"The first episode of NBC's Saturday Night, as it was initially known, includes familiar elements—an opening monologue, musical guests, parodic commercials—but it’s striking how little of the show we now know is present.
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"The first episode of NBC's Saturday Night, as it was initially known, includes familiar elements—an opening monologue, musical guests, parodic commercials—but it’s striking how little of the show we now know is present. The actors who would become its breakout stars are almost an afterthought, confined to sketches that rarely run over a minute. There’s more of Billy Preston and Janis Ian than there is of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, or Gilda Radner. Which leaves Reitman with a dilemma: How do you mythologize the beginnings of a show when you’re building up to an episode that barely feels like SNL at all?"
https://slate.com/culture/2024/09/saturday-night-snl-movie-tiff-2024-carlin-muppets.html
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by [email protected]
Here is the trailer for Jason Reitman's SATURDAY NIGHT (2024). You presumably come here to hear my unvarnished opinions on things, so I'll give you my unvarnished opinion on this: I think it looks like ass
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by [email protected]
In the spirit of humility, I should probably note that Variety, which unlike me has seen the actual movie, vehemently disagrees with me
https://variety.com/2024/film/awards/saturday-night-jason-reitman-oscars-gabriel-labelle-1236126916/
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
This thread is me burnishing my long-established personal brand, "Often Wrong But Never In Doubt"
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@jalefkowit Hot take:
SNL always gets by on clip show survivorship bias; most of what they do kind of misses but we only ever see the recaps and best-of moments. As long as the show has been running the general opinion among people who actually watch it live is that it has gotten worse. They were saying that when Chris Farley and Adam Sandler were on
If you wanted to see comedy, there was always a better sketch comedy show of the time: SCTV, In Living Color, MadTV, Chapelle Show, Key & Peele
SNL with its guest hosts and musical interludes was always the starfucker show
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@flyingsaceur The story as told in the "Live From New York" book is interesting, in that early on nobody had any idea what SNL was supposed to be. Lorne Michaels was just one voice among many. Then they clicked more or less by accident, and ran with it until everyone (including Michaels) burned out.
Then NBC tried to reinvent the show and it was a total disaster, so they approached Michaels to come back (which wasn't hard, his post-SNL efforts were not setting the world on fire). And his demand was: this is MY SHOW now, I decide what it is and isn't. And that was the birth of the extremely formulaic show that has existed since 1985
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Jason Lefkowitzreplied to Jason Lefkowitz last edited by
@flyingsaceur It’s a fascinating book, because it covers 30 years of history, but all the interesting stories are in the first 10 years. After that it’s just this constant parade of smart, funny people who went on to do great things describing how impossible it was to do their best work when their boss was Lorne Michaels