Sat, March 15, 2008

I promise this is the last time I'll do the FJM thing with a really long article about pop culture. As desperate as I am for material, even I can tell when a bit has overstayed its welcome (coughSurvivorColumn!cough). But when you publish a whole article on the undiminished hilarity and cultural relevance of today's Saturday Night Live, you've backed me into a corner. It's either this or pee myself and hope you turn away in pity. And I just washed these jeans.

'SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE' ROCKS THE VOTE

Who says Americans want change? Once again, viewers are voting with their remotes and choosing ''SNL'' as their primary source of political and pop culture satire. Spend a week on the set and you'll see why

By Clark Collis

My guess: Americans are stumbling home drunk and falling asleep with the TV on during the monologue, or the increasingly tiresome "election sketch" that comes in the cold open. Am I close? Or are grassroots MoveOn meetups being scheduled each Saturday night for bright, engaged young people to tune in and tap the political pulse of a generation?

The purpose of the get-together [in executive producer Lorne Michaels's SNL office] is to introduce this week's host, Enchanted star Amy Adams, to the cast and writers, who then pitch her sketch ideas. As this is the first staff get-together of the week, the chatty hubbub is considerable. Everyone quiets down, however, when Michaels starts to talk.

If they don't, his goons will beat them within an inch of their lives. It's in everyone's contract.

''Show 3,'' drawls the producer. ''Amy Adams is the host, and there will be no presidential candidates, as far as we know.'' After that brief introduction, the ideas begin to fly. ''How about someone gets an allergic reaction at an outer-space-themed restaurant and the waiters refuse to break character?'' suggests head writer and cast member Seth Meyers. Assorted ''Yeah, I could see that''-type snickers ripple through the crowd.

Aside from the fact that this would inevitably go on four minutes past the point at which the premise had run dry (Daniel Plainview's milkshake show, anyone?), this is an interesting, humorous conceptual idea which could build nicely and feature physical comedy that actually springs from the material; no wonder it didn't make it to air.

Kenan Thompson pitches an idea in which ''an old lady tries to sell a masturbation instruction manual.''

Ban him from the room. Ban him forever. Jeebus.

Writer Colin Jost chimes in with something called ''BBQ OR.'' ''It would be about a restaurant that also performed surgical operations,'' he explains. This inspires both cackles and looks of mild confusion.

This one got on the air, amazingly. My soul hurts.

At least half of the pitches suggested today will never be heard of again.

Another third will be tweaked just enough to avoid detection ("This time... it's a woman!") and re-pitched every successive week until they get on.

And only a handful will survive the show's brief but ruthless production process to be broadcast on Saturday. The hope among those present is that the skits that do make the cut will further enhance the reputation of a show that has grabbed both headlines and ratings since returning from its writers'-strike-caused hiatus.

Nearly every other network comedy is still off the air because episodes are not live and therefore take weeks to produce. Could this have anything to do with SNL's boost? Impossible!

In an election where ''change'' has been the million-dollar buzzword, Saturday Night Live has proved it's still a formidable political and pop culture force, despite the fact that it has barely changed one iota in the 33 years since Michaels midwifed it into existence.

God bless that courageous, courageous man. (Oops, that's a typo; it should say "ridiculous fucking cretin.")

SNL's first poststrike show on Feb. 23 – featuring the debut of Fred Armisen as Barack Obama, in a zeitgeist-tapping skit lampooning the media's love affair with the Illinois senator – lured a season-high 7.5 million viewers, proving that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert haven't cornered the market on topical political humor.

Right there, they admit the sketch tapped a zeitgeist. People were already thinking this, and SNL came in at week's end to say, "Us, too!" How is this influential? Also, why are two nightly basic cable shows expected to compete in the same ratings arena as a weekly network show which has been airing for over three decades? (Especially when you consider the obvious slant of Stewart's and Colbert's shows, which causes viewers to tune out as soon as their opinions aren't parroted back at them – as opposed to viewers like me who tune in precisely because our opinions are parroted back at us.)

The following week, Hillary Clinton, who had already provoked what chief Clinton impressionist Amy Poehler describes as a ''crazy media frenzy'' by name-checking the aforementioned SNL skit in a debate, stopped by to stand side by side with her doppelgänger.

