SNL Supersized

If you were ever a fan of Saturday Night Live – and let’s face it, many of us were for at least a handful of years – NBC’s more than three-hour Sunday night special SNL50: An Anniversary Celebration was both an original and nostalgic super-sized treat.

And no, I’m not just saying that because of the book I co-authored with my husband, Stephen Tropiano — The SNL Companion: An Unofficial Guide to The Seasons, Sketches and Stars of Saturday Night Live.

The book that is available on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle.

Nor is it because the two of us coincidentally spent part of the end of our first “date” watching the SNL episode hosted by Sean Penn 37 years ago, never realizing that both we (and the series) would still be a thing.

It’s not even due to the nostalgic fact that we each happened to go to an SNL taping (Note: Me during season one; him in season three) in its first five seminal seasons.

It’s that somehow – after so many hits and misses – this particular episode got it exactly right. Or, well, as right as it could ever be.

There are many secrets to SNL but chief among them is its ability to regenerate itself with a revolving cast of comedy performers every few X number of years, some of whom even start as writers. Just when the series isn’t working, suddenly someone or something (Note: Like some ripe-for-parody personality or news event) comes in that makes it work again. Its most popular sketches endure but are seldom done too many times, always leaving room for the newest hot take to cross into the zeitgeist and create some seemingly necessary, key cultural moment.

Rather than rest on its laurels and rely solely on its past, it constantly tweaks its content while remaining true to the tradition and structure of its unique brand of sketch comedy and musical guests. Weekend Update, the host monologue and the singer/band performances may endure and so do the way they are presented and who presents them. Yet what is contained inside and who is offering what is always different. Not to mention the commercial parodies, the music videos, the short films, guest hosts and guest star cameos.

All of this and more were there in abundance on #SNL50. Yet unlike the prototypical evening of clip reels peppered with celebrity or cast member intro and outros, this was instead like watching a gigantic new episode of the series that incorporated reinvented, new versions of a lot of our favorite sketches and characters from each decade, sometimes with new ones, and in others surprise moments with an SNL performer from an entirely different season showing up in their own signature character from an entirely different bit.

Among the best was an unexpected spot by a very game Meryl Streep (Note: Her first ever in the entire 50 years) playing the mother of Kate McKinnon’s alien-abducted Colleen. As it turns out, Colleen Sr. was also abducted by those little men with the big eyes and watching her have her comic way with fellow abductees (Note: Pedro Pascal and Woody Harrelson, each former hosts) was every bit as bizarrely funny as it sounds.

But there was also:

A new John Mulaney musical tribute to New York City with numerous new and old cast members singing and dancing.

Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph reprising their boroughs talk show, Bronx Beat with special guest Mike Myers as his N.Y. Jewish yenta TV host character, Linda Richman.

Black Jeopardy featuring with contestants Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan joined by Eddie Murphy playing a fiction version of Tracy Morgan as the third contestant while standing right next to him.

Original SNL cast member Laraine Newman in a short film doing a nostalgic walk through of Studio 8H memories only to be met by Pete Davidson’s dim bulb Chad persona as an incompetent 30 Rock stagehand.

A Q&A of little known SNL facts and cutaways hosted by Tina Fey and Poehler, which gave us a chance to see any number of other former cast members and guest stars.

A tribute to SNL digital shorts with a new one on SNL-performance anxiety led by Andy Samberg and Bowen Yang (Note: Though good as it was it couldn’t outweigh the special version of Samberg and Lady Gaga reworking his and Justin Timberlake’s Emmy-winning “Dick in the Box” two nights before in an SNL musical anniversary special).

And Adam Sandler center stage with his guitar (Note: Introduced by little-seen these days Jack Nicholson!) singing a new tune he wrote in the tradition of his Chanukah song, but this time in tribute to various SNL performers and crew people (Note: Many behind-the-scenes personnel were given shout outs and brought in front of the camera during the episode), some of which were quite touching without overdoing it.

Instead of allowing a heavy hitter group of live musical acts to take over, they were judiciously spread over the three hours, much like they would be over the course of a single episode. There was Paul Simon, Sabrina Carpenter, Lil Wayne and Paul McCartney (all former guests) but by far stealing the show was a blues rock version of Nothing Compares To U by Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard. A cleverly reinvented but fitting version of the signature Sinead O’Connor tune, written by Prince, both of whom left us with their own classic SNL performances before their untimely deaths.

It’s tricky to write about 50 years of SNL without leaving so many out from the past, on the special and even in the audience attending the special. But what’s even harder is not devoting some time to its creator, and producer of 45 of those years, Lorne Michaels. He’s been an omnipresent part of everything, referenced frequently and every so often making brief (and very often even silent) onscreen appearances. The latter was exactly the case over this three hours, which at first seemed strange but, by the end, felt only fitting. Mr. Michaels clearly enjoys steering the ship but wisely picks and chooses when and where he appears on camera.

