Posts Tagged ‘Saturday Night LIve’

Big Hollywood

Shock: SNL Takes On Obama in Earnest

by Big Hollywood

“I am noticing that each of your plans to save money involves spending even more money.”

Remember this moment, folks.  November 21, 2009 at 11:30pm.  Over one year after Obama’s election and just more than ten months into his administration, “Saturday Night Live” takes its first crack at Obama for something other than not being left enough.  Splash of ice-cold water here:

The sketch really isn’t pro-conservative as much as it’s anti-Obama.  SNL mocks the stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, the debt Obama is increasing exponentially, and Obamacare’s bogus accounting, not to mention the fact that Fred Armisen’s too-cool-for-school Obama took the night off, but the writers are careful not argue for an alternative.  SNL deftly takes a crack at one side without directly supporting the other side, a tactic “South Park” has down to a science.  The sketch isn’t rock-solid from a policy standpoint, so we will post the clip of the CNN fact check once they air it.

SNL’s “Palin 2012” trailer after the jump: (more…)

Greg Gutfeld

Daily Gut: CNN Perplexed By Talk Radio

by Greg Gutfeld

So, fresh from their previous idiocy analyzing Saturday Night Live, CNN has now turned their goofy gaze toward talk radio, in a series of segments designed to examine the psychology behind a phenomenon that gives them fits. In short, they just can’t figure out why conservatives rule talk radio, and why the left is left out in the cold.

Now, only CNN could do this with a straight face. According to the network, some say talk radio is “viciously partisan,” without of course defining “some,” as “people who work at CNN.” And so the segment began, with CNN using a shrink to examine the typical listener, as though he belonged to a rare breed of lizard that dines only on feces.

Check it out, check-it-outers. 


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Chris Stigall

Move Over Talk Radio – Comedy Needs the Fairness Doctrine

by Chris Stigall

October 6th, 2009 –the Comedy Fairness Doctrine was conceived.  A liberal civil war was declared.  CNN versus Saturday Night Live.  The cable news network turned their heat seeking missiles of truth detection on the laser-guided precision of punchlines delivered on a variety show.  The weekend preceding this historic day, Saturday Night Live returned for a new season of shows.   Their signature opening sketch featured President Barack Obama (played by Fred Armisen) reading off a laundry list of agenda items he pledged to do, and has yet to accomplish since winning the presidency. 

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The list was comically, painfully long and the audience applauded and laughed at the real-life, obvious absence of leadership the sketch had captured in President Obama.  It is key to remember this is the work of comedy writers who could not find something funny about candidate or President Obama for nearly two years.  They did all they could to mock anyone and everyone around the man as to avoid skewering the “One” bearing gifts of “hope and change.”  But we’re coming up on a year in elected office and the liberals have grown restless.   (more…)

Alfonzo Rachel

SNL Crackin’ Obama Jokes? Oh, No Day D’int

by Alfonzo Rachel


Big Hollywood

Shock: Obama Not Left Enough for SNL

by Big Hollywood

SNL finally took on Obama in earnest this weekend:

This sketch wasn’t aimed at Rahm Emanuel, Joe the Biden, or Tim Geithner… it was targeting the Man himself.  But did SNL really turn over a new leaf?  Nope.  The criticism leveled at Obama was that he is failing to execute the brilliantly conceived left-wing aspects of his agenda as stated in his campaign.  Of course, there is no casting judgment on those ideas and no mention that most of America doesn’t actually support them.

This is a tactic Bill Maher has mastered.  He has repeatedly leveled humorous critique at Obama, but the arguments always hinge around Obama not behaving like the left-winger we thought we elected. (more…)

John T. Simpson

It’s the Saul Alinsky Comedy Show!

by John T. Simpson

“The only way to upset the power structure in your communities is to goad them, confuse them, irritate them and, most of all, make them live by their own rules. If you make them live by their own rules, you destroy them. And never forget that ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. Comedy is our friend. Throw the kitchen sink at them!” – from Saul Alinksy’s “Rules for Radical Comedians.”

