"I'm No Angel," an SNL classic

Greg Allman's "I'm No Angel" got a random play on the iPod this morning. ...

Hearing that song will forever remind me of this Saturday Night Live skit. One of my all-time favorites ...

The Golden Globes

I rarely watch awards shows – aside from the Grammys, of course. Most are way too long and a waste of time. Plus, I’m a cynic about the politics, qualifications of the judges and all that goes into selecting the winners. … It's all subjective.

But when you book Tina Fey and Amy Poehler – two of my favorite entertainers of all time – to host the thing? Yep, I’ll watch!

Totally worth it. EW posted their best jokes here. ... I especially enjoyed the Meryl Streep line.

And yes, the presentation of fellow SNL alums Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell was totally amusing.

Best acceptance speech: Adele for her best original song in "Skyfall."

Although, everybody seems to be talking about what Jodie Foster did – or didn’t – say. Looking stunning, she had me standing in awe in front of the TV as I watched her speech, and it was easily one of the most memorable moments of the show.

Here's two more good reads ...
a The Lifting of a Veil, Discreetly
a Jodie Foster speaks out

Back to Tina and Amy. I was catching up on my online reading and surfing the web tonight when I stumbled across this gem that's now nearly a decade old  …

Late night laughs

So I finally got around to watching last weekend's Saturday Night Live tonight.

Ha-larious. I thought it ranked alongside Emma Stone's appearance as one of the top episodes of what has been a pretty good season.

The current cast is at its funniest when the guys and gals are doing impressions of pop culture icons and when SNL alumni and friends drop in. With SNL alumna Maya Rudolph hosting the show last weekend, there was plenty of both.

EW, in its review, wrote that the "hysterical and edgy episode of SNL may have been the ultimate unifier: A fusion of greats from the show’s past effortlessly blending with the new."

I laughed out loud a lot. ... Here are my favorites sketches of the night ...



Amy Poehler returned, too! ... And she stayed on after the Really!? bit to co-anchor the newscast with Seth Myers.



This sketch is worth watching just to see Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader cracking up.



And finally, I think Fred Armisen's Barack Obama impression is great. But when he melds it with an impression of Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable -- even better.

(Sadly, what this SNL-provided video clip doesn't show is the bonus portion of the sketch, which had the cast members doing a classic Cosby Show scene and Amy Poehler jumping in as Hillary Clinton. Here's the original scene, and here's the SNL clip that some guy recorded off his TV.)

Christmas cheer

Saturday Night Live, you did it again ...

After a sub-par year season last year, you've reeled off several cheer-worthy episodes in a row. Kates and I watched Saturday night's Christmas episode with Jimmy Fallon (and Michael Buble, among many others) on our DVR tonight, and it was indeed a good one. EW smartly called it "joyful and triumphant" and "an instant classic."

Check out some highlights ...

(This, Fallon's monologue, after a couple nice surprise appearences by Rachel Dratch and Amy Poehler in the opening sketch.)



The Buble Duets ... Hilarious.



The Christmas Treat ... Classic. So good to see all these guys doing this skit again.



The Weekend Update Joke-off ... Legendary.



And finally, Tebow. ... Believe what you want, but this was funny.

SNL returns

Oh boy, were we looking forward  to the season premiere of "Saturday Night Live" last night. Amy Poehler hosting, Katy Perry performing -- throw in Sesamegate -- how could we not tune in!? (In case you missed it, check out Amy Poehler's hidden camera fun over the summer on Ellen.)

The opening monologue was stacked with talent and loaded with good bits ...



I loved -- loved -- that Poehler teamed up once more with Maya Rudolph for an episode of "Bronx Beat," one of my favorite running skits in recent years. And any viewer paying close attention to their Twitter feeds this week had to figure the minds of SNL were going to come up with a gag that spoofed Perry's "Sesame Street" performance. Perry visiting "Bronx Beat" in the Elmo shirt was genius ...



Weekend Update is never bad when Poehler is around, either. And an appearance by the actual David Patterson was pretty swell as well, although I would have been disappointed if Fred Armisen and Patterson hadn't popped up in front of the camera lens as Poehler was signing off -- which they did.



