I miss Wayne's World and the Church Lady.
10
Low rent Baldwin owes his career to the President. As for David, his jokes were disgusting and vile................
1
The shower scene, Baldwin, McKinnon et al was very funny.
Aidy Bryant's caricature of Huckabee was spot on. That's the press secretary's essence.
Larry David really pushed the limit with the concentration camp material. All in all, a very funny monologue about Jewish people that could only have been done by a Jew. It's intent was not demeaning. Larry David is himself, a warm, loving human being. I think he's great.
After all, Seinfeld made out in the theater with a Rabbi's daughter during "Schindler's List." Newman commented, "Yes, and a more disgusting spectacle I cannot recall." Very funny, and nothing to get upset about.
It's good to see SNL get back to the edge it had in the 1970s. We need them.
8
As a long time fan of Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm, all I can say is I was very disappointed by his hosting of SNL. I did not find most of his "jokes" at all funny. Especially the "joke" about Hitler and concentration camps, you don't have to be Jewish to find his comments utterly disgraceful.
8
Why no comment on Cecily Strong? She had an amazing night performing great characters and impressions. Her sketch as Larry David's new wife was incredibly funny. Also no mention of Kyle Mooney's wonderfully awkward fake sitcom and his clear influence on the PSA satire.
Also, was this supposed to be a review or a re-cap? It fails at both, giving too much verbatim transcription to allow a full review to take shape, and failing to mention what to my mind were the funniest sketches of the whole episode.
4
Thanks I was wondering if it was just me that felt nasty after the monologue. The shower route was about the norm for the show, but dragging in the camps. Just bit too much. Turn it all off. Didn't care to hang for the usually funny News part.
Now I can catch the Bernie piece here. Helps.
Hope they tighten up show, been sorta lax lately. Like just thrown together.
3
I thought the episode was tone deaf -- the Weekend Update with Leslie Jones pretty much trash talking about men in the way women have been speaking out against when it is said about them.
6
I've watched SNL every week for decades, and I agree that this past Saturday's show was poorly written. Larry David's monologue wasn't very funny; the opening skit was lame; and Aidy Bryant's skit on Sarah Huckabee Sanders was baffling. But you can't knock it out of the park every time. This show was a swing and a miss.
3
Okay, so Larry David continues to be inappropriate and unfunny. Possibly the worst episode of SNL in multiple seasons...
On the Sarah Huckabee Sanders sketch, the meaning was crystal clear: just like her predecessor, Sanders has to defend the indefensible, and that requires her to project confidence. Every question from the press was treated as unneeded, unwanted, even unnecessary, and dismissed as being off topic (cut to song). Why are you even asking???
8
I'm baffled by the reader comments that state SNL is "totally political" (it's not) and "not funny" (it is, though not consistently), particularly when they further they state "they stopped watching." I watch faithfully and always enjoy the high-wire act the cast performs with one week of preparation, in front of a live audience. Even the flattest SNL sketch is preferable to the canned-laughter, brain-dead, shrill sitcoms that litter the TV landscape. Sidebar: the strong female cast should be very heartening to all of us!
9
please- one of the best episodes ever- mazel tov to all involved-
5
I love SNL especially Collin Jost and Michael Che on Weekend Update. However I can'stomach Larry David so I pretty much just skipped over all his parts and enjoyed the other skits. I can't stand whiny comedians who look like they're always on the verge of having a painful bowel movement and use expressions like "that's terrific" . I did watch the monologue, which again proved to me that I wa right in not wanting to watch him. He's all but irrelevant and who cares that he like girls to that point of coming onto them in a concentration camp? The whole thing was absurd and not a bit funny. Hopefully SNL wil stay away from tired old comedians in the future or they will lose me and many others as a viewer.
1
Maybe mocking the President for 90 minutes every week is just getting old.
4
SNL hasn't been funny in 30 years.
3
By network standards, SNL must be cheap to put on and probably brings in big advertising bucks. There can be no other reason for this un-funny abomination to still be on the air.
NBC, want to put something that's actually funny into this slot? Recycle the SNL shows from about 1975 through about 1985. It'll hardly cost you anything and it'll make you some dough.
1
The best satire has always been not just that which pushes limits, but obliterates them.
Larry David bravely keeps alive the legacy of Frank Zappa, Dick Gregory, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Mad Magazine, National Lampoon and the Python chaps, all of whom shared deep, insightful wisdom that could only be expressed through shear tastlessness.
If you were offended, all the better.
16
You want to goof on Jews and the Holocaust? It had better be funny.
Larry actually did this well on Curb when he had "survivors" attend a dinner party at his home. One survivor was a Holocaust survivor, the other was a guy who was on the Survivor TV show and they got into an argument as to who had it worse. That's funny.
4
I only watch the clips on YouTube, and unlike Mr. Itzkoff, I enjoyed the Trump / Manafort / Pence / Sessions sketch very much. It's a bit weird that Itzkoff doesn't mention Sessions in the shower. The female actors in SNL play the male politicians very well, and I've enjoyed SNL's weekly roasts of Trump and his Administration immensely, just as I've enjoyed Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Myers. It's a tough job, and I'm glad they are doing it. "If not them, who? If not now, when"?
5
Satire satire of American politics isn’t funny anymore, because of trump. He and his administration are so absurd, there’s nothing to send up. Making the ridiculous even more absurd is to simply repeat the punchline. And it’s always funnier the first time.
2
No mention of Alec Baldwin's continuing his absolutely tremendous version of Tony Bennett?
12
Am I the only person who felt that Leslie Jones' skit with the Houston Astros players reeked of sexual harassment?
I'm just happy to see a skit with a non-sanctimonious portrayal of Bernie Sanders. It's about time the gloves came off and this man's many failings became fair game for comedians. Larry David captured him perfectly.
6
It’s the same tired knee-jerk schtick over and over again. Boring.
4
I was waiting for Larry David to comment/do a it on the fact that Steve Bannon owned a stake in the Seinfeld show and had received royalties (likely in the millions) from it.
1
Oh, come on. You should trade in those lemons for some of that sugar-candy-on-a-stick Eric was dipping into.
Concentration-camp pickup lines are in the grand old tradition of Mel Brooks's "The Producers." "It's because I'm bald, isn't it." Classic Larry David.
Yeah, Baldwin was a "just doesn't get it" sexist boor about McGowan on Twitter. And that's one weird quote about James Toback -- that "Jimmy's *appetites* took him in *that* direction"?? Huh? But (1) what Baldwin did was not *nearly* as bad as what Weinstein, Trump, Ailes, O'Reilly, & Co. have (allegedly) done, and (2) do we really want to muzzle Baldwin when he's perfectly positioned to take these pigs down?
I thought it was funny. The only part I didn't like, actually, was that sugar-candy-on-a-stick thing. Seemed like extended product placement to me.
2
The 'Nothing is Sacred" milieu of comedy has always been a favorite of mine- I grew up on George Carlin & Seinfeld, and even own all seasons of Curb and the Tom Green show on DVD.
But in 2017, it's like a switch has been flipped. I just don't think being a jerk is funny anymore.
1
Really ?
A breakdown and analyzation of each skit of a worn out comedy show ?
Are we secretly yearning for a comedic breakthrough at SNL ?
It is not going to happen.
It has become that which it once despised.
If it were not for Trump material, it would be the same lacking show as before Trump.
Move on people, nothing to see here.
The problem with SNL jokes is that they lack the originality and spontaneity we used to expected. Like Land Shark. Its become a Democrat laugh track. They find Republicans very funny. While democrats are as untouchable for humor as rape jokes and concentration camp jokes. Really couldn't you see Dana Carvey do an eviscerating Church lady-like take on Elizabeth Warren? Do you think anyone on SNL thinks she is comedy material at all? My God she is so tightly wound she is hilarious. Chuck Schumer with his glasses falling off the end of his nose as he reads some drivel isn't funny? At least they do make fun of Hillary, but by this time that hardly counts. Comedy needs to be a two edged sword. It's why Steven Colbert, as clever and smart as he is, is only about one-third as funny as he used to be. Lampooning Republicans with a character who pretends to be one was complex and brilliant. Now he is just another insufferable Democrat with higher morals than all of us put together making fun of the rich and the vacuous. Hey that could be an SNL skit couldn't it? Why not star some 'Democrats' in it?
6
I've always felt that "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was catnip for antisemites. As my late mother would have said, it's a Schande vor die Goyim (an embarrassment for Jews in front of non-Jews).
4
It appears that nepotism is still alive and well!
1
The Sarah Huckabee Sanders sketch by Aidy Bryant was incomprehensible and a total fail. SHS does not wear mini skurts, is not dangerously obese, and has major, major eyebrows. She is a devout evangelical Christian. There are many broad targets for humor with respet to SHS and Aidy Bryant found none of them.
5
Larry David's opening monologue was nothing short of brilliant, he spoke the same truth to power that Lenny Bruce opened the door to.
Larry found humor in 3-4 areas where few are willing to tread & in the process showed us why he is the comedy genius he has become.
It takes a lot of guts & intelligence to find the funny aspect in the situations he regularly does & he does a better job of it than most "funny people".
When you stand on the thin edge of pointing out humor in situations which appear to have none you are inviting people to expand their horizons of understanding. That some were displeased or horrified by his observations only points to their inability to let go of prejudiced & narrowly held beliefs.
When people realize he was poking fun at situations & not people they might become more enlightened & understanding.
You are a brave and VERY funny man Mr. David, stay true to yourself & disregard the haters as you continue your sojourn along the thin edge of comedic brilliance & allowing us to laugh at ourselves!
11
what " prejudiced & narrowly held beliefs" are involved in being sensitive about the death camps?
3
Maybe implicit in some of the critiques is that the more "offensive" the content, the higher the bar in terms of wit, novelty, ingenuity. If one is going to joke about the Holocaust, and conditions and plight in concentration/death camps, the jokes or satire had better offer some non-trivial insight.
The idea of using crude pick-up lines and tactics in such an environment, including pleasantries and smalltalk that taken literally mock the Holocaust's brutality, could never have a comedic payoff justifying the trivialization.
One commenter speaks of 'meta' and 'meta-meta' levels to the humor. Those are doubtless there, but the humor falls flat because even those elements pale so absolutely compared to the realities invoked. Moreover, there's an inherent arrogance in exempting oneself from taboos that pertain to recognizing and preserving others' dignity. Sexuality in concentration camps is just not legitimate comedy material, for obvious reasons; using it for the cheapest of laughs insults just about everybody concerned, including the comic himself.
2
What a snarky article. What I've watched so far, was funny. in some cases hilaraious and on point. Is it all guffaw funny? No, but much of humor is meant to make you think, not just laugh. Were some sketches awkward? Part of comedy's job is to make us uncomfortable with our assumptions. If humor doesn't make you question and think then what is the point? SNL, 'still crazy after all these years', and still worth watching.
11
How about Alec Baldwin as Tony Bennet? No one has mentioned the diarrhea or constipation references...I laughed at that.
5
Is it me or has Larry David gone from being a comedic genius to an older and more insecure comedic genius who is grasping for straws to stay relevant? Even in his new episodes on Curb, there is some really smug and highly offensive stuff. I just don't vibe with him anymore. And Larry, if you are reading this, and I bet you are, chill out man.
6
is Bill Cosby Jewish?
3
Larry David is a brilliant situation comedy writer. He is not a good stand up comedian. If he wrote that monologue, then he is a poor stand up comedy writer also.
2
What is perceived as awkward in this screwed up administration is wiggly and giggly humor to me, we absolutely loved the cold open on 11-4-17
I would question the reviewer here for their awkward allegiance to a crooked team in Washington while the rest of us see that satire regarding the 'Devils' White house will not be forgotten well after it ceases to exist. We will laugh forever and memorialize SNL's bold and accurate take on the events leading up to such scripts.
2
Oh, c'mon Mr. Itzkoff.
This was an easy mark which reads badly in print but thanks to the truly wack individuals leading our government and talented SNL cast members played brilliantly.
Yes, it was over the line. That's the point of comedy.
PS~Larry David's monologue humanized those in terrible situations and made me think that maybe there were friendships made. I did not go to the dirty side. I suppose that's up to the viewers. Jewish comedians are uniquely qualified to talk about the camps, so it was Mr. David's right.