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Alinsky

I never really had any insight into the pure comic genius of Saul Alinsky until I saw his new age Method followers display their considerable chops on the national stage. James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles, the Master’s ostentatious and envelope-pushing Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner-like proteges, whose hilarious ACORN skits also showed brilliant flashes of the late great Allen Funt. The Mysterious Mister X, the L.A. street comic who “Alinskyed” Faris Alkhateeb’s boredom-fueled Obama Joker art into an urban poster as devilishly humorous as Hannibal Lecter, also made as big a national splash as a 300-pound chub doing a cannonball into a crowded public kiddie pool. (more…)

Victoria Jackson

Fishy

by Victoria Jackson

I’m doing standup in Denver. Shelley is driving me from radio to radio to TV as I do the monkey dance at each station promoting the show, selling tickets. I don’t like this part of the job. I must answer the same 10 questions about Saturday Night Live and try to explain where I’ve been for the last fifteen years. All the DJ’s want are some juicy stories about celebrities. I don’t really have that many. I’m booked at two political talk stations, a rock station, a country station, and two local TV shows.  I guess that’s my demographic! Everyone! I ask Shelley why I’m booked on the political stations. She shrugs, “Well, we didn’t really know…isn’t that what you are doing now?” The first stop I’m told is a “just right of center” show, so I feel free to share my newest shocking information that the White House is asking us to “snitch’” on our friends and family. To report anything “fishy.” This news is so abhorrent to me that I could barely sleep the night before. I immediately emailed Andrew Breitbart to see if it was true. He said yes. I searched the hotel computer web to see if the big shots, the smart people have gotten on this. They were just starting to fight back. The news was so new. Well, at least this administration is entertaining…in a bad way. I’m watching a horror movie every day.

As I share the shocking information that our Freedom of Speech is being attacked, the radio host across from me, his face, it looks like he just ate a lemon. It’s all scrunched up like…he hates me. He abruptly cuts me off and ends my interview. I’m stupefied at the reaction of people who “just can’t handle the truth.” My driver Shelley is a liberal. She doesn’t say anything. As we get in the car I try to apologize, “Well, he asked me why I was a new political activist.  I guess I should just tell jokes.” I mean I have been hired basically to sell tickets to a bar where people will spend lots of money on alcohol. And, I do need to make some money. My husband is a cop. (more…)

Dave Konig

Think Pink

by Dave Konig


YouTube Dave Konig Roasts George Takei

As usual, Dick Cheney is right and Barack Obama is wrong.

It’s time to wave the pink flag and drop opposition to gay marriage.

I’ve changed my thinking on this one. Personally, I admit my opposition to gay marriage has always been on the same level as my opposition to the death penalty: I understand and appreciate the arguments against both intellectually – but in actual practice, I simply don’t lose any sleep over either. With the death penalty, I sympathize with moral opposition – but when a Ted Bundy takes that final ride on “Old Sparky” (or that final big sleep on “Old Lethal Injectiony”), my only real objection is that it isn’t televised. (more…)

Tim Slagle

Political Late Night Winners and Losers

by Tim Slagle

It had been about three weeks since my last Late Night review, so I thought the time was right. Wednesday Night, May 20, 2009, I reviewed: David LettermanJay Leno, Jimmy KimmelCraig Ferguson, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Fallon. I also took a look at the “Real Time with Bill Maher” from Friday May 19, and The season finale of Saturday Night Live.

Since my last review, we saw: A stand up comedy routine that was apparently gleaned from the mistaken assumption, that jokes about President Bush were standard Correspondent’s Dinner protocol. President Obama also announced his plan to save the auto companies by forcing them to raise their prices thirteen-hundred dollars (proving He has less business sense than the cartoon Wal-Mart slasher). He appeared on stage with a handful of people beholden to bailout money in a photo-op that looked very much like a hostage situation. Photographed on stage with Governors’ Granholm and Schwarzenegger, you had to guess which leader actually had a US birth certificate. He also broke his promises to end military tribunals, release the interrogation photos and suspend don’t ask don’t tell. He proved that He had as much problem speaking “Mexican,” as he has with “Austrian,” and promised to drastically slash the overdrawn budget by a whopping 1/2 of 1 %. (more…)

Burt Prelutsky

A Matter of Opinion

by Burt Prelutsky

According to my wife, I have a tendency to state my opinion as fact.  She suggests that I begin my sentences by saying “It’s only my opinion, but…” and go on from there.  It’s my opinion, however, that people already understand that it’s my opinion and that they share it if they’re smart, or don’t, if they’re not.  Furthermore, I don’t see my main function as a communicator to convince liberals, who are notoriously as blind as bats, to see the light, but to provide my fellow conservatives with ammunition to use against left-wingers and, whenever possible, to amuse. 


