Promos for this weekend’s SNL with Jim Carrey are out! Jason Sudeikis joins him backstage for these spots, which couldn’t have taken more than 5 minutes to shoot (or conceive):
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Nevertheless, we’re still excited. And if these promos are an indication that we’re going to see a fair amount of Carrey-Sudeikis collaboration, then we’ll be in good shape.
Now the question is, does Carrey do any of his classic characters? It’s unlikely he’d reprise anyone from his last hosting stint in ’96, with that entire cast long gone. But perhaps the time is right for a return to Fire Marshall Bill. Or maybe Ace Ventura. Or, as Mark McKinney did in Carrey’s first go ’round, maybe someone else in the cast will impersonate of Carrey (let’s see you do that one, Jay Pharoah). OR none of the above. So many options!
Our old pal Eliot Glazer recently alerted us to the virtual treasure trove of classic Saturday Night Live episodes that can now be found on Netflix Instant Watch. In fact, they’ve made available nearly every episode of the show from its tumultuous 35 year history (although, it should be noted that episodes only feature “selected” sketches, and the musical performances have been excised for obvious licensing reasons). Upon learning of this bounty, what was of most interest to us were two seasons in particular. The first was the 10th Season, which boasted Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer (and an opening credit sequence that inexplicably contained giant flying hot dogs); basically a group of ringers brought into the save the show after the departure of budding superstar Eddie Murphy (and, to a lesser extent, the exit of soon-to-be-punchline Joe Piscopo). The second season we were most curious about was the subsequent year, in which Lorne Michaels returned to the show after a five year absence and replaced the seasoned veterans with a group comprised mostly of young novices, including Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey, Jr. and Joan Cusack. The show suffered dismal ratings and a critical beating, but since it staved off cancellation and experienced a renaissance the following season with the arrival of Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Jan Hooks and Kevin Nealon, the 11th Season has become something of a footnote in SNL history. However, after years of darkness, we can finally shed a light on this forgotten season.
And what did we find upon closer inspection? You bet, an episode from April of 1986 hosted Mr. Tony Danza, who was just beginning to earn the greatest praise of his career for his early work in Who’s the Boss?* Clearly though, Danza was not meant for sketch comedy, as his Russian accent in one sketch is just barely perceptible for much of the scene, and absent for the rest of it. Much like in his roles on Taxi and Who’s the Boss?, Tony just can’t help being Tony, and his genuine upbeat, gregarious, often laughable, personality shines through no matter what character he attempts to portray. Which is why inserting Dazna in this boxing sketch was a smart move. Just like the producers of Taxi recognized, it’s best not to let “Tony” stray too far from Tony. And then on top of Danza doing what he does best, and what comes naturally, you have Anthony Michael Hall probably turning in his finest work since The Breakfast Club (until 1988’s Johnny Be Good,** of course).
Hard to believe that scrawny little guy turned out like this.
*We’re making this up and assume it to not be true.
Very, very, excited about today’s entry. Many thanks to whomever searched for today’s term, because it’s allowed us to post one of our favorite scenes from Community, and also one of our favorite scenes from anything ever. Today, more than a week after Christmas, we were gifted the words “anthony michael hall community.” The fact that it’s a holiday clip makes it all the more perfect.
Anthony Michael Hall with a mustache. A brawl in fake snow. Chevy throwing punches indiscriminately. Florence + the Machine. Can’t do much better than that.
But we’re going to try! As a bonus, here’s a clip of Anthony Michael Hall from his ill-fated stint on the ill-fated tenth season of SNL (along with Robert Downey, Jr! Also ill-fated!):
To this day we consider Jim Carrey’s May 1996 hosting turn as the best SNL of our generation (with perhaps Alec Baldwin’s November 2006 hosting appearance as the strongest since, but certainly not better), so it was with great excitement that we learned that Carrey will be returning after almost 15 years to host the first SNL of 2011. Set your DVRs for 11:30pm on January 8, kids. If anyone could pull SNL out of its doldrums, it might be Carrey (although, the NBC website might want to get his name spelled name right).
And if you were directed to this site after searching for “foot fetish,” we’re sorry to disappoint. But you’re certainly welcome to look around and enjoy our many Muppet posts, which, now that we think about it, might still work for some of you.
Which isn’t to say that it was all bad. It wasn’t. It was a definite improvement over the previous three shows.
But that isn’t to say it was good either. Very hit and miss, both between sketches and within sketches. But for this show, at this point, average is above average, and we’ll take anything positive to close out SNL in 2010.
And what was positive, you ask? Well you really can’t beat this, putting together our two probably favorite characters of the year, Gov. David Paterson and Stefon:
It’s been five days and yet we still have a bad taste in our mouth after last week’s ‘SNL’ hosted by Paul McCartney with a special appearance by Paul Rudd. We understand that Paul McCartney is special, even the British monarchy has acknowledged that. There are stars, and there are mega-stars, and then there are supernovas. McCartney is the latter. However, we still believe that ‘SNL’ shouldn’t have been so much about him, and his presence struck us a somewhat selfish booking, designed to provide more pleasure for the cast and crew than the audience at home. This sentiment was only driven home when Paul Rudd remarked on ‘Live! With Regis and Kelly’ that (no surprise) after the show McCartney stuck around to play an impromptu private concert. Rudd was obviously still in awe of the moment, noting that he’s “a massive Beatles fan, like everyone.” But we’re not massive Beatles fans, and even if we were, we wonder if we’d be interested in McCartney’s other works, like the songs he played for his first two ‘SNL’ sets. So that got us thinking, do people really care about hearing Paul McCartney play anything but Beatles songs? Do they just tolerate McCartney in hopes that he’ll break out the Beatles catalog? Or do they genuinely enjoy the cuts from Wings and his solo stuff? So to get more clarity on this question, we turned to our guest blogger-in-residence and Beatles aficionado Kieran Walsh, in our latest Kieran’s Korner:
Wow. Lead me into a minefield, why don’t you?
It’s not an easy question. It’s not an easy answer. Gosh… Well, let’s do this.
Jumped The Snark 