SNL 10/12/24

yawn

Ugh, I can't stand Kenan's Steve Harvey impersonation.

Chloe Fineman should playing Ella Emhoff instead of Kaitlan Collins.

A wet dream to SNL producers: A skit combining spoofs of CNN, Family Feud, Kamala and The Donald, and featuring Yang! 🎉

I wonder if Heidi Gardner will play Gwen Walz at some point.

Is she alive?

Ariana looks terrible

Ariana looks like she has several IV drips in her house.

I liked the wedding skit and the My Best Friends House skit. But I’m a music lover so maybe it was the singing I enjoyed, even if bad singing in the wedding one.

Ariana, eat a burger!

“OMG, it’s full of teeth…?!!” 😆

This featured player dude is hot AF

Ariana's hand and palm tattoos are ugly.

Ariana reminds me a bit of Cheri Oteri in this sketch.

Bowen Yang definitely getting another Emmy nod next year

I wish Ariana could join the show’s cast. She makes existing cast members, like the new one next to her on the couch who always comes across like some random audience member they just pulled onto the stage, to occupy space, seem like they actually have a personality.

She's a good host because she doesn't take herself seriously and she is a damn good impressionist.

R15 maybe he just liked the material with her more. She isn’t why he’s showing more personality.

Ariana's Celine Dion impression was pretty funny.

Ariana is really good. She is the best female cast member on tonight’s show, and made Bowen good.

She’s also way, way too skinny in a concerning way.

Ooof Stevie sounds awful.

The new cast member who was on the couch sitting next to Ariana, identifies as a “he”?

Nothing like a 76 year old singing terrible songs.

Colin Jost has never been funny nor attractive to me. Never understood why he was given so much leverage on this show.

I am not a huge Stevie fan, but I liked the song. She’s still got it IMO.

The last time Stevie performed on SNL was 41 years ago!!!

Oof that Oasis shit was painfully bad.

[quote] Colin Jost has never been funny nor attractive to me. Never understood why he was given so much leverage on this show.

Exactly the way I feel about Michael Che. I find Colin to be FAAAR more attractive and funny than that damn Che.

Ariana looks like a Keane kid painting but she’s better than most hosts; she can actually do sketch comedy.

R27 Jost is funnier than Che.

I like Che. Jost is awful.

Being married to ScarJo is why he’s still employed.

Stevie brought the house down in 1983!!!

Muriel STOP posting SNL threads. No one cares about this shit show.

It was only worth watching from 1975 to 1979.

Did the broadcast freeze?

R34 something happened - or didn't happen.

R34 I'm watching on Peacock on it froze on the Stevie Nicks bumper photo.

I think actually that Stevie’s joints froze!

R34, I was about to ask the same thing. They should have returned after the Stevie Nicks photo intro instead, they went back to more commercials. 50 years and they're still not ready for prime time.

Ooh, classic Stevie.

Stevie sounds great!

I thought Stevie was fabulous tonight.

Whatever Happened to Baby Stevie?

Ariana does a killer Jennifer Coolidge.

Ariana wasn’t better than Chloe

I just saw a cue card in the shot.

Ariana is great at playing seemingly oldersophisticated characters, too. I enjoy when she hosts and how she handles fast and campy dialogue kind of in a Madeline Kahn way.

Wasn’t Areola Grande cancelled for licking that donut?

I don’t know her. I’d she someone’s maid?

Ariana and Chloe as Jennifer Coolidge were great!

Ariana us such a beautiful girl...but ruined with all that ugly, hideous ink on her hands. Whyyyyyy????

I’ve always thought Andy Samberg was hot. That mouth. I could kiss him for hours.

I like the credit sequence this season even though it’s long as fuck. Why is it so long? TOO MANY DAMN CAST MEMBERS!!! I really hope NBC makes some serious changes after this season, including a new show runner and cutting the cast in half.

I always forget about Ariana because I've never really liked her music. She's just not on my radar. But she's really good at sketch comedy. She's a natural.