3
It was a very "weird" show. I'm Jewish and in my view the remarks about the concentration camp and picking up girls was out of line and out of whack. The shower scene was totally unnecessary and done awkwardly as well adding to reasons for not doing it. And the remarks about Harvey Weinstein were totally inappropriate.
I generally am fan and supporter of the work that is done on SNL. Tonight I was embarrassed and ashamed.
Larry David, you blew it. Being Jewish doesn't give you license to make moronic, ill conceived, warped jokes about Nazi concentration camps. You should have rejected those lines out of hand. Hopefully you did not write them.
This was noting short of mental illness trying to disguise itself as parody and satire.
It was a total failure. An apology is in order.
6
I agree 100%. Larry David's material was absolutely tasteless and even embarassing.
2
Nitwit David doesn’t seem to know men and women were held in separate camps. Maybe he could have harassed women in cattle cars. Any jokes about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Maybe on the next show, if there is one.
3
I was always a Seinfeld fan, but have never found "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or Larry David to be particularly funny. That plus any comic worth his salt knows certain topics, the Holocaust, the Special Needs population etc. are comedic Kryptonite. That being said, the whole show was uneven and "off" by any measure. If you can't skewer Sara Huckabee (think Will Ferrel/Janet Reno) then all hope really IS lost...
3
It sounds like a very Larry David, cringey episode ... looking forward to watching !!
5
Anyone else concerned about Leslie Jones asking Jose Altuve to sit on her lap in a month filled with sexual harassment allegations and discussion? Wrong on many levels.
3
i agree totally , i could not believe what i was seeing and what she was saying
if the roles were reversed there would have been an outcry
it weakens the legitimacy of true assaults and makes one wonder how many women/men act in the same manner as Leslie Jones does/did then find themselves in situations they shouldn't have put themselves in the first place and have no control over
yes i do understand it is an abuse of power once they come face to face with these predators
Decades ago there was criticism of Hogan's Heroes for making a comedy of a Nazi prison camp, Werner Klemperer, a Jew responded with how making fun of the Nazis was the ultimate revenge.
1
David was not making fun of Nazis.
With you on the Aidy Briant sketch. So much potential there, with SHS being as and what she is (her father's daughter).
(Frank Bruni op ed today is a great read, BTW. On the nose.)
But skit was confusing. As I can't say I know the Demi Lovato tune well at all ... was SHS (played by AB) supposed to be saying, 'hey, I can say and do whatever I want, as I am an confident woman / person? And no one can tell me otherwise?'
I'll look to more informed comments than mine.
1
It was nothing more than the INNER LIFE of the pearlsNdresses smugness of Sanders
Can jokes that incorporates horrific events - especially the Holocaust -
ever be funny? I don't think so.
2
Larry, Genocide Humor? Please!
1
I loved the episode. Comedy should push the line, and Larry David did. The Trump brothers were brilliant, and Alec Baldwin is not a criminal until charges against him are brought up.
I keep in mind how fast these episodes are made & and how hard comedy is, before I blithely call an episode "awkward." This isn't a scientific exposé — comedy can be awkward, it pushes & challenges our deepest beliefs.
6
Normally you can count on at least something during SNL to be funny! This was not the case with anything in this show! I personally never have fine Larry David to be funny, and his performance just made that more obvious!
Come on -- Colin Jost had one funny line after another, and the ERIC Trump impersonation left us all in tears because we were laughing so hard
1
I'm so tired of the Times micro analyzing every media representation of "political incorrectness." Some of the jokes may have not landed but it's becoming less and less clear what it is that the Times and other "news" media--clearly in overcompensation mode in devouring its own--are really contesting: sex-power imbalances, crude behavior, sexual violence, run-of the mill sexism, or simple bad taste. These things are not even remotely the same, despite intersections.
It's the law (slowly being undermined under this administration) not the language police and the media's hypocritical outrage that actually protects people from true physical violence. We are witnessing the culmination of a culture of narcissism and identity politics more concerned with personal offense than protecting people from actual harm.
God, I miss Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.
4
Perhaps TNYT would be less smugly priggish about Larry David’s transgressive humor (which I found rather lame, not nearly daring enough; consider where Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor would have taken it) if it grasped the imprimatur conveyed by Beckett’s hierarchy of laughters (written aptly during WWII):
"The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout – Haw! – so. It is the laugh of laughs, the risus purus, the laugh laughing at the laugh, the beholding, the saluting of the highest joke, in a word the laugh that laughs – silence please – at that which is unhappy." [18:42]
Phillip Roth, Jewish guilt, Anne Frank.
A summary.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/04/20/reviews/roth-ghost.html
I love SNL. I've been watching it faithfully since the late 70's. Larry's joke about the Holocaust was awful. Come on Larry, you're a comic genius, you are way, way better than that.
2
I am ok with political humor and Trump jokes. The problem is that SNL is not humorous and the Trump so-called jokes invariably fall flat.
When was the last time that you actually laughed at anything on SNL? A couple of decades?
3
This past Saturday night. Jost & Che are almost invariably hilarious. You're welcome.
1
No, the Sean Spicer skits with Melissa McCarthy were funny. And the skit with Trump calling all the world leaders was funny.
You NEVER laughed at McCarthy doing Sean Spicer???
I stopped watching SNL show when it stopped being funny and turned totally political. SNL in the 70's 80's and 90's - good times.
6
I agree.
I grew up under communism in Eastern Europe. There, humor was the defense. It is a sign of bad times in politics that comedy gets political.
After the Sean Spicer send-up last year, I was so looking forward to the Sarah Huckabee Sanders skit. Unfortunately I didn't get it at all. I suppose it might have been trying to contrast the image of a good, Christian Southern woman with the deceptive person Sanders actually is, but having wild sexual fantasies is not at all like lying to the public in support of a corrupt administration. The skit actually downplayed the seriousness of what she's doing.
The toddler-themed sketch "The Baby Step," summed up the whole show for me. Larry David refused to take part in it and asked cast members how long they had to be on before they were no longer asked to be in pointless, juvenile bits. I'd ask how long the show has to be on the air before they give up the really sophomoric bits.
Lots of misfires in last night's show, but I keep watching because amidst all the dross, there is sometimes real gold to be found.
12
I do not watch it anymore. Unfortunately, we get the real deal on the news every day. I would rather be entertained and get a reprieve from politics.
Although Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer was genius and hilarious.
I miss the old SNL. You remember----when it was just funny. Not just political.
4
You must not remember the frequent sketches where Chevy Chase imitated President Gerald Ford by stumbling, or the many times Ronald Reagan was portrayed as a bumbling buffoon, or the frequent stabs at Janet Reno's looks, or Dana Garvey portraying George H. W. Bush or Will Farrell as the clueless George W. Bush, etc.
From the Chevy Chase send ups of Gerald Ford SNL has always been a political art piece.
Mike Pence wearing a full suit in the shower because he's not "married to the water" was a funny moment. Along with Baldwin as Donald calling him Church Lady. Nice reference to Dana Carvey.
It has to be said, though, that Anthony Atamanuik has blown away all competitors with his Donald impersonation on Comedy Central's "The President Show." Baldwin is good, but neither he nor anybody else can compare to Atamanuik at this point.
8
It takes time to make good satire. Time to synthesize. Things are happening so fast that it's hard to find the satirical sweet spot. I'm glad that SNL keeps trying.
20
I thought it was a brilliant monologue and thoroughly enjoyed last night's SNL skits.
19
I have watched -- and largely loved -- SNL since it began. Larry David's monologue was the most tasteless opening I have seen. He will no doubt claim the freedom to be funny and to push boundaries, but he wasn't funny so there were no boundaries to push.
11
Awkward? Kind of. But I found it consistently and wildly hilarious. Update was superb, the videos were good, and there was a general, life-affirming reckless abandon to the satire.
24
This is why I think it's a good idea to record SNL, so I can skip over the parts that I don't think are funny, and I agree that last night's show was a reach. Since the show has survived for a gazillion years, clearly different skits appeal to different people. Whatever works...
7
Whatever works! Intentional pun? As the kids say: haha.
Yup - on Sunday morning you can watch the cold open, sample the monologue and the lead sketch, see Weekend Update, and fast-forward to the weird 12:50am stuff... and be done in about 30 minutes. Far more efficient.
1
That's the one you need feedback on??
After death camp humor in the opening (which I muted) I thought the whole show was off key. There've been some comedians that could talk about race (Dave Chappelle and Aziz Ansari come to mind) and make it ok to laugh. Larry David made me cringe.
I like Aidy Bryant, and Sanders cries out to be mocked on SNL. I don't know if that skit was successful for others. It just fit into the rest for me.
The show was uneven and kind of self conscious, if that can be applied to a show.
5
Sex/courtship is part of being human. To deny that it ever happened in a concentration camp--and to make talking about it taboo--is to further dehumanize the people who were sent there.
Also, who noticed that the inflatable Trump was the same as the inflatable pilot from "Airplane!"?
26
I may have screamed when I saw Melania talking to Otto. They didn't pay him enough for that.
Respectfully, have you heard of Maslow's triangle? I learned about it many years ago in AP Psychology and I think it best represents why many people find those jokes appalling (this coming from Larry David's BIGGEST fan). It is really truly hard to imagine thinking about sex/courtship when you are being tortured, dehumanized, utterly beyond scared, starved, beaten, and knowing that any breath may be your last.
I definitely recognized "Otto" from Airplane!
Larry David is Hollywood ultra-liberal elite so he's immune from the savaging by the media that any run-of-the-mill Republican would've experienced had they attempted "humor" in a similar vein. Where's the NYT when we need you?
6
Umm, did ya read the article?
3
When I watched the monologue, I was taken aback long before the Holocaust jokes. Larry David--deflty or not--was clearly laying a path of inappropriate and uncomfortable jokes. A blind client he chauffeured, Quasimoto, and then the Holocaust. In true Larry David style, he worked to push the envelope but it feel flat. Each set up, fell flat. The transitions were more than awkward, they were warnings that this audience was not as tolerant as he had hoped. Sometimes it is just too soon. Too soon.
12
You mean maybe in 300 years that death camp humor will be in?
I sure want to miss it every time I have a chance.
2
There will never be a time to joke about the Shoah (Holocaust), and David Larry (reversal intended) is rarely funny. He even joked about the Shoah in a Seinfeld episode when Seinfeld was making out during a screening of Schindler's List. It was disgusting then and it's disgusting now. He should change the name of his show to Curb Your Stupidity.
2
Fail. The review, not the show.
14
Larry David's monologue had an interesting premise about
multiple Jewish Men being identified as engaging in
gender insensitive/sexual assault behavior.
(Not unnoticed, little public comment for now.)
His follow up did not deliver any humor on the premise.
Swing and a miss.
Moving on.
3
Americans more knowledgable about some silly TV show than what's actually happening in the world?
Sounds about right.
13
I watched the movie "Get Out!" instead. Funny, original and scarey.
7
and violent and nonsensical in the extreme! a waste of an hour and a
half.the ending is a revenge fantasy
which would not be tolerated if it
we're the other way around.
1
Yup the monologue made me cringe as did many of the skits. Thought the show was awesome. I’m a huge Larry David fan. He is incredibly honest , brave , direct and gifted in the way he exploits the ordinary and newsworthy and elevates it to the absurd. And bizarre. NYT author, you just don’t get it. I can clearly remember my parents and grandparents wringing their hands whenever anyone Jewish did anything notorious and how relieved they were when the perpetrator of a bad act was not a Jew. Thought the Huckabee skit was fine. You don’t have to “get” everything. It was just funny because the portrayal was in extreme juxtaposition to how she presents as a monotone robot.
13
My (step)grandmother didn't like Dr. Ruth talking about sex because people didn't like it and it would make people not like Jews. So I am not put off by that either.
one of the favorite themes... telling comedians of how inappropriate their jokes are.
3
Last night’s SNL killed. Comedy should be, when necessary, painful. SNL now has to hurt us as it did during the Nixon administration. Were the jokes dark? Yes. Keep them coming!
18
During the Nixon administration? The show started in 1975, two years after Nixon resigned.
1
Nixon was gone by the time SNL was first on the air. He resigned in August 1974. I think SNL started in 1975.
Fact check: SNL debuted in October 1975, more than a year after Nixon's resignation.
1
I am shocked shocked that SNL was tasteless, crude and not funny.