Gloria Steinem

In any case, in the spirit of compromise, let us pretend that each of the following paragraphs begins “It’s only my opinion, but…” 

When Gloria Steinem, who had been lionized by the ladies of NOW for her rather dumb remark about women needing men like fish needed bicycles, finally got married at the age of 66, I thought people should have sent her greeting cards complimenting her on having belatedly grown gills.  (more…)

Ace of Spades

Letterman vs. O’Reilly (and Limbaugh, and the Republican Party, and the War on Terror…)

by Ace of Spades

Kids, you might not believe me, but there was once a point when Dave Letterman was considered funny.

You know what really destroyed Letterman for me? For years Letterman coasted on the same gag — “Look at how much precious network time I’m wasting with comedy bits intended to go nowhere and provide zero entertainment to the audience.”

Now, the thing of it was, we, the loyal Letterman audience, thought we were in on the joke. We laughed along with Dave as he wasted our time, because we were digging that he was also wasting the network’s time. All those “found comedy” moments that yielded nothing but awkward silence and stilted interaction with deli owners. (more…)

Chris Stigall

Remember When SNL Was Funny? (Obama Ushers in New Era of Comedic Irresponsibility)

by Chris Stigall

Everyone knows the old axiom about comedy.  There’s always a grain of truth in that which an audience finds funny.  Done well, comedy can make you squirm with its raw honesty.  It has the power to inform our perspectives about politics and news just as any good journalist.  Comedy helps provide insight into human flaws just as any good psychologist.   Often self-deprecating and socially awkward, comedians themselves will deny their impact.  Most comedians and writers prefer to think of themselves as lovable class clowns laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.  Just as former NBA star Charles Barkley once famously proclaimed he was no role model, many in the funny business will dismiss their impact in the hearts and minds of their audience.

Modesty, however, cannot dismiss a growing body of evidence that suggests comedians possess greater power than ever before when shaping the national debate.   Notably in the last decade, television comedy has amassed an influence in politics to such and extent; nary a high profile politician can ignore its impact and resist the pull to participate.   Numerous studies have been conducted through the years analyzing the staggering impact of comedy in the opinions and perceptions of its audience.  The power is particularly significant with the country’s attention-short youth.  (more…)

Steve Mason

Summit scores a nice hit with KNOWING, which could reach $60M domestic, while I LOVE YOU, MAN has a shot at $70M in the US!

by Steve Mason

It was another good weekend for Summit Entertainment. The distributor behind last year’s meteoric hit Twilight has scored a solid hit with the Alex Proyas-directed Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage. Despite shaky word-of-mouth and negative reviews, the sci-fi thriller got a solid 9% bump on Saturday for a $9.7M second day, and it will likely finish its opening weekend with a possible $24.8M.

As a production company, Summit is responsible for some monster hits, including commercially and/or artistically successful films like Once (Oscar nominee for Best Picture), American Pie ($102..5M domestic), Memento (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay: Chris Nolan), Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($186.3M domestic) and In the Valley of Ellah (Tommy Lee Jones nominated for Best Actor). But as a distributor, they got off to a slow start. (more…)

Steve Mason

KNOWING grabs $8.95M Friday & targets $23.2M weekend, but word-of-mouth may push I LOVE YOU, MAN to $70M domestic; DUPLICITY gets a only a C from CinemaScore!

by Steve Mason

Early box office returns are pointing to a weekend win for Knowing from Summit, but I will put my money on I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) to generate more in US ticket sales over the long haul. The Nicolas Cage sci-fi thriller has grabbed an estimated $8.95M to start the weekend, and it will likely finish at $24M or so. That is, unless word-of-mouth catches up to it first.

Will reviews and word-of-mouth catch up to KNOWING?

Will reviews and word-of-mouth catch up to KNOWING?