R25 which one of you was that tall chorus boy jerking and hair tossing with Stevie in 1984! 🤪😍

R53 that guy is Brad Jeffries, a gay guy Stevie used in the Stand Back and If Anyone Falls vids. I think he's now a chiropractor. He talked about how he loved working with her. Was Stevie the first to use a dancer? I remember thinking how silly it looked back then.

The opening is amazing. It’s always been like that so shouldn’t Be changed. Not even a question.

Ariana isn’t beautiful. She looks ridiculous

Colin Jost has been on the show for years for a couple of very good reasons — he’s handsome and WASPy enough to fill the Chevy Chase spot, which is baked into the DNA of the show, and he’s one of the show’s most skillful writers of both sketches and Weekend Update material. He’ll have a spot there as long as he wants to stay or is willing to return periodically.

But it did occur to me in the opening Family Fued political spot that they ‘re not giving James Austin Johnson the weird orange-brown man-tan that the real Trump has. Likewise, no mascara and eyeliner for Bowen Yang as JD Vance. This normalizes both of them by avoiding their essential weirdness and narcissism.

I call foul.

Comparing Jost to young Chevy Chase is laughably bad.

Chevy Chase isn’t WASPy. And Jost isn’t handsome. Nor funny. Chase was charismatic and showed natural star power immediately. Jost has been delegated to SNL because he isn’t a star. He’s fortunate to be married to one though.

Colin Jost handsome? He's the boring white dude in your freshman dorm at Harvard that you look right through.

Rs 58 & 59, Your opinion of Jost’s ‘boring white guy’ looks is fashionable but doesn’t change the fact that those are exactly the kind of guy-looks lots of people still like and think of as attractive. I’m always amused by the insecurity stirred up when a conventionally good-looking man actually has his looks acknowledged here.

He has the Chevy Chase spot, period. It’s a comfort zone for the show.

During the Jennifer Coolidge sketch, I was thinking they should have her on as a guest host, so I googled that and it turns out she was scheduled to host in 2023 but the show was canceled because of the writers strike.

The reason for the long opening credit sequence is to fill time.

Because they sure can’t fill their time slot with comedy.

Looks to me like a racist sketch was cut at the last minute.

Never really watched Ariana Grande in much of anything, but what a talent she was on the show. I thought she was comical, charming, engaging - one of the best hosts they've had in a very long time.

Stevie Nicks and her band looked like residents of a nursing home putting on a Sunday afternoon talent show.

My Best Friend's House

The fact that they keep using Maya, Andy and Dana in non-presidential sketches shows how lackluster the current cast (especially the featured players) is.

Isnt the young cast pissed off all the old stars are hogging the roles?

No. SNL has always brought in others to play the political figures

OMG, Stevie still has Waddy on guitar, he's been with her since Belladonna.

The Oasis bit was so bad. So, so bad.

Even worse than anything involving Che Diaz.

R58

Chevy Chase is very WASPy:

Cornelius Crane Chase was born in Lower Manhattan on October 8, 1943,[6] and grew up in Woodstock, New York.[7] He has an older brother, Ned Jr.[8]

His father, Edward Tinsley "Ned" Chase (1919–2005),[9] was a Princeton-educated Manhattan book editor and magazine writer.[10] Chase's paternal grandfather was artist and illustrator Edward Leigh Chase, and his great-uncle was painter and teacher Frank Swift Chase. His mother, Cathalene Parker (née Browning; 1923–2005), was a concert pianist and librettist, whose father, Rear Admiral Miles Browning, served as Admiral Raymond A. Spruance's Chief of Staff on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise at the Battle of Midway in World War II. Cathalene was adopted as a child by her stepfather, Cornelius Vanderbilt Crane, heir to The Crane Company, and took the name Catherine Crane.[11] Her mother, also named Cathalene, was an opera singer who performed several times at Carnegie Hall.[12]

Chase was named for his adoptive grandfather, Cornelius, while the nickname "Chevy" was bestowed by his grandmother from the medieval English ballad "The Ballad of Chevy Chase". As a descendant of the Scottish Clan Douglas, she thought the name appropriate.[13] Chase is a 14th-generation New Yorker, and was listed in the Social Register at an early age.