7
Talk about awkward sexual harassment! What's the latest about Payton Manning and his years long harassment of the trainer at his college, AND his lies about her in his book? Are we going to let him get away with it? Will SNL do a bit about him. hmmm?
5
Oh man, David said what we all have been thinking: Why does it have to be Weinstein and other Jews? Every bad thing one of our members does reflects poorly on the rest of us among those predisposed to dislike us. Add the whole Hollywood + Jews thing and it's perfectly cringe-worthy. I was happy to hear someone say it out loud and deflate it with humor!
27
I might be more interesting to say it out loud and actually address it, rather than dismiss it out of hand. His monologue raised more questions than it answered.
Maybe you had to be Jewish. As a non-Jew, I hadn't made the association.
Read Man's Search for Meaning and then tell me whether you still think the Holocaust "joke" was funny. Are we that desperate for edgy comedy that we need to trivialize the holocaust? I get the jokes intention. Men are always on the prowl for women under any condition but there are funnier ways to get that point across. Make fun of Hitler, not of the victims.
8
His mention of the Holocaust comes across as, "Hey, we had to survive the Holocaust, so give us a break [with sexual harassment]." The misdirection was so bizarre, it would have made Trump proud.
He was making fun of himself not victims.
1
I wonder how many commenters who ostensibly hated the Holocaust jokes, really hate themselves for laughing?
5
huh?
Nobody has mentioned it, so I will. Miley Cyrus’ musical performances were fantastic and worth the watch alone. She is a commanding and passionate performer, and never “phones it in.”
19
These sketches were funny! As far as tasteless, so what, in standup comedy you've got to take chances.
16
Last night SNL was funny for once! I am a Jew, and the material was less anti-semitic than many other episodes. Sorry you were disappointed it didn't offer the usual unfunny PC NYT pablum.
6
There was a joke about antisemitism in Eastern Europe:
-Let's go beat up Jews and cyclists!
-Ok, but why the cyclists?
The Holocaust joke was not antisemitic, it was just sick. As another comment asked - is Horoshima joke next ? maybe napalm in Vietnam?
1
Take this as you will. One thing no one has mentioned is that Larry David lost many family members in the Holocaust.
32
Well, in that case, I guess he can do no wrong?
I think people need to appreciate comedians more. They did a great job. It's time to start finding mutual understanding and stop examining every little offense. Not everyone is going to like every joke, but it doesn't mean they're offensive.
25
Nothing funny can be said about any concentration camp. He should issue an apology and Larry David as well as SNL showed poor judgement in this monologue.
12
I think NYT should critique the show by somebody with a less hostile attitude toward it.I hate being nudged in the ribs by a critic's elbow so that I will agree with them.
16
I think Larry David's holocaust joke was mocking his character - the humor came from the absurdity of not recognizing an abnormal terrifying situation. It takes the Schindler's List Seinfeld episode one step further - beyond the awkward position of a modern Jew not always fully accepting the events to one who is actually there who is not accepting it.
And the cluelessness is also similar to George Constanza's many faults which we all laughed at.
I also think the Quasimodo bit was very funny - satirizing the privileged male, another recurring trope of the Seinfeld show. I do think it had an awkward timing to it though at the end with his last line, which made it seem flatter than it was.
17
I wish Larry David would have listened to Mel Brooks advice when he said that he thought that the holocaust would be the one thing one couldn't joke about. To that I'd add rape. It can be cruel to exploit folks suffering for a laugh. And SNL did seem more cruel than usual.
Humor is about pushing the envelope as much as possible and that means that there will be unavoidable fails. Weekend update still killed it, though.
I still watched SNL cushioned by the fact that I'd have one extra hour of sleep by my prodigal TV watching.
7
So true, its why Springtime for Hitler was Mel Brooks literal adaptation of Hitler's little know springtime romance.
What? Mel "Springtime for Hitler" Brooks?
You can even joke about rape, as long as the butt of the joke is the rapist, or some idiot bystander. Obviously, it would be cruel and mean-spirited to joke about the victim.
That so many men have done exactly that in the past (as well as telling racist, sexist, "ethnic" & anti-LGBT jokes, ridiculing disabled people, and other forms of cruelty humor) is just another example of "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The first thing power does to the newly powerful is to warp their minds. If they knew the contempt and with which others viewed them because of it, they'd be ashamed, but their positions of power also insulate them from finding out what others really think of them.
It baffles me why the NYT faithfully reports on SNL and late night TV shows? Is it because those productions align with the Times' editorial stances? I ask myself whether a conservative show or comedian would get the same degree of coverage. Can't imagine it. Bottom line, late night TV is funny and creative but rarely newsworthy.
6
There are no conservative comedians.
10
"Conservative Comedian"?? Really? That is an oxymoron if i ever heard one.
8
Try Larry the Cable Guy, Tim Allen, Dennis Miller, and Jeff Foxworthy to name a few conservative comedians...
I really love Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but there is nothing funny about the Holocaust. This monologue fell flat and was highly offensive.
8
LD is the Art G to JS’s Paul S .. he is just a Horrible Standup Period. I will never get the popularity of CYE .. every-time I’ve tried to watch it .. he has a constant facial expression of someone who is constipated..
Only good thing he has ever done was play that nun in the TS movie
1
Watching Larry David's monologue, with the hand jesters and emphasis mannerisms, I couldn't tell whether he mimics Jerry Seinfeld or Seinfeld mimics him. I know David was involved in Seinfeld's show. Which came first, the David or the Seinfeld (the chicken or the egg)?
'gestures' not jesters. Duh. Freudian?
2
There’s simply nothing funny about a concentration Camp.
7
Oh please. Of course there's nothing funny. But you gotta laugh at the fact he is saying it and really mocking himself too. Come on. Really ?
4
That...is...the...point.
4
Linda,
You can't be Jewish or righteous to laugh at that remark.
I liked the monologue. The joke was about how David's love of woman (womanizing?) was such that he would wildly inappropriately hit on women in a concentration camp. The meta-joke was that the joke itself was wildly inappropriate. The meta-meta-joke was that this was how wildly inappropriately David's - and other powerful men in hollywood - have behaved towards women, often from a position of power. Could larry david simply gotten up and said 'Myself and powerful men have abuse our power and behaved inappropriately in hollywood', sure. But it wouldn't have been funny or captured the essence of the wrongness of how they treated women.
86
Yes - exactly!
4
Where is Mel Brooks on this stuff?
Objectively I get the joke. Was it necessary or even good, though? My reaction was "what?/that's weird/why is this on TV." Same reaction to the "new wife" sketch -- David was breaking in anticipation of saying the word "twink," but the other players didn't seem to be on board. And the sketch wasn't grounded in context. It wasn't clear whether David's character had always been that kind of guy, or whether he'd undergone a rapid makeover--and why.
I wasn't offended per se just disappointed in the better jokes that could have made it to air.
2
Trying to make sense of bad comedy is like trying to make sense of a bad presidency. A waste of time and beneath the NYT.
7
I wonder what this Times reviewer and his intellectual peers, the Twitter snowflakes, would ever make of Mel Brooks. Meshuggah.
3
In Mel We Trust!
1
Aw, don't be so hard on today's Yute, Chris. They're playing the cards they were dealt. Remember - you didn't have the internet albatross to contend with.
2
Concentration camp jokes, funny. Explanation of Huckabee bit. The woman who plays Huck is not very good at it and not that funny. So they wrote a piece that didn't need much comedic talent. Melissa MaCarthy should come back
1
Aidy Bryant is extremely talented and always worth watching. Her commitment and observation blow me away.
I told my son today that SNL is exemplifying the theory of the law of diminishing returns. When Alec Baldwin first played Donald Trump it was hilarious. It has gotten less and less so. I didn't even see any humor in the Jeff Sessions parody, and I think Kate McKinnon is a comic genius. Literally the only thing in Larry David's monologue that I thought was amusing was when he said that he thought he was doing well (he wasn't). Even Weekend Update has been less and less funny, with long, pointless skits interrupting the one part of the show that's usually worth watching. Last season's brilliance seems a long, long time ago.
11
Baldwin's grotesque caricature of Trump is stale by now. Never mind the fact that Trump is, and has always been, a grotesque caricature of a human being. It is a pity that Baldwin is getting most of the media attention.
The really brilliant Trump satirist for the ages is Anthony Atamaniuk, with Comedy Central's brilliant, dark, scarily truthful "The President Show". This show is pointed, up to the second, fresh and eerily prescient.
8
I absolutely agree. From the UCB shows right up to his current Comedy Central hit, Anthony adds insight to his dead on impersonation of Trump.
3
I have always been a fan of Larry David but I found his bit about the concentration camp truly tasteless. The whole show felt like a miscalculation.
8
Uh, Larry David I could do without. I loved the Trump cold opening; it said so much about Trump and his bootlicking enablers. Weekend Update was fine.
3
Let's not forget that even a live show has censors - and that it is likely that a number of ridiculously hilarious skits are regularly skewered by - who exactly are these people? You know it happens when a particularly good double entendre gets through, and the actors give a high five!
1
Personally, I liked the show!
8
I understand we have become Short Attention Span Nation; but do we really need Cliffs Notes for Saturday Night Live?
14
I thought the sketch with Larry at the ad awards show was hilarious.
5
I think creativity is going by the wayside along with our democracy. Crass unfunny creativity when comedy goes too far and, well for the latter, when politics "trumps" our democratic ideas and values. It is all surreal. When do we wake up from the nightmare?
2
They weren't at the top of their game. Baldwin seemed to be stepping on some of his words. Moffat doesn't quite have Manafort's bass-voice down. But I thought the shower scene was hilarious, especially with Kate doing Sessions. Pence in a suit was perfect, too. Don't know how any of them could keep it together while filming that.
1
I'm a fan of the show but found this episode particularly bizarre. Larry David pretty much bombed and the cold open was mediocre, though Kate McKinnon, as Sessions, provided the brief hilarious moments as usual.
9
The writing is awful. Every weekday I turn to YouTube and watch the Colbert monologue from the night before. I watch Seth Meyers "Closer Look," and Bill Maher's monologue and New Rules. SNL has 90 minutes and can't even fill one sketch with the wit of a Colbert monologue and he's on the air every night! Who is picking the writers for this show?
As for Larry David, this season's Curb Your Enthusiasm is terrible. Larry just runs around yelling catchphrases (Fatwa! Fatwa! Fatwa!) and his obnoxiousness comes out of nowhere instead of being inspired by life's slights and silliness. He's also laughing at his own jokes on the show, something he never did before. I think Larry has run out of gas, which is understandable because he's given us more than 20 years of great comedy. But in America, we tend to let things go on long after they're relevant if it means a paycheck for someone.
3
I recall that Mort Saul used to end his act by asking:"Are there any parties here I haven't offended tonight?".
10
Yeesh.
Thanks, NYT, for taking the hit of watching this so I didn’t have to. SNL, despite some flashes of occasional brilliance, passed its sell-by date about about 20 years ago. That’s what happens when you think you’re the funniest/edgiest/smartest people in the room. Often, you’re not.
2
My apologies to Mort Sahl (not Saul) and all his fans.
1
Worst SNL ever. We only watched the first 45 minutes and gave up.
6
Was it excruciating for this student of the Holocaust to hear Larry David joking about the Holocaust? Of Course.
Was it hilarious? Again, of course.
And that's the human dilemma, or at least one of them.
We hunger for a world of clarity, a place where the rules about the appropriate way to feel are inscribed in some sacred rule book. And often we admonish ourselves when we find ourselves in violation. "How could I laugh at the sight of someone falling down?" "Why in the world was my first impulse to laugh at such a racist or sexist or homophobic joke?" "Who could joke about a concentration camp?"
But all the self-monitoring in the world, however important, can't change the basic fact of our complexity, the contradictions we feel when we'd prefer certainty, or the laughter that decides to have its way at the worst possible moments.
We are gloriously and gallingly human. And sometimes -- for reasons that might defy our most profound contemplation -- a concentration camp joke will simply be funny, even hilarious.
95
What a wonderful comment, Horace Dewey. A thousand recs if I could.
I many of the worst camps the interned had a sense of humor; they had to to survive. They had to keep the children, if not happy, then at least some relief. The put on plays, encouraged art, even but on music performances — a cappella since all their instruments had been confiscated.
