Saturday Night Live

Destroy: The writing staff.

Now *that's* funny.

I hate Jimmy Fallon.

D: Jaret's Room, Mango, Adam Sa...I mean, Jimmy Fallon's guitar parodies

I think Jimmy Fallon is rather funny, but not nearly as funny (nor original) as he seems to think he is.

Actually, I think the plight of SNL is that they have some extremely talented cast members, but don't have the solid writing to back it up like in some days of yore. There are sporadic bits of amazingly funny stuff ("I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!"), but it's just not SOLID.

Weekend Update is awful, sorry. There's no bite to the jokes. they seem happily surprised if a joke does well, and if it doesn't they lean reaaaal hard on the "it's not funny; isn't that funny!?" thing that is the death-knell of television comedy (cf Johnny Carson, Conan's monologue)

Everyone keeps banging on about SNL and I've never seen it - indeed, living in the UK with no Sky means I probably never will. Is there like a SNL Best Of DVD around? Or should I not bother - is it over-hyped rubbish?

I liked the bit about Larry David. The part with him and Dick Ebersol standing by the elevator sounded just like something out of "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

make talk about the old snl. converse about the dim bulb sketch.

The M'OD bio "Mr Mike" is worth a read. He bitched when the original cast started to do recurring characters, cuz he thought that was too much like Carol Burnett etc.

the writers' terror of offending anyone makes most of the sketches heavily dependent on unfunny gimmicks and repetition, much like conan o'brien's show these days.

(i ACTUALLY roffled the first time i saw this sketch)

-- joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 25 May 2005 04:22 (2 years ago) Link

was actually bumping thread to say i have a crush of shame on kristin wiig

why shame?

maybe shame bc she's totally annoying?

yeah, that

shes kinda horsey too

i dunno i used to get real madtv vibes & think she was really untalented but now i kinda think shes the funniest person on the show

she never tina fey

This is kind of blowing up? People are saying it's the best political sketch they've done in years. It kept popping up on my FB feed yesterday with shares by what's left of my friends, and that never happens with SNL stuff anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wQhY5CMMl4

ALSO: Ashley Padilla is <a beast>

It had his moments. I just thought it was weird to have it as one of the first (the first?) sketches when the host is a total non-entity in it. He had some decent moments in sketches later on, just seemed weird. Maybe somebody thought this was "important" enough.

Anyway, put me in the pro-Jane camp. It's ok that she isn't known for spot-on impressions or incredible range. She's funny regardless. The luge vid was great.

it's a great sketch, but primarily because Ashley Padilla sells it so well with her delivery. She's the star of the show at this point, but that was obvious to me from one of her very first sketches last year, 'four gorgeous dogs'.

I think Jane Wickline is funny, people who complain about her are dumb

ashley padilla is very funny, and i agree that the trump mom sketch would be nothing without her delivery. do you think she feels bad that they automatically cast her as the middle-aged mom in every sketch that requires a middle-aged mom? she's only 32! which is probably older than most of the rest of the cast, but still.

i don't watch every sketch from every episode but does jane wickline ever do anything other than sing songs on weekend update and play a boring supporting character in sketches

Not really but I think she is good in those roles

Ashley Padilla got to do a horny-flirty thing on WU so maybe that balances things out

all i have seen of this show recently was a screenshot of keenan dressed like an ICE agent in tactical gear, all i needed to confirm that i can indeed keep ignoring this show

Padilla is actually good at acting, so she's kind of in the Jane Curtain/Jan Hooks/Ana Gasteyer/Amy Poehler vein, I suppose

Watched for the first time in a few years last night--hubby wanted to see Conner Storrie--and if this is typical, this show is even more dire these days than I suspected. Not only were none of the sketches funny, I couldn't even figure why they were supposed to be funny. The Trump stuff was pitiful.

Didn't recognize 2/3 of the cast, who I am un no way trashing, as they are clearly giving it their all.

The last sketch of the show with Storrie as a male stripper who'd been hit by a car on the way to the gig had a lot of great physical comedy. using a toilet plunger as a prop was a nice touch of the absurd. not much else was good but that one got big laughs in our house.

^^Apparently a sketch brought to the show from Storrie himself from when he took classes at the Groundlings.

Hah, I just saw the tourette's sketch. They stole our jokes from the Kanye West thread!

I thought this episode was really funny and Storrie is a great comic actor. I guess if you don't get the jokes, you don't get them. But this season in general has been way better than expected.

also the Trump cold open was funny again after getting really tired.

