Thursday, May 5, 2011
WHAT BECOMES OF LIAM? With the sad news (in this house, at least) that Kristen Wiig is retiring her Gilly character (along with Penelope), all sorts of lists are being made of other characters SNL should retire. Flavorwire would like the kissing Vogelchecks, among others, to check out. TV.com concurs about the Vogelchecks, but no more "What's Up With That?" would be tragic. What SNL characters would you be happy to never see again?
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They should never retire WUWD?. All of Armisen's characters, save Prince and David Paterson, should be retired.
ReplyDeleteI'm going heavy on the Weekend Update drop-ins: Nicholas Feyn, Jean K. Jean.
ReplyDeleteLove most of the Lonely Island digital shorts, but Laser Cats has more than run its course, and other Samberg bits (Mort Mort Feingold) have likewise overstayed their welcome, though I'd welcome the return of Mark Wahlberg, talking to animals or humans.
I have no problems with Wiig's characters hitting the bricks... I can't stand most of them ESPECIALLY Gilly.
ReplyDeleteFamiliarity is the death of funny. I would impose a presumptive one-appearance rule and a strict two-appearance limit. Is a new WUWT any different from a rerun? Even Stephon, which still makes me laugh, suffers from diminishing returns.
ReplyDeleteThe other (somewhat related) rule that I'd impose, and I've said this maybe a dozen times here, is "no talk shows and no game shows." They're such lazy crutches. Sometimes they work ("What's My Name?") but from SNL you'd think that 80% of TV is a talk show or a game show (the other 20% is either Hardball, Fox News, or an alien sportscaster). There are only like two actual game shows and maybe a dozen or so talk shows on network TV or national syndication, which means that there probably have been more different fake talk shows and game shows on SNL in the last five years than real talk shows and game shows on regular TV in the same time.
Or Stefon? I guess the latter.
ReplyDeleteMatt, Fehn is the first one that came to mind for me as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the game show/talk show format can be an excuse for lazy writing (stringing together celebrity impressions, lame things like "Secret Word"), but sometimes, it can be really effective--one of my favorite sketches is still "What's The Best Way?"
ReplyDeleteI like Jean K. Jean, but some of the others are awful, like the folk singers. (Armisen again.)
ReplyDeleteThey should incorporate that creepy Italian guy role that he played in Eurotrip into SNL. That part was hilarious, much funnier than his recent stuff on the show.
ReplyDeleteThey should incorporate that creepy Italian guy role that he played in Eurotrip into SNL. That part was hilarious, much funnier than his recent stuff on the show.
ReplyDeleteI never got Gilly. I never saw the humor.
ReplyDeleteI don't know their names but the Armisen-Wiig singers who make up the sings on the spot could go.
I will go after anyone that kills Stephon. But that's only because I like seeing Bill Hader in tight t-shirts. I am weak that way.
ReplyDeleteI think the prevalence of those types of sketches has a lot to do with the dimensional limitations of SNL. Those sketches don't require action or big sets, are expandable/contractable at will timewise, and are easy to use cue cards for.
ReplyDeleteI never got Gilly either, or the woman who can't keep a secret. Is that Penelope or is Penelope the one who has to one-up everyone? Either way, all of those characters can go IMO.
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