His mother's ancestors arrived in Manhattan starting in 1624 — among those ancestors are:

New York City mayors Stephanus Van Cortlandt and John Johnstone the Dutch Schuyler family, through his ancestor Gertrude Schuyler, the wife of Stephanus Van Cortlandt John Morin Scott, General of the New York Militia during the American Revolution Anne Hutchinson, dissident Puritan preacher and healer Mayflower passengers and signers of the Mayflower Compact from England, John Howland,[14] and William Brewster, the Pilgrim colonist leader and spiritual elder of the Plymouth Colony

Did I miss out on scarves?

[quote]No. SNL has always brought in others to play the political figures

Chevy was Gerald Ford.

Chevy was part of the original cast, so it’s not like they could reach back & have a former cast member play Ford.

Flip Wilson was huge in the early ‘70s. But largely forgotten now.

I'll add to R73's post. Dana Carvey played George HW Bush. Phil Hartman played Bill Clinton. Jason Sudeikis played Biden.

Chloe is terrible. I don't understand how she's even working

Darrell Hammond played Clinton after Hartman. Hammond also played Al Gord. Will Ferrell played George W. Bush.

Carvey also played Ross Perot.

They’ve brought in other people recently because their cast has sucked.

Colin Jost is Catholic, not WASP.

R68 THEY APPEAR IN OTHER SKITS, Dora.

Ariana was great! Loved her as Celine Dion for the UFC. Funny. I hope Celine got a laugh from it.

R68- Maya and Dana were in skits that had nothing to do with the presidential race.

And Andy Samburg was in the the castrati skit

[quote]Maya and Dana were in skits that had nothing to do with the presidential race.

It's the 50th anniversary season. I'm sure there will be a lot of appearances by former cast members.

With this the 50th season, when are they gonna start bringing out the big comedy legends? Like Bob Hope.

R81 I agree - and I don't know much about her, but I know she's a great talent on the show (too bad she's not a regular). She can act, she can sing - she's very good.

After watching her on SNL, I kept thinking that ALW should redo the movie "Evita" (the 1996 movie with Madonna was horrible). It's been nearly 30 years - what a time to remake the movie musical and cast Grande as 'Evita'. She could be wonderful in the role.

There is a push to get Carol Burnett invited as a guest host. But Lorne Michael refuses.

Weekend Update is the only segment worth watching. Thank goodness for YouTube.

If I was Lorne, I'd refuse, too. There's a lot of liability with a 91 year old woman hosting SNL. Would she even be able to do any of the comedy skits ?

There were technical issues before Nicks was supposed to go on.

What makes Lorne Michaels laugh?

That’s no small question. Half a century of aspiring stars have thought hard on it. The answer has launched and stymied many careers while going a long way to defining modern comedy. The hagiographic new movie “Saturday Night” focuses on Michaels as he puts together the 1975 premiere episode of “Saturday Night Live,” but the comedic vision of the man who has gone on to oversee the show for decades remains maddeningly, pointedly remote.

Played with a determined calm by Gabriel Labelle, the young Lorne Michaels comes off as a blandly generic maverick, struggling repeatedly to explain his idea for the show. In an early scene, he compares himself to Thomas Edison, and while one can detect some mocking of the hubris of that statement, there’s not enough. To the extent that his sensibility is illuminated in the screenplay by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan, it’s through opposition. In scene after scene, Michaels is the counterculture hero confronted by a procession of squares, suits and old-school naysayers. They’re not just skeptical executives or scolding censors, either. Actors playing Jim Henson, Johnny Carson and Milton Berle make appearances, in roles designed, thematically at least, to show us everything this hip new show is not.

What stands out about this parade of aesthetic antagonists is that perhaps the most important one to the formation of the identity of “Saturday Night Live” goes unmentioned: Carol Burnett.

Despite the sense you get from this cinematic love letter, “Saturday Night Live” did not invent must-see television sketch comedy. It wasn’t even the first important live one on Saturday nights on NBC. (That would be “Your Show of Shows” in the 1950s, with a writers room that included Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Neil Simon.) The dominant sketch comedy when “S.N.L.” got started was “The Carol Burnett Show,” a CBS staple since the late 1960s that also featured topical satire, flamboyant performances and star cameos.

