Tag: fred armisen
Jason Sudeikis proves you can go home again on ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live
Jason Sudeikis & Brandi Carlile
October 24, 2021
I really liked Jason Sudeikis as a cast member on Saturday Night Live — he is handsome, but Every Man-ish enough to play everything from a gum-smacking asshole to a smirking sports announcer to a manic backup dancer. And recently the world has fallen in love with Jason Sudeikis as the endlessly optimistic and sweet Ted Lasso, a soccer coach possibly out of his depth in the Emmy-winning series (and best comedy on television) Ted Lasso.
So it was a delight to have him return to Studio 8H as host of SNL for the first time — a role that he clearly embraced with a certain degree of reverence. That reverence, for the show and how it changed his life, came through not only in his monologue but also in his performance in every sketch. And in turn, those performances elevated what could have easily been another so-so episode into one of the best episodes of SNL in a long while. Come back more often, Jason, we’ve missed you.
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Y’all better send Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney some biscuits, ‘Ted Lasso’
Honestly, Former President Insurrectionist would have been better off if he had hired Cat Lawyer — or an actual cat — to represent him at his impeachment trial
“It affects virtually nobody.”
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but no one wants to see your panties on morning TV.
‘Saturday Night Live’: Still not live, still from home
Saturday Night Live
At-Home, Part 2
April 25, 2020
Those wacky kids over at SNL, they did it again. Using Zoom, phones, plenty of wigs and green screens, and a lot of creativity, the cast and writers of SNL managed to put on yet another 90-minute episode satirizing this insane situation we all find ourselves in. They also seemed to have worked out some of the bugs that didn’t work so well for them the last time they tried this (thank you, “Weekend Update,” for losing the laughter — that crutch was there for you guys, not the audience) and have embraced the adage, “brevity is the soul of wit.” Even when a sketch didn’t work — and not all of them did — they never lasted more than about 3 minutes, and your suffering would soon be over. And keeping that in mind, I will get on with it already:
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‘Saturday Night Live’: The Quarantine Edition
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live at Home
April 11, 2020
Soooooo … Last week, Saturday Night Live announced kinda at the very last second that they were going to do an episode this week, an episode taped entirely from the cast’s homes and everyone was like, “Whaaaaa?” and “Huh?” and “But how?” and “Why?” And I guess the answers to those questions are, in order, “Because if all the other late night shows can, so can they,” and “I know it’s weird but give them a chance” and “Look, everyone’s phone and computer can record videos these days, it’s just not that hard,” and “Because WE NEED SOMETHING. WE ALL NEED A LITTLE SOMETHING TO GET US THROUGH THIS RIGHT NOW.”
And you know what? It wasn’t half bad! I will grant that perhaps my standards, much like the characters in one sketch, have lowered as this quarantine grinds on. But I thought the cast and writers having to make do with limited resources actually forced them into a corner that works best for them: 1. they are all digital sketches (and since YouTube/Zoom/TikTok is our entire world right now, it felt especially relevant) and 2. the sketches had to be brief and to the point. (As a result, there were 17 sketches last night. 17!!)
I, too, have kept my comments brief and to the point because 17 SKETCHES.
Who knows if these kids are going to try this again before the season is over. I applaud them for making a go of it, and it working out for the most part. (I’d can the Zoom laughter, “Weekend Update.” Go watch Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert and take notes on how to make a joke work without the benefit of laughter), and genuinely thank them for making an effort to make us laugh when we needed it the most.
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Relive Eddie Murphy’s almost-perfect ‘Saturday Night Live’
Saturday Night Live
Eddie Murphy & Lizzo
December 22, 2019
I’m going to try to avoid overthinking this episode because comedy never benefits from thinking about it too hard. (It’s one of the reasons I never recap comedies.) But, Eddie Murphy returning to Saturday Night Live for the first time in 35 years is not just a historically notable TV event, it’s one that required a little contemplation on both our part and the writers’.
Here’s the thing: Eddie Murphy blazed into superstardom on Saturday Night Live in 1980 when he was only 19 years old with characters like Mr. Robinson and Buckwheat — characters that made fun of racist stereotypes in a way that was so close to the chest that some viewers may not have understood they were supposed to be laughing with Murphy, not at him. Murphy was never putting on a minstrel show, he was pointing out how racist the minstrel show was. The problem is some viewers, particularly white ones, might have missed that nuance. (Honestly, maybe the greatest SNL sketch of all time is the one in which he went undercover as a white man — genuinely brilliant and tackling race in a way that remains as stinging and poignant 40 years later.)
So because a great deal has changed in the past 40 years, it was always going to be a delicate dance bringing some of these characters back to the show in a way that not only would be relevant but culturally palatable. But God damn, if they didn’t pull it off. Murphy’s 80s characters found themselves up against 21st-century issues like gentrification and the #MeToo movement — and that tension is where the comedy blossomed.
Then when you add to all of that the fact that Eddie Murphy waited long enough to come back to the show so that there were no more hard feelings, that he had shed enough of his movie star ego and aloofness that he could really enjoy himself on that stage in an uninhibited, genuine way … well, it made for the best episode of the year, certainly, and one of the best episodes of Saturday Night Live I’ve ever seen.
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