"Live from New York..."
Of late, along with everything else I've been watching, I've been on a bit of a Saturday Night Live kick. Not the current show, though. I haven't watched an actual episode in years and haven't regularly watched in decades. I will occasionally watch clips on YouTube, usually from Weekend Update but sometimes sketches that friends mention or something like that. But, with the anniversary of the show approaching, there have been other things that are related.
Also, how weird is it that SNL is turning 50 this year? It premiered about six months after I was born, and yet I'm only turning 29.
Anyhoozle, back to what I was talking about. There is a four-part documentary currently streaming on Peacock. I started with that last week. It was really good. The first episode was about the audition process and there were interviews with past and current cast members, with clips of their auditions as well as auditions for some now famous people who didn't make the cut. The next episode was about the writers. It followed the show's writers for a week last season but also had interviews with writers from throughout the show's history. The third episode was just about the "Cowbell" sketch. And the last episode was about the show's eleventh season, aka "The Weird Year." I found all four episodes really interesting and learned more than a few things. And then this week, there was a new documentary, produced by Questlove, about music on SNL. Not just the musical guests, although there was a lot of time spent on them. But integrating music into sketches from the Blues Brothers through Adam Sandler's bits on Weekend Update and on to The Lonely Island's digital videos. And quite a bit more as well. It was really well done, and very interesting.
After finishing The Night Agent the other evening (which I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope we don't have to wait two whole years until season 3, but I think it's more likely we will. Alas!), I noticed that Jason Reitman's film Saturday Night was on Netflix, so I watched that last night. It details the 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode of the show and all of the chaos that was going on. I don't know how much of it was the truth and what was invented or embellished for the movie, but it was a fun hour and a half. The casting of several of the characters, all real people, was excellent, particularly Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd. And as soon as the movie was over, I jumped over to Peacock and watched the actual first episode. I've seen it before, or at least most of it. It was interesting seeing it after getting a sense of what was happening just before the show went live. Although, to be honest, I didn't find a lot of it actually all that funny. Andy Kaufman's bit still kills, though.
Anyway, just something I felt like getting out there. There's some stuff going on relating to work, but not really affecting me so I feel weird writing about it. So, I most likely won't unless things change. This month has been the longest year!!
Also, how weird is it that SNL is turning 50 this year? It premiered about six months after I was born, and yet I'm only turning 29.
Anyhoozle, back to what I was talking about. There is a four-part documentary currently streaming on Peacock. I started with that last week. It was really good. The first episode was about the audition process and there were interviews with past and current cast members, with clips of their auditions as well as auditions for some now famous people who didn't make the cut. The next episode was about the writers. It followed the show's writers for a week last season but also had interviews with writers from throughout the show's history. The third episode was just about the "Cowbell" sketch. And the last episode was about the show's eleventh season, aka "The Weird Year." I found all four episodes really interesting and learned more than a few things. And then this week, there was a new documentary, produced by Questlove, about music on SNL. Not just the musical guests, although there was a lot of time spent on them. But integrating music into sketches from the Blues Brothers through Adam Sandler's bits on Weekend Update and on to The Lonely Island's digital videos. And quite a bit more as well. It was really well done, and very interesting.
After finishing The Night Agent the other evening (which I thoroughly enjoyed. I hope we don't have to wait two whole years until season 3, but I think it's more likely we will. Alas!), I noticed that Jason Reitman's film Saturday Night was on Netflix, so I watched that last night. It details the 90 minutes leading up to the very first episode of the show and all of the chaos that was going on. I don't know how much of it was the truth and what was invented or embellished for the movie, but it was a fun hour and a half. The casting of several of the characters, all real people, was excellent, particularly Dylan O'Brien as Dan Aykroyd. And as soon as the movie was over, I jumped over to Peacock and watched the actual first episode. I've seen it before, or at least most of it. It was interesting seeing it after getting a sense of what was happening just before the show went live. Although, to be honest, I didn't find a lot of it actually all that funny. Andy Kaufman's bit still kills, though.
Anyway, just something I felt like getting out there. There's some stuff going on relating to work, but not really affecting me so I feel weird writing about it. So, I most likely won't unless things change. This month has been the longest year!!