Anyone watching Saturday Night Live?
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Why did that opening bit with Amy and Hillary remind me of Sesame Street when they have Laura Bush on talking with the muppets?
Anyone know any more about the Dallas Morning News story about Clinton’s plan for the caucuses? I smell trouble.
That was a “Trailblazers” blog entry by one of their reporters. Doesn’t seem that they’re writing a story for the paper though. The entry at Ben Smith’s place covers pretty much all of it.
These are the same kind of tactics they pulled in Nevada. Probably even just copied the training materials for Texas. But I’m actually not too worried. The Obama campaign learned alot from Nevada and has been training their precinct captains for a month or so now about how to handle it. Clinton just realized that she needs a ground organization in Texas like this week to deal with the caucuses. But in the precinct caucus sites where Clinton supporters do take control of the proceedings, don’t be surprised if they either a) do really really well, or b) don’t report the results for two days, the latest possible reporting time.
Really. Scummy. Tactics.
I just asked Demetrius to turn on the tv so I could see it. Didn’t want to be in the dark if people were talking about it. So I saw it.
Meh.
I don’t want to use the wrong four-letter word, but was Hillary using Chelsea as a prop?
That was pretty lame. If I was Obama I’d be pissed at how that boob plays him.
He’s really bad. I thought maybe he would improve from last week, but he wasn’t one bit better.
The whole sketch was lame, just like last week. My recollection of the golden days of SNL was that the cast worked together with perfect timing. There doesn’t seem to be ANY timing anymore.
The other thing about SNL, at least in its glory days, is that they had people who just plain knew from funny. I’m not just talking about the actors — although there’s no doubt in my mind that even the least of them was pretty freakin’ impressive — but they had a crew of writers who were veterans of places like National Lampoon. That, plus remember that the cast and the writers were doing something that had never been done before. They occasionally fell flat, and they knew it. But they gave themselves license to experiment, to figure out what worked and what didn’t, and when they were funny, they were fall down, laugh out loud, remember those bits and tell them to your kids funny. I mean, c’mon, Bass-O-Matic? New Shimmer — “it’s a floor wax AND a dessert topping”? “Jane, you ignorant slut!”? That stuff is not just funny, it’s entered the popular culture. What that they’ve done in the last five or ten years has done that?
Gilda Radner’s character: “Nevermiiiiiind.”
The Blues Brothers. Chico Escuela. The Coneheads. Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford. Judy Miller (star of The Judy Miller Show!). Dan Ackroyd as Jimmy Carter. “Cheedburga Cheedburga Cheep Cheep Pedzi Pedzi, no Cok, Pedzi.” I tell you, there were giants in the earth in those days.
Come to think of it, I think the last two funny things I saw on SNL were George H. W. Bush giving Dana Carvey tips on how to portray him, and the episode with Charlton Heston where he completely made fun of his image as a gun-toting righty. See, that was one of the great things about the show — people would get on and make fun of their public image, like Joe Cocker singing a duet with John-Belushi-playing-Joe-Cocker, or Paul Simon singing “Still Crazy After All These Years” wearing a turkey suit.
I liked Dan Ackroyd as Bob Dole.
Bad Idea Jeans
The cartoon Obama is pretty good.
We westerners have to wait a few hours to see it. Doesn’t sound like I’m missing much.
nope it’s a snoozer.
Complete snoozer. The last thing I remember watching was the Dakota Fanning skit; the next thing I remember was watching our local “Sports Report” show.
Even with so much material ripe for use, SNL still can’t put together anything that was even mildly funny. They oughta just put this show to rest.
SNL increasingly reminds me of “Cutting Edge Live” from Bob Roberts.
I’m guessing that being at the rally in Cleveland would have been a better vote getter for her…
There will be some “buzz” but what does that get her – better name ID? I guess some points for being able to laugh at herself… but does it sway a vote? By all means, let’s have her on national comedy shows while Obama campaigns in state. I’ll take those odds.
Where is SNL getting their material ,some fundamentalist auto mechanic trade school? And the skits that weren’t just plain lame ,smacked of an attempted hit job on Obama . GE must be nervous .
I agree, on all counts.
By the way, there’s a post about the SNL appearance, with pictures, on the front page of HuffPo now.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
Oh, and in case anyone’s interested, I’ve got a new post up at Buckeye State Blog
http://www.buckeyestateblog.com
watched it, lame.
but how about why oil prices are so high? It’s not consumer demand, it’s cause everybody’s filling their reserves.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/19/business/AS-FIN-China-Oil-Reserves.php
http://www.energybulletin.net/13199.html
why are grain prices so high, cause Bush fucked up Iraq so bad that they’re in need of 86 million metric tons of rice a year & probable as much wheat.
http://westernfarmpress.com/mag/farming_iraq_says_needs/
http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=
71357&NrIssue=2&NrSection=2
I gave up after 10 minutes or so.
Lame like a MOTHERFUCKER.
So Ms. Clinton actually showed up?
Another nail in her electoral coffin.
She and her people just don’t get it.
AG
The last funny thing I remember seeing on SNL was a skit in late 2004 where W called up Kerry and wanted to switch places after he realized he had some ‘hard wurk’ ahead of him. And I was surprised it was funny even then, ‘cuz that show’s been stale for a long time.
OK, I have to admit that I liked the SNL video “The Chronic-What? of Narnia” bit. That was pretty funny, as was Al Gore. Maya Rudolph and Amy Poeler are usually funny, and the “news” bit can be funny, too.
But the bit that I saw before falling asleep on it last night was Just. Not. Funny. The guy who does Obama really stinks. And while everyone else in the skit was OK, it just dragged. Even Vincent D’Onfrio and the Law and Order “thum THUM” wasn’t enough to save it.
SNL is often more lame than not, and the whole super secret celebrity cameo thing has become a huge crutch for them. They are seriously living off past glory, which might explain the appeal for Billary.
I can’t remember the last time I stayed up to watch SNL.
Just a question, though. If you’re getting all chummy with pols, how do you rip ’em next week? And actually, how do you rip ’em this week? Shows that are supposed to be in some way satirical and have some sort of insight into current events become another version of FOX’s talking heads if they’ve got “special guests” who stand there on stage, protected from real criticism.
It just drains out anything incisive.
Does anyone remember “That Was The Week That Was”? I remember songs like “Pollution” and “National Brotherhood Week,” Tom Lehrer songs, which were at the time liberal and funny because they said what people didn’t say. Now it sounds like SNL says what certain people want them to say.
No.
But we did watch the CSPAN rerun of Obama’s townhall meeting in Parma Hts. Ohio. Two things about that.
We lived in a Cleveland exurb during the civil rights period. Never thought we’d see blacks and whites sitting together in the same auditorium in Parma Hts cheering a black man running for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. Unimaginable then.
The town hall format is quite comfortable for him, and he displayed both his personal and intellectual gifts. We were extremely impressed by his ability to field questions thoughtfully and with detail, then weave them together into broader, deeper themes. Example: gay marriage and immigration. He answered the question on each, then later wove those answers into a little riff on civil rights. He also tied his response on fear, that the American people were at their worst when afraid, back into the civil rights theme.
This man gets the BIG picture.