It never was easy, their was always the fear of death, but humans rise above their surrounding by finding humor through their terrors and tears.
It was funny because it wasn't a joke about the holocaust. He wasn't making fun of survivors. It was a joke made by Larry David about Larry David.
3
Too many observers and writers are inflicting reverse sexism on the male gender in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein-sexual harassment scandal.
I am no male apologist. But I also don't buy one popular line of thinking. It goes, Women being weaker and victims and all, men should have been standing up far more than they have upon hearing even rumors of sexual harassment and assault. As if they should shoulder the job of making amends for their brethren offenders.
The outcry has become, "Where were the men?" The true question is, "Where were all of us?"
Many courageous victims have been coming forward and by name. Many female lawyers and advocates have also made this a crucial cause. But as for the rest, the responsibility falls to all who hear and have something to report.
On the general topic, it's true that women speak up far more than men. There is no excuse for this, but there is one somewhat mitigating reason. Women are the ones who typically -- though not solely -- fall prey to this crime. We understand it better. Many of us know feelings of shame, helplessness and mental anguish.
But there is reason no longer.
A flood of revelations give us zero excuses not to learn from, listen to and empathize with these female and male sufferers. It's also time to help give victims the courage to file complaints with employers, report offenders to police and yes, when possible, to speak out loud and often.
2
@ Peggy Rogers: "The outcry has become, 'Where were the men?' The true question is, 'Where were all of us?'" I think you're missing the crucial fact that, in a workplace where women are regularly harassed, demeaned, and/or undervalued, women won't be listened to as much if they speak up. In such settings, men have the pulpit and should therefore be the ones preaching.
3
I tuned in to watch last night's opening sketch, (the only part of the show that I watch), and found it lacking in humor, class and content. I pressed my remote control, and watched an episode of the 1950s, THE HONEYMOONERS. No lack of humor, class and content, though it was acted and written in the 20th century.
5
For perspective on this episode, may I recommended the documentary TOO FUNNY TO FAIL and the show it's about : THE DANA CAREY SHOW that can be streamed on HULU? The documentary tells the story of a comedy show that wasn't acceptable in its time.
2
Some weeks, SNL works. Some weeks, it flops. Despite Larry David, it flopped this week.
8
Larry David did a great deal to help the show flop.
5
I slightly disagree about the concentration camp bit. I laughed because it was so absurd. The set-up for the jokes was that the predators were by and large Jews, and David was self-deprecating about his own lust for women. I think Gentiles cannot make this joke - that's just the way things are. It is analogous, but not the same of course, as blacks making slavery or lynching jokes, or using the N-word. And finally some things are so horrible people joke about them.
20
Apparently, the all-mighty ego of Mr. David (and perhaps Jewish self looting privilege) makes him believe he can be funny about anything....even the murder of millions of innocent Jews. What the Germans did was unforgivable. Making a sick joke out of is the same. Maybe some Neo-NAZI's enjoyed it. I was repulsed.
3
Larry David, yikes. The woody Allen movie you starred in was toxic and now you're knocking Bernie Sanders and pandering for anti-semetic laughs. Maybe I misremember and, like SNL, you were never actually funny but it's clear now that you need to find a hobby.
9
As usual, the Liberal Media is simply lost in the wilderness. They have no sense of value - as usual anything to make a buck.
8
Well, the Liberal Media are not the party which has failed to pass a single piece of significant legislation in the President's first year in office, but did make 3 attempts to overturn the HCA. And tried to impose a travel ban that doesn't stand up in court. Speaking of the President and making a buck - this is a guy who sold ties, steaks, and yells "You're Fired" to make buck. What country do you actually live in?
3
It's satire.
Seriously, you think anything to make a buck is confined to "Liberal Media?"
4
While you were watching SNL, I was watching Independent Lens: 'The Last Laugh,' Jewish comics discuss whether any topic, including the Holocaust, should be off limits to comedians. Watch that before you decide I'm going to follow unfollw friend defriend vote unvote denounce. Denounce. Is this East Germany? Is this Germany 1933-1944?
4
In the words of a great Roman gladiator who no doubt never actually uttered them: "Are you not entertained"?! Comedy, especially the political kind, gets stale and boring when it's aimed with laser like precision at one party only, and refuses to be self reflective. SNL, Bill Maher, The Daily Show etc., have become exactly the thing that they used to skewer mercilessly, correctly and sometimes insightfully: self righteous, hysterical, crusading and unintentionally funny, liberal bigots of a sort. Stale doesn't even begin to describe the propaganda masquerading as comedy these days. And Mr. David, if you're going to regurgitate the famous "Jerry Seinfeld and girlfriend making out during 'Schindler's List' episode", don't leave out the punch line that the clueless, morally vacant Jerry couldn't understand what the fuss was all about. Bring back David Chappelle, who who questions everything, including his own beliefs.
10
I could not believe the horrible taste of Larry David's opener. The holocaust and concentration camps are NEVER fuel for humor and as I heard his tasteless poor excuses for jokes last night, I was appalled. I think his brain is beginning to dissolve. He should NOT be invited again.
15
Tell that to Gilbert Gottfreid.
I can't say I found the Aidy/Sarah sketch confusing. I walked away from it seeing the "Confident Woman" cutaways as her inner monologue. Bryant/Huckabee Sanders is up there confidently spilling lies and feeling powerful about it. At the end of the sketch she goes too far and let's some of the inner diva (as she sees herself) show on the outside, thus the confused reaction by the Press to her dancing and singing badly by the podium.
That said, it still kinda made me cringe.
17
You folks in the media criticize SNL for NOT taking on Weinstein and his ilk.
Now, you folks in the media criticize SNL for TAKING on Weinstein and his ilk.
No, it wasn't a very funny episode. The topics, Trump's vast circle of corruption and Hollywood's vast circle of sexual abuse, were far too serious to be funny.
And let's face: Jason Alexander was a far better channeler of Larry David's angst that was, or is, Larry David. Mel Brook's made mock of the Holocaust in "The Producers." But Larry David's routine was more like that of "Hogan's Heroes."
SNL isn't always funny. The show depends upon the host. Bring back Justin Timberlake, Melissa McCarthy and even Lady Gaga.
And leave Trump to "Weekend End."
4
Mel Brooks made fun of Hitler, and the stupidity and tastes of theater goers, not the Holocaust. Hogan's Heroes made fun of Germans and the show took place in a POW camp (with American and British prisoners), not a concentration death camp...and squeaked by with casting Jewish actors playing Sgt. Schultz and Col. Klink. I've met Mel Brook and Larry David...and Larry David is no Mel Brooks. And to paraphrase the Woody Allen movie you mentioned, Mr. David's SNL routine "Did Not Work."
3
here's one skit you'll never see on SNL- Leslie Jones as Donna Brazile calls Larry David as Bernie to tell him the fix was in, while Kate McKinnon cackles hysterically in the background....
3
Because as you've written it, its not funny.
Agreed Kate McKinnon is the best part of SNL by a country mile but the shark was jumped in her plaintively unfunny Hillary sings Leonard Cohen cold opening some months back. Baldwin's Trump needed her equally incisive Clinton to work; now he's just mocking something that's funnier as straight news. And "Weekend Update" is smug, knowing garbage. Norm MacDonald's O.J. material would never find itself on air today and for this, comedy has suffered.
7
I don't think Kate's "Hallelujah" was meant to be funny. it was poignant and powerfully so. No shark jumping there.
24
I LOVE that cold open. It was just 51 weeks ago, the Saturday after the election and the week that Cohen died. I played it over and over and cried buckets. I thought our country was doomed. I got out a map of Montreal, looking for the English quarter. (I was born a Canadian citizen in Maine, so I could actually move there.) I still play that open and cry, but I now have some faith in our democratic system and Mueller, and no longer study the map of Montreal.
4
The only thing better than watching comedy is reading a thousand word description of said comedy in which the jokes are transcribed semi-arbitrarily like a dinner with a tipsy, elderly uncle.
I really will never understand why the NYT insists on transcribing SNL in vaguely baffled terms.
22
Hey Lorne Michels didn't want to go after Harvey Weinstein because it was ..." a New York thing"
5
No, predatory males in the workplace is a UNIVERSAL thing. It's not restricted to NYC.
After a fairly rip-snorting open in which Kate McKinnon's 'Jeff Sessions' is becoming the part to watch for(!), Larry David stand-up routine opening fell flat. The rest of the show was pretty dull. The 'Baby Steps' video had some moments. I enjoyed Larry David's inability to not laugh during the final sketch. Cecily Strong is getting stronger with every show. Aidy Bryant's take on SHS is good but superfluous. Ms. Sanders as White House press secretary is a big enough joke on the nation.
2
LOL- more typical and relentless hypocrisy from the "left"!
Particularly foul is the pathetic, juvenile homophobia from cis gender white male characters like Baldwin and Colbert . When will the LGBT community condemn this sorry behavior?
as was David's foul trivialization of the holocaust and women - illustrating once agin that age old truth: that the left consumes itself...
The degree to which "comedians" abandon their true comic purpose of making EVERYone laugh at and examine themselves, for a narrow minded, spiteful political agenda, is the degree to which their comedy suffers and fails.
5
Considering that the right wing has voted into office a racist who's populated his staff with white supremacists (many of whom, I'm told, are fine people), any railing by the right against Larry David's "trivializing" the holocaust seems ludicrous. SNL is (sometimes) comedy; what the right is supporting is real-life, boots-on-the ground anti-Semitism.
LOL! Donald Trump is EASILY the most Jewish friendly president the WH as ever seen...
white supremacists? good grief - those who have abrogated their autonomy to the click bait, relentlessly Trump bashing media, and rely on them as the sole arbiters of their reality might certainly believe this absurd, FAKE NEWS narrative...
I thought it was pretty funny, except the concentration camp bit.
2
Oy, let's hope this was just a bit of water skiing and no one jumped the shark.
2
This show was a big miss.
Larry David's monologue was not edgy, it was bad.
The first skit with the game show - ugh, these are some of the worst skits.
The WH Presser skit - oh, I wish they would just stay focused on the ridiculous things that SHS says - those are usually great.
I waited to watch Weekend Update - again - a miss for the most part.
1
It was a terrible episode. A reminder that the show is hanging out n by a thin thread to good comedy.
6
Gotta laugh or die early. Seems some folks take themselves and their opinions way too seriously.
SNL has always had an edge but it appears many in the audience are willing to put up with caricatures of their nemesis' but when it comes to challenging their own political correctness you'd think the world is going to end.
6
What no one ever talks about it’s the fact that most of SNL falls flat, every single week. And that goes all the way back to the first cast of “Players.” We remember only the best bits, and our memories grow those sketches (John Belushi as a Toshiro Mifune samurai, or any Conehead bit) into entire shows. It was never so.
I will go ahead and say it: at least 75 percent of SNL is groan worthy. Always has been, always will be.
Out of the selections presented here, I found only Larry David’s monologue to be entirely funny. The rest were pretty awful (okay, so Sessions’s tail picking up the loofa was good). David’s humor was edgy, and risked offending many, but that is what he does. And he does it very well. I guffawed at all of it.
10
There always exists a fine line in comedy - when to stay the corse or quit when one is ahead. Clearly, the writers crossed that line last night. I am ashamed of Larry David for even wanting to do that scene. Some topics and sketches are never funny regardless of the comedian. SNL lost much, if not most of the ground they gained since January. Shame on the entire SNL lot.
4
I did not watch the SNL show reviewed. But in reading your piece, I laughed a lot. I am glad for some outrageous humor, that tries to match these outrageous times. I don't agree with your critique.
4
Saturday Night Live has not been funny in years. Last night was no exception.
4
Donald? Is that you?
1
So why do you watch?
1
I was quite uncomfortable with L. David's holocaust attempt at humor.
I am often quite sarcastic however his rambles were poorly conceived and ineptly expressed. My personal heritage: I was born & raised on the West Side of Manhattan, and part of a left of center Jewish family. I long for Mel Brooks and Steve Allen, who in IMHO could riff better, then the current crop of thin and transparent comics.
