Saturday Night Live

For a director who works as infrequently as Noah Baumbach, a misfire always adds insult to injury. It has been a little over a year since he wildly disappointed us with the so-difficult-it-caused-migraines Margot at the Wedding, and yet if Mr. Baumbach were a prolific filmmaker like Woody Allen, we probably wouldn't have even noticed how bad it really was. (To wit: does anyone even remember Cassandra's Dream?) While the screenwriter half of Mr. Baumbach has been busy, with both the long gestating Wes Anderson film The Fantastic Mr. Fox and the on-the-nose adaptation of Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children for Ron Howard, we figured it would be quite some time before we heard from his directorial alter-ego again. Wrong! We've been seeing his work all Fall and hadn't even known. According to our friends at Videogum, Mr. Baumbach has been directing short films for none other than Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live.      read more »

If you think every single episode of NBC's Saturday Night Live was exactly the same (Another Digital Short about Laser Cats? Really?), you're not alone: So does Justin Timberlake, who offered an Evolution of Dance-esque two minute run-through of an entire episode of the 34-year-old comedy-variety show during 'Weekend Update.'

Call it celebrity lifehacking: Mr. Timberlake, who was scheduled to appear on next week's show but had to cancel, saved viewers 90 minutes (or 30 minutes with DVR) by revealing all, from the host's repetitive monologue to the groan-inducing recurring characters.

Judging by this week's show, which featured guys French kissing, painting each other nude, gay cartoon characters, a cellphone in a man's butt, and three male dancers in high heels, it'll also save you an ass-load of gay-panic jokes.

Amy Poehler was such a titanic presence on Saturday Night Live that it's going to take two women to replace her. Starting with the broadcast this weekend, hosted by Paul Rudd, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliot will be joining the cast in featuring roles. Both women have sketch comedy experience, having previously worked in Los Angeles--Ms. Watkins with The Groundlings, Ms. Elliot at the UCB Theater. And if their names ring a bell, that wouldn't be surprising either. Ms. Watkins has appeared on many television shows, most recently in a guest-starring role on The New Adventures of Old Christine, while Ms. Elliot is the daughter of former Saturday Night Live cast member Chris Elliot.  read more »

Now that the election is finally (finally!) over, we can rest easy knowing that Sarah Palin will return to the backwoods of Alaska never to be heard from again. Ha! As if! The Alaskan governor has come too far and gained too much notoriety to just simply accept running a non-continental state. As Tina Fey so hilarious stated last weekend, Ms. Palin is never going back. But while we aren't sure if the most polarizing figure in the country will ever become the "White Oprah" (don't you have to be even moderately likeable to accomplish that?), Ms. Palin could easily have a ginormously successful television career if she so wanted.  read more »

Monday: Saturday Night Live: Presidential Bash 2008
With the exception of Rachel Maddow, no one on television has benefited from the election cycle more than the folks at Saturday Night Live. Unfortunately, the expiration date on their cultural relevancy reads November 5th. As a going away party, Lorne Michaels and NBC are offering this compilation of the best political skits from the past year, with some original ones sprinkled in as well. If you haven't figured out how Hulu works yet, this show is for you! We'll DVR it just in case something crazy happens. For all we know, John McCain might take the stage with Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin as she holds up a "Palin in 2012" t-shirt.  read more »

It was a pretty good weekend to be Jon Hamm. The Mad Men star did some of his best work yet on the show's effortlessly brilliant season finale. Whether it was plaintively reading a heartfelt letter to wife Betty in voiceover or joking around with his children in a hotel room over burgers, Mr. Hamm has ever emboldened Don with such a comfortable humanity before. It might be time to start splicing together a 2009 Emmy reel.

