Of sketches, Hugh Laurie and 'SNL'
There was an unexpected, inspired moment during this weekend’s edition of "Saturday Night Live."
The musical guest was Beck, whose band, during the second musical number, sat at a table set with plates, glasses and silverware. Pounding on the table and using dinnerware as percussion, the band did an entrancing version of the song “Clap Hands” while Beck played a small brown guitar. Puppets at the side of the stage played along on a tiny table of their own.
As for the rest of the show, well, I’ll be kind to host Hugh Laurie. Laurie’s no stranger to comedy - in fact, the “House” star’s career in England was largely built on his work in the classic “Blackadder” series and other British comedies. Always the trouper, Laurie brought a deftness and game energy to the skits in which he performed.
In his witty monologue, Laurie promised plenty of English “humour”: “When I say humour, I mean overly elaborate puns that may take you days to understand, with very little payoff.” There would be many skits about bad teeth, plus copious rain and the saying of “by Jove” and “jolly good.”
That didn’t turn out to be quite true. Not only were there no “by Jove” moments, there wasn’t even a sketch parodying “House,” which, despite the fact that it’s one of the best programs on TV, presents plenty of juicy opportunities for satire.
Even a moderate fan of “House” could have come up with a scenario in which cranky House made withering comments while Dr. Cameron made googly eyes at him and Dr. Cuddy marched in wearing a low-cut blouse and telling House “No!” every time he opened his mouth.
Maybe Laurie didn’t want to do a “House” sketch, but it was a glaring missed opportunity. And it’s not as though anything else on the program was any better than even a moderately inspired “House” parody would have been.
The only real high points of the broadcast were Laurie’s monologue, a funny folk-song parody performed by the host, Beck’s music and an opening skit starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Kazakhstan’s roving reporter, Borat, who promoted his upcoming film with some rude and fairly funny jokes. (Executive producer Lorne Michaels explained in the show’s first minutes that NBC budget cuts had forced him to sell portions of “SNL” to foreign governments.)
Do you notice a pattern there? None of the even mildly memorable moments of the broadcast came from the show’s regular cast, which recently survived a round of budget cuts that reduced the roster of players to 11.
Perhaps more budget cuts are in order. Quick: Name a sketch Jason Sudeikis has been in. Yeah, I can’t either.
The mostly tepid remaining “Saturday Night Live” cast does have some standout performers: Amy Poehler is wonderful even in sub-par sketches, and her recent Nancy Grace imitation captured that anchor’s condescending monstrousness perfectly. Fred Armisen is also a freakishly good mimic, as an “Ugly Betty” parody a couple of weeks ago proved. The underused Kenan Thompson and Maya Rudolph always put a twist on the delivery of their lines that makes the material better than it is on the page.
Though Darrell Hammond is rock-solid -- to the extent that next week’s episode is a “best-of” compilation of Hammond’s work -- his Bill Clinton and Chris Matthews imitations, while spot-on, feel shopworn thanks to overuse.
The fact is, the “Get a Mac” commercial that aired in the first half of the broadcast, in which the feuding Mac and PC characters got couples’ counseling, was funnier than any of the skits that aired Saturday. As for the show itself, the very first sketch of the night involved the repeated broadcast of a fart -- and I mean repeated many, many times. It was a depressing indication of where the writers’ ambitions lay.
At least Tina Fey had the good sense to leave the show after last season (and boy, does “Weekend Update” miss her. It’s astonishing that the week before the mid-term elections, the show’s political humor, in “Update” and the rest of the show, was so toothless and predictable).
“30 Rock,” Fey’s new sitcom, and “Studio 60,” both of which concern sketch-comedy shows and both of which are struggling creatively and in the ratings, have amply demonstrated that the creation of skits is just not that interesting, at least as depicted on TV.
“30 Rock,” which moves to a new NBC Thursday comedy block Nov. 16, is making tentative steps toward quality character-driven comedy, through the increasingly savvy use of network executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and naive page Kenneth (Jack McBrayer).
We saw no such memorable characters on Saturday night. Competent imitations of famous people, jokes about flatulence, tired stereotypes (via a pair of tracksuit-clad, gay New Jersey wiseguys during a “Weekend Update” segment) and Hugh Laurie in a dress (an aside; the man has killer gams) do not great comedy make. And Will Forte’s unfunny contribution to “Update,” in the guise of a frightened politician, stopped the broadcast cold.
The ambition of those behind the current version of “Saturday Night Live” appears to be: Let’s fill out the 90 minutes somehow and get to the afterparty. It’s too bad some talented performers are trapped in this bland, predictable muddle.
