the abundance of gay-related sketches to come out of a week involving a lot of Prop 8-related discussion to this week's show where "we are having the same issue this week with Thanksgiving." The blog Defamer has been the harshest in its criticisms of the episode calling it "a gay minstrel show" and equating a sketch with two closeted mechanics to "a Yes on 8 ad." Meyers said that he generally avoids the blogosphere but that, "People on our 'side' take it far more personally when they feel offended because they feel like it is a betrayal."

Williams has performed at the theater before at the ASSSSCAT 3000 show alongside more high-profile regulars like Poehler and other stars of SNL and 30 Rock who improvise every Sunday. But when he showed up last night at the theater, members of Bangs really had to improvise when they learned just before going on that he wished to join them on stage. The audience ate up what sounds like the sort of wildcard performance you'd expect from Williams and word from the team is that the star was nothing but friendly and gracious to them.

If Saturday Night Live couldn't find a way to live up to their promise "to have Michael Phelps shirtless in every sketch" earlier this year, it seemed a little more likely that they could get us some Shirts-Off Time with good sport Paul Rudd hosting last night. They went even further than that in the digital short that featured Rudd in the buff being painted by Andy Samberg.

Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin and even Cindy McCain all appeared on Saturday Night Live during the campaign season...poor 'ol Joe Biden never got the invite though. Until now! Politico talked to the show's head writer, Seth Meyers, who told them: "Joe Biden is my biggest regret. I really wanted some quality Biden time. The door is still open, Joe." Meyers also added that on Tuesday night he "had an hour of goose bumps and then my natural cynicism kicked in. It’s not a great time to start being President." As for what happens to SNL now that the election is over (they got their highest ratings over the last month), there's good news and bad news -- Meyers says that viewers shouldn't expect any more Tina Fey cameos ("We all have to let her go back to her regular life now") but he pads the harsh reality by adding there will be "Lots and lots of MacGruber.”

There's some "odd couple" news coming from the gossip pages--NYMag is shedding some light on a NY Post print edition item calling out Kristen Wiig for allegedly canoodling with Joe...the (uncertified, republican) Plumber! That's right, folks, "Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as 'Joe the Plumber' was seen at the 'Saturday Night Live' after party 'canoodling' with cast member Kristen Wiig," and (perhaps even more disturbing) "chatting up a major Hollywood agent about starring the in next season of The Bachelor." One witness who saw Joe at his hotel the next day said, "it wouldn’t surprise me if someone got her drain snaked last night...I ran into Joe this morning at the hotel...and ever the gentleman, he refused to reveal more than his mile-wide grin." UPDATE: Psych! NYMag just updated saying this is all a total hoax. Phew! But we hear that Tina Fey and Cindy McCain totally accidentally touched hands at the end of last week's episode.

John McCain may have been more involved during his appearance on SNL, but his running mate Sarah Palin is still stealing his thunder. While she got the show its highest ratings in 14 years (15 million viewers), McCain's appearance only drew 12 million. Overall, however, the Daily News reports that Saturday's show had its "second highest audience in Nielsen's sample of major markets in 11 years" (whatever that means), and "Saturday's telecast was up 73% when compared to a year ago." Perhaps an Obama appearance would have delivered SNL its highest ratings ever, but he chose to spread the wealth with his network-spanning informercial. Meanwhile, NBC points out though McCain can take a joke, the Palin ones can bother him, which might "explain... 'frosty' chemistry between Tina Fey and McCain." Good thing they didn't refer to that prank call.

With less than 48 hours left before the election, John McCain stopping into Saturday Night Live to perform in a couple of sketches seems like it should be huge news. But with so much attention being showered on the show this year throughout the campaign season, somehow it just felt par for course at this point in a period that Tina Fey for one calls "the weirdest time in my life."