SNL

Jay Mohr’s Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live is the second “uncensored” book I’ve read about SNL. (I read Live from New York about two years ago.) Mohr is on the radio pretty frequently here in LA and I really enjoy Last Comic Standing when I catch it. His breakout role was as evil sports agent Bob Sugar in Jerry Maguire, and he appeared in the cult classic, life-in-LA film Go. This book is about the two years he spent as a writer and featured player on SNL. Yes, as you’d expect, there are a boatload of funny stories about all the crazy behind-the-scenes antics of the cast and guest hosts. But the great part about it is the story of his personal life and his struggles with depression, anxiety, and fame. It’s a really fascinating read and I definitely recommend it.

I don’t get addicted to songs very often. If you’ve spent any amount of time reading this site you know that I am infatuated with music and I love just about every genre. I have no doubt that I have spent the great majority of the last two decades with music playing. I love listening to music and I love hearing songs that I haven’t heard in a while. It’s rare that I listen to the same album or song more than once a day. But every now and then I get addicted to a tune and I want to hear it over and over again.

A few years ago it was Green Day’s Jesus of Suburbia. A few months ago it was The Killers’ Sam’s Town. (I’m going to see them next Monday, by the way.) Right now it’s Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats. Believe it or not, I had never heard of Ms. Underwood until I saw her on SNL last weekend performing this song. I, of course, immediately found it on LimeWire and have listened to it two dozen times this week. It’s the ‘07 version of Alanis‘ You Oughta Know — angry and nasty. I love it.

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Last night’s Saturday Night Live with Peyton Manning and Carrie Underwood was excellent. I am so happy that the show is in something of a revival right now. It’s a long-overdue, glorious return to funny. The last dozen or so SNLs have had me in stitches on more than one occasion. The digital shorts and the fake commercials are superb, the guest hosts are good again, and even the news is smart and witty. I miss Tina Fey, but whatshisface and Amy Poehler are doing a great job. I am kind of tired of so many recurring sketches, but I can live with it. I’m just glad that it’s finally stopped playing second-fiddle to The Daily Show and Best Week Ever. Those two shows are usually side-splitting and I had been more than a little bit sad that NBC’s classic favorite, the show I’ve watched since I was ten or twelve, had fallen into irrelevance. Now it’s back to being a standard and it’s worth watching.

I have to admit that I was a huge fan of the West Wing. I thought it was “the most intelligent show on television“. The last season (or was it two?) though — after Aaron Sorkin stopped writing — it really jumped the shark. I was still pretty sad to see it go. I have the first three seasons on DVD and I’ll likely get the rest. It was brilliant; the writing, the acting, the direction were all better than any other television show in years.

I have been anxiously waiting for the premiere of Studio 60. There was a big chunk of me that was doubtful, even a little scared, that it wouldn’t be very good. I felt the same way about the new Batman and the new Superman. How could Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme possibly create another show as good as the West Wing? Sure they had Bradley Whitford again, but would he be able to be anyone other than Josh Lyman? And Chandler as his co-star? And why in the name of all that is good and holy would they possibly want to go up against Monday Night Football?!

And yet, incredibly, the pilot was awesome. The second episode was awesome. One of the very, very few good things about football in Los Angeles is that it tends to not conflict with anything else. MNF is usually put to bed by 9 out here, so only 95% of NFL fans in the country are going to get screwed out of watching the new best show on television. Yeah, I said that. It’s the best show on television. I can say that. Rescue Me is on hiatus and the Sopranos went on permanent hiatus a few seasons ago.

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Now, instead of searching the web for “borrowed” NBC highlights, you can go to the source! We’ve taken your viral favorites and gathered them into one convenient location. Watch. React. Tell a friend.

In an incredible burst of sanity, NBC has decided to do something sensible. My flabber is gasted.

PS: Yes, the Natalie Portman rap is here. w00t!

Today I finally finished Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, which has been sitting on my reading list for well over a year now. It’s not so much a “book” as it is a huge collection of quotes and stories from cast members, producers, writers, directors, etc. It could have been subtitled “All About Lorne Michaels” to be honest with you; it seemed like every other quote was somebody talking about him. It was quite fun to read, though. I’m a big fan of the show and have been for as long as I can remember.

I have never been able to forget one sketch. It was the one where Kevin Nealon was a reporter covering the “All Drug Olympics” and the weight-lifter’s arms ripped out of his sockets. I don’t think I had ever laughed so hard in my life. I picked up the phone and called one of my friends to ask him if he’d just seen it, and he had. Everyone was talking about that skit at school on Monday, too. For some reason that memory is lodged in my mind and I don’t think I’ll ever lose it.

Awesome. MSNBC is doing a comedy movie version of March Madness. (bracket here) You really get screwed in a couple of places — being forced to choose between incredibly funny movies very early: Animal House vs. Austin Powers, Fletch vs. Wayne’s World, Swingers vs. Best in Show, for example. When I was forced to choose between favorites, I went with the “laugh-out-loud” factor. My personal tourney finished like this:

1. Vacation over Bull Durham
   1. Bull Durham over Airplane
   2. Bull Durham over Office Space
2. Vacation over Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
   1. Vacation over Old School
   2. Old School over Beverly Hills Cop

It was painful to try to choose between Old School and Ghostbusters! I don’t think it was fair to have a Saturday Night Live bracket and force them all to compete so early. I also can’t agree that When Harry Met Sally and Dr. Strangelove are even in the mix … Great movies, to be sure, but I don’t see how they’d make it into the top 64 comedies of all time. WHMS is more of a generic “chick-flick” than a comedy, and DS is really only funny in a non-funny way. But I guess that’s why we have brackets, right? Who’s your winner?
link via a small victory

“I wish I could shrink down to the size of an ant. And maybe there would be thousands of other people shrunken down to ant-size, and we would get together and dig tunnels down into the ground and live there. But don’t ever call us ‘ants,’ because we hate that.”

When you die, if you go somewhere where they ask you a bunch of questions about your life and what you learned and all, I think a good way to get out of it is just to say, “No speaka English.”

“The first thing was, I learned to forgive myself. Then, I told myself, “Go ahead and do whatever you want, it’s okay by me.”

“Fear can sometimes be a useful emotion. For instance, let’s say you’re an astronaut on the moon and you fear that your partner has been turned into Dracula. The next time he goes out for the moon pieces, wham!, you just slam the door behind him and blast off. He might call you on the radio and say he’s not Dracula, but you can just say, “Think again, bat man.”