The musical guest was Beck, whose band, during the second musical number, sat at a table set with plates, glasses and silverware. Pounding on the table and using dinnerware as percussion, the band did an entrancing version of the song “Clap Hands” while Beck played a small brown guitar. Puppets at the side of the stage played along on a tiny table of their own.
As for the rest of the show, well, I’ll be kind to host Hugh Laurie. Laurie’s no stranger to comedy - in fact, the “House” star’s career in England was largely built on his work in the classic “Blackadder” series and other British comedies. Always the trouper, Laurie brought a deftness and game energy to the skits in which he performed.
In his witty monologue, Laurie promised plenty of English “humour”: “When I say humour, I mean overly elaborate puns that may take you days to understand, with very little payoff.” There would be many skits about bad teeth, plus copious rain and the saying of “by Jove” and “jolly good.”
That didn’t turn out to be quite true. Not only were there no “by Jove” moments, there wasn’t even a sketch parodying “House,” which, despite the fact that it’s one of the best programs on TV, presents plenty of juicy opportunities for satire.
Even a moderate fan of “House” could have come up with a scenario in which cranky House made withering comments while Dr. Cameron made googly eyes at him and Dr. Cuddy marched in wearing a low-cut blouse and telling House “No!” every time he opened his mouth.
Maybe Laurie didn’t want to do a “House” sketch, but it was a glaring missed opportunity. And it’s not as though anything else on the program was any better than even a moderately inspired “House” parody would have been.
The only real high points of the broadcast were Laurie’s monologue, a funny folk-song parody performed by the host, Beck’s music and an opening skit starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Kazakhstan’s roving reporter, Borat, who promoted his upcoming film with some rude and fairly funny jokes. (Executive producer Lorne Michaels explained in the show’s first minutes that NBC budget cuts had forced him to sell portions of “SNL” to foreign governments.)
Do you notice a pattern there? None of the even mildly memorable moments of the broadcast came from the show’s regular cast, which recently survived a round of budget cuts that reduced the roster of players to 11.
Perhaps more budget cuts are in order. Quick: Name a sketch Jason Sudeikis has been in. Yeah, I can’t either.
The mostly tepid remaining “Saturday Night Live” cast does have some standout performers: Amy Poehler is wonderful even in sub-par sketches, and her recent Nancy Grace imitation captured that anchor’s condescending monstrousness perfectly. Fred Armisen is also a freakishly good mimic, as an “Ugly Betty” parody a couple of weeks ago proved. The underused Kenan Thompson and Maya Rudolph always put a twist on the delivery of their lines that makes the material better than it is on the page.
Though Darrell Hammond is rock-solid -- to the extent that next week’s episode is a “best-of” compilation of Hammond’s work -- his Bill Clinton and Chris Matthews imitations, while spot-on, feel shopworn thanks to overuse.
The fact is, the “Get a Mac” commercial that aired in the first half of the broadcast, in which the feuding Mac and PC characters got couples’ counseling, was funnier than any of the skits that aired Saturday. As for the show itself, the very first sketch of the night involved the repeated broadcast of a fart -- and I mean repeated many, many times. It was a depressing indication of where the writers’ ambitions lay.
At least Tina Fey had the good sense to leave the show after last season (and boy, does “Weekend Update” miss her. It’s astonishing that the week before the mid-term elections, the show’s political humor, in “Update” and the rest of the show, was so toothless and predictable).
“30 Rock,” Fey’s new sitcom, and “Studio 60,” both of which concern sketch-comedy shows and both of which are struggling creatively and in the ratings, have amply demonstrated that the creation of skits is just not that interesting, at least as depicted on TV.
“30 Rock,” which moves to a new NBC Thursday comedy block Nov. 16, is making tentative steps toward quality character-driven comedy, through the increasingly savvy use of network executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and naive page Kenneth (Jack McBrayer).
We saw no such memorable characters on Saturday night. Competent imitations of famous people, jokes about flatulence, tired stereotypes (via a pair of tracksuit-clad, gay New Jersey wiseguys during a “Weekend Update” segment) and Hugh Laurie in a dress (an aside; the man has killer gams) do not great comedy make. And Will Forte’s unfunny contribution to “Update,” in the guise of a frightened politician, stopped the broadcast cold.
The ambition of those behind the current version of “Saturday Night Live” appears to be: Let’s fill out the 90 minutes somehow and get to the afterparty. It’s too bad some talented performers are trapped in this bland, predictable muddle.
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