Search Results for: SNL

How President Trump Made Himself a Head Writer at SNL

Photo: AP Images

Like the old blues lyric says, I’m laughing just to keep from crying. In the age of Trump, comedy has become one of America’s most biting forms of social critique, and Alec Baldwin’s searing depiction of Donald Trump is one of the best. In The Atlantic, Chris Jones shadows Baldwin on the SNL set as the 58-year-old actor turns our dark reality into what might be his most-lasting role yet.

He hadn’t rehearsed much. He had watched Trump on TV with the sound off, hunting for tics and physical cues (Baldwin still does this, recently adding Trump’s habitual neck stretch to his repertoire), but mostly he’d just hoped lightning would strike. Now he stood in the shadows, terrified that he didn’t have it—he worried out loud that he didn’t have it—trying to remind himself that, if nothing else, he needed to look as though he were “trying to suck the wallpaper off the wall.” That “nasty scar” of a mouth was Baldwin’s only certainty: “a puckering butthole,” he calls it, dropping into his Trump voice to describe his vision of it. Then he heard Michael Che, playing debate moderator Lester Holt, summon him to the stage: “He’s the man to blame for the bottom half of all his kids’ faces. It’s Republican nominee Donald Trump.”

Baldwin walked out onto the stage and, as if by dark magic, there he was: not Trump, exactly, but some nightmarish goof on Trump, a distillation of everything gross about him, boiled clean of any remnant that could be mistaken for competence or redemption. Unlike Fey’s pitch-perfect echo of Palin, Baldwin’s Trump isn’t an impersonation. He saves his more accurate work for Tony Bennett, for Robert De Niro, for Al Pacino—for men he loves and admires. Those are mischiefs, born of appreciation. His Trump is mimicry, born of disgust. Even after so many successful appearances—even after his and Trump’s visages have become so closely associated that a newspaper in the Dominican Republic ran a photograph of his Trump instead of the real one—Baldwin can still seem as though he doesn’t have the stomach to inhabit Trump fully. “Push, push, push,” he says in his makeup chair, his lips once again threatening to burst from his distorted face. “It’s exhausting. I’m hoping I can come up with someone else I can imitate. Pence?” In the meantime, he will keep his Trump at a remove, almost like an abstract painting, not of Trump the man but of Trump’s withered soul.

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Contracts, Clashing Egos, Cocaine: What Doomed Chevy Chase’s Early ‘SNL’ Career

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Why did Chevy Chase leave Saturday Night Live after just one season? An excerpt from Hill and Weingrad’s 1986 book, Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live.

Source: Grantland
Published: Aug 24, 2014
Length: 22 minutes (5,722 words)

‘SNL”s Political Secrets: An Oral History

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Impersonations, political cameos, and the skit that never made it to air: An excerpt from the newly expanded oral history by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.

Published: Aug 21, 2014
Length: 13 minutes (3,267 words)

The ‘SNL’ Skit on Racial Profiling That Never Made It to Television

Robert Smigel, writer: It wasn’t until my last season that the network refused to air a “TV Funhouse.” It was a live-action one that was meant to be about racism and profiling, an airline-safety video with multilingual narration, and whenever you heard a different language, they would cut to people of that nationality. First, typical white Americans, then a Latino family, then a Japanese family, all being instructed about seat belts, overhead compartments, et cetera. Then it cuts to an Arab man, and the narrator says, in Arabic, “During the flight, please do not blow up the airplane. The United States is actually a humanitarian nation that is rooted in the concept of freedom,” and so on. … When the standards people freaked, Lorne fought them. Standards pushed back hard. They even got someone at NBC human resources to condemn it. … Lorne said, “I have a plan.” Obama was doing a cameo in the cold open. Lorne told me he would show my sketch to Obama. “If Obama thinks it’s OK, they won’t be able to argue it.” I thought it was a brilliant idea, except why would Obama ever give this thing his blessing? What if word got out? “Hey, everybody, that guy over there said it was cool. The one running for president of the country.” But I loved Lorne for caring this much and being willing to go that far to get this thing on TV.

Michaels: Obama said, “It’s funny, but no, I don’t think so.”

-From the newly expanded oral history of Saturday Night Live, by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales.

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In Conversation: SNL’s Lorne Michaels

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The producer reflects on how he keeps up with the Saturday Night Live schedule, and how Jimmy Fallon will handle the new Tonight Show:

Conan was an easy decision for me. Both Jay and Dave were essentially my generation—they were boomers. I thought the smart move was to drop down a generation, but if you’re looking at 30 or 28, there’s no one with any experience. I’m more used to putting someone on who’s never been on television before than most people, and that was the bet with Conan. He got roughed up badly, but he came through. The mantra that I used to say to him was, “The longer you’re on, the longer you’re on.” After a while, he just became part of the landscape.

