SNL Fail

[PGage]

They had one job this weekend, and it wasn’t to make fun of Trump or Biden. They’re only job was to skewer NBC News for cashing in on the Trump Town Hall. The cold open should not have recreated the dueling Tiwn Halls, it should somehow have parodied,  brutally, the meeting in which NBC executives decided to green light it. 

Of course they failed. There was one tepid joke on update, but nothing that really held NBC’s feet to the fire. 

And no, it doesn’t matter how tough Guthrie was on Trump, or how bad it made him look. 

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[Steve Timko]

It wasn't great. I think the problem is Jim Carrey. He seems to need broad humor and he's not getting it with the Biden imitation.

Weekend Update was good.

[M-D November]

Weekend Update did a slightly better job of holding the network accountable, noting that the network has “a type”:

[Kevin M.]

SNL had Trump host... twice, I believe. They as much as anybody helped to create the monster in office. So for anybody to expect them to hold anyone else accountable for enabling the bastard is an exercise in futility. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[David Bruggeman]

Yeah, I keep thinking Carrey is imitating Clint Eastwood.  I know Biden's 'toughness' can be something to satirize, but I think Colbert's doing a better job of it than Carrey right now.

David

[PGage]

They clearly have no idea what they are trying to do with Biden (Pray to the gods old and new that they will have a lot of time to figure it out). But as I say, any Cold Open they did that focused on either Biden or Trump would be a fail.

I think Kevin is over stating the role that SNL, or any pop media, had on electing Trump last cycle. Trump won because he is a White Nationalist, and it turns out in 2016 there were, just barely, enough White Nationalists in the country to elect him president. We will see in a little over two weeks if that is still true.

Perhaps SNL has not had the backbone for some time to really hold up the mirror to its corporate overlords, but I think at times like this, major failures to do so should still be called out.

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[Dave Sikula]

The problem isn't Carrey; his Biden actually isn't that bad, and he's more or less doing what the writers (ineptly) give him. The problem with the sketches (as with the rest of the show) is Michaels, who apparently wants his audience to think that if he portrays both men as being (in their own ways) equally undesirable, he can somehow avoid conservatives screaming that he's playing favorites. The right working the refs has worked particularly well on SNL

This week's show set new low standards for a show that always find deeper bottoms to the barrel (Rae's opening monologue was so bad that even the hyenas in the audience stayed mostly silent), but suffered especially from being aired in juxtaposition with the rerun from 1988, where every sketch ("Jew, Not a Jew," Hanks and Lovitz's losers on the make, and--especially--the Bush/Dukakis debate, with its "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy") landed--big time. It was also another great reminder (as if we needed it) of how great Phil Hartman and Jan Hooks were. My gosh, they could do anything.

--Dave Sikula

[PGage]

Totally agree with all of this, and especially the contrast with that Golden re-run. That Bush-Dukakis sketch is in my top 20 all time, Hartman of course was a genius, and Jan Hooks is in my top 5 players of all time.

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[Joe Hass]

It is spectacularly unfair to remind me of Hartman and Hooks. It's like asking me to watch baseball and go "Yeah, but remember Trammell and Whitaker?" WELL I DO NOW, YA WEASEL, AND DO THESE PEOPLE SUCK ASS!

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[Marti Lawrence]

I don't care for Jim Carrey's portrayal of Biden.  Carrey has a manic energy that works in a lot of his roles, but it is all wrong for Biden. 

Jason Sudeikis did a great Biden, I wish they would bring him back. 

I saw a notice that Adele is the host next week. But she is not listed as the musical guest, so I don't know if we'll get to hear her sing.

~Marti

[Joe Hass]

Re Adele: this is fascinating to me (as someone who loves Ms Adkins with the passion of a thousand white hot suns). It's been long enough that she's *should* have an album to be released. She's been curiously quiet.

When I watched her live show back in 2016, the name that popped into my mind was "Streisand": she loved to interact and talk as well as a voice that just melts my heart. I wonder, out of the blue and with no additional data, if my guess was closer to being right than I thought: where she wants to try this, and SNL is a pretty safe place (especially in the current political environment) to try your hand.

