SNL Just The Funny Parts: Goodbye Amy
Veteran comedy guy Hugh Laurie hosted SNL Saturday with musical guest Kanye West, and what is up with those long sketches? For example: at the 43 minute mark, there had been just five sketches. None of them were terrible, but you can't have an eight minute sketch with one funny joke in the middle. On the plus side, they do seem to be using the new girls more, but maybe that's because last night's show was Amy Poehler's last (:(). The funniest parts, after the jump.
4. Bronx Beat: I've never been a Bronx Beat fan because I don't really get the references (the series could just be called "Northerners"), but since it's presumably Amy's last one, and because it did have its moments ("The dumbest person in England is probably smarter than the smartest person in America"), it made the list:
3. Wedding Toast: Fred Armisen as the bride's ex boyfriend was hilarious:
2. Weekend Update: This was the best WU in a long time, despite the understandable controversy about Fred Armisen's portrayal of Governor Paterson. I couldn't choose a best moment (especially since there are so many callback jokes), so here's the whole 12 minute thing, which is pretty much all funny. (Question: when Seth Myers jokes about "calling in gay", is that his way of coming out?):
1. As noted by the internet, including Stereogum, Kanye West's performance was cool-looking because of the background stuff, but bad-sounding because he can't sing. So here it is, the funniest part of this week's SNL:
It's unfortunate that the cool background they used only contributed to the karaoke-booth aspect of the performance. Not that this will knock Kanye down a peg, because he doesn't acknowledge the peg system, but next time he's bragging about being the voice of this generation, of this decade, we can think of this incident and be slightly less annoyed.
Posted by Lindsay at 12:25 PM in Late Night, Live TV, Sketch Comedy
Tags: Amy Poehler | Fred Armisen | Kanye West | Saturday Night Live | Seth Meyers
The first half on through until WU was surprisingly great. The premise of the "Silent Night" sketch wasn't good, but it was well executed. The "Lamps" sketch saddened me because I knew at that point there would be no mythical "perfect show".
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As a voice student, and a die-hard Kanye supporter, I have to say that I'm 99% sure that Kanye was SUPER sick. He sounded tremendously sick. So I applaud him for going through with it instead of just calling in sick.
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I don't care for Kanye at all, but he should get props for actually singing. Even if it is terrible.
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Interesting fact: when you flip that chart upside down, it still has unemployment going up.
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Thats because unemployment is going up...
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the youtube one is broken already :(
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It works again!
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I found the BBG (Blind Black Gov.) bit funny, which probably means that I'm going to hell.
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I agree that Kanye sounded like he was sick, or at least had stripped his (incredibly untrained) voice from previous shows, or during rehearsal. But I don't think you need to pat him on the back for singing terribly. He's not a four-year-old, even if the diaper-pooping temper tantrum he threw onstage to express the feelings in his sad-faced heart did make him seem like an emotional toddler. Kanye is a very good producer, an ok MC, and a horrible singer who seemed to be catching his breath after every single line of each song.
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oh, so kanye doesn't sing like most singers, huh? good to see you totally missed the point
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I wasn't sure whether the controversy was going to pop up because he's black or because he's blind.
And whoever wrote "Lamps" needs to be taken out back and shot. For realsies.
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As a reference for "Calling in gay": http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/09/BAQM14KE03.DTL I suppose it was supposed to be like the time all the illegal citizens didn't go to work, but apparently it didn't pan out so well as no one actually did it (and at least one in-the-know[ish] blogger didn't know about it!).
I live in San Francisco and two of my openly gay co-workers didn't even support it (or maybe they didn't know either?). It turns out facebook is effective for getting the word out about your ugly sweater party but not your anti-Prop 8 rally.
Whoops, I got all seriousgum!
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I am glad that Amy Poehler is leaving. She was more annoying than she was funny. Seth Meyers sucks at weekend update too, I hope someone else will take over. Weekend update is also way too long these days.
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