In books about the creation of “Saturday Night Live,” the ones the new film’s screenwriters certainly leaned on, Burnett represented a lodestar of sorts for the artists on the show.

“Lorne made it clear that Burnett’s style encompassed everything” the new show would avoid, Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad wrote in “Saturday Night: A Backstage History of ‘Saturday Night Live.’” Whereas “The Carol Burnett Show” featured broad performances with actors in Bob Mackie-designed clothes sometimes breaking character as they tried to hold back laughs, “Saturday Night” (as the show was known at first) aimed for a less theatrical, more writerly style with less mugging for the camera.

In “Live From New York,” the oral history by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller, brainy writers like Al Franken and Buck Henry say “The Carol Burnett Show” was shorthand for the kind of slicker stuff they were trying not to do. While saying everyone on “S.N.L.” respected her, Paul Shaffer, who played in the house band, added that “too Carol Burnett” was a common way to dismiss an idea.

You saw similar hipster derision in early press coverage. In a deep-dive feature in Rolling Stone from 1976 that spent time with Michaels backstage, a writer contrasted the late-night cool of the new show with Burnett’s safe professionalism. “God forbid, of course, that ‘S.N.’ should ever function with the factory precision of, say, Carol Burnett,” the story wryly noted, “but is the notion of ‘S.N.’s’ writers starting to write at 10 a.m. Mondays, as Burnett’s do, really so prostitutional?”

It’s striking to see Burnett discussed this way, because she is now widely and rightly considered one of our funniest and most influential comedy pioneers. Even “S.N.L.” veterans like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler cite her show as inspiration.

Reitman’s “Saturday Night” is unsparing about so many other talented cultural figures. It’s worth considering why Burnett’s role is omitted.

Perhaps the mention of another influential sketch show complicates the movie’s clear interest in presenting Michaels, who had many years of writing and producing comedy before “Saturday Night Live,” as a revolutionary who gave birth to something entirely new. Ignoring the show’s rejection of Burnett is also consistent with a larger whitewashing of the sexism of the early “S.N.L.” One of the few sketches shown in the movie is a feminist one from Rosie Shuster about women catcalling a construction worker. We see Shuster, who was married to Michaels, praising and gently coaxing John Belushi into wearing a bee costume. But we don’t see Belushi expressing the belief that women were not funny, as original cast member Jane Curtin has described. She said he believed that “women should not be there.”

The most generous explanation is that the movie’s restraint is itself making an argument about the legacy of Michaels. That what made him successful over generations is precisely that he can come off as somewhat hard to pin down, even a cipher. Having a strong point of view is essential to creating a funny sketch series. But an institution that encompasses many different styles and changes with the times while remaining relevant over decades requires a different skill set. There is also evidence of this approach from him. In a revealing 1979 interview in Rolling Stone, Michaels said of the show: “I wanted it to be devoid of definition.”

Lorne Michaels produced a singularly enduring comedy show that has evolved consistently, changing casts and styles, in ways big and small. He’s been open to a wide array of sensibilities, from the boyish goofiness of Jimmy Fallon to the acerbic deadpan of Norm Macdonald, from the precision caricatures of Phil Hartman to the grand guignol splatter-humor of Sarah Sherman. Michaels’s greatest accomplishment is not creating a funny show but keeping it on the air for five decades. To pull that off, being flexible might be a more essential quality than having a coherent voice.

In fact, “Saturday Night Live” has over the years artistically moved in the direction of “The Carol Burnett’ Show,” and not just in terms of a slicker design. The performances on “S.N.L.” are often broad, too. No one was surprised when Dana Carvey broke character in the cold open last weekend during his impression of Joe Biden, one of the highlights so far of the new season.

Asked in 2016 why she had never hosted “Saturday Night Live,” Burnett, now 91 and still doing dynamic work in shows like “Better Call Saul” and “Palm Royale,” told Larry King she had never been asked. The only episode that she ever appeared in was toward the end of the period when Michaels had temporarily left the show. In 1985, when the guest host Harry Anderson said goodbye, surrounded by the cast, he pointed at Burnett in the audience, brought her onstage and described her “as one of the reasons we’re all in this business.”