Suffice to say I shall be on my Locast at 10:35.

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[Jim Ellwanger]

On Oct 19, 2020, at 10:35 AM, Joe Hass <hassg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Suffice to say I shall be on my Locast at 10:35.

"SNL" never got moved to :35 the way the weeknight late-night shows did back in the early 1990s, so it still starts at 11:30 Eastern -- or are you saying that the "dueling town halls" bit made you entirely give up on watching cold open sketches?

Assuming Adele isn't hosting via Zoom, does this mean she's currently living in the U.S.? Or that the "SNL" promotion is so valuable that she's been complying with whatever quarantine situation has been necessary to allow her onto the stage this week?

[Joe Hass]

You may safely assume that my lack of watching SNL live would be reason I would be in error, and I'm actually appreciative of the correction, or I really *would* have shown up at 10:32.

She lives in England, and given the way she wrote her Instagram post (as though this was something she really wanted to try to do), it would not surprise me in the least if she did the quarantine thing and holed up somewhere in NYC.

Given how much weight she's reportedly lost, I think she figures "coming out" in the US is a much lower risk than trying to do it in a tabloid-hungry UK.

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[Doug Fields]

Who is​ listed as the musical guest?  If there's no musical guest listed, I would take that to mean that a host from the music biz is pulling double-duty as host and musical guest.

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

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From: tvor...@googlegroups.com <tvor...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Marti Lawrence <martil...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2020 1:25 PM
To: TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [TV orNotTV] Re: SNL Fail

 

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[PGage]

Also a huge (demographically untargeted) Adele fan.

On SNF they were saying Adele is the Host, and the musical  guess is H.E.R.

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[brugdr]

H.E.R. is the musical guest.  She's a singer and guitarist 

David

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[Joe Hass]

Alternatively, they're just going to try to recreate this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zyjbH9zzA

Still works five years later (says the man who told his father and aunt to go f--- themselves in an email thread today).

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[Melissa P]

I had some luck one evening quite a few years ago.  I was on one of my usual trips to Hollywood to see shows, and one of those shows was Kimmel's.  Musical guest that evening:  a not-yet-superstar Adele, who played and sang several songs in the theater lobby.  Did not yet realize that I was in the presence of greatness.

Speaking of attending shows, I had the great pleasure of watching Conchata Ferrell several times -- both on the set of Hearts Afire (where she played different characters in different seasons) and Two and a Half Men.  I could always spot her husband and sometimes her daughter in the audience.

Finally, back to quarantining.  HWCNBN recently said that he did "the quarantine thing" (two weeks) in August in New York for a game show.  Anyone know which game shows filmed in NYC in August?

[Jim Ellwanger]

On Oct 19, 2020, at 3:38 PM, Melissa P <takingup...@gmail.com> wrote:

Finally, back to quarantining.  HWCNBN recently said that he did "the quarantine thing" (two weeks) in August in New York for a game show.  Anyone know which game shows filmed in NYC in August?

My guess would be "$100,000 Pyramid": https://deadline.com/2020/08/the-100000-pyramid-back-to-studio-abc-1203006568/

[Melissa P]

That makes sense.  It's been noted that HWCNBN and Mr. Strahan share a dislike for a certain morning talk show host.

[JW]

> I don't care for Jim Carrey's portrayal of Biden. Carrey has a manic

> energy that works in a lot of his roles, but it is all wrong for Biden.

I agree.

I stumbled across the 1988 debate sketch Saturday, and Carvey's Bush, as exaggerated as it was, worked because it referenced something that was obviously there. The current writers don't seem to have found something similar for Biden.

[Melissa P]

Just wanted to let you know that Jim was correct (not surprised).

The episode still hasn't aired.

[Jim Ellwanger]

"The $100,000 Pyramid" is set for Wednesday nights beginning June 9th.

https://www.tvinsider.com/994128/abc-summer-2021-tv-schedule-premieres/

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[Melissa P]

Thanks!