Show of hands, who's shocked that the SNL cast member overstated the size of the media "frenzy" that resulted from an SNL sketch being mentioned?

Three days later, Clinton won the Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island primaries, leading more than one news outlet to credit SNL for her comeback.

News outlets also credited: her hair, her pantsuit, her husband, her policy statements, her dipshit "red phone" ad, things Obama did wrong, or the actual opinions of actual voters. (Just kidding about that last one.) News outlets have hours of airtime to fill and reams of paper to print. News outlets are desperately low on informative things to say. If a particularly fluffy cat happens to walk by, they'll spend ten minutes tying it to some sort of late-breaking election story.

It's all served as a reminder that SNL is at its most funny – and most important – in an election year.

If true, God help us all next year.

Poehler's Clinton – a wonky bore with a Joker-esque smile – belongs to an honorable tradition of SNL caricatures that have helped frame a politician's public persona, stretching back to Chevy Chase's take on Gerald Ford as Commander-in-Klutz. Michaels was so aggrieved at the comedic opportunities that had been lost to the show during the writers' strike that he resolved to broadcast four shows in a row for the first time since 1976.

So the show sucks because they're writing too many episodes in a row without a much-needed break? Okay, then explain the previous six years. If one week is really not enough time to write a funny weekly sketch comedy show, I completely understand. But perhaps Michaels should split the show into two SNLs, and run them on alternating weeks. Everyone gets more time to write good comedy, and competition impels them to make it funnier.

But he opted to air a couple of extra episodes, rather than foreshorten the season and forgo the six or seven figures he makes per episode? The man is a saint!

''When we were coming back from the strike, I caught the subway with Amy,'' says cast member Andy Samberg. ''We stopped at one of those coffee trucks and we went to pay and the guy's like, 'Are you kidding me? Welcome back, we missed you!'''

Well at least we've finally identified who it is that likes Andy Samberg and wants him on SNL: the guy who sells him coffee by the subway. If Samberg could walk by the same guy and buy the same coffee each day, but instead of heading to SNL he's heading to a brutal and merciless sack beating, would the guy be just as happy with that? Because I would be willing to pay for at least six or seven of those coffees.

On Wednesday afternoon, the entire SNL machine – some 50-odd staffers – gathers for the weekly read-through, which serves as an audition for the skit ideas that were greenlit on Monday.

I'm sorry, I just love this article's repeated use of the term "machine" to describe SNL. Something about the mindless, repetitive drudgery of a machine churning out interchangeable pieces ad infinitum rings a bell for me.

The cast and host Adams sit around a large table and read sketches they have often never seen before, while Lorne Michaels intones the stage directions.

This is incredibly fun to imagine, given the well known fact that Mike Myers based the voice and inflection of Dr. Evil on Michaels.

Over the next three and a half hours, the show's writers, many of whom have been up all night, wait with tired but attentive eyes to see how much laughter their material provokes.

While some sketches fall comparatively flat – including one called ''Club Red,'' about a holiday resort catering exclusively to redheads – ''BBQ OR,'' co-written by Jost and scribe Rob Klein, absolutely kills.

Did we mention these people have been up all night? Also, it should be noted that the more they laugh at each other's material, the less they're all forced to rewrite by pulling another all-nighter. (It should not be overlooked that pitching "Club Red" on the Amy Adams week takes phoning it in to new levels. This is like buying a phone that automatically phones it in for you. But instead of going to the store to buy it, you order it over the phone. Is it possible I am overdoing this?)

[Will] Forte totally sells his [BBQ OR] part with a goofy old man's voice, reading from an eight-page script that, only two days ago, was little more than a vague idea in Jost's brain.

I love Will Forte, but "totally selling" this part implies he made some grand stretch to deliver the perfect take. We're not talking about a staggering display of range here: casting him to play an old man with a goofy voice is like casting Robert De Niro to play Robert De Niro.

At one time, this was the comedy playground of John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, and more. The names have changed, of course, and every week there is a new host and fresh comic situations.

Well, each week there are comic situations. Well, each week there are situations.