There have been online campaigns to get Michaels to tap her, including a plea from Patton Oswalt and a petition from fans. Nothing has come of it. But Lorne Michaels has a history of changing course, adjusting on the fly. Ask Shane Gillis, who hosted this year after being fired from the cast a few years earlier. “S.N.L.” should have Burnett host. What better way to celebrate 50 years of an expansive show that began in part as a reaction to Carol Burnett?

Something odd at the end. Both the Jennifer Coolidge and Hotel detective sketches appeared to be live, but there’s no way Ariana switched make up, wigs and costumes that quickly . One must have been on tape.

I kind of loathe Ariana Grande as a person, but I have to admit that she’s really good when she hosts SNL.

That’s a good point, R94, that seemed like an inhumanly fast change of wig and makeup even for a show skilled at quick changes. I suspect that the fact that the game that aired before SNL, went 4-5 minutes over determined that sort of a last-minute switch.

The real question is what happens to Lorne Michaels and therefore SNL after the 50th anniversary season and the ensuing speacial (s)?

Will Michaels retire? If he does will SNL go on? if so, who could run it? Tina Fey? Seth Meyers? Colin Jost and/or Michael Che? Though neither of the latter two seem popular with Datalounge posters, they are linchpin writer/performers for this show and very influential with Michaels, perhaps more than people realize.

I believe they often make last minute adjustments at the end since it’s a live show and things may run long or short. In this show I suppose the technical problems with Nicks probably screwed them up. I also believe they tape the dress rehearsal and sometimes will cut sketches after that. The hotel detective sketch may have been a dress rehearsal performance run on tape because they didn’t have time to run whatever they planned to end with (or alternatively because they needed to fill up more time at the end because something got cut).

I recall Tina Fey and Seth Meyers have both said they would never take over SNL.

It turns out the entire show was based on rash pushback against Carol Burnett!

And look where they ended-up. A mere shadow.

Lindsay Lohan was always decent and sometimes really good on SNL.

R99, see R91-93.

"Whereas “The Carol Burnett Show” featured broad performances with actors in Bob Mackie-designed clothes sometimes breaking character as they tried to hold back laughs, “Saturday Night” (as the show was known at first) aimed for a less theatrical, more writerly style with less mugging for the camera."

That's all they do now, mug for the camera, break character (as if they possessed the talent to actually form a character) and they laugh in most scenes. Their current golden boy Yang has made it part of his schtick.

When all is said and done Carol Burnett will be remembered as a comedic giant. SNL will be remembered only for its early seasons as its current pitiable cast flounders and lurches toward the season 50 finish line.

When Dana freezes into the dead-eye stare as Joe Biden is just so funny.

Within just 15 hours, the official SNL videos of Ariana Grande's appearance on Saturday's show got over 100 million views on Instagram. That's just on Instagram! That's literally INSANE!

How did little Ariana ever survive deep dickings from Pete Third Leg Davidson?

What is up with the sound quality of the show? Everything sounds muffled and I'm having a hard time understanding what they're saying.

R48 Ariana did a much better Jennifer Coolidge than Chole Fineman, even though the skit was stupid as hell.

R106 sound mixing so audience noise is added. Think of it as SNL autotuning.

Hotel Detective was pre-taped and slotted in to cover during the technical issues.

It failed.

"Everything sounds muffled and I'm having a hard time understanding what they're saying."

Do you smell toast?

Dana Carvey as Joe Biden is rude, insulting and NOT funny at all.

[quote]That's just on Instagram! That's literally INSANE!

LITERALLY! Thanks for this literally breaking news, Zoomer.

As an “elder gay”, I’m not an Arianna Grande fan. However, her Coolidge impression was better than Feinman’s and her Celine Dion impression was spot-on. Not only will she receive a much-earned Emmy nomination next year, but she’ll deservedly win.

Ariana Grande now has the most viewed video on the SNL official TikTok page in less than 2 days, surpassing Timothee Chalamet and Pete Davidson’s 4 year old video. Pete is known for being Ariana Grande’s ex-boyfriend.

