Monday, March 30, 2015

Sam Smith And Dr. Evil Cold Open - Saturday Night Live Skit

This Saturday Night Live skit was taken from the 2014 Christmas special. This was an episode hosted by Amy Adams but because it was a holiday special there were tons of celebrities on on hand for the performance. Mike Myers showed up to do a cameo for the introduction sketch and it was hilarious.

The scene starts with Sam Smith (Taran Killam) hosting a holiday special entitled a very somber Christmas. He is singing his song Stay With Me. Taran Killam does a great job with this skit and if it would have continued it would have been funny as hell to see him parody a moody Sam Smith but just as things start to get funny the broadcast is interrupted by Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers franchise. I love Mike Myers and pretty much all the characters he has created for his films so this was a real treat for me. Dr. Evil proceeds to to give his opinion on the recent release of Seth Rogen's new movie The Interview. Apparently Dr. Evil is close friends with North Korea's Dictator Kim Jong Un. I won't give away the whole sketch but it's definitely worth a watch and will give you more than a few laughs.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Shark Tank ISIS - Saturday Night Live Skit Featuring Chris Rock And Kate McKinnon

This was another Saturday Night Live skit that drew a lot of attention and criticism for making light of the terrorist group known as ISIS. I don't know what people expect when a group like ISIL has become such a major terrorist organization. The media is covering this group on a daily basis so of course we are going to see some comedians taking shots at them. I think Chris Rock and Kyle Mooney did a great job of portraying two ISIS militants seeking funding for their terror group. Chris Rock goes a little over the top with his humor but any fan of his work should be use to his methods for getting the audience to crack up. I really don't see what all the drama is about. SNL has been pretty tame even in recent years when you compare them to series like MadTV or In Living Color. Comedy shows from the 90s were much more offensive than Saturday Night Live is on their worst episode.

As far as the acting goes Kate McKinnon does an incredible job of playing Barbara Corcoran, I mean she hits it out of the ballpark here and even seems to get her voice right. Kenan Thompson also does a great job portraying Daymond John who seems willing to strike a deal with the two jihadists when they offer to make FUBU the official brand of the new Islamic caliphate. Season 40 has really been great, there have been many incredible celebrity guest stars too, I'm sad to see it coming to an end but we still have a few episodes remaining.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Avengers News Report - Saturday Night Live Skit Featuring Chris Hemsworth And Taran Killam

With the blockbuster summer movie blitz fast approaching there is no doubt we will see a fair amount of Saturday Night Live movie parody skits. Although I love these type of SNL episodes I prefer it when they come out after a movie is released. Of course when a franchise like Avengers is getting ready to release a movie it's better to jump on the bandwagon and get some laughs in early so you can have the spotlight when fan boys inevitably go online after release day to search for more entertainment in relation to the film they were just blown away by and with Chris Hemsworth guest staring there was noway the SNL corporate bigwigs were going to pass up the chance to lampoon such a huge smash hit like The Avengers.

Since Chris Hemsworth was on the show this night it was obvious that the character of Thor was going to be the main superhero in this Saturday Night Live Skit. I've always thought that he played this character a little stiff in the film but that's probably on purpose, because lets face it, what could be more stiff and unmovable other than a Norse god. In this skit he gets to let loose and almost seems to be pretending to be drunk. Maybe Thor had a little bit too much mead after defeating the evil artificial intelligence known as Ultron. Whether you agree with me or not you have to admit that Thor seems more like an excited football fan whose team has just won the Superbowl rather than the the mighty god of thunder.

Cecily Strong plays a reporter who seems unaffected by the destruction surrounding him as he calmly interviews Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Iron man played by Taran Killam and Captain America (Beck Bennett) as well as Nick Fury (Jay Pharoah) and Bruce Banner (Pete Davidson). I was kind of hoping to see someone portraying The Hulk as that character is pure comedy gold. Everyone does a good job of portraying their Marvel characters with special distinction going to Taran Killam for portraying Tony Stark's humor accurately but to be honest non of the characters get more than five seconds of screen time other than Thor.



So how do you guys like season 40 of Saturday Night Live so far? I don't think it's going to go down as one of my modern favorites but they have had some fairly interesting celebrity guest stars. What has been your favorite episode so far?

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Father Daughter Ad - Saturday Night Live Skit Featuring Taran Killam And Dakota Johnsson

Lately Saturday Night Live has been doing skits that make fun of the terrorist group ISIS and this is not the first episode to deal with this topic. If you ask me it's about time. This was a parody sketch of the 'My Bold Dad' commercial that was shown during the 2014 Superbowl. In this new vignette a father played by Taran Killam is dropping off his daughter played by Dakota Johnsson at the airport, he's having the talk that every father has with his son or daughter as they leave the nest to finally go out into the world. We've seen these commercial before, perhaps his daughter is joining the army and this is the final goodbye or maybe she's off to college. What really happens in this SNL video will have you laughing like crazy.

They really need to do more videos like this. I think an organization like ISIS needs to be the butt of jokes. We can already see how ridiculous the worldview of organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda is so why not use them for great comedy material?

Some people have been hating on this skit because it makes light humor of a group that is responsible for killing and maiming thousands of innocent people and given the recent story of three young British girls that left the UK this comedy sketch seems times to cause the most controversy possible.


The point I think many people are missing is that the best way to deal with religious extremism and fanatical terrorist groups in the media is to use ridicule. Logic and reason do not work on groups that are bent on murdering people who do not agree with their viewpoints. The only way to counter their madness is to mock them. In this way SNL has the perfect vehicle to push against these groups. I for one hope to see more skits like this from Saturday Night Live in the near future.


Here are some of the comments I've seen about this skit on twitter.

https://twitter.com/RugratChas/status/571896228532768768
So it what way is this skit making fun of people getting killed by ISIS? I thought they were making fun of the people that join ISIS and turn into killers or the wives of killers themselves? I don't see any problem with mocking those people. Maybe if the received more criticize they would think twice before making such a choice.

https://twitter.com/TwitchyTeam/status/572067635828928513
I agree bullies need to be mocked. They prey on the weakest among us and only through mockery can they see their own ignorance, at least this guy gets it. No one is making fun of the people being slaughtered. The target here is ISIS itself.