The show's biggest downfall, I thought, were Perry's musical performances. The background dancers were terribly distracting. Perry appeared uncomfortable and seemed off her game.

Good read ...
a Live from New York, it's Chicago on 'SNL'
a Tom Shales reviews the opening show of SNL's 36th season

Sunday Night Recording

(Updated 12.15.2008)

... Kates and I just finished watching the latest episode of our "Sunday Night 'Saturday Night Live.' "

... And I have to say ... Last night's SNL might have been the best all-around SNL I have seen in a long time. (Mo Ryan disagrees.) I had good, hearty laughs on multiple skits (Which I don't recall happening during the Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin Era). I thoroughly enjoyed the entire show ...

From Jason Sudeikis playing the foul-mouthed Blago in the opening sketch, to the return of "Bronx Beat" to a Weekend Update that nearly had my side hurting ...

And this weekend we really did have to say good-bye to Amy Poehler ... I'm not sure if I missed something, but we swore she was done when she had her baby a few weeks ago. Then, she popped up on last week's show (HA-larious! by the way ...), and the word was that it was a one-time deal. Then, she popped up again last night -- and we cheered briefly that she might not be going away, only to watch her choked-up farewell at the end of Update ... We'll miss you Amy ...

In case you missed it, here's the opening sketch ... (And here's what Phil Rosenthal had to say about it. I get his point, and OK, the accent didn't work ... But I still thought SNL's take was funny ...)



Here's Weekend Update ... (Apparently people didn't like the take on David Paterson either. Again, I get their point ... But it's SNL. And it had my side hurting ...)





And while I'm at it, here's my favorite bit from last weekend's SNL -- Obama: Cool. (Kates and I were actually singing this around the house after we finished watching last weekend's show ...)

* * *

In other news tonight ...

Kates was putting Phoebe to bed as I caught this on the Nightly News ...

So amusing to watch I called Kates back to the living room ... and we watched it probably three or four more times ...

We'll miss you Amy

So Amy Poehler had her baby yesterday ...

We figured it out this afternoon as we watched our "Sunday 'Saturday Night Live' " and realized Poehler wasn't appearing in any skits, aside from one previously-recorded sketch ...

(By the way, while last night's show wasn't stellar -- aside from Maya Rudolph's appearance as Michelle Obama -- we did get three, THREE! Coldplay performances, including a great oldie -- they played "Yellow" for their third song, and Chris Martin capped it by saying into the mic "Barack Obama!" ... The band launched into a fouth song as the credits rolled, though, we as television viewers only got to hear a few seconds of it ...But back to Amy ... )

We got our confirmation when Seth Myers went solo on "Weekend Update" and I promptly logged on, finding the news here.

While we're extremely happy for Amy and her husband, Will Arnett, and their new son, Archie ... We're pretty sad her SNL appearances are all but a memory now. The send-off to her at the end of Weekend Update was worthy ...

Here's my tribute to Amy Poehler -- A clip of her playing Andy Richter's sister on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." I was a big fan of Conan -- and Andy -- during my college days, and I loved the nights when Amy appeared on the show. That's when I first took notice of her ...

Saturday Night Live ... sort of

Keeping with our routine of watching Saturday Night Live on Sunday afternoons ...

And our yearning to see what Tina Fey and the SNL crew will come up with this week ...

This week, the real Sarah Palin got her air time, and it was equally entertaining. She was a good sport about it.

In the opening sketch ... The use of Tina Fey's "30 Rock" co-star Alec Baldwin made the sketch ...("What?! The real one!? Bye-ee.")



And Weekend Update ...



Outside of Palin's appearances, the funniest sketch was Amy Poehler's bit as a pregnant woman being picked up by some men in a bar ... I'd post it, but I couldn't find a clip to post. Gosh, we're going to miss Amy.

She's baaaaaack!

So good to see Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin again on last night's SNL.



On a side note, Amy Poehler's getting scary big. I say scary because it's a reminder of how precious little time we have with her on SNL before she has her baby and doesn't return. The Chris Farleys, Adam Sandlers and Will Ferrells can be replaced, but I'm not sure SNL will ever be the same without Poehler.

In case you haven't seen it, here's an excerpt of Katie Couric's sit-down with Palin earlier this week ...

Sarah Palin Live!

