Saturday Night (Live) Housecleaning

Saturday Night Live @ 36

 

Season debut. Oh yes, I knew Poehler would not disappoint. Although didn't she look just a wee bit nervous during the opening? Then imagine the butterfly garden other hosts‘ tummies must be when the clock moves from 11:29 to 11:30 p.m.

But seeing NBC advertising “Outsourced” while Amy Poehler is hosting? Kind of like seeing some douchebag brag about his skanky new wife when his former, fantastic wife is standing right there.

I loved the gay wedding at Ground Zero mosque bit ("20 percent discount for the military"). Or maybe I just loved the idea of how apoplectic some people would get at the real thing.

"The kids'll come for the boobs and stay for the books." Thanks for addressing the Sesame Street controversy. (Altho' what would Leslie Knope think of Amy saying nice things about punkass book jockeys?)

However, let’s not get too overjoyed. I think a lot of what was good in this episode was an Amy influence. I don't hold as much hope for episodes hosted by non-SNL veterans. Not while the show is still dominated by some of the cast who've been there too many moons.

Which brings me to this -- After the almost complete and utter disaster of the last 1.5 seasons, wouldn‘t a radical housecleaning have been a wonderful shock? Sure, they’ve garnered some publicity already with a stellar set of fall guest hosts. After Poehler Cranston, Lynch and Hamm are now on the menu.

But you can‘t keep nursing the show along with good guests being forced to do bad material, or incessant cameos from former favorite cast members. Who only remind us of wonderfulness past.

Dump a couple more old-timers and let the raw newbies take over right away. What’s with this acting like you need to slowly integrate them into the environment?

Once upon a time Aykroyd, Radner, Curtin, etc. not only went on the air without a chance to break in gradually, they were working without a template. They were creating the template. And it was brilliant.

Give the newbies major airtime. Get some fresh blood in the writers room. Find a way to keep the stale long-termers otherwise occupied. Maybe send ’em out to make some SNL movie. (And hey, you know the punch line to that thought.)

The Other AmyP(oehler)

In honor of Amy Poehler (or as I call her, The OtherAmyP) hosting SNL this weekend, a few of my fave Poehler bits.

"I don't know your life, bitch." 

"I want 50 dollars worth of "circus tickets."

You're a tickety-tack tranny hot mess out-of-control super tranny from Transylvania who’se not apologizing for it.”

And I've probably posted it before, and I know I've said it before, but The Shooting of the Moose, and everything else about the Palin rap, will never not be funny. (Although, if you can track down the "I'm No Angel" sketch from the same, Josh Brolin, episode - equally as hilarious.)

FIERCE!

The Weekend of Weird Outfits & Who Got What? Golden Globes & Figure Skating Championships

Bling, Bling, Bling
This weekend I was overwhelmingly bedazzled - and sometimes due to actual performances. Let's put it this way - any actress who's being panned for her choice of high or low coture at the Golden Globes need only check out Johnny Weir's free skate outfit. She will feel much better about herself.

Gold Medals and Golden Globes
These strange few days included trying to monitor:

Two sets of figure skating national championships - the prelude to the Winter Olympics, and

That fluffiest of Hollywood self-congratulatory events - the Golden Globes. Which are supposedly a prelude to the Oscars. Yawn.

It's all a blur at this point. Did Ryan Bradley win the Best Supporting Actor in a Musical or Comedy? Did Drew Barrymore and Justin Long win the Pairs event? 


 I do know this - the Golden Globes broadcast did not win best Short Program. Gawd.


Some Globes You Got

The movie-star laden Globes also tosses a few bones to the supposedly lesser (but often greater) TV lineup. My primary interest.  (And by the way, feck you, movie stars who couldn't be bothered to even applaud for the TV show nominees and winners. We saw you, and we took names.)

As an event, it's the Hostess Twinkies of television. Occasionally you like to indulge in something so frothy and unfullfilling. But after awhile you get a little sick.

But I'm glad Ricky Gervais thinks he's so funny -that makes one of us with that opinion.

Making the Team
When the GGs rolled around Sunday evening I was still recuperating from three days of US and Canadian skating events.


Miracle of miracles, a few standout performances revived my sadly flagging interest in the art/sport/occasional farce of skating. I'm back on Team Jeremy and Team Joannie (Rochette) for their work in winning the US Men's and Canadian Ladies crown, respectively.


Jeremy Abbott's 2010 Nationals Freeskate

And then there are the incomparable Virtue and Moir. You could OD on this OD, feel compelled to watch their Compulsory and freely watch the Free Skate for hours.They Are Magic. The Best. The End.

Abbott and Tessa and Scott grew up elsewhere but now train in Detroit. We are happy to take credit for them.

And now a couple days rest before more rich people patting themselves on the back (the Screen Actors Guild awards) and the divas of American dance and lady skaters take the ice for U.S. Nationals, Part the Second.

Your Favorite Non-PC Olympic Figure Skaters

 (As always buoys and gulls, remember to click back to this page after going to a link.)

