Sunday, October 3, 2010
WOOOOOO.....WHEE! The return of "What's Up With That?" with Academy Award winners Morgan Freeman and Ernest Borgnine? Awesome. (As always, it's the Sudeikis leap into his dancing which elevates it even further.) Samberg-as-Rahm? I'm always a fan, even if it was just another let's-see-who-breaks-character-first challenge. Kanye? That was ... different. (As always, give him points for ambition.) But the Wiig Showcase sketch on the basketball court didn't end as strongly as it started and the rest ... fast-forwardable. Free Jay Pharaoh!
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I thought the 2nd Kanye performance was (maybe unintentionally) amazing. It was like watching someone get into their own subconscious and then decide they didn't want to drive any more. The background white, at least on my TV, seemed to get brighter and brighter until nearly everything disappeared other than Kanye while he was auto-tuning live along with his actual voice on tape and then he just kind of stopped singing while his taped voice went on.
ReplyDeleteLoved Kanye. I loved the songs, the performance, the fact that (as far as I know) no one else transformed the live stage like that before. He's a diva in the best way.
ReplyDeleteAfter "What Up With That" (which was, as usual, great) and "Update," the rest of the show was actually borderline unwatchable--the borderline racist "black noise" commercial, the joke-free "Bottle of Sparkling Apple Juice" sketch, the really bad GSN sketch, and the awful "dad teaches son how to fight!" sketch were all horrific filler. And that second Kanye performance, while visually fascinating, reminded me of a Negativland song. (And I don't mean that in a positive way.)
ReplyDeleteI can't dissent more -- WUWT was stupider than usual, b/c we could see all the jokes coming. Rahm wasn't funny either, b/c of comparison w/ the "Even Tempered Apology." Not even update was funny. And as for Kanye, all I could think about was what is wrong with that guy. That was 1982 bad SNL.
ReplyDeleteDidn't watch most, but that was one awesome Miley Cyrus impression.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it! Why isn't Pharoah playing Obama already? Is there a contractual thing? Looking back, has there ever been an instance of a cast member being ousted from a role when another cast member turned out to be better at it?
ReplyDeleteThey've had multiple GWBs, for sure.
ReplyDeleteGuessing that it's three factors:
ReplyDelete1. They don't want to admit by replacing him that they screwed up by giving the job to Armisen in the first place.
2. It could be spun as racializing--"if you were going to give to an African-American performer, why not give it to Kenan in the first place?"
3. Someone in the heirarchy at SNL loves Fred Armisen. (That's the only way I can explain how "Sparkling Apple Juice" made it on air.)
I don't think #1 is a particularly likely reason, since giving the job to Armisen in the first place was basically a "we don't have anyone else in the cast who has anything close to a Barack Obama impression, and we need someone, STAT!" decision. Not a screwup, per se (putting the "non-African American playing African American" issue to one side) just using what you have at the time in the best way you can. Likewise, #2 - Kenan (as far as I know) doesn't do a BO impression, so giving the job to him itself might have been seen as "racializing" (if I get what you mean by that). That leaves #3.
ReplyDeleteGiven his married/dating life, maybe Armisen is just a blindingly charming man, like TMYMCSL or Adam Duritz. . .
ReplyDeleteI'm with #3. They seem to let him do whatever he wants whenever he wants it, even when it sucks.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, his Patterson is excellent.
After Ferrell left, Parnell, Hammond and Forte tried the GWB impression; Forte did it for a couple seasons before Sudeikis took over. I think it's basically wrong to claim (a) favoritism has something to do with why Armisen is doing the impression or (b) Lorne cares what people think about cross-race impressions (remember who does Jesse Jackson, Prince and Patterson) or the job he's doing in general. Seems more likely that Pharoah is not ready to do the cold open. He wasn't even hired in enough time to add him to the credits, and if you saw his Will Smith, he was terrified.
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