Pete is known for having BDE.

Really? Who knew?!

R88 now you know you’re lying.

R86 a regular? Ariana Grande is a massive global popstar. Why would someone of her caliber be a regular on SNL? She’s a HOST because she’s famous.

R96 they always have some skits pre-recorded. This isn’t a secret.

Fineman got the best joke though:

If you could meet anyone living or dead, who would you choose?

Living.

Is it a coincidence that Stevia Nicks appearance coincides with the Stevie Nicks Barbie doll drop on eBay? They had been a hoarded prize yet now it’s raining Nicks, alleluia!

R119 - If she wasn't a famous pop star, she'd be great each week on SNL. Let me phrase it differently - Lorne should be hiring more cast members with her talent. I'm sure they're out there waiting for their chance. Instead, we get 'Sara Silverman' and 'Bowen Yang'.

Prior 2016, it was extremely rare to have a no cast member play a recurring character. John Goodman did it as Linda Tripp, but that was one of the few I can remember off hand. It’s a very recent phenomenon and I can’t help but think the past decade of weak casts is the reason.

They don’t have many no-cast members. They have alumni do it. Once an SNL cast member, always an SNL cast member by association

I don’t get the hate from some of these DL bitches for Stevie Nicks. I’m not exactly a Nicks fan but I respect her talent and career. On SNL, she looked and sounded FABULOUS. That was a powerful song and she deserves props for that.

No one is even saying anything bad about her.

It was cringe to watch Stevie's first song. She seemed rusty and off-key, and the monotone song was meh. She rallied at the end with an oldies hit, but I suspect the weird delay near the end was Stevie not being ready.

R127, read the whole damn thread. There was some really bad things said about her.

Stevie sounded fine. “Rusty”? Shes a 76 year old woman who lived a wild life. Leave her be. Certain DLers always being nasty but if you saw them in real life they’re much worse than the people they criticize.

^Are those DLers performing on live television?

R123 Sarah Sherman, not Sarah Silverman.

Sarah Silverman is talented and funny. Sarah Sherman is not.

Don't get them confused.

Sketches were fun but with such a big talent I expected better-Grande can do anything- sound of music spoof years back was great. Sweet seeing Stevie Nicks (age of 76)

‘’Her name is Emily’’

Do we agree Yang is quite limited and not at all attractive?

Ariana is a solid comic performer, but she deserved much better material than what she got.

R135 I second that emotion.

It seems every SNL skit revolves around a normal, humdrum setting in which a character says or does something outrageous, and the other characters react by looking shocked and/or shouting, "WHAT is happening here?!"

Marcello Hernández, ‘SNL’s Latest Secret Weapon, Could Definitely Use a Nap:

Ariana might be the best female host in the 50 year history of SNL.

R140 Mmmm, no. She's good, but not THAT good.

R139 Marcello's publicist is really trying to make this marginally talented dude happen.

The publicist needs a nap.

R139 "Through his very successful stand-up career..."

LOL! Nobody even heard of this dude before SNL.

The castrate skit at the end was pretty lame, but I laughed out loud when Ariana walked out in that getup. I don't know how she was able to keep a straight face.

Network TV-whatever.

[quote]The castrate skit at the end was pretty lame, but I laughed out loud when Ariana walked out in that getup. I don't know how she was able to keep a straight face.

Ariana made that sketch by just standing there. If she was a regular cast member, she'd be a breakout.

Ratings: Ariana Grande-Hosted SNL Delivers Largest Audience Since 2021

First on LateNighter: Ariana Grande is one of the most talented performers of her generation, and is a powerhouse Saturday Night Live host as well.

TV audiences flocked to Grande’s SNL hosting gig in droves this past weekend. Nielsen ratings for the October 12, 2024 episode—which featured Grande as host for the second time and Stevie Nicks as musical guest—were massive. Not only were they up from the previous week’s episode, and the year-ago episode, but Grande’s SNL delivered the show’s largest live-plus-same-day audience overall since May 8, 2021 (hosted by Elon Musk with musical guest Miley Cyrus).