OK, so first off I hope everyone had a really great holiday season. I took a few weeks off, as you can see but I'm back now, ready for a new year of reporting to all of you the useless information of what's going on in pop culture.
I'm starting with what got my wheels turning again for the first time this year, the first new SNL. I've considered but never written the things I think that is helping SNL get back to something resembling it's former glory. The first was luck, Sarah Palin, but I've talked about that already, I mean overall. First of all, they've cut the cast down. It's one of the smallest casts in a while, and as a result almost everyone is strong. The only people I don't love on the show right now are Will Forte and Fred Armisen, but I understand why they're there. Pretty much everyone in the cast right now is brilliant, and just like in the early nineties there seem to be two distinct groups both of which bring an interesting perspective to the show. There's the older style people, led by Jason Sedakis and Seth Meyers, included in this group are Kristen Wiig, Armisen, Forte and Keenan, comparitively they're Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Mike Meyers, Julia Sweeney, those guys, really traditional brilliantly funny sketch comedians. Then there are the new "bad boys." Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Bobby Moinahan. Don't tell me the way these guys work doesn't remind you of Sandler, Spade and Farley. They can't touch them brilliance wise because they aren't reinventors like those three were (OK, so the digital shorts are a huge part of the resurgance, but I'll get to that later.) This dynamic worked back then, and from the looks of things, it's going to work again.
Next, they cut sketch length down. Sketches now are five minutes max, I don't know if that was conscious or not, but it's great, it gives jokes enough time to breath and keeps them from getting old. Last night's "Actors with Two First Names Talk Show" was the perfect example. Of course maybe it was just NPH's pitch perfect dry delivery that did it, but it was a hilarious sketch.
Seth Meyers. Period. End of story. At first I was nervous about Seth taking on update by himself. I mean, the last time anyone soloed the desk it was Colin Quinn, and his update is so iconic that Jimmy Fallon refused to do it alone (which gave us Tina in front of the camera! THANK YOU JIMMY!) but Seth's silly sarcastic delivery is like the perfect blend of Kevin Nealon, Norm McDonald, and Quinn. It actually almost resembles Chevy Chase's original. Really? Really!
The digital shorts. It's hard to believe that it all started with a quiet late in the show send up of The OC. But with Laser Cats, people began to see exactly how brilliant Andy Samberg and Bill Hader's little mini movies were. And then the dam broke, Dick in a Box made everyone laugh til they peed, and they've only gotten funnier. James Franco's tiny penis, "Iran so far away," last night's, where NPH played the Doogie Houser, MD theme on a key board while the cast began appearing around him dressed as Doogie playing different instruments. It's was offbeat and perfectly suited to him.
And probably the most crucial:
People want comedy right now. Times are tough, and SNL is the funhouse mirror that we look at the current times in, they take what's bothering us, what's difficult, what we're obsessed with and project it back to us and make us all laugh about it. I already posted on my live journal how obsessed I am with the "Dying Broadway" sketch from last night, but it was hilariously funny. What's happening on Broadway right now isn't funny when you think about it casually, tons of people are out of work, an art form that I'm passionate about (I love musical theatre) seems to be in deep trouble artistically, and the lights seem to be going out, but reflected back in the SNL crazy mirror, it seemed less bad, watching my favorite Broadway characters throw down (Seriously watching Mark Cohen bitch out Elphaba was hiliarious) made it all seem a little silly. That's what the country needs right now, we need to laugh and finally our number one place to go do that is back, and you know, actually funny.
So thank you SNL, thank you very very much.
I'm starting with what got my wheels turning again for the first time this year, the first new SNL. I've considered but never written the things I think that is helping SNL get back to something resembling it's former glory. The first was luck, Sarah Palin, but I've talked about that already, I mean overall. First of all, they've cut the cast down. It's one of the smallest casts in a while, and as a result almost everyone is strong. The only people I don't love on the show right now are Will Forte and Fred Armisen, but I understand why they're there. Pretty much everyone in the cast right now is brilliant, and just like in the early nineties there seem to be two distinct groups both of which bring an interesting perspective to the show. There's the older style people, led by Jason Sedakis and Seth Meyers, included in this group are Kristen Wiig, Armisen, Forte and Keenan, comparitively they're Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Mike Meyers, Julia Sweeney, those guys, really traditional brilliantly funny sketch comedians. Then there are the new "bad boys." Andy Samberg, Bill Hader, Bobby Moinahan. Don't tell me the way these guys work doesn't remind you of Sandler, Spade and Farley. They can't touch them brilliance wise because they aren't reinventors like those three were (OK, so the digital shorts are a huge part of the resurgance, but I'll get to that later.) This dynamic worked back then, and from the looks of things, it's going to work again.
Next, they cut sketch length down. Sketches now are five minutes max, I don't know if that was conscious or not, but it's great, it gives jokes enough time to breath and keeps them from getting old. Last night's "Actors with Two First Names Talk Show" was the perfect example. Of course maybe it was just NPH's pitch perfect dry delivery that did it, but it was a hilarious sketch.
Seth Meyers. Period. End of story. At first I was nervous about Seth taking on update by himself. I mean, the last time anyone soloed the desk it was Colin Quinn, and his update is so iconic that Jimmy Fallon refused to do it alone (which gave us Tina in front of the camera! THANK YOU JIMMY!) but Seth's silly sarcastic delivery is like the perfect blend of Kevin Nealon, Norm McDonald, and Quinn. It actually almost resembles Chevy Chase's original. Really? Really!
The digital shorts. It's hard to believe that it all started with a quiet late in the show send up of The OC. But with Laser Cats, people began to see exactly how brilliant Andy Samberg and Bill Hader's little mini movies were. And then the dam broke, Dick in a Box made everyone laugh til they peed, and they've only gotten funnier. James Franco's tiny penis, "Iran so far away," last night's, where NPH played the Doogie Houser, MD theme on a key board while the cast began appearing around him dressed as Doogie playing different instruments. It's was offbeat and perfectly suited to him.
And probably the most crucial:
People want comedy right now. Times are tough, and SNL is the funhouse mirror that we look at the current times in, they take what's bothering us, what's difficult, what we're obsessed with and project it back to us and make us all laugh about it. I already posted on my live journal how obsessed I am with the "Dying Broadway" sketch from last night, but it was hilariously funny. What's happening on Broadway right now isn't funny when you think about it casually, tons of people are out of work, an art form that I'm passionate about (I love musical theatre) seems to be in deep trouble artistically, and the lights seem to be going out, but reflected back in the SNL crazy mirror, it seemed less bad, watching my favorite Broadway characters throw down (Seriously watching Mark Cohen bitch out Elphaba was hiliarious) made it all seem a little silly. That's what the country needs right now, we need to laugh and finally our number one place to go do that is back, and you know, actually funny.
So thank you SNL, thank you very very much.
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