SNL 40TH ANNIVERSARY

[Duchess]

There will be a special on NBC tonight at 8:00 celebrating 40 years of SNL. It's scheduled to run for a whopping 3 ¹⁄₂ hrs. Lorne Michaels said he has invited everyone who has every hosted and then some but there isn't enough time for everyone to perform.

The very first time I heard a cuss word on television was on SNL eons ago, I was just a kid. It's so rare to find programming that's been around this length of time.

[Clang McFly]

They're also showing it on next Friday. That's when I'm recording it. I've also enjoyed watching the old episodes on VH1 and NBC this weekend. It's weird seeing George Carlin looking so young(and alive).

[thekid65]

Grew up on that shit. Unfortunately that shit went to shit around 1985 or so. Rarely have seen it since then, but I'll either watch or record the special, will bring back some fond memories, I'm sure.

[Clang McFly]

I still watch all the new SNL. 95% of it is the same unfunny crap over and over. But there is some good stuff.For me, SNL was good until the late 90's/early 2000's. when they lost Farley, Hartman, Myers, Kattan, Heder,etc it started to become unfunny.

[Midwest Spy]

Phil Hartman doing Bill Clinton on the campaign trail, working out while chowing down Mc Donald's is still one of my favorite skits.

[HairOfTheDog]

Gilda Radner in the "Hey You" commercial, or doing Roseanne Roseanna Danna, or as Miss Emily Litella, or partnering with Bill Murray for Todd and Lisa... Anything with Phil Hartman. Joe Piscopo as Frank Sinatra. Molly Shannon's Mary Katherine Gallagher. Lots of funny stuff that takes me way back.

My best friend from high school lives in Georgia. We used to leave parties early on Saturday nights to catch the musical acts and watch the skits at her house. Her parents were much older than mine, were dead asleep by 11 pm, and had a full wet bar off the kitchen. I think she's drinking tonight, but it''s kinda hard to tell with her. Anyway, she's been texting lines from cheezy skits we wrote when we thought we were gonna be SNL writers for about an hour now. One of our bits was actually pretty funny. It was a spoof of the Head and Shoulders commercials called Head and Eyebrows, based on a guy in our 8^th grade class who always had white flakes in his bushy black unibrow.

I'm definitely gonna watch tonight.

[Clang McFly]

I even miss the annoying, cheesy skit "You lika da juice?"

[Donovan]

I'm glad it's on again Friday. I couldn't watch it tonight.

[Blindgreed1]

Christopher Walken and Alec Baldwin were also superb hosts.

[Duchess]

I'm glad it's on again Friday. I couldn't watch it tonight.

That's how I feel too! I didn't see it last night but I saw some clips this morning & it looks hilarious.

[HairOfTheDog]

I got to watch the first half of the show and my niece recorded the rest for me.

I was laughing all the way through it -- had forgotten about some really funny bits. Like Garrett Morris doing the captioning for the hearing impaired.





I've never really listened to Miley Cyrus before -- only heard a couple of her tunes on the radio and seen some of her antics in the rags. She sang "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover". Kanye West also performed and was a pretty powerful stage presence. I liked both performances a lot -- kinda surprised me.

Looking forward to catching the last half.

[blueberryhill]

I'm glad it's on again Friday. I couldn't watch it tonight.

I missed it, too....will watch on Friday...I agree with Clang and whoever said it is less funny today...I agree with that, too.
I remember James (?) Belushi who portrayed the Japanese guy who was always cutting everything with his sword.
The coneheads were also hilarious.
There were so many really funny skits, not so much anymore....

[Donovan]

John Belushi was the comedy Genius in that family, James was the most amazingly mediocre "Other one" since Brian Doyle Murray.

As for bits, I think almost every generation of the show had classic moments, and to say only the first cast was any good does a great disservice to talents like Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, Eddie Murphy and Will Farrell. However, one of my favorite bits of all time has to be Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase in the word association game, partly because of the fact Pryor really did hate Chevy Chase. They had a classic exchange on the tonight show that almost went to a fistfight, and Pryor pretty much owned Chase.



And here's the segment on Carson. It gets uncomfortable really fast as Chase is pretty much being a dick from the start and throwing little shots, but the mood gets pretty tense around nine minutes when he calls Pryor's son a "hooker". For a minute it looks like Pryor's gonna fuck him up. But then he starts talking shit about Chase's earlier bit where he spent like five minutes explaining one of his stupid SNL pratfalls, which I never thought were funny. Chase is and was a tool.

[Clang McFly]

I'm glad it's on again Friday. I couldn't watch it tonight.

I missed it, too....will watch on Friday...I agree with Clang and whoever said it is less funny today...I agree with that, too.
I remember James (?) Belushi who portrayed the Japanese guy who was always cutting everything with his sword.
The coneheads were also hilarious.
There were so many really funny skits, not so much anymore....

the musical guests were better in the early days of SNL. Nowadays I just mostly fast forward thru the musical guests since a lot of times I have no clue who they are.

[Maggot]

John Belushi was the comedy Genius in that family, James was the most amazingly mediocre "Other one" since Brian Doyle Murray.

As for bits, I think almost every generation of the show had classic moments, and to say only the first cast was any good does a great disservice to talents like Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, Eddie Murphy and Will Farrell. However, one of my favorite bits of all time has to be Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase in the word association game, partly because of the fact Pryor really did hate Chevy Chase. They had a classic exchange on the tonight show that almost went to a fistfight, and Pryor pretty much owned Chase.



And here's the segment on Carson. It gets uncomfortable really fast as Chase is pretty much being a dick from the start and throwing little shots, but the mood gets pretty tense around nine minutes when he calls Pryor's son a "hooker". For a minute it looks like Pryor's gonna fuck him up. But then he starts talking shit about Chase's earlier bit where he spent like five minutes explaining one of his stupid SNL pratfalls, which I never thought were funny. Chase is and was a tool.

Great info, I never knew that.

[HairOfTheDog]

I'm interested to hear what you all thought of Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy's appearances on the special once you have a chance to watch it. No spoilers; just not what I expected.

Rolling Stone ranked the 141 cast members of SNL. I'd forgotten some of the now-famous actors and comedians were ever featured players on the show.

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/lists/sat...d-20150211

[Midwest Spy]

Someone told me Eddie Murphy did nothing.

[Donovan]

I think most of what people were saying was that Murphy kinda blew off his SNL experience by emphasizing it was thirty five years ago. I think it would be a shame if he felt he had outgrown it or was "beyond" it, but that's how it goes with some people. Van Morrison gets pissed as hell when people ask him to sing Brown Eyed Girl or Moondance.

[Donovan]

I saw that ranked cast list the other day, some of the choices were more than a little snarky and reflected personal preference. Norm MacDonald lower than Charles Rocket? I say thee NAY! The irony of course is that Rolling Stone is trying to rank anything with regard to suck factor and relevance, because they haven't been relevant since around 1980 themselves.