The stripper sketch was the highlight of a bad batch, I'll give it that much. Cool that it was Storrie's own sketch.

I just saw the tourette's sketch

was this online? it must have been cut for time as there wasn't one in the broadcast

There was a gag in Weekend Update, if that's what you meant.

Nah, a cut for time sketch they added to the rest of the show on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKb3K8cxss

that is funnier than almost anything that made the show and edgier than they usually allow skits to be, so I wonder if it got cut for that reason. glad they put it out online though

That was def better. Pretty weak episode. Shame, he gave it a good go. I can't help but being a fan of Connor. He was so good in Heated Rivalry, didn't know what he was like until after the show was done, only to see his musical theater tween youtube clips.

He's also good in a bad movie called Riley. Fortunately, I suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of him, so there's no reason at all to seek that out.

I don’t see either joker movies and probably won’t ever big apparently he has a small but important role. He’s got a future for sure. He was so good in Heated Rivalry.

I thought this was an OK ep of SNL. I haven't seen Heated Rivalry so I'm not familiar with Connor Story - but I appreciated that he really threw himself into the job of being host, even for the sketches that weren't that funny. You certainly can't blame him for anything that didn't work.

Nice Vulture piece on Ashley Padilla: https://archive.ph/2026.03.02-151121/https://www.vulture.com/article/ashley-padilla-snl-encounter.html

I had no idea SNL was launching a UK edition.

Not everyone happy with the Tourette’s sketch. https://variety.com/2026/tv/global/snl-baftas-tourettes-sketch-slammed-charity-horrific-trolling-1236676593/

They ain't wrong.

Yeah i can't watch it all thru but fuck 'em

Spilling Your Seed bloopers & outtakes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YopZi2toOw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yI1Lzi1ufOQ

https://variety.com/2026/tv/global/snl-uk-review-strong-british-comedy-format-too-american-1236696192/

I don't have sky, but from the bits of this that have made it into the internet, it looks better than I was expecting? 'Guy doing a Keir Starmer impression nervous about having to deal with Trump' is pretty much exactly what I was pictured when imagining the bad version of this, so that literally being the opening wasn't encouraging, but it seems mostly ok. I think a lot of people in the UK were rooting for this to be an epoch making catastrophe, British remake of a famous US comedy show is really the perfect combination to simultaneously trigger the country's superiority and inferiority complexes

I made it partway through that UK 'cold opening' and it was pretty dire.

thank goodness I can finally agree with you on something ;p

The cold open was kinda rubbish, but there were some genuinely good moments afterwards (including Nicola Coughlan explaining how British people just assume things are going to be shit). It absolutely knew what it was dealing with, which is why it's baffling that the trailers and the cold open were so terrible.

Half of the show was not bad at all which is about the average the US version hits in a good year. I thought weekend update worked well. Shy baby sketch was funny as was the movie review. I did not understand Irish grandpa bit but I think I’m not meant to?

Yeah, given SNL’s track record with sketches about the Irish, I was a bit worried, but young Fouracres knew what he was about, and obviously Nicola Coughlan kept it all correct.

I'm not unbiased but I thought this was absolutely terrific - way higher batting average than the US show, and much stranger/ruder in tone too. Moreover, a huge investment in a large cohort of new writing and performing talent, when the most risk-averse move would be to drop that money on getting "names". We have so much comedy talent here, it's wonderful to see them getting a moment to shine.

Have to admit the second episode was even better than the first. Excellent Prince Andrew cold open; the kidnapping sketch was good too. Hammed Animashaun a real standout as well.

Jack Black and Jack White episode was not very funny

maybe the only honest laugh it got out of me was JB going out to the first commercial break and tossing off "we'll be white black", have to admit that one got me

jack black is not very funny anymore

however, 'we talking tv' was hilarious

^^Another Ashley Padilla Banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpcMXvUi4Zg

SNL is really just the Ashley Show now for me

jack black is not very funny anymore

fixed

She's great

They also seem very invested in Marcello Hernandez being a new star but he doesn't do much for me

he's a good utility player who pulls off a lot of the heavy lifting in a lot of sketches, but they dont seem to realize he's better at that than star-character stuff

Traitors sketch on the UK show this week was excellent, but overall Riz Ahmed was a little underused. eg surely he should’ve been the bastard seagull guy rather than one of the regular cast? Unless that’s somehow going to be a recurring sketch.

Xpost that's a fair assessment