And! As if that wasn't enough, Mr. Hamm killed on Saturday Night Live. While the ratings for the latest episode were down compared to the other guest-star heavy affairs from this month, Saturday Night Live still pulled in roughly eight times the number of viewers that an average episode of Mad Men does.  read more »

This has been a bellwether month for Lorne Michaels. Not only has Saturday Night Live seen its ratings rise some 161 percent from a year ago, but Mr. Michaels has been doing more interviews than the political figures his show regularly mocks. Lorne actually has talking points now! Seriously! He must have uttered the sentence "the audience cast Tina [Fey as Sarah Palin]" some thirty times to date. (Mr. Michaels says that more than Sarah Palin has said "I told congress thanks, but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere.")

The latest "exclusive" interview with the SNL Grand Poobah over at  read more »

Sarah Palin's visit to Saturday Night Live didn't disappoint. Helped by appearances from Alec Baldwin, Oliver Stone and Mark Wahlberg, this weekend's edition, hosted by Josh Brolin and featuring the Alaskan governor in two skits, was the highest-rated Saturday Night Live in 14 years. Final numbers won't be out until later this week, but an estimated 17 million people tuned in for the first half-hour, and close to 14 million for the entire show, making Saturday Night Live the third-highest-rated program of the week, behind only new episodes of CSI and Dancing with the Stars.

Of course, the ratings boom isn't surprising.  read more »

Felix Gillette and John Koblin attended a conference of media folks at Time Warner Center and saw, "dark days. Banks, churches, newspapers, the presidency—all in decline."

Don't forget publishing, since, according to Leon Neyfakh, "At hand is the twilight of an era most did not expect to miss, but will."

Plus: Oliver Stone... Mad Men... Saturday Night Live.

Q: For years now, shows like Meet the Press have been broadcasting clips of an SNL sketch, a spoof of political reality, to have a conversation with their audience about the actual political reality. How are you getting to the core ingredients of what’s going on in a way that people like Tom Brokaw can’t seem to articulate?

A: I think they’d like to make sarcastic comments about candidates, but their role as news people prevents that, so I think showing our clips permits them to let us make the point.

I think it would be awkward for even some of the people on cable to be as out-and-out mocking as we can be, and I also think it sort of makes their shows more entertaining—they can do it for free.  read more »

Tina Fey's Sarah Palin skits were viewed twice as many times online and via DVR recordings than in original broadcasts, according to a recent study by Integrated Media Measurement Inc. Now NBC and Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels are in talks to develop a new on-demand video Website that would feature online clips from SNL, Broadcasting & Cable reports. According to their sources, the site would include a mix of original comedy sketches (similar to SNL's web series The Line), clips from past episodes and gems from dress rehearsal skits that have never aired. Some worry that NBC won't be able to monetize the site and it may launch too late to capture the SNL buzz from Ms. Fey's spoofs and other pre-election skits. Sources say the site is modeled after Funny or Die, the video Website co-founded by Will Ferrell which "isn't doing that great,” according to an "NBC insider."

More from Broadcasting & Cable:  read more »

When we want news about Saturday Night Live, there’s only one person we go to… Cindy Adams! The New York Post gossip columnist reports via TV Tattle that Sarah Palin will indeed be appearing on the next new edition of Saturday Night Live, set for Oct. 25. According to Ms. Adams, it's a “done deal” and “sketches are already being written.”

The latter claim sounds a little off to us. Does anyone actually think the Saturday Night Live writers prepare anything two weeks in advance? Having watched the show for our entire lives, we can say pretty firmly that it doesn’t seem like they do.  read more »

It turns out Seth Meyers was right. Despite some last minute innuendos by Lorne Michaels, Governor Sarah Palin did not appear on Saturday Night Live: Weekend Update Thursday (could they squeeze a few more days into that title?). Instead, the first of three planned prime-time SNL specials featured appearances by former cast members Chris Parnell and Bill Murray.

While it's always nice to see Mr. Murray, who played an audience member during the opening Presidential Debate skit, the 30-minute show was a microcosm for a lot of SNL's recent failings. Again, a major character in a keystone sketch had to be farmed out to a former player.  read more »

For those of you who were looking forward to seeing Governor Sarah Palin lampoon her nemesis and expert mimic, Tina Fey, on Weekend Update Thursday, the special prime-time election edition of Saturday Night Live which premieres this week, we have some bad news for you. It's not happening.