It’s not that he doesn’t know his way around an audience and a teleprompter. Or shy away from taking credit for steering the ship for most of its journey. It’s that on nights where it’s all going the way it should be, it’s best to simply let the work speak for itself.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” – Miley Cyrus & Brittany Howard

09.08.24

by notesfromachair

The SNL Companion

The very nature of a blog is that you get to put your opinion out there in print for anyone, or preferably everyone, to read.

There are many reasons for this.

But speaking for those of us who do this consistently and with regularity (Note: Because why wouldn’t I?) we also believe we are here to inform, entertain, educate and/or yell and scream at the world when we think it deserves it because someone has to and no one can do it the way it needs to be done except for us.

At our idealistic best, we’re merely trying to help.

At our unvarnished worst, we’re promoting our thoughts and/or ourselves.

Often shamelessly.

So, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, here’s the thing:

My husband and I wrote a fun and informative book on Saturday Night Live that will be released on Sept. 17^th from Rowman & Littlefield and we want you all to read it, enjoy it and, if you can, BUY IT!

It’s titled:

The SNL Companion: An Unofficial Guide to the Seasons, Sketches, and Stars of Saturday Night Live.

(Here’s the link to it on Amazon)

The list price is $36.95 but you can get it for 38% off at $22.81.

And it’s a whopping 648 pages!!

AND IT’S NOT BORING!!!

So here’s the deal and some background.

This book is more than a list of stars, sketches, hosts and musical guests through the seasons. It takes readers through all of the notable highlights, the transitions and the necessary evolutions it took to make SNL the longest-running comedy series on television. Also, through an analysis of all of the historical information, as well as interviews about how the show portrayed what was going on in the country, it becomes a sort of time capsule of comedic and musical American pop culture, as well as a showcase for much of the political and sociological change we’ve endured and evolved from over the last 50 years.

So what you’re saying is…. THIS. BOOK. HAS. EVERYTHING.

This was not necessarily the plan.

It only became that through extensive research on every key sketch (Note: And I mean EVERY) and seasonal high and low and in-between point throughout the history of the series.

We interpreted the information but at the end of the day it’s Lorne Michaels and everyone associated with SNL who deserve the credit. They are responsible for creating the many hundreds of hours of outstanding television memories (Note: Oh, and of course, every episode and season has moments that bomb, that’s the case with every long-running series that’s ever been on television) we had the pleasure, and sometimes appalled bemusement, of reliving.

It’s not like every notable comedy star, writer, director or creator stepped through the doors of SNL since it began. But, well, A LOT of them did. Like — A LOT. As we write in the book:

…Consider the popularity over the last fifty years of films starring: Bill Murray, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Mike Myers. Or the impact on TV made by shows created by, produced by or starring: Tina Fey, Larry David, Amy Poehler, Jane Curtin, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Conan O’Brien, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg and Will Forte. Not to mention writers and directors like Adam McKay, Michael Schur, Greg Daniels and Bob Odenkirk…

And that’s a partial list that leaves out stand-up comics, Broadway and concert performers, musical guests in pretty much every genre, and even any number of flash-in-the pan one hit or one bit wonders.

Here’s a more polished promotional link from the publisher: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781493072606

Two more personal points worth noting.

My husband and co-author, Stephen Tropiano, published the forerunner to this book, Saturday Night Live FAQ, through Applause Books almost a decade and a half ago. But with the 50^th anniversary coming around and SNL’s enduring influence in the zeitgeist, especially in politics and through a continuous loop of viral moments, R & L (Note: They acquired Applause Books some years ago) asked him to revisit the material and expand the scope.

Knowing I’m a political junkie who can’t resist comment and chronicling my every thought about that and pop culture somewhere, he generously asked me to co-author what has become a much more gargantuan and strangely personal project than we both imagined.

This brings me to the second thought.

One of the best things I ever did in my life was to say “yes” in 1987 when a friend asked me to get together with someone he went to school with at NYU who had just moved to L.A. to get his PhD and didn’t know many people. I took that someone to a party, spent the next three hours talking to him about something I was writing in between a few requisite questions about himself, and then drove him back to his college apartment at USC.

When we got inside we hung out and watched a new episode of SNL where guest host Sean Penn (then married to Madonna) joked about beating up paparazzi (Note: He used to do that kind of stuff and in fact had just done so mere days before the broadcast).

Then we…..well, never mind.

In any event, that was thirty-seven years ago and that someone is now DR. Tropiano, the guy who I am married to and still hanging out with watching SNL.

We should really write a book about that.

Or maybe not.

Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg – “Lazy Sunday”

notes from a chair

Tag Archives: mike myers

SNL Supersized

The SNL Companion