But if the content of SNL is in constant flux, its crucial DNA – the cold opening, the monologue, the musical act, ''Weekend Update'' – has remained the same since the first season. This ''strategery'' is approved by veteran SNL writer Jim Downey, author of the 2000 skit in which Will Ferrell (as George W.) first uttered the now-famous malapropism.

(Technically that's a mispronunciation, not a malapropism. A malapropism would be saying "stratosphere" – a real word with a similar sound, not a made-up word.)

''No one ever says, 'Come on, UCLA, you've done basketball – try kayaking!''' says Downey, who first joined SNL in 1976, with a laugh.

True, but you might occasionally hear people say, "Okay, UCLA, you've done basketball – now try doing it well!"

Adds Meyers: ''The tradition of SNL is one of its strongest things. Once you lose that, you become like everybody else. And we're the only people that dramatize the news. We can play the people. We can go to a place where The Daily Show can't.''

The Daily Show could easily go there – its format has adapted over the past ten years, and may again over the next twenty. But it chooses not to – wisely, in my opinion. I like Seth Meyers, despite the fact that he's destroyed Weekend Update, the one segment of the show I loved throughout the Tina Fey years when I was fast-forwarding through most of the other sketches. But it's a little silly to hold up The Daily Show as an example of where political comedy just isn't quite getting the job done. Most people (myself included) don't see The Daily Show as an alternative to SNL; they see it as an alternative to the nightly news.

Michaels also left himself open to criticism with the casting of Barack Obama, who, during the strike, had emerged as the favorite to win the Democratic nomination. Last year, Michaels had toyed with the idea of asking Maya Rudolph – who has since left the show – to play Obama.

A Hollywood executive once (probably apocryphally) pitched the role of Harriet Tubman to Michelle Pfeiffer. (Pfeiffer also subsequently left the project.)

More recently, several non-cast members auditioned for the role, as did Kenan Thompson, currently the SNL cast's sole African-American. But with less than a week to go before the Feb. 23 return, Michaels still didn't have his Obama. Then SNL producer Marci Klein suggested Fred Armisen, a six-season veteran known for his ability to morph into anyone from Prince to Steve Jobs. ''It just clicked,'' says Michaels. ''Fred is so benign, both as a performer and as a person. It wouldn't have any strong agenda.'' Michaels says he did hesitate before casting a non-African-American to play the man who could be the country's first black president: ''Then I thought, no one really complained when he did Prince.'' Says Armisen, who is part German, Japanese, and Venezuelan: ''I tried not to think about [the race issue]. I didn't think about it when I played Prince. I just wanted to look like Prince.''

Approached for comment, white America responded: "He's kind of dark, isn't he? Yeah, that guy looks exactly like Prince. I mean, Obama. I mean, Kenan Thompson."

But this time, people did complain. The Chicago Tribune's TV columnist Maureen Ryan described the choice of Armisen as ''inexplicable,'' while a black writer for the London Guardian argued, ''The moment anyone starts reaching for 'blackface' they are on extremely dodgy territory.'' Michaels is visibly irritated by the charge. ''The Guardian!'' he scoffs with an angry laugh.

I agree with Lorne Michaels here. (Whoa, did anyone else feel that shiver?) Worrying over race in a sketch show where a finite ensemble is constantly called upon to impersonate all different people is absurd. Though it's no more absurd because it comes from The Guardian – not sure why that's scoff-worthy.

Thompson says that Armisen playing Obama ''doesn't bother me. As long as it's funny. As far as, like, 'blackface' and all that is concerned? I don't go down those roads anymore because they only lead to negativity.''

This reminds me of David Brent (Ricky Gervais) defending his racist joke on the grounds that the black guy in the office laughed at it. "We got a black guy to say it's okay! Call off your dogs!"

Also, I'd love to hear Thompson's unfettered thoughts on this issue: "Yeah, it kind of bothered me. I mean, it's hard enough to get screen time as the only brother on the show, and then a juicy black part comes along and they give it to someone else? That's sort of racist." CUT TO: Thompson on the subway with a box of his belongings and a sign reading "Will shoot 'Good Burger 2' for food."