SNL head writer Seth Meyers spoke with Newsday's television blog The TV Zone and put the story to rest, for now: "Of those specific rumors [that Sarah Palin will appear], there's no truth. We do have an open door policy, but there's nothing specific yet, but our window of opportunity is before the election.  read more »

Perhaps the failing economy benefiting someone: Saturday Night Live continued its ratings renaissance over the weekend, a surefire sign that no one is going out and spending money on Saturday nights. Or maybe everyone just loves Tina Fey.

The Anne Hathaway-hosted episode was seen in 7.4 percent of the Nielsen households, up 23 percent from last week and a whopping 42 percent from a year ago. The numbers were only slightly lower than the Saturday Night Live season premiere, making this weekend's one of the highest rated editions in six years.

Of course everyone who tuned in did so to see Ms. Fey's so-good-it's-now-clichéd Sarah Palin impression during an 11-minute opening skit (embedded above) about the Vice Presidential debate.  read more »

Doesn't it seem like we hear news about a famous actor or actress guest starring on 30 Rock at least once a week? The latest to join the Emmy winning show is actress Salma Hayek, who has been signed up for a two-episode stint at the behest of Tina Fey. Apparently Ms. Fey wanted Ms. Hayek so badly that she called the actress personally to get her to sign on. Ms. Hayek is joined by Oprah Winfrey, Steve Martin, Jennifer Aniston, Leighton Meester, Blake Lively and Will Arnett as celebrities who will be trekking over to Rockefeller Center at some point this fall.

Meanwhile, in other Tina Fey news... Our crush will reportedly be appearing on tomorrow's Saturday Night Live winking and golly-gee'ing her way through playing Sarah Palin in a skit about the Vice Presidential debate. No word yet on who will play Senator Joe Biden (might we suggest Jason Sudekis, with his clenched jaw demeanor), but supposedly actress Queen Latifah will be taking on the role of debate moderator Gwen Ifill. And if that's still not enough to get you to DVR SNL, maybe host Anne Hathaway and musical guest The Killers will do the trick.

Here's a question that we found ourselves asking during the laborious season premiere of Saturday Night Live: after an entire summer off, this is the best they can come up with?

With the exception of the hilarious cold open, a press conference with Hillary Clinton (Amy Poehler, with clenched jaw perfection) and Sarah Palin (Tina Fey, predictably hilarious), the season premiere felt like a dress rehearsal. There wasn't one skit that followed even worth cracking a smile over. As one of our friends, who texted us a little after midnight, so eloquently put it: "Wow, this is awful."  read more »

Whether the Sarah Palin VP-pick ultimately pays off for John McCain remains to be seen. But for one group of Americans, Gov. Palin's sudden arrival on the national scene promises to be an instant boon: comics!

Judging from what's already made its way to YouTube  (haven't you seen this, this or this?), the moose-hunting hockey mom is in for a ribbing. So who will Saturday Night Live pick to play the small screen version of Sarah Barracuda?

We checked in this afternoon with Mr. Michaels' office in New York to get some answers, and according to Marc Liepis, a spokesperson for the show, the cast is still working on it.

They won't have to crash anything too fast either: the first new episode is slated for a week from Saturday. Here's hoping they have an easier time than they did with Barack Obama .

A funny thing happened to Saturday Night Live during its 33rd season. After a few years of languishing as the television version of punching a clock, it became culturally relevant again. And as loyal viewers who still DVR the show week after week with the hopes of finding some hilarity when we re-watch it on Sunday mornings, we admit that we don't totally understand why.

Sure, we love the cast; they're an appealing and likeable group of future character actors destined to appear in Judd Apatow movies and NBC sit-coms from now until the end of time. But there isn't a breakout star among them, as far as we can tell.  read more »

Lorne Michaels told reporters Sunday that he plans to premiere Jimmy Fallon as the new host of Late Night on the internet. He plans five or six months of webcasts prior to the 2009 debut of Mr. Fallon's version of the show, according to TV Week.