... So Kates and I just got done watching last night's Saturday Night Live premiere ...

... Kates and I were at a wedding yesterday and last night (... This one was for one of many cousins. Always great fun with the family ...) ...We returned home in plenty of time to catch the show live, but we were terribly exhausted. So we decided to let the DVR do the work and we caught the recording this afternoon ...

... But let's back up a little ... Kates and I had been waiting for this premiere for weeks. Who wasn't -- given SNL's dream team cast for this fall's elections. Granted, I've only been a fan watching SNL since the late '90s, but based on the clips I've seen of older shows, I'm not sure SNL has ever had a group who perfectly plays the day's political characters as well as this current cast ...

And with that in mind Kates and I have eagerly waited for weeks to see who would take on the Sarah Palin role ... The obvious choice was Sarah Palin look-a-like and SNL alum Tina Fey. Kates argued no one else could play Palin, while I figured it'd be too hard for SNL to bring Fey back for the fall and the show would have to settle on Kristin Wiig as Palin ...

... So when we got home last night, despite our exhaustion, the excitement level was, shall we say -- palin-pable.

Kates and I couldn't not at least watch the opening skit ...

And there, lo and behold, was Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler doing her classic Hillary Clinton -- and the real Sarah Palin was watching!. Barely a few seconds in Kates and I were clapping hands in the air and loving it ... Tina Fey hit Palin dead-on. The exaggerrated northern American accent also was a nice touch. And by the end, Kates and I were laughing so hard or sides were hurting ...

We can only hope Fey stays with SNL through the election to do more Palin-isms ...

Watching the rest of the show today wasn't nearly as fun. But that was expected ...

I didn't have high expectations for Michael Phelps ... Although I was super-pleased to see Fred Armisen do his Nicholas Fehn character, which has to be one of my favorite SNL characters of the last few years ... I had been thinking going into last night's show how good it would be to see Armisen do Nicholas Fehn again ...

In case you missed the opening Sarah Palin-Hillary Clinton sketch ...

Ba(ra)ck on 'SNL'

... So Kates has been sick all weekend, and because of it we skipped church this morning ...

And watched last night's "SNL."

HA-larious. An instant classic. Easily one of the top episodes od the year, along with the Brian Williams show.

With the news that Loren Michaels was auditioning cast members to play Barack Obama, we were beyond eager to see the results ...

And, boy, did Fred Armisen get it. The mannerisms. The slow speech. The curled eyebrows. ... Then combine that with Amy Poehler doing her Hillary Clinton impersonation, Kristin Wiig as Campbell Brown and the characters gushing over Obama -- the skit was brilliant ... (For the record, going in, I hadn't even thought of Armisen as a possible Obama ... But if he can pull it off as well as he did, who cares whether the impersonator is black. That's where SNL's amazing makeup team comes in.)

Combine that with the charm of seeing Tina Fey back with her SNL buds -- We couldn't have asked for a better return from the writer's strike ...

Tina Fey's opening monologue with Steve Martin emboldening her to be a performer was entertaining ...And her "Women's News" bit at the Weekend Update desk was seriously funny -- complete with a plug for Hillary Clinton ...



And that was after Mike Huckabee's wickedly funny appearance on Update... Huckabee showed off his comic chops and kudos to him for doing the bit ...



The Celebrity Apprentice. Andy Samberg as Mathew Lesko and Amy Poehler as the dancing guy from the Six Flags commercials -- HA-larious.



... Along with the "I Drink Your Milkshake Skit" -- complete with a Kenosha reference at the end. Nice.



Though I can't say I was impressed with new featured player Casey Wilson ... She's going to annoy me, I think.

The burning question of What happened to Maya Rudolph!? led me to this ...

But hey, next we've got Ellen Page hosting! Can't wait!

Good reads ...
a Weekend update: 'SNL' is back in the race
a A Comedian and a Candidate Share a Big 'Saturday Night'
a 'SNL' has highest rating in two years

Performers that rock

… I read something on another blog about the notion that Amy Poehler is saving “Saturday Night Live” these days …

I could go with that.

Her imitation of Dakota Fanning last night was spot-on and HA-larious …



And Avril Lavigne rocked. Plain and simple. She's fun to watch ...