 Ah, figure skaters. Some of them are just a wee bit isolated from the world’s realities.

I rather dislike these contemporary Russian dancers anyway, so here for your bug-eyed WTF viewing “pleasure” is Domnina & Shabalin‘s 2010 Original Dance. 

She said she picked the music after her new dog ran around the room upon hearing it.

I think her dog’s a racist.

Shades of Alexei Yagudin in 1997.

I'll give them a benefit of the doubt and assume it was just a cultural misunderstanding thing.

"These freaks are leeching the dignity from our beloved sport."






Then of course, there’s drag.

‘Cos ha-ha there’s nothing funnier than a guy dressing like a woman.

And we won’t even get into flip side-  guys trying-too-hard-to-prove-they’re-straight.

Figure skating, I keeed because I luurve you.

Not as much as I used to, but that’s thanks to your crappy new judging system and same old cheating judges.

Oh dear, to cleanse our palate, how about a little of the exquisite Yu Na Kim (or Kim Yu Na), who is a class act. With a capital C. (As opposed to a capital K ...KK.)

09 Fall TV Season & The Good Olde Days

As I wrote elsewhere, I'm either A) A fussy/ bitter old curmudgeon or B) A high-minded aesthete/ cognoscente/ other fancy-schmancy French words.

But I'm just not feeling the love for any new shows this fall 2009.

Some people are raving about “Modern Family.” I sampled a few minutes of it and went away "meh." I liked the Robert Sawyer book that "Flash Forward" is based on. But I wasn't super-enthused about the series pilot (which bears little resemblance to the novel anyway).

I saw Community's pilot during a special Facebook promotion weeks ago - also underwhelmed. (Although this week's preview did give me an LOL moment.)

Meanwhile, though, my affection for Amy Poehler, and now some of the other characters on Parks and Rec has made me stick with that show - despite the fact I'm not a fan of the Office-style of dry humor or of mockumentaries. (And I’m looking forward to 30R & Better Off Ted’s returns, natch.)

Speaking of P & R/ The Office, I can remember in a screenwriting class years ago being told flashbacks were a no-no. Then sitcoms did it for laughs and LOST did it for intensive backstory (or the occasional unintentional laugh?). And now mockumentaries AND flashbacks are the thing these days. But an old-fashioned part of my brain still says they’re both a lazy way of storytelling.

What I really have loved most in TV history were the hour-long hybrids like Moonlighting and Northern Exposure. (But thanks Sarah Palin for more recently ruining my vision of Alaska as a funky utopia.) What happened to those kind of shows? Oh yes, there’s still a lot of pretenders to that throne. But Castle? Desperate Housewives? Just lacking something for me.

I know - go write your own. And I certainly am working on my own projects. But it’s hard to come up with a sample script for a current series, hourlong, when you can’t quite jell with anything out there.

Waaah. Tiny violin. Shut up and write.

Yes, Someone Has Already Called It Saturday Night Dead

SNL is one of the longest relationships I've ever had. We've grown up and are growing, um, older, together.

I'm old enough to recall my frustration over not being able to get the show in certain Michigan towns when it first when on.

To remember how truly different it was, and to have nearly worshipped some of the first, vaunted cast.

To remember the night the last of the OC walked off the stage and out the door together. To have corresponded with one of the early writers. To have owned probably the first book ever written about it.

And on through the decades - to have stuck with it in the Doumanian year. (My reward: Having seen the Charles Rocket incident live. Oh what a handsome, troubled man he was.)

Through all the years that are a blur now, of You look mahvelouses and Dieters, Ed Grimleys and Mangos, all the various incarnations of Clintons and Bushes. And I remember strongly how much I disliked the smug Spade/Sandler years. And any of the "stars" whose main claim to fame seems to be wildly laughing at the own sketches: Fallon, Thompson, etc.

Like so many others, I refocused on the show during the '08 elections. Hulu, I'm about 100 of those hits for the Palin rap and Fey/Poehler cold opens.

But then SaturdayNight Live lost steam again the minute those two ladies were back out the door. But I let forth another burst of snarks when Michaela Watkins was fired. She just showed promise, true enough, but that was more than what half the curernt cast was actually delivering.

So SNL, I kvetch 'cos I care. And while I'm kvetching, I can't help also snarking about us snarkers. So to reprint what I said on Gawker (http://tinyurl.com/ycfjppv)
here's the shorthand guide for everything we have to say (and say and say again) about SNL:

Standardized Responses for SNL Threads.
1. SNL is still on?
2. I might have to watch this SNL sometime.
3. SNL hasn't been funny since _____ (insert name) was president.
4. The Tina Fey era was the (Choose one:) Best/ Worst.
5. (Canadians/Brits/Aussies:) You Americans can't say Fuck on the telly?
6. (Me, other Oldes:) Jane Curtin/ Dan Aykroyd - now there was a Weekend Update.
7. And I remember when Charles Rocket said Fuck. I got on my Commodore computer and typed a letter about it.