The Observer interviewed Mr. Michaels about preparing Mr. Fallon for the dubious taks of replacing Conan O'Brien last May:  read more »

George Carlin hosted the very first episode of SNL on Oct. 11, 1975. NBC will honor him by airing that premiere episode this weekend while HBO plans on playing specials of more than 30 years of his comedy shows starting this week.

Mr. Carlin's SNL episode featured the “Not Ready for Primetime Players,” including Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner. Musical guests were Janis Ian and Billy Preston, and Andy Kaufman made an appearance too.

According to a transcript of the show available here, Mr. Carlin "wanted to wear a T-shirt, but the network wanted him to wear a suit.  read more »

According to The Hollywood Reporter's Alex Woodson, Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels received a "lifetime achievement award for the role that 'Saturday Night Live' has played in the development of online video" at last night's Webby Awards.  read more »

Bittersweet Symphony? Ashlee Simpson may not be welcomed back to Saturday Night Live after her 2004 appearance exposed her lip-synching talents. Also, Page Six hears that the young Mr. Simpson was not exactly a hit with the show's producers. [P6]  read more »

Did George Clooney pop the question? [Marie Claire UK]

All this while he avows that he is "gay, gay" (and not "gay, gay, gay"): "That third 'gay' was pushing it."[People]

Matt Damon's rep confirms he and his wife Luciana are expecting. [People]  read more »

In case you missed it, here's Hillary Clinton's appearance on Saturday Night Live, complimenting Amy Poehler's impression and asking for her earrings back.

Over the weekend, the first new episode of Saturday Night Live to air since the end of the writers’ strike posted the show’s highest ratings since Feb. 4, 2006, easily topping seven million viewers, Variety reports. SNL hadn’t broadcast since the fall, which made Saturday’s show—the first in four consecutive weeks of new SNL episodes—with Tina Fey as host (see above), guest appearances by Mike Huckabee (he was on Weekend Update, too) and Steve Martin (who, coincidentally, hosted the Feb. 4, 2006 episode), and a musical performance by Carrie Underwood, a highly anticipated event.  read more »

So Saturday Night Live is finally addressing its Barack Obama problem. When last I spoke to SNL's writers and its creator, Lorne Michaels -- way back in the old days, when Hillary Clinton was still the consensus front-runner-by-a-mile -- they didn't think he was funny enough to lampoon. Now, I guess, they've got no choice.

In this week’s New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes a Talk of the Town about, well, beards. In days of yore, the piece points out, facial fuzz was de rigueur among a certain set of powerful gents—Confucius, Abraham Lincoln and Rasputin among them.

But now, it seems, there’s begun a resurgence of the bearded-bigwig milieu—particularly those ‘working’ in film and television. The reason for this trend, of course, has more to do with the extended W.G.A. strike than anything else. Now famous personalities—many of which heretofore seemed peach fuzz-free, let alone capable of generating thick cheek rugs—have started to cultivate beards of their own. Take, as the item does, Conan O’Brien, who had reportedly spent the last 44 years of his life with a clean, baby-smooth shave. Not so any more; the pompadour’d late-night talk show host now has what he bills “a hobby on my face.”  read more »

Chevy Chase says he was asked to have a recurring role on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” but that was before the W.G.A. strike. Recalling his recent debut appearance on the sketch show’s mock-news segment, for which he was apparently paid scale, the Caddyshack actor said he was disappointed by the poor writing. He also blames his poor performance on a standing ovation from the audience. “I didn’t want to overshadow the new kids," he told Fox News, referring to co-anchors Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers, adding: "I was shocked." According to Mr. Chase, 64, who was only on SNL for its first season, famed musical composer Leonard Bernstein nearly hosted an episode during the show’s inaugural year on the air. “The idea of John [Belushi] and Danny [Aykroyd] coming out doing a number from that show cracked us up," Mr. Chase said. But when the comedian and writer Tom Schiller visited Mr. Bernstein backstage, the West Side Story creator got fresh with the wrong guy. “He put his hand on my knee. When we were leaving, he kissed me full-on, on the lips,” Mr. Chase remembered. “I wagged my finger at him and said, ‘No, no, no.’ And that was the last we ever heard from him."

