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Saturday Night Live

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The Joe Pesci Show・You Should Laugh More@dbooster1076d
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  1. ›Celebrity Jeopardy・You Should Laugh More@dbooster1090d

    Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today I thought we'd do another You Should Laugh More post.

    Research has shown that laughter is good for us. It has all kinds of health benefits. Despite most of us knowing this, none of us laugh enough. Yeah, I know, being an adult is tough, and furthermore there is a lot of grim stuff happening in the world. These things may be true, but that just is all the more reason for trying to get a little laughter into our lives.

    This week I thought we'd look at one of the most beloved reoccurring skit of the modern SNL, the Celebrity Jeopardy skit. Many of the Americans reading this may be familiar, but others may never have seen it before. They made a dozen or so of the skits over the years, and surprisingly all of them are great. Usually a skit that reoccurs too many times will get stale and unfunny fairly quickly, but this skit stayed fresh.

    Let's check it out.

    I'm sure most of you know Jeopardy. It is a gameshow where the contestants are presented with an answer on a topic and they have to supply the correct question. It's one of the most popular gameshows in America, having been run since the 1960s, first with Art Fleming, then with Alex Trebek from 1984 until his death in 2021, and with a rotating cast of hosts since.

    What you may not know unless you grew up in America is that every now and again they have a special episode of the show called "Celebrity Jeopardy" that features three celebrities who donate their winnings to a charity of their choice.

    Perhaps not unexpectedly given that success at Jeopardy relies on a lot of general knowledge, many of the celebrities who have played over the years have been absolutely terrible at the game. This despite the fact that the questions are always much easier than usual.

    Enter SNL. in 1996 Norm Macdonald came up with an idea for a skit making fun of these clueless celebrates who sign up for the special gameshow. The skit was so successful that it ran for a number of years, until 2015, for a total of 15 episodes. In each skit, Will Ferrell plays the straight man, doing a passable impression of Alex Trebek, Darrell Hammond usually appears as a very childish Sean Connery who seems to go out of his way to frustrate Ferrell, and the other two contestant spots are played by random cast members making fun of random celebrities.

    Frankly I'd recommend all of them. They are all hilarious. But for the sake of keeping this post from going too long, I will pick my top four.


    **Episode 8**

    Let's start with this one to give you an idea of the skit. This one features Hilary Swank (Jimmy Fallon), Keanu Reeves (Tobey Maguire), and Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond). Swank and Reeves are just clueless, while Connery goes out of his way to frustrate Trebek. This would be the basic format for most episodes of the skit.


    **Episode 4**

    Next we will go to one featuring Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond), Jeff Goldblum (David Duchovny), and Minnie Driver (Molly Shannon). I pick this because Duchovny's impression of Jeff Goldblum is so perfect. Goldblum himself would later say he loved this impression.


    Episode 7

    This one features French Stewart (Jimmy Fallon), Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond), and Burt Reynolds (Norm Macdonald). Honestly I've never been a Fallon fan, but he does do a good French Stewart impression and is ok in this sketch. Hammond and Macdonald go so well together.


    40th Anniversary

    Let's end with the episode they did for the special 40th anniversary of SNL show. Since this was a special episode, it featured more than usual, staring Sean Connery (Darrell Hammond), Justin Bieber (Kate McKinnon), Tony Bennett (Alec Baldwin), Christoph Waltz (Taran Killam), Burt Reynolds (Norm Macdonald) and Matthew McConaughey (Jim Carrey). They saved the best for last—this is really fun.

    So what do you think? Did any of them make you laugh or were they just stupid? If you did enjoy these, you can find every episode on YouTube, so go watch all of them.

    Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

    ❦

    Hi there! David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.
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  2. ›You Should Laugh More・Jumping Over the English Channel & Other Skits@dbooster1102d

    Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today I thought we'd do another You Should Laugh More post.

    Research has shown that laughter is good for us. It has all kinds of health benefits. Despite most of us knowing this, none of us laugh enough. Yeah, I know, being an adult is tough, and furthermore there is a lot of grim stuff happening in the world. These things may be true, but that just is all the more reason for trying to get a little laughter into our lives.

    Today I have a few Monty Python clips for you. I'm sure all of you have seen the Dead Parrot skit, No One Expects the Spanish Inqusition, The Ministry of SIlly Walks, and some of the other more famous ones, so I'm aiming for some of the lesser known skits. Let's start with...

    First Man to Jump the Channel

    The naïve jumper played by Jones is funny, but the real star of this skit is Palin playing his sleezy manager. Palin played this sleezy guy in several skits and always did a great job with it.


    Woody and Tinny Sounds

    This is from the final series and they had lost Cleese by this point. His presence was definitely missed, but there still were some bright spots. Here they are mocking the upper class as they so often tried to do. This is such a stupid skit, but so funny in its complete idiocy. My friends and I are always bringing this up, labeling words as woody or tinny. Chapman's final line is great.


    Royal Society For Putting Things On Top of Other Things

    I'm not a member of any old boys clubs, but this would seem to spoof them perfectly. Not only that, but it also shows the pointlessness of meetings in general. This is a short one, but one of the best!