That said, he hasn't given up hope of playing the man himself: ''I think I still have a chance maybe further down the line to play Obama. I'm definitely next in line. I'm the vice president of the Obama role.''

That means he's really controlling the Obama role, and Armisen is just his dim-witted mouthpiece – am I right, lazy hack comedians of the past eight years? The president is the puppet of the fatter, more sinister VP? Hello?

Admittedly, Chevy Chase never looked anything like Gerald Ford, nor tried to, but I think if Obama wins the election and for some reason Armisen is out, you just hire a guy who looks like Barack Obama. Kenan Thompson would only confuse people – and probably draw eye rolls along the lines of, "Oh I suppose all black guys look the same!" followed by, "That guy IS Prince, right?"

At 7:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, 90-year-old SNL announcer Don Pardo introduces cast member Jason Sudeikis to the dress-rehearsal audience.

Awesome. My rock-solid impersonation of Don Pardo is built on this and only this occurrence: his introduction of Jason Sudeikis.

(Also, please please see 30 Rock and The Ten – Sudeikis is so excellent in those, in stark contrast to his shameful underuse on SNL. Aside from his excellent work in the protracted Other Boleyn Girl sketch, I don't think he even showed up in the last two episodes.)

It might seem strange that so much attention is lavished on the audience for a show that isn't even being broadcast. But the rehearsal crowd plays a crucial part in Michaels' time-tested production machine.

"Time-tested" and "stubbornly unaltered" can mean exactly the same thing!

''BBQ OR'' makes it [into the live show], but many sketches do not, including a bit in which Amy Adams and Jason Sudeikis, playing a hotel employee and guest, respectively, discuss the best time and place for Sudeikis' character to masturbate.

Obviously not the first time SNL has pumped laughs from the masturbation well (nor the 493rd), but I'll admit the description of this one made me smile, while the entirety of BBQ OR made me sick with resentment. The "overlong TV ad for a restaurant that is a very bad idea" has been done to death on 2000s-era SNL. Seriously, they couldn't find anything to cut from eight pages of this sketch?

Also, there's a tiny chance Amy Adams could've found a way to make the hotel employee role her own, an opportunity she was not afforded in any of the sketches that made the final show except the monologue.

At the end of the meeting Michaels addresses his troops: ''This is the third show and the first two were really good, and I think we're gonna find this one, too.''

The Ellen Page episode (the second) was criminally awful. Compared to that, the lackluster Amy Adams episode was James Joyce. Read aloud by angels. During a sunrise.

While there are no presidential candidates milling about, Poehler scores big yuks playing ''fierce'' Project Runway winner Christian Siriano in a sketch that also allows Amy Adams to show off her Heidi Klum impersonation.

Were I able to give SNL credit for meta-comedy about its own flaws, I'd say this was a fantastic skewering of its overuse of catchphrases by showcasing four characters from Project Runway and their compulsive dependence on tired catchphrases. Also, Adams's impersonation of Klum? One catchphrase repeated half a dozen times in a blond wig. I love Amy Adams more than my own internal organs, but no, this sketch was no showcase for her abilities.

And as far as prostitution-scandal-plagued New York governor Eliot Spitzer, ''I'm not going to lie, this is an absolute gift,'' says Meyers.

Comedy that literally writes itself is certainly a gift to comedy writers who have lost all ability to write any.

There have been rumors the current season will be Poehler's last.

It all depends on whether she wants to continue having a job, or prefers to be instantly forgotten.

''Amy is a genius,'' says Michaels. ''I have her number, so I'm gonna just stay after her.''

Seriously, she cannot exist in an environment that prioritizes an ability to be funny without the protective wing of Lorne Michaels and his Comedy Distortion Field.

Poehler herself declines to comment on the subject, but she will offer one news update when asked whom Saturday Night Live is really endorsing in the presidential election: ''All this stuff is, for me,'' she jokes, ''just building a case for Nader.''

And that's how the profile ends! My best guess is that Collis figured, "A Nader quip! This proves the show – and everyone on it – is a political powerhouse!" Also possible: in traditional "inverted pyramid" newsroom style, he placed the most woefully irrelevant information dead last, and his editors saw no reason to cut a single sentence.

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