5
Feels to me as if these words, acts, deeds are coming from a place of truth and beauty with very reasonable risk-taking and exquisite enrapturing performances by Kate and her crew of critters. Loving it. Go there. I am in. If ever there was a time in the history for cabaret-style down home brother talk -- chipaway. Uncle Remus was always my favorite and if ya'll are reading about your reception here in the nyt then listen up: brers be timeless and always in time. do bring it! hearts from austintown~
2
My take on the Sarah Huckabee Sanders video is that it’s meant to be her inner rock star — the way she really sees herself. The equivalent for Sean Spicer would be cutaways to him dressed in leather, pounding a guitar on the stage and screaming a heavy-metal song. It’s not a new idea. Kind of an old chestnut, really.
4
Said basically the same thing. I really don't understand the confusion. Seemed pretty straightforward. And I agree, it's not a new gag.
Larry David, being himself Jewish, could say something that others might be thinking and which deserves a studied approach. So far, many of the men accused of sexual harassment, unwanted sexual aggression, have been Jewish. There are psychoanalysts, not to mention novelists (e.g. Mailer, Roth) who could attempt explanations. It could be that Jewish men are disproportionately represented in positions of power.
1
There are those, including Jewish mothers, who baulk at male circumcision, regarding it as a traumatic event. I lived in Australia and Holland where circumcision is not routine. My understanding is that it is less prevalent in the west of USA. It is said that it is done for hygiene reasons. My sons and husband are not circumcised and simply clean foreskin and all.
Well OK, that is a hypothesis, and Jewish men are a bit overrepresented in Hollywood.
A different hypothesis is that it is convenient to throw somebody "other" to the wolves. Doesn't matter if they are black "other", or Jewish "other", or gay "other". The public will pile on with all their anti-black, anti-Jewish, or anti-gay sentiments, outrage will quickly go sky-high, and they can get it out of their system. This whole thing will blow over, and Hollywood can return to it's usual high level of sexual exploitation.
Note the bare-chested, implicitly nude, men from SNL on the top of this article. Sex, and sexual exploitation, isn't leaving Hollywood anytime soon.
1
Yeah, well Trump, Spacey and O'Reilly aren't Jewish but all the above are powerful males. It's up to all of us to call out the abusers of power, regardless of their gender.
1
Read the Guardian article. Rose McGowan wasn't raped. She was negotiating. Otherwise, she wouldn't have "counter-offered" 6 mil for hush money.
Baldwin's point was valid. You want it to stop, report it. Prosecute it. File the charges and make the fuss. I've spoke to the women in my life. Their consent is not for sale.
Victim and hero are two different words for a reason, and neither applies to these idols of the easily impressed.
1
All in all, it wasn't as funny as I was hoping, being a huge Larry David fan myself. That being said, there is entirely too much serious analysis of comedy these days. The social media peanut gallery now apparently gets to decide which jokes are appropriate at what time, what is appropriate to laugh at and what isn't, etc. That is hilarious by itself actually. The real world is becoming funnier as it unintentionally kills actual comedy performance.
24
I didn't see the show but reading the lines in this article made me smile and laugh. I guess I'm just not willing to consider getting worked up about this in any event, given the day to day tension delivered by our world government and business "leaders".
9
I understand the controversial reaction to the rest of the show, but the one that turned my stomach was the one of Sarah Huckabee Sanders grinding and writhing in her role of 'confidant woman.' SHS is no more fit to be in her job than any of them in the White House-- but this clip is sexual objectification of women in the extreme. Any coincidence that sexual harassment of women is a huge ISSUE right now? Saturday Night Live, you're part of the problem.
18
I could not agree more and posted the same reaction. I mean, does this not just point out how sexualizaton/objectification of women is embedded in concrete in this society.? We have a LONG way to go....... famous actresses we know and love we defend. Woman we don't care for, the game is still on. Imagine the anonymous woman in the pizza place, or Walmart. Her day is a LONG way off.
2
I guess someone woke up at NBC, by the time it was playing on the West Coast, it was replaced with reruns from Cameron Diaz? NOt sure,perhaps I was sleeping.
2
No, that was the 1-hour rerun that airs from 10-11. The live show aired in its entirety on the west coast from 8:30-10:00.
McKinnon is some kind of genius. At this point, the show boils down to whether she's onscreen or not at any given time. It just kills me how she channels Forrest Gump into diabolical pixie rodent Sessions.
I'm kind of loyal to the show because of how it actually mattered last season in the dark time. Which continues of course, but Mueller means business, and what's bad for Trump is good for the country. It's really not supposed to work that way, but we'll take what we can get.
15
Agreed. An ounce of Kate McKinnon is worth a ton of Larry David.
5
Hey SNL,
I have loved this show for decades,but this was the worst show so far this season. The first skit was too much. Premise was fine but don’t shove everything into it.
Had to turn off Larry David monologue because it was so tasteless. Weekend update lacked any real finesse in writing. Finally the Larry David cocktail party and girlfriend bit was not comprehensible and not just because of the laughing fit.
Try to do better. I don’t want to get stuck with Blue Bloods reruns each week.
Regards,
Rosemary
11
Larry David has pretty much built his entire career on magnifying the absurdities of "offensive" behaviors and comments...to expect him to tone it down for SNL is ridiculous. If anything, considering his history with SNL, it's entirely possible he viewed the monolog as a chance to get his own personal revenge on Lorne Michaels for never using any of his material during the year when he was a writer for SNL. "Spite" has always been a recurring theme in Mr. David's comedy.
Regardless of the disgusting nature of historical events, is it never OK to reference them humorously anymore? Certainly there were some male slaves that looked at female slaves on the plantations and thought exactly as Larry stated in his concentration camp jokes.
Obviously, from reading the comments, plenty were offended. Turn off the TV. Stop watching "Seinfeld" or "Curb Your Enthusiasm" if you were that hurt. One of the best parts about living in America is that you still have the right to be offended.
18
Humor is gone from SNL We are harangued with inane anti Trump material. We know what Trump is. Please move on. And, what was David thinking in his monologue? He was not. SNL is beyond its shelf live.
15
From a purely comedic point of view and putting aside any politics this episode was a bomb as they say in the biz.
Larry David's stand up routine was stilted and awkward throughout with not so funny material, even without the concentration camp joke which was extraordinarily uncomfortable. I'm a big fan of Larry David but he crashed and burned on this one in my opinion.
The shower scene was just weird. Then the Price is Right skit seemed poorly slapped together with loose bits and pieces of jokes that lay flat. Lights out and TV off at that point.
15
Was I hearing things or did Aidy Bryant's character, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, actually say "Polack" followed by the usual lame joke about Poles and intelligence? Totally unacceptable.
5
She did. You seem to be missing the point that it was intended to show that SHS and the rest of the administration ilk might actually think that way. After all, they do think Robt. E. Lee was an honorable man.
1
Maybe so, but then there's a double standard. If the negative references were to be made about African-Americans instead of Poles, such comments would never have made it the TV screen, and rightfully so. The show's producers correctly assumed, perhaps, that there might be little reaction to Bryant's slurs. Apparently they were right.
Snl had a single golden era: the Hartman, Myers, MacDonald, Sandler, Meadows, Spade, etc. era. (*Hammond) Larry David, one of the most unfunny people out there, should not be given free reign. "Awkward" and "head-scratching" are far too mild to describe my reaction to this episode. This show needs some younger, newer blood at the top if these older guys insist on being this bad. The Baldwin-Trump stuff is just embarrassing. Believe it or not, there are plenty of funny concentration camp jokes, but there was zero comedy here. And is national TV the place for them anyway? By and large, these are rich Ivy writers doing this show with very wealthy people on top. They aren't going to go too heavy satirizing their own world. There's a youtube Lenny Bruce TV bit from 1959(!) that shows how great comedy on national TV can be and is still funny and smart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3QgxmiBfNY
4
". . . should not be given free reign."
Rein. The term is "free rein." It's an equestrian term. Please file this for future reference.
4
I loved Larry David's opening monologue! Larry David is not going to make the comments about Jews, who is? So who has better credentials than him to say this stuff!! It was great! Holocaust humor is generally off limits- only he could get away with it on national tv. I am so grateful to him for doing this. People- you have to keep your sense of humor when watching comedy- that's the point. There is obviously no way that Mr David intended any of that in a uselessly offensive way- it was usefully offensive!
He also brought up something I am surprised there is not more mention of-- how very unattractive men are often the perpetrators of the worst types of sexual harassment and aggression, possibly having inferiority complexes. Can we look at that? In general, behaving like a prince seems to be more common among appealing men. Let's turn that mirror around, shall we? Men, princely is as princely does- don't think so much about your looks (they aren't really that important).
13
Larry David monologue tasteless, offensive and definitely not funny.
1
"very unattractive men are often the perpetrators of the worst types of sexual harassment and aggression, possibly having inferiority complexes"
I completely disagree, so-called handsome men can be just as bad.
1
I suspect many of the people claiming that Larry David was *hilarious* last night would find the monologue significantly less funny it had come from anyone Jewish on the right (Ben Stein, say). And it would have been unacceptable coming from anyone else at all. This is a major hint that the monologue wasn't actually funny.
7
Interesting you should mention confusion at the Sarah Sanders sketch because my husband said the same thing while watching, to paraphrase—I don’t get this. And Aidy’s straight impersonation is great, very funny. It just needed a different kind of twist. I mean, what exactly was the sketch saying?
I think so far, this season has been very weak compared to last year. That women’s panel sketch they did a couple weeks back as a response to Weinstein—wow, so painfully unfunny and that’s usually a good bit. The show has always been pretty uneven, even going way back to the glory days. You win some, you lose some, that’s the nature of sketch comedy. But I think the balance is a little more on lose some this year. I think Weekend Update has been pretty good, though I usually don’t like their visitors (thank god Drunk Uncle is gone...sorry Bobby), but I thought the Trump brothers were funny.
4
Larry David is always completely inappropriate. This is the foundation of his comedy. He is that comic who goes there. I'm just now getting this about him and I love it. I was laughing out loud at the concentration camp jokes. And I'm a old PC feminist! His facial expressions before he said the word "Jew" were exquisitely masterful. I agree with the two people here who thought the monologue was great. It was hilarious because it was so totally Larry David. Thank you to Mr. David who can make me laugh after #MeToo, well done, sir, well done.
28
Sadly, the acting talent on SNL deserves some better writers.
This is all material ripe for spoofing but SNL is falling short. They (the writers) should take some time out to study Stephen Colbert's & Seth Meyers' routines. The cast of actors on SNL shouldn't be shortchanged like this.
As for Larry David - ouch. Someone has really jumped the shark, to say the least.
7
Agreed. It has been amazing to me that late night writers can put out funny stuff every night, and SNL cannot put on a funny show once a week.
Humor. Uncomfortable. Too many victims. They had enough material with Trump and grabbing women, and they could have left out the grabbing. The fact that Trump is making us into a second class nation in all but military, and that will get weak as we go second class deeper - has enough material for several shows.
1
Not necessarily a Larry David fan, but I thought the monologue recalled some of Lenny Bruce's edgy genius.
... For example, in a Bruce bit about the electric chair, he sings a song that goes "Fry somebody tonight." ... l
or "Father Flotsky's Triumph" is laugh-out-loud brilliant, but so un PC. With "Kiki the hospital attendant" ... and the Uncle Tom bit of the guy on death row who says, "You don't mind dying, boss, when you got a natural sense of rhythm." ...
8
Oh, no! Did this week’s episode deviate in some small manner from it’s role as Progressive America’s Official Comedy Hour? Horrors. Let us trust that it will return to the Party line next week.
11
Very accurate review. Disappointing & humorless monologue. Stereotypes are not funny & neither was this SNL episode.
8
If you want to tell people the truth, you need to make them laugh (a saying attributed to many people over years). And sometimes the truth is awkward. Good comedy should make you uncomfortable. Sometimes it's even rude. Even better, it's cruel. SNL is not the place to go for feel-good laughs. The jokes score when they make you squirm.
The Huckabee bit was fabulous, contrasting her horrific job with female empowerment. Women are telling each other to support one another when we succeed. Huckabee has a powerful, highly visible job. Go, girl power! But then there's this huge disconnect between feeling good about her accomplishments and the actual professional behavior. It's like cheering on a millionaire kitten-killer or wanting to root for Sarah Palin (woman in politics) and cringing every time she opens her mouth.
