The Black Eyed Peas hit up Saturday Night Live this past weekend, and also hit (and bludgeoned and pounced on repeatedly) Kathie Lee Gifford. The big letdown was that a.) it was just a SNL skit mocking the Today Show, and not some spontaneous act of rage brought about by rogue, anti-Kathie Lee BEP members, and b.) it wasn’t even the real Kathie Lee, but rather Kristen Wiig’s boozy take on her. MORE »
Above, a preview of a promo for this week’s Saturday Night Live, which will feature Taylor Swift performing and hosting. Why do I have a feeling that Swift’s eye-rolling at Bill Hader’s insistence on making a Kanye joke doesn’t necessarily mean that there won’t be three or four or 10 references to the notorious Video Music Awards incident during the 90 minutes of this week’s program? Oh right, because of SNL’s writing staff, which never met a joke it couldn’t bludgeon to death. [MTV] MORE »
Clearly hoping that the power of one conglomerate-owned network will at least equal that of Oprah Winfrey, Jon Bon Jovi has signed an exclusive deal with NBC and its sister networks like Bravo to promote his band’s upcoming album, The Circle, which comes out on Nov. 10. And this frothy cross-promotion even has a lofty title! NBC Universal—which you may know as the television company that decided to decimate the scripted-television industry by thrusting Jay Leno into five days of prime time a week—has declared the wide-grinning singer its artist in residence. Take that, music critics who have long dismissed Bon Jovi and his namesake band’s big hooks and anthemic choruses! Dude is an artist—even James Lipton says so! MORE »
“The only question is: Who will play Kanye West?” the Associated Press asks about teen twanger Taylor Swift’s Nov. 7 stint guest-hosting NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Actually, I think the more pressing question is, “How many skits will the hacky SNL writers try to wring out of ‘Imma let you finish, but…’?” I’m putting the over/under at 3, maybe 4 if she’s only given the chance to perform two songs from her still-moving-units second album Fearless. [AP] MORE »
Perhaps perplexed by the prospect of five-and-change minutes to fill with zero chance for making Will Ferrell dress up like George Bush, or Alex Trebek, or , for a second time during its 90-minute running time, this weekend’s Saturday Night Live closed with a sketch in which Ferrell–accompanied by most of the show’s cast, as well as the members of Green Day, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hanks, Artie Lange, and other celebrities who just happened to be in the area–performed Billy Joel’s Vietnam-vet anthem “Goodnight Saigon” in full-orchestra drag. The punchline was that Ferrell’s mournful reverie was inspired not by time spent in the trenches during the Vietnam War, but by a vacation there some four years ago; the not-so-obvious punchline for me didn’t hit until yesterday morning, when the song proved incapable of being shaken from my brain. A slightly truncated version of the clip after the jump. MORE »
Sure, the Christmastime setting of Justin Timberlake’s Saturday Night Live skit in which he dresses up as a cup of soup and retrofits “Shoop,” “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” and “Whoomp! There It Is” for the purposes of collecting cash for a charity–and out-hipping the sad-sack Salvation Army Santa who only knows moldy old carols–seems a bit odd, given that the calendar was just flipping to May 10 when it happened. But you have to admit that even while in instant-lunch drag, his performance doesn’t come off as foam-handed in the least. (EDIT: Oh, it did air in December; this is what happens when you watch TV via online “Recently Updated” lists, ha ha. The sequel clip, in which JT dresses up as a breast implant and invites people on down to “Plasticville”, is below.) Meanwhile, if you somehow didn’t have “Motherlover”–Timberlake and Andy Samberg’s Mother’s Day-themed sequel to “Dick In A Box”–e-mailed to you 10 times over the past 36ish hours, it’s after the jump. MORE »
This weekend’s Saturday Night Live was another sign that the show’s writers are still trying to figure out how to navigate the post-Sarah Palin landscape, with a sorta-depressing skit about host Zac Efron’s realization that he will never shake the “teen idol” tag placed around his neck by High School Musical being the nominal highlight; there was also a sketch featuring Bon Jovi “opposite band” Jon Bovi that went on so long, I pictured the show’s director waving frantically behind the camera, making gum-stretching gestures at Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte out of fear that the show would end at 12:45. Oh, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs played, too; the trio performed their new single “Zero” (which I really want to hear the Killers’ take on, to be honest; at the very least, Karen O and Brandon Flowers are kindred spirits in shoulder-plumage) and the old chestnut “Maps,” I guess in the hopes that the Zac-loving tweens who tuned in would remember the song from their brothers’ endless Rock Band sessions. Clips after the jump. MORE »
The standard format for any blog post recapping the musical guests from Saturday Night Live is to say how bad the mixing was and that the sketches were awful, and certainly Seth Rogen’s rough time playing any character that isn’t largely just like Seth Rogen and one of my least favorite tracks from The Lonely Island’s Incredibad serving as the bed for the digital short didn’t help the comedy situation. But the sound on the two and a half Phoenix appearances weren’t too bad. Add Bill Hader’s Gizmo impression and a half-funny Muppet-themed sketch and that’s almost something, right? Phoenix’s full-length performances (and, as a bonus, the Muppet bus clip) are after the cut. MORE »
TV On The Radio’s unfortunate appearance on Saturday Night Live seems like it was forever ago in blog years, but it hasn’t even been two weeks yet! Anyway, singer/guitarist Kyp Malone talked to the Canadian Press about what exactly went down in studio 8H on that fateful night, and why he was really happy that his people had booked TVOTR a Colbert Report appearance a few days later. MORE »
The Valentine’s Day episode of Saturday Night Live was a somewhat painful affair, with the normally reliable Alec Baldwin locking his gaze with the teleprompter a lot, perhaps because he wanted to get awful skits like the “Wii makes you look like you’re jerking off” one* over as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, musical guests the Jonas Brothers suffered through the painful sound system during the sorta Andrew WK-ish “Tonight” and the jaunty “Video Girl,” and were apparently compensated by being allowed to appear in a few skits. Andy Samberg’s reimagining of the three Jonases as poofy-haired glam rockers called Property For The Queen was a treat, though, perhaps because the songs in the short had the advantage of being professionally mixed before they were broadcast. Clips after the jump. MORE »