    So what do you think? Did any of these make you laugh or were they just stupid? What are some of your favorite Monty Python skits? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

    ❦

    Hi there! David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.
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  3. ›Best Saturday Night Live recurring skits (IMO)@netflixr1856d

    Recently SNL has gotten back into the limelight because of Elon Musk appearing on the show. I, like most people, do not watch this show and have not done so for quite some time for a number of reasons: For one thing, who the hell watches network television anymore? (I don't know anyone) and also the few bits I do bother to watch here and there aren't funny.

    The PC takeover made a lot of things that could be funny "off limits" by the woke mob and a lot of people tuned out because for 4 years it was basically just an anti-Trump hour-long show (a full third of their already floundering numbers according to some polls.) I was not affected by this attribute and feel as though Alec Baldwin actually did a very good impersonation of him. It just didn't need to be done every single episode.

    However, there was a time when SNL was considered "must watch TV" and this goes back to the 70's (too young to remember it) the 80's (wasn't allowed to stay up that late for the most part, and the early 90's. During these times I felt as though the show was funny and had an amazing cast for the most part. There were a few skits that were recurring and I really thought they were great and still think they are. Here are my favorites over the years.

    The Church Lady

    [src](https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/91/41/1931975811-The-Church-Lady.jpg)

    Dana Carvey was one of the best performers that show ever had on it and I even though he had plenty of roles and was terrific at impersonations, I think The Church Lady was one of his best. If you aren't familiar with this because you are too young for it to be part of your life I highly suggest that you go back and see it. Today this would likely still be allowed because it makes fun of Christianity but not in a way that suggests that the religion is bad. Plus the woke mob of today doesn't seem to be very opposed to bagging on Christianity anyway.

    On another note, Carvey was so much more multi-faceted that in a mock presidential debate he was the only person on staff that could play both Ross Perot and George Bush Sr. His ability at both of these guys was spot on too.

    Deep Thoughts

    handy 1.jpg src

    Deep Thoughts: By Jack Handey was voiced by Kevin Nealon and it was basically a piss take on inspirational quotes and making fun of people that think entirely too much of their inspirational words. They were very short, and normally happened right before a commercial break. Some of my favorites go like this

    I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

    If God dwells inside us, like some people say, I sure hope He like enchiladas, because that's what He's getting! If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did."

    The Californians

    [src](https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/The-Californians.jpg)

    This is one of the few skits that I found funny post 2000. They, for once, made fun of Californian culture and the prevailing accent of people that live there and even though the skits were silly it just kind of worked

    This one is particularly good because the main character, whose name I can not recall, apparently changed the way that his character says his lines without informing his co-stars and Bill Hader has a difficult time keeping it together and breaks character multiple times. Every episode ends with the characters checking themselves out in the mirror, suggesting the vanity that I guess a lot of Californians possess.

    Matt Foley: Van Down By The River

    [src](https://static.onecms.io/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/02/matt-foley.jpg)

    Chris Farley was a talent the likes of which SNL never had before or after (except for maybe Belushi.) His intense energy combined with his willingness to poke fun at his own physical appearance made him a unique talent. He had a ton of skits that were great but I think inspirational speaker Matt Foley is probably the best known.
    In the above skit, David Spade experienced great difficulty staying in character and was noticeably laughing for a lot of it. Spade and Farley were good friends in real life and Spade knew that Chris had terrible substance abuse problems. I suppose it didn't really surprise that many people when Farley died of a drug overdose of cocaine and morphine at the ripe young age of merely 33.

    Weekend update

    [src](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5e/2c/1e/5e2c1ea1d73b45e3110bf5cdc50ff619.jpg)

    Weekend Update has been a part of the show for many years, perhaps even all the way back to the start of the show. I can't be certain of this. The ones I remember the most are Dennis Miller, Kevin Nealon, and of course Norm MacDonald. It wasn't real news but it kind of was and the concept ended up influencing Comedy Central's The Daily Show which in my opinion was amazing when Jon Stewart was at the helm. After Jon's departure I didn't really enjoy it as much but this isn't Trevor Noah's fault, Jon's shoes were just a little too big for anyone to fill.

    Norm MacDonald was my favorite of the bunch and this is mostly because of his deadpan delivery that was a big part of his stand-up comedy work as well.

    When the show transitioned to Colin Quinn and later to having 2 hosts from the year 2000 onward, things got a bit too political and one-sided as far as that went and once this emerged I think the show lost a lot of its appeal. Norm MacDonald was actually fired from Saturday Night Live for his comment about O.J. Simpson the week after O.J. was acquitted in his murder trial when he said this

    “Well, it’s official: Murder is now legal in the state of California.”

    I don't think many people really pay that much attention to SNL anymore but there was a time when it was one of the most popular shows on television. Recently, they saw and uptick in viewership when Musk was on the show but even then it only garnered about 1/3 as many viewers as it did 20 years ago. A lot of this has to do with the fact that people don't generally watch network TV anymore, this much is for sure but I think most people can agree that the show used to be a lot funnier when it wasn't playing politics. For me, I try to look in every now and then to see if they have achieved brilliance that likes of which they had in the 80's and 90's but for the most part am let down.

    Did you have a favorite SNL skit? If so, let's talk about it!

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