My biggest laugh, however, came at the very end with that sitcom/afterschool special about the friend who drinks too much. I smiled when he was rude, chortled when he killed the fish, and then screamed (sorry, neighbors) when he just took out a knife and stabbed the guy. What a perfect comment (especially when combined with the funny bit about PSAs that themselves used offensive speech) on the Trump administration's announced plan to go back to those awful "Just Say No"-type anti-drug ads, but now for opiates.
7
There is a third rail in comedy. And Larry David touched it. Anyone who enjoyed it is someone I would never want to know.,
7
Perfectly encapsulates my view on the terrible sketch with Larry David. There is edgy and then there is unseemly.
1
There is unseemly and then there is simply unfunny.
Aidy Bryant's portrayal of Sarah Huckabee Sanders was spot on during the press conference parts. I'd like to see more of that. I was and am completely confused by the music video fantasy. This was not an episode of SNL that I would want to watch again.
7
I thought the monologue was hilarious. Certain people being outraged over comedy on social media is not noteworthy, it's routine and expected and probably should not even be reported on. It's easy to be misled when you see a stream of tweets into thinking that everyone feels a certain way, when in reality it's just a tiny number of people. A twitter eyeball test is not a scientific poll to say the least.
As for whether it was offensive, you could easily say that joking about Trump or any real world topics are off limits because the issues are very serious and harming people and shouldn't be joked about. I haven't heard anyone say this yet for some reason. Personally I was somewhat "offended" by David's line about Bernie Sanders and the election but I didn't say "I'm never watching SNL or anything with Larry David in it again," or anything crazy like that, I just recognized that to a lot of people it was a funny line even if not for me.
33
I am glad you covered the show. I actually turned off the TV in the middle of Larry David's monologue, but read the content today and watched the Sanders video just now. WHY WHY WHY during a week when sexual assault and battery in the workplace, in schools and in marriages comes to a serious foreground, would SNL then go and satirize THIS issue. Showing a professional women (no matter how much we hate her, and I do...) taking her clothes off to feel powerful is just contributing to the culture that dismisses these issues as something to be made fun of. Shame on you SNL.
18
An attempt to create a humorous scenario in a concentration camp, especially in this day and time? Who reviews this stuff before it goes out? Were they comatose?
"You do plan to edit me out don't you?" A question asked by Miley Cyrus at the end of one of the skits. She can't have been alone in wondering about that possibility.
16
I used to be a fan of Larry David, his show hasn'r been that funny this season, and for some reason he made a huge mistake last night....how could he have ever thought of doing a joke about life in a concentration camp??? It actually stunned me, in a most repulsive way. Time for him to grow up! I believe he owes his audience an apology....
22
I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be a nervous/socially awkward segue from his previous topic.
2
“We’re going to win this thing the Bernie way. Which means if I lose, I’ll bring everyone else down with me.” Really Larry David? The extreme right has completely taken over the Republican party and much of the Democratic party and you'd use that weak excuse for humorless humor to poke misplaced fun at perhaps the most prominent person working against the take down of democracy, and for something he definitely did not do?
15
I think you’re confusing Larry David with the SNL writers. He’s just saying lines. Now the monologue...it seemed obviously he’s rusty at stand-up. It wasn’t just the subject matter, it was the pace, timing, just a bad set and you could tell he knew it too.
1
I'm sure Larry David has a big hand in writing his material. I don't think he would say something he didn't want to. The onus is on him for the both the concentration camp and Bernie Sanders lines.
1
Well of course he’s responsible for his monologue, but the guest hosts do not write the sketches.
For the first time in memory, I laughed out loud at some of the material last night: Eric Trump, Larry David: "So, how's it going?", Hobo **** Weekly (echoes of Norm M.). The game show even had its moments (Tony Bennett, "Pepsi"). The Trump stuff has never been funny; it's always much too respectful. I also unmuted the music act for the first time in a while.
12
Larry David is not funny. Similar comments about non-Jewish minority groups would never be tolerated. Smirking anti-semitism is shameful.
14
I guess it's hard to do comedy during fascist times. Was it hard to get a laugh under Franco? Hitler? Pol Pot? Things are so bad I don't know how you navigate it as a comedy writer.
10
You're not seriously equating the current situation to...? Oh dear, yes you are.
1
Hey SNL:
Just because David is a Jew doesn’t give him license to joke about the Holocaust.
To anyone who thinks the sexually tinged jokes about making hay with women in a concentration camp setting are merely “benign” or “awkward”, I’d suggest you check out a documentary on Auschwitz by Alan Resnais. Women and children were made to strip naked in front of Nazi guards and stand in line waiting to go to their deaths in the “showers” of Zyklon B.
There’s absolutely nothing funny about the Holocaust and to joke about picking up naked women soon to go to their deaths is disgusting. It’s apparent that David doesn’t know what went on in the camps or is willing to stoop to any level to make a topical “joke.”
One simply doesn’t joke about the Holocaust, EVER.
Sincerely yours,
A Mayflower Wasp
66
hear, hear... Larry should be made to spend a couple of hours touring Auschwitz to see just how funny his jokes were... if necessary, i'll pay his way - and i'm reacting as a (normally) big fan of his
3
David's choice of completely impossible opening lines made plain the opposite of normal in a concentration camp --a removal of all light-heartedness. His humor provided a moment of insight into the millions and millions of ways that people were robbed of ordinary living And please! in America, he has the right to speak as he chooses. He lives as all the world lives -- with a wound that will take generations to heal...
4
The concentration camp jokes were sick and ironic as the in-laws of the former president of NBC who gave David his big break were NAZI concentration camp survivors, but not all of the family survived, nor did mine. I wonder if any of these would have laughed.
1
I think Larry David was hysterical tonight, and his monologue about Weinstein was spot on. It accurately reflected what this Jewish woman has been thinking re the latest sex scandals. Furthermore, the concentration camp jokes were also funny—laughter is a Jew’s best revenge—right up there with driving a Mercedes. I say - give them all the proverbial finger - they tried to kill us - we’re still here AND We’re Laughing!!! Keep it up a Larry!
72
Unfathomably humorless. I know SNL lost some veteran writers this season, but is there no one funny and sharp to pick up the work? Satire needs a focus of some kind. Worst moment for me: "We’re going to win this thing the Bernie way. Which means if I lose, I’ll bring everyone else down with me.” Sorry, what? What does that even mean? Is this, God help us, an echo of Hillary's effort to blame her primary challenger for her election loss, right after we learned even more details of how she sucked up all the "party" donations into her own coffers? Pathetic.
10
It means Bernie, labeling himself a "socialist," had no chance of winning and every chance of continuing to pull Democratic votes away from Hillary after the primary.
You vote for the Democrat who can win--the first order of business is to stop the GOP--not the ideal candidate who will either damage the Democratic winner or end up losing to the Republican.
2
"Mr. Baldwin has lately come under scrutiny for his friendship with the filmmaker James Toback..." Mr. Itzkoff, have you taken leave of your senses? Or are you settling a score with Mr. Baldwin? Whatever it is, guilt by association should not be allowed in the pages of the Times.
21
So, has he come under scrutiny lately for his friendship with James Toback? If that’s true, then this is just another aspect of reporting.
1
" If that’s true, then this is just another aspect of reporting." Right. For media outlets like the NY Daily News, [London]Daily Mail and Fox News. But not for news organizations like the N.Y. Times, Washington Post or the Guardian.
I agree, lots of awkward last night. Shower scene more awkward than satirical, opening monologue sank, baby rap segment sophomoric, & SHS piece left both 20 something & 60 something viewers in my living room saying "Whaat?"
I eventually ended up flipping channels out of boredom. But then I'm still laughing about Michael Che's line about black people @ the movies, delivered as wryly as only he could. Sketch comedy is just that way; sometimes you hit, & sometimes you miss. That's part of the fun.
3
With regard to Larry David, has the New York Times forgotten the humor of Lenny Bruce. A letter to the Times on August 29, 1999 said it cleary:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/29/arts/l-lenny-bruce-the-visionary-23301...
How can anything said or written these days be in poor taste when American society is going to hell in a handbasket.
14
I was afraid SNL would rest on its lauriers after last year's success and the first episodes of this season have proved me right, unfortunately. They are trying edgier jokes because so many have been made already. I blame Late night tv and the huge amount of shows that focus on politics and are making a career out of it. I watch and love almost all of them but I must admit that at the end of the week, after every scandal getting out and late night tv getting its grip on it, not much is left for SNL. Except not a single non-political sketch had a remotely funny ending. As for Larry David, I was extremely disappointed by his poor taste. When he started mentioning sexual harassment scandals and jewish people, I thought "ok this is a tough one but you can manage to make a tasteful joke out of it", I was actually glad because I need fine "jewish representatives" to speak on the issue, not especially about sexual harassment but certainly about the ever-growing antisemite wave, though I knew he wouldn't because its very difficult and not really his type. Plus I love his sense of humour and I thought that never in a million years would he screw up a joke on jews. He did. Miserably. The turn the joke took was unexpected and unwelcome. He certainly did not behave as a fine representative, at least I wasn't proud.
3
NYT reading your review is like sitting through breakfast with my mother. Not only do you have a different opinion, but you have to read it to me to make sure I hear your condescension. Get over yourselves and stop worrying about what the satire means. Clearly, you don't get it.
40
Larry David's remarks on picking a girl up in a concentration camp were excruciating to listen to. There is no possible excuse for this being permitted to air.
19
SNL hasn't been funny since---well, forever---just tired, stale, forced, predictable and juvenile (in the worst sense of the word).
15
RAS - Then why are you still watching SNL if you don't think it's funny?
Reviewer Itzkoff is probably too young to appreciate this American Jew's take on the concentration camp routine. I found myself thinking about the rightness or wrongness of the bit WHILE I was watching it. Uncomfortable at first, I then found myself thinking that, well, Larry David is doing a "pickup" conversation ostensibly between two Jews in a camp, no Germans in the bit. And what he was doing underneath the laughs was showing how a prisoner could conceivably still feel desire for a woman he found attractive despite her plight and the soul-killing conditions in which she was imprisoned-- and so underneath all the misery Larry David saw a comedic way to express what really was boiled down to a theme of hope. One prisoner's hope to get a woman in bed. Absurd? Not to the great Holocaust chronicler Ellie Wiesel, who more than once championed hope as the only value ANY Jew in the camps could rationally hold onto. And then I decided, well, okay-- I like the SPIRIT of this routine. Bad taste?-- in the eyes of many, sure. But SO bad as to be beyond laughter?-- not for this Jew.
59
Yes! Viktor Frankl as well said he believed that, of those who died of despair in the camps and those who survived, the difference was having “something to live for.” He goes on to speak of the image of his beloved wife, and the hope of seeing her again, as his guiding light in the camps. It is not always in bad taste to joke about something difficult if it highlights a noble truth about humanity. I didn’t see Mr. David’s monologue, but speaking generally I think our society is losing its grip on what makes humor valuable: the ability to speak volumes about a horrid thing without letting it bring you down.
15
Larry David reminds me of someone's funny dad who runs a carpet business and everyone says should do comedy, except he does do comedy and he's worth millions. Or billions.
The concentration camp line would have worked in a small club because the audience would have heard itself both laughing and groaning at the joke, and then everyone would have laughed at the sound of that.
But broadcast live before millions of people, with the TV audience reaction out of microphone range, the joke fell flat and people had Twitter to share a group reaction.
I went "eeeeek" and turned off the TV cause I could watch the episode the next day, safely preserved in its fast forwardable, rewindable time warp.
3
Speaking of lame, not the best piece of criticism from the author, either. I hated the concentration camp jokes. Horrible. Otherwise, as long as we're complaining, why take off on Tony Bennett? What has he done to anybody? It's not okay to make jokes about various classes of people. But the elderly? Pour it on!
Oh please, I didn’t think they were making fun of Tony Bennett at all. And I’m pretty old. It was one of the few bits that worked.
4
They are not drilling down to what makes her so repugnant as a press secretary (who knows what her fantasies are and this seems a mile away from anything we might suppose). Except for the remark about expecting to see cat hairs on her clothing as just how disgusting her appearances are, nothing here really speaks to the depths of despair the correspondents must feel just sitting there and taking her childish abuse day after day. (If anything, she feels nothing but contempt for her job.) Or the perpetual sitcom this entire administrations has become; the fakery of their fake news is so earthshaking by this time, especially as compared to what we saw in the previous administration (or even on West Wing for that matter), that it only underlines what SNL still needs to do to come up with a follow up to the great job they did with the Spicer "character." Maybe they need to create a satire on Harvard hiring him; what was Harvard thinking????