But I think there’s always an alpha, and Dave—he invented late night. Both Jimmy Kimmel and Conan grew up under Dave, to the extent that I grew up under Carson. With Jimmy, and to some degree Seth, I think they were much more influenced by SNL. Jimmy’s not ironic.

Author: Lane Brown
Published: Feb 3, 2014
Length: 19 minutes (4,878 words)

What Really Goes On at the ‘SNL’ After-Party

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Paul Brownfield investigates ‘SNL’’s legendary New York after-parties, and whether they’re actually any fun:

“If you had a good show you’re on cloud nine,” said Jon Lovitz. who had a lot of them in the mid–1980s. On the other hand, Mr. Lovitz recalled the forlorn night when he had appeared in only one sketch, and was sitting at the party with Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey and Mike Myers.

“It feels like your career’s over,” Mr. Lovitz said. “Honestly, they call it the after-party. In my mind, I only know one time when it actually felt like a party.” (That was in 1990, he said, when Technotronic played their hit “Pump Up the Jam” there.)

Published: Feb 1, 2014
Length: 8 minutes (2,200 words)

The Truth About What Goes On at the 'SNL' After-Party

“If you had a good show you’re on cloud nine,” said Jon Lovitz, who had a lot of them in the mid–1980s. On the other hand, Mr. Lovitz recalled the forlorn night when he had appeared in only one sketch, and was sitting at the party with Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey and Mike Myers.

“It feels like your career’s over,” Mr. Lovitz said. “Honestly, they call it the after-party. In my mind, I only know one time when it actually felt like a party.” (That was in 1990, he said, when Technotronic played their hit “Pump Up the Jam” there.)

Paul Brownfield, in The New York Times, investigating Saturday Night Live’s legendary after-party—and whether it’s actually fun. Read more on SNL in the Longreads Archive, or check out the Live from New York oral history.

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An SNL Sketch Comes Down to the Wire

“As Rhys was watching down the final cut, he noticed two errors: one shot slipped into the cut without being ‘un-squeezed’ and another repositioned shot had lost its repo. We all know that these kinds of errors happen all the time, but they rarely happen when you are literally gun-to-the-head, minutes away from a live broadcast.

“It’s now well past 11:30pm — but our spot technically wasn’t airing until after the 2nd commercial so we’re basically in penalty time. Rhys is racing to explain to Adam over the phone which shots need to be fixed. Now remember: I hadn’t slept in what feels like days at this point and all I recall is Adam working his stylus at lightning speed, whispering to himself, ‘It’s gonna be close…it’s gonna be reeeeal close…’”

Alex Buono, director of photography for Saturday Night Live’s film unit, on the making of the recent Wes Anderson horror movie parody—and a very tight deadline to get it on the air. Read more on SNL in the Longreads Archive.

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How an SNL Trailer Parody Gets Made: Wes Anderson’s ‘Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders’

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Alex Buono, director of photography for Saturday Night Live’s film unit, offers an incredibly detailed post on how they shot the recent Wes Anderson horror-film parody, all the way down to the sets, color palettes, location scouting and lighting. He also reveals just how quickly the entire team needed to work in order to make the show:

There are two major deadlines for the Film Unit. The Dress Rehearsal starts at 8pm – for which the goal is to have the spot fully mixed and color corrected, but sometimes it’s not quite there yet. Then, of course, the live show starts at 11:30pm, and you’d think that would be a pretty hard and fast deadline…except in this case, when Rhys and Adam were truly down to the wire – scrambling to finish revision notes from the dress rehearsal, minor voiceover changes and final color fixes. Rhys was downstairs in the studio edit bay where the final picture and mix are married together and uploaded to the live switcher. As Rhys was watching down the final cut, he noticed two errors: one shot slipped into the cut without being “un-squeezed” and another repositioned shot had lost its repo. We all know that these kinds of errors happen all the time, but they rarely happen when you are literally gun-to-the-head, minutes away from a live broadcast.

Author: Alex Buono
Source: alex-buono.com
Published: Nov 7, 2013
Length: 16 minutes (4,197 words)

The God of ‘SNL’ Will See You Now

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Current and former cast members of Saturday Night Live—and one who didn’t make it—reflect on what it’s like to audition for Lorne Michaels:

"Marc Maron: I think I was a little high on pot. There were some pictures facing [Mr. Michaels], and in front of the pictures was a bowl of candy. It was all very loaded. And then he just starts looking at me, to a point where Steve Higgins [then an ‘SNL’ producer] goes, ‘Lorne?’ And Lorne goes, ‘You can tell a lot by looking into someone’s eyes.’ And then I took a candy. Lorne looked at Steve, and the meeting was over. I thought I failed the candy test.

“If it panned out, my life would have been dramatically different. I wouldn’t be mildly obsessed with Lorne Michaels. I talk to people about Lorne because I’m hung up on it. I feel like I need to talk to him again to get some closure. [Laughs.]”

Published: Aug 22, 2013
Length: 14 minutes (3,674 words)