Reviews for Knowing, written and directed by Alex Proyas, the inventive filmmaker behind the visually striking 1998 film Dark City and the 2004 Will Smith mega-hit I, Robot, has received overwhelmingly negative reviews (25% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but thanks to Twitter, real-time movie-goer reactions spread like wildfire. Here are some Tweets I just grabbed off the social networking platform.

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Steve Mason

KNOWING is favored to win the weekend, but is I LOVE YOU, MAN poised for an upset?

by Steve Mason

For the last few weeks, Summit’s Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, has appeared to be the likely winner of the upcoming box office weekend. But, my sources tell me that I Love You, Man, the new comedy starring Paul Rudd (Role Models) and Jason Segal (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) has surged in the latest pre-release industry tracking.


In the spirit of March Madness, I’m calling for the upset. I Love You, Man may not actually be a Judd Apatow movie, but it sure does look like one in trailers and commercials. The movie reportedly “rocked the house” at the South By South West Festival last week, and the buzz is very positive. I am calling for $21.5M, which would be above industry expectations.

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Steve Mason

Audiences RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN on Saturday as The Rock’s new family film targets $25M start & $85M domestic, but WATCHMEN is now headed for no more than $110M in the US!

by Steve Mason

As expected Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain enjoyed a huge Saturday surge for just over $11M in tickets sold, and the reboot of the 70’s franchise will finish with about $25M for the 3-day. Overall, Race posted the year’s seventh-best Saturday performance.

TOP 10 SATURDAY GROSSES IN 2009
1. March 7 – Watchmen – $18.3M
2. February 21 – Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail – $16.6M
3. February 14 – Friday the Thirteenth – $14.3M
4. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $13.2M
5. January 10 – Gran Torino – $12.1M
6. January 31 – Taken – $11.65M
7. March 14 - Race To Witch Mountain – $11M (estimated)
8. February 7 – He’s Just Not That Into You – $10.9M
9. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $10M
10. January 17 – Gran Torino – $10M
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Steve Mason

Wrestler-turned-movie star Dwayne Johnson leads RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN to a $24.25M opening, while WATCHMEN plummets 71%!

by Steve Mason

As Watchmen (Warner Bros) falls, “The Rock” appears to be racing to a weekend win. Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, is off to a solid start with $6.8M or so on opening day, and, with its expected surge in family matinee audiences on Saturday and Sunday, it will likely triumph with a possible $24.25M.

Meanwhile last weekend’s winner Watchmen staggered to a second Friday of only $5.4M or so, and I am projecting only $15.75M for the 3-day. That marks a 71% drop. Anything over $20M would have been acceptable, but the bottom has fallen out of this movie, and it will now struggle to reach $100M domestic. When the foreign and DVD are added, it may make a small profit, but it will likely be negligible. The superstitious might suggest that Watchmen writer Alan Moore’s alleged curse may be to blame, but the reality is that word-of-mouth has been more negative than for any movie in recent memory.

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Steve Mason

WITCH MOUNTAIN could “Rock” WATCHMEN for surprising weekend win!

by Steve Mason

One of the coolest ways to use the social networking platform Twitter is to find out what people are thinking, saying and Twittering about in real time. Here’s a small sampling of Tweets from the opening weekend of Watchmen (Warner Bros).

The Watchmen = Epic fail!

If you haven’t seen The Watchmen yet, I’d urge you to read the graphic novel first. Well, actually, I’d urge you to JUST read the GN. lol.

Watchmen.undecided,confused as superhero film with

very little superhero action.Convoluted story,but overall watchable. My opinion only

I was bored while watching Watchmen

Just got out of Watchmen…. Ouch, would spend the 9 quid on – can’t even find the humour, brain switched off 1 hour into the 3- BIG YAWN (more…)

Alexander Marlow

South Park Goes Where SNL Refuses

by Alexander Marlow

Tonight is one of the best nights of the year: The premiere of the 13th season of “South Park.”  I consider myself one of America’s foremost “South Park” scholars and if I had to sum up the reason I love the show, it would be this: it spares no one.  Take last season’s “About Last Night…” episode about Obama’s electoral victory–Obama, Palin, McCain, McCain supporters, and Obamaites are all evenly trashed.  In South Park, satire trumps politics.  Since 1997, “South Park” has been America’s safest bet for the splendid fusion of irreverence and insight.

They took up that mantle from “Saturday Night Live,” which now offers us neither. (more…)