9
To put it simply, SNL is no longer funny or original. Larry David's monologue was a new low. How can he, being Jewish, even go near a joke about concentration camps? Alec Baldwin proved once again that he is no comedian. Last night's shower sketch made me almost feel sorry for Trump....almost. Lorne Michaels, a fellow Canadian, needs to shake things up if he still cares.
7
Making the show politically correect would mean that it would not be comedy.
31
On the other hand, humor based on mere shock value (without satiric purpose) only amuses a certain kind of person.
Sanders is ripe for satire. I thought the skit probably went on a little too long with the video fantasy part...but keep working on it... Sanders is a creepy little character who probably does see herself as a celebrity video star...
2
As an Astros fan, I loved seeing Bregman, Stronger and Altuve on SNL! Go 'Stros!
That Larry David monologue was uncomfortable, out of place, not funny and disrespectful. The rest of the episode was tainted by that, to some degree.
5
Re: “Sketch We Wanted To Like of the Week”? No - “Sketch WE LOVED of the Week!” Aidy Bryant was spot-on in her imitation/spoof of White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. SHS becomes more appallingly obnoxious with every press conference. Ms Bryant captured SHS’s condescending disdain for reporters and her smug retorts to every question asked. The cut-over to SHS’s inner-self singing a bombastic version of Demi Lovato’s “Confident” was perfect. Confidence is about all SHS has going for her. In fact, all of SNL’s political comedy is spot-on – no wonder it won awards this year.
12
Just watched SNL off of DVR and loved every minute of it including Larry David's monologue. The celebrity Price is Right was brilliant! If NYT thinks the concentration camp silliness was awkward, grow a thicker (digital) skin!
12
I didn't see the show but I could easily see the brilliant Mel Brooks (who David no doubt was influenced by) entering the same uncomfortable territory. His whole career was mainly based on a similar tack - "lets make fun of the horrific to have power over it". Remember -"The Producers" is a comedy about a show about the Third Reich!
It may have not been funny (and that is a fine rope to walk) but David, like all the greats takes real chances. As others stated , you'll never get this from "boy next door" Jimmy Fallon.
22
The show was awkward because, well, having a racketeering misanthrope masquerading as the leader of the free world just isn't funny anymore. It's tragic.
8
Unfortunately the truth sometimes hurts. Sad is with President “me” the shower skit is not that outrageous of a possible reality given our current corrupt, embarrassing, incompetent, and ignorant situation. The show pushes satire to try to remind us how much our country has lost it way. Larry pushes to get you to think, and yes, Bernie did give us the president “not to be named” with his choices, you may not like Hillary, you may agree with Bernie, but he did not win the primary. So he did indeed contribute to Hillary losing a tight race, simple fact, he made the choices. Facts are often missing in our current situation, facts are not cool, keep punching SNL. Prob the greatest patriots we have now.
10
It is comedy. If you do not like it then do not watch. Awkward? To some and not to others.
7
It is taken with 'a grain of salt' and thus inappropriate (given the historical context of 'prior use') to offer, "Some of my best friends are Jews." But I feel confident to 'say' this, especially since they are many: "Most of my best friends are Jews."
But if I never so much as had a single Jewish acquaintance, I still would have cringed in discomfort and fully-flinched in disapproval during Larry David's concentration-camp "jokes."
Love SNL-this episode was not funny. Thought writers were on vacation or striking.
6
OK, let's go public. SNL isn't funny any more, hasn't been for years; many talented people reading dull lines; even the laugh machine struggles; no spark, no life, not fun. One really funny skit (Melissa McCarthy) can't float SNL for a year, or two, or three.
5
SNL feels like a one trick pony lately. Too many skits fall and end up feeling like partisan meanness. I remember a few months ago when they presented Sarah Huckabee Saunders as always eating in one skit. I don't care how you voted - that is just mean for the sake of being mean.
4
Okay, minority opinion: I laughed at, and liked, Larry David's riff on sexual attraction in a concentration camp. Try this interpretation on for size: One of the strongest and most human responses to brutality and dehumanization is to assert our enduring humanity, right in its face. I laughed at David's silly take on the difficulties of a would-be pick-up artist in a camp (it wasn't harassment, it was just trying to connect), and I took inspiration from the reminder that our drive for life and love survives and even sometimes expresses itself even in the worse circumstances. And that's no joke.
60
Geez... lighten up! It was a funny episode. Quit over thinking... comedy has to take chances.
21
I assume you wouldn’t tell a black person to “lighten up” over a joke about slavery, so don’t tell me to lighten up over David’s extremely offensive attempt at humor.
I thought the cold opening was just brilliant, but also very frightening. Is this really the President of the United States and his minions? In the immortal words of Freddie Mercury..."Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide,
No escape from reality..."
4
Why doesn't the mocking of Trump by degenerate Hollywood celebrities keep him and other Republicans from winning elections? Mystery of mysteries!
2
He doesn't win elections - he steals them.
9
Keep telling yourself that. Same for the Democratic party, and even more elections will be lost.
1
You can't body shame her or beauty shame her so overconfidence in her own overconfident self-absorption works, sort of. I hope they drill down on it for the future, her bizarre ability to triumph in dismissive lying.
3
"Fully grasp" the Bryant / 'Confident' video? No. It's too rich for that.
Beautifully rendered, though, the insolence of Huckabee Sanders in presenting her lies, and the lunacy of the lies themselves.
Have another go at it, Mr Itzkoff. Think Weimar. Think Joel Grey's make-up. Acknowledge in the Bryant / 'Confident' video a brilliant piece of screaming protest cabaret.
3
Larry David seemed to be trying to channel Woody Allen and failed miserably. The SHS thing was what happens when you run out of making the same joke over and over. It's a good thing Spicer quit because that joke was done and over. The SHS skit reminded me of the way the Big Lebowski falls apart into the nonsense with German nihilists and Julianne Moore on a swing - absurd but no smiles from this viewer.
SNL has been stiff for years, for the sake of all that is good it please bury it.
3
Expressions on the faces of band members during the concentration camp bit were telling.
Extremely crass and inappropriate in my view.
3
By the way, there is no question that Robert Deniro must be brought in for Paul Manfort. BORN for that role, which he would nail every time. The look and tough-guy-with-polish, shady organization guy shtick that's Deniro's stock-in-trade captures Manafort uncannily.
11
The David monologue was beyond disgusting and revolting. My parents survived the Holocaust in Poland. You don’t joke about Nazi death camps. Period. By making his idiotic jokes, Larry David opens the door for anti-semites. My wife and I turned off the tv as soon as we saw where David was going. We will never watch any show he appears on again
9
Baldwin is all but washed up...camouflaging his misogyny as "bully"...retire already, Alec.
5
Not that I agree (Baldwin is a comedic gem), but based on your description, all the more reason to keep impersonating Trump.
7
We found the open and SHS's video quite clever. Larry David has never been appealing, interesting or funny to us. The discussion of picking up women in Concentration Camp was quite distasteful to us. Coming from an Holocaust family coupled with the rise of Neo-Nazi's today, made this bit, sad.
Larry, in 2017, discussion of the self-hating Jew, is truly not humorous anymore.
Please go away.
9
Don't overlook the wink at pedophilia and misogyny in the SNL video "Baby Step". Miley Cyrus' diapered baby character was named (with a baby rattle in the graphic) "Baby Snatch".
Sexualizing children is wrong and never funny. For shame.
10
It was a poorly written show. Next week maybe better. That's what it is all about.
So turn it off. Worth an entire article?
3
There are quite a few stupid and humorless TV shows on the air. They are not written about for good reason.
Why does this unfunny, unimaginative piece of junk merit coverage in The Times?
5
Larry David's Jewish bit was uncomfortable. Let's not blame sexual harassment on Jews, even in a joke.
7
Larry David’s riff on being a horny Jew in a concentration camp isn’t very funny, but I can’t blame the guy for trying. The gloom and doom of the Holocaust must always be with us, even if it’s too much to bear all of the time. Thing is, I can’t think of a Holocaust joke that’s funny, except to anti-Semites, who tell disgusting ones. Could be we’re always searching for a funny concentration camp joke, which is kind of funny itself, probably as funny as it can get.
3
I've pretty much given up on SNL, but I decided to watch it while working out on the elliptical. As a Jew whose mother was forced to leave Germany, and whose partner's dad survived six concentration camps as a slave laborer (the dad's sisters and brothers were murdered by the Nazis), I was appalled by Mr. David's "humor" about concentration camps. It wasn't funny, it was dumb and tasteless. I know Jews can be self-deprecating in their humor, but this was utterly offensive. Who wrote this dreck? I hope it wasn't Larry David. Then again, if one of the "funny" SNL writers was responsible, Larry should have refused to do it. I'm a big fan of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," and Larry's character is hilarious as an obnoxious guy with a talent for tactlessness. But I doubt even the Larry David character would go so far with concentration camp "comedy."
9
If you're a big fan of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", then you've certainly heard Larry David make concentration camp humor with "The Survivor" episode. This was most certainly Larry's own writing and if it offended anyone, I'm fairly certain he would just tell you to turn off the TV.
8
I do not find this funny. It is disgusting. In fact I find all liberal humor disgusting and vulgar. Thank you.
2
If you find it "all" disgusting and vulgar, a suggestion: don't watch it. Don't read about it. It's not for you.
13
@Todd,
Yes, true, but it says something about the overall character of America, which I very disappointing and uninspiring. Thank you.
1
still waiting for SNL to be even-handed and portray the Former Sexual Harasser-in-Chief, Bill Clinton... oh well, guess I shouldn't hold my breath
5
Ah, yeah. You'll need to watch re-runs from the TIME BILL CLINTON WAS PRESIDENT to see those sketches, by the dozens. Don't hold your breath, just GO ONLINE.
11
SNL spoofed Bill Clinton many times. He's not president. Nor is Hilary.
9
thank you but that was then and this is now, when the communication technologies, political context, personalities and implications are immensely different and hyper-intensified...and when a new SNL reminder of Bill's behavior would go a long way toward educating a new generation of the "same old, same old" ways of our revered Washington and Hollywood celebrities, both Republican and Democrat
That's because, like the New York Times, they were ignoring the big story of the day: Donna Brazile and Hillary Clinton.
6
Yes, with the confirmation of the Hillary tricks they chose to take a swipe at Bernie. Hollywood and the Times were always in the tank for corporate Hillary.
1
There was nothing awkward in Larry David's monologue. It is in the tradition of Jewish wit and self deprecating humor. The New York Times is getting very uptight and self righteous. This is disappointing.
32
Bravo to Larry David the man who if he didn’t invent cringe comedy he at least redifined it. Obviously people shouldn’t laugh about the holocaust- which is the point. Let’s come clean, as Jews, being a post holocaust Jew means you live in a world where one of the most educated people on earth decided to murder every single Jew in the world with thorough efficiency as they did in Europe. If the Nazis had won the war- and they came pretty close- every single Jew on Earth would have been dragged out of their homes, robbed of every cent and either worked till they were human skeletons or thrown into gas chambers. This is fact, it’s Jewish reality, no other race on Earth was ever targeted for complete extermination and have it done in assembly line fashion. . No other people on Earth can read the gruesomeness of how their brothers and sisters, children and babies, pregnant women, the old and the helpless were cruelly, mercilessly murdered and labeled useless eaters and not worthy of food, air or life.
If this is the new age, the age we discuss all the things long hidden and swept under the rug of history than isn’t it time we discuss the Jewish mental trauma of the Holocaust , because before Larry David mentioned the word Holocaust as he did last night , as he did very shrewdly last night , the word and it’s meaning was close to being as extinct as the long forgotten vanished Jews of Europe . The Holocaust haunts every Jew on Earth.. the remaining ones.
For the perished .
9
Larry David's death camp skit was inappropriate and offensive from the very first line. It is yet another example of how some celebrities think that whatever comes out of their mouths is acceptable, and how their fame-driven power can corrupt their judgment.
There are too many people in this world who loath Jews, without adding an apparently self-loathing Jew's fuel to their flames of hatred. Mr. David should be ashamed, as s should the producers of SNL for allowing such a skit.