This week’s New Yorker, on newsstands today, contains a “Talk of the Town” that tells the bittersweet tale of someone named Cara Hannah. She is, according to the petit profile, currently suffering the brunt of both the Writers Guild strike and the collective towel-throw of Broadway stagehands. After all, Ms. Hannah is a wig stylist. And she not only powders pate-rugs for The Phantom of the Opera, but also for the funny folks at Saturday Night Live.

Because both productions have gone dark, she has been forced to trade in the glamour of eight-hour fittings for James Bond skits at 30 Rock for the bleak, lonely landscape of the classifieds. But after being snubbed by a wig shop and then Macy’s, Ms. Hannah started cutting hair in her bathroom, or, Chez Sullivan Salon, as her fiancé has billed the joint. In just two days, business was booming—she suddenly had more heads to cut and style in her loo than Frédéric Fekkai on a Friday. “I think my prices are attractive,” she told the magazine. “I take into consideration that, you know, I’m making people sit next to my john.”  read more »

The striking cast members and writers of NBC's 30 Rock and Saturday Night Live programs will present one-night-only live performances of the shows at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre this weekend. The (already) sold-out performances will benefit the Writers Guild strike fund.

Playbill reports:

"Saturday Night Live" will feature a collection of favorite sketches, hosted by Michael Cera, the young star of "Superbad." The musical guest will be Yo La Tengo. The entire current cast of "SNL" has been confirmed for the 11:30 PM performance on Nov. 17.

The live performance of "30 Rock," scheduled for Nov. 19 at 8 PM, will feature the complete cast of "30 Rock," including Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Alec Baldwin. The star-studded cast is scheduled to perform a live episode from the popular series.

They’re killing Hillary, but only because she’s so Nixonian.  read more »

In case you missed it, here's how the producers of Saturday Night Live found a solution—albeit a temporary one—to their Barack Obama casting dilemma.

Cracked made a list of the worst Saturday Night Live characters. We always found Hans and Franz's pouffy muscles endearing, but they ranked a No. 4. Maybe we just liked the clapping part in the "We're going to pump (clap) you up!"

Who made No. 1?

#1. The Samurai (John Belushi)

Catchphrase lodged in America' brain: "(rough approximation of Japanese, shouted loudly)"

Every generation has its own "fat, funny guy." And since ours was Chris Farley, some of us can't quite see the genius behind John Belushi (though this might also be due to his brother, Jim, forever linking the Belushi name to jokes about how husbands never do laundry and forget about their wives whenever "the big game" is on). Yes, the guy was gifted. We're just saying we don't spontaneously wet our pants every time he appears on TV the way our parents do.

Witness one of Belushi' more famous characters, The Samurai, from his heyday on SNL. Here' the premise for The Samurai sketch: The Samurai finds himself in a job that is inappropriate for a person with a samurai' skill set. Things are chopped, gibberish is screamed and suicide is attempted - over and over again.

Regardless of John' place in the annals of American comedy, you must admit he paved the way for a whole line of one-note recurring characters that came after him. It can be said, in fact, that every single recurring character on SNL can directly trace their origins to a specific Samurai Futaba episode. Before there was Rob Schneider' "You Like-a the Juice" Guy, there was "Samurai Delicatessen." Before Cheri Oteri put on her Judge Judy wig, there was "Samurai Divorce Court." Even The Ladies Man' seemingly inherent funkiness was in actuality handed down from "Samurai Night Fever." That' why he makes the top spot, because none of the other characters on this list would have been possible without Belushi and his cohorts on the original SNL cast...and we don't mean that in a good way.

Ladies’ Man Tim Meadows has some ideas.  read more »