7
So let me get this straight: making fun of the blind is ok, saying that the disabled should be prepared to settle (Quasimodo), launching into a demeaning stage-Irish accent... all that is ok, but a joke about the Holocaust is not? Interesting times at the Times.
9
This show hasn't been funny in decades. Same stupid shtick over and over again. Like beating a dead horse.
5
Unlike, for example, Stewart, Oliver or Colbert, who are mostly funny to liberals and less so to conservatives, or Steve Sailer or John Derbyshire, who regularly leaves myself and many other right-wingers in stitches but would never be allowed in a comedy club because the left would quickly organize massive efforts to shut them up (and probably with the help of a lot of "respectable" right-wing figures), SNL is not factional but personal satire. Its institutional pieces *usially* aren't so much about the institutions - religious, civic, etc. - themselves as they are psychoanalyses of the people who make them turn.
So why is it that liberals can appreciate personal satire aimed at Trump, Sessions, etc., whom judging from their comments at the NYT they truly believe to be horrible people, but the personal satire directed at Weinstein and other showbiz pervs, whom they probably also agree are horrible people, doesn't fly? Maybe it's a subtle acknowledgment that Trump and company aren't actually that bad, after all?
2
Why do my subscription $$'s have to go toward paying a NYTimes writer to quote from and summarize sketches that I can just watch on NBC's website?
Mr. Itzkoff's piece adds neither analysis nor insight -- or, as Baldwin's Trump would say, "Totally a waste of space. Believe me. SAD!"
4
Overall a great show. I think they have gone to the well a too many times using Leslie Jones as the big oversexed woman. She can do other parts and is still a brilliant writer.
14
SNL is not funny. It hasn't been in years. Goofing on Donald Trump a d his administration with humorless skits is not amusing or entertaining. A comedy without laffs is useless if not stupid.
What else is on?
3
Sean Hannity. He's hilarious.
10
Whether the person telling an anti-Semitic joke is Jewish or not does not matter. I can't imagine a similar scene on SNL where Blacks are stereotyped in this fashion. The show has debased itself.
16
older and wiser, maybe, but perhaps you didn't catch Eddie Murphy doing just that back in the day – and he was hilarious!
6
There are literally DOZENS throughout the history of the show.
2
That was back then. How many years ago? Mores have changed over time. SNL wouldn't dare do such a show now. You can point back to Amos and Andy if you want, but those days are over. SNL needs to give the same respect to ALL groups. By the way, saying "dumb Polock" is also no longer acceptable.
1
It was disappointing, and, if it was an episode of Curb, Larry would have been thrown off the SNL set after his opening monologue for making the concentration camp jokes. They could have done the live on 6th Ave shots with Larry followed by him trying to get back into Rock Center only to be barred by security, with Iranian National Guardsmen waiting to capture him as part of the Fatwa against Larry for writing the Salman Rushdie inspired musical comedy. But this was bad; pretty, pretty, pretty bad.
Now your Curb idea is funny, but SNL wasn't. One of the worst SNL shows that I've possibly ever seen (since the beginning).
It pains me every time there's an article about what was on SNL last night. True, they're doing some political comedy (which is sometimes very clever, but sometimes also very uneven).
But the fact that the NYT has an article about the show on such a regular basis at all is an indication of how limited news budgets are--we can't turn on the tv, and watch it ourselves?
That SNL is on TV is not news every week--the show was "awkward" last night, folks! Thank God you are apprised. Happy to read about SNL once in a while, but how about allocating this portion of the budget to more actual news, dear NYT?
2
It was barely an article....it was pretty much the script of the show...verbatim.....other than the sidebar about Mr. Baldwin's previous issues with women. If you're going to write a review, write a review.
2
These are awkward times and the satire must be also at times. The Aidy Bryant skit is like the weird dreams we have at times in trying to figure and filter out
our daily lives and the dialogue the Trump administration is forced to speak. Hopefully the long simmering teapot of gender bias and harassment has kicked the lid off with the inevitable consequence of the tempest boiling over in the national dialogue. I don't understand your befuddlement.
5
I agree. Maybe some viewers would understand it if Aidy Brant was dressed as an Aunt from The Tale of a Handmaid and her inner desires to please the Commander, at any cost, in the name of God’s will.
I thought the whole thing was hilarious, especially Larry David. My husband hid from the Nazi's in Northern Italy and would have laughed his pants off at the concentration camp riffs. After all, what is comedy's purpose? To laugh at things that normally would make you cry. David is a Jew and does this beautifully.
Remember "The Mooch"? He told SHS to spruce up her look to appear more confident. Well, in this show she certainly did.
29
Not their best effort. C-.
When Larry David depicted himself as a victim of circumstance he was funny. Now that he has evolved into an annoying provocateur there is very little humor in what he does.
6
For "awkward" substitute "awful" - one of the unfunniest SNL's in a long time and as for the concentration camp "joke" I can't believe Lorne Michaels let Larry David do it after it likely bombed in dress (besides being in bad taste).
5
Larry David's calling card is awkward funny. Alec Baldwin doesn't disappoint. Kate McKinnon hilarious as Jeff Sessions. Beck Bennett as Mike Pence appearing in his suit under the shower head because he's not married to the water. All good. As for the, erm, mock-up of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, guess SNL is trying to say she's a scold who secretly imagines herself as Demi Lovato confident -- key being in her own mind. Thought it worked. Disturbingly amusing.
20
Comedy. Not a debate about whether concentration camps are funny. Much respect to Larry David, who knows exactly what he was doing, trying to preserve a safe space for his art. It deserves one too.
20
The last Larry David hosted show was one of the best SNL’s of recent times, so when I heard he was hosting I looked forward to the show.
From the weird shower scene we moved downhill to the monologue which seemed to create the tone for the show.
Uncomfortable, unthought, underprepared sketches.
Only the Price is right sketch had any writing of any worth.
And when they corpsed in the weird gay dancing sketch, it died even more.
I find SNL educating. When I tune in, I'm often presented with the latest impromptu attempts of the snarky l'elites to mock the rest of the country outside NY and LA. Then when the SNLers get ever-so-slightly into mocking l'elites themselves, the SNLers are trashed in their own "paper of record" as being too edgy. How charming. Such a little comic concentration camp of its own.
For the clueless, the Huck/Lovato skit is based on this song (the video of which has over 212 million views and counting): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwLRQn61oUY Huck in the skit uses Lovato's "Confidence" video reference to mock both the press and their deep state feds like Mueller for trying to take the scorned pols, women and Trump voters all down and out for the jack-booted count. One irony suggested by SNL is that Trump may be rescued by powerhouse women like Huck (and Conway, DeVos and Melania) while l'elites in Hollywood/NYC are out there raping and such, or trying to excuse such bad-boy behavior. Mocked women no longer on the casting couch, or those that were never there like the Huck, are getting the last laugh. Another irony: powerful bad-boys Baldwin and David appearing in the same show, to some extent mocking themselves and their fellow bad boys.
FYI, the Huck has been married more than a decade and has three kids. Longtime divorcees Baldwin and David should be so lucky as to have sustained a marriage with such a confident woman. Highly unlikely.
2
Ahem. The virtuous Ms Huckabee-Sanders is the staunchest defender of a thrice-married groper of women whom he has power over. And that contraction doesn't work -- the plural would be les elites.
7
Ah, the "ahem" of the elite Larry McCallum. Such a pleasure to make your acquaintance. How confirmatory. You don't think it's virtuous to be married with no divorces and three kids, and for Trump to have married again despite failure, and at least this time to have kept it together, and to have his kids from prior marriages and exes hanging with him (or at least not against him)? Okay. But don't you get that America in general (not the typical NYT reader like you) is not up for tut-tutting at "virtuous Ms. Huckabee Sanders" for putting up with Trump's foibles while you and your NYT enablers refuse to scorch the Clintons, Halperin, Orestes, Weinstein, Affleck, DeGeneris, Stacey and other left swingers?
As an aside, I shouldn't have to explain to an elite linguist like yourself that a French speaker like me chose "l'elites"" as a moniker because it melds the languages in a speakable, understandable Franglish morph that simultaneously needles people like you who "ahem" at "virtuous" well-married folks like Sanders yet insist on precision in language. Are amoralists like the Clintons out of your vision's range? Why? Because your nose is so high up in the air? And just what are you sniffing?
Mr. McCallum, the Times should quit looking around the country for why they missed the Trump win, but talk to their own writers, editors, and commenters like you. The answers are right there in plain view. Many of you are proudly, purposefully out of touch.
SNL was a total train wreck. Angry Alec Baldwin making sexual harassment jokes or any harassment jokes for that matter is the perverbial pot calling the kettle black. I suppose he has never been accused raping anyone, so in Hollywood that is now deemed a feather in your cap...a real progressive on women's issues. Not. How dare Baldwin criticize that actress for taking a paltry 100K settlement from the mogul Weinstein. That's what Harvey spends on one night in Scores. And to think that SNL has 20 some odd "writers" on staff dreaming up this "comedy" drivel? Horrible.
2
Can you imagine for a second the kind of uproar it would cause if some conservative told jokes about picking up women in a concentration camp? But, as always, SNL proves what total hypocrites they are. Why I must ask, though, is why SNL not being funny is a news headline. They stopped being funny a decade ago.
As usual, no need to read the story. Just another example of the creative team at the church of the Left not even being able to decide what they, the hack Left, are offended by this week. So delicious.
The playbook they operate under must have hundreds of asterisks.
2
Instead of celebrity entertainment fluff like this, I wish the TIMES would expand their ever shrinking book review. What exactly is the point of recounting a detailed description of a popular, nationally broadcast TV show? At this rate in a few years your front page news items will be about the exciting new plot turns in comic book movies or just comic books.
1
So be it.
Alec Baldwin and crew has brought sanity to the insane White House world of Donald Trump. And we thank them for that.
Carry on, SNL. We need you. How sIck is that? :)
6
RE: Did you fully grasp the pretaped sketch about the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Aidy Bryant), which crosscut between her overseeing a contentious daily press briefing and her fantasizing that she is in a music video, performing Demi Lovato’s “Confident”? If so, please let us know what it meant in the comments."
I just thought it was funny! Aidy Bryant nails the impression.
2
Larry David is really funny, but this was not. Sexualizing the atrocities of concentration camps is beyond insensitive, not to mention stupid. Ditto any sexualization of women, SHS included. Will Hollywood never learn? Just stop.
1
This epitomizes the left's attempt at social engineering and political correctness.
This is COMEDY. I don't think it was even that funny but never lose sight of the fact it's COMEDY. It's supposed to be edgy and maybe even make you a little uncomfortable.
What a weak effort at outrage.
1
Larry David epitomizes bad taste. He should be called out on his insensitive comments which are simply not funny.
The culture is undergoing some sort of a re -
barbarization. What pollution indeed!
'These were just questions raised...' Questions raised by whom, besides Mr. Itzkoff? Unlikely, by anyone else.
Does the phrase 'in bed with' ring a bell? Well, SNL appears to have given it a new twist to make it an 'in the shower with.' Good way to check to see if the other guy is wearing wire too.
1
Horrible show....had the Honeymooner's on before even getting through Larry David's unfunny host open.
3
The Larry David riff on hitting on a concentration camp inmate had me cringing, like you. The rest of the show had me in stitches. But then I enjoy tasteless comedy, like the “Naked Gun” movies. Alec Baldwin is the new Leslie Nielsen.
1
Larry always pushed the envelope, remember the episode where he milks one of his parent’s death to gain advantage, including sex with his wife. I thought it was in a little bad taste and made me a little uncomfortable, but figured he had the license. I strongly believe that many men think like him but fortunately few act like Weinstein.
3
The shower scene was just terribly written. They need better writers overall. Glad I went to bed before hearing the stupid swipe Larry David took at Bernie Sanders.
Larry David is the King of cringeworthy comedy, but the concentration camp skit sounds even more cringeworthy than even he seemed capable of. Frankly, I think they should move on because much of this stuff is getting stale. Melissa McCarthy was fortunate that Spicer was fired and thereby leaving on a high note.
I’m glad some people appreciate Larry David’s humor.....but I just don’t it. The concentration camp gag wasn’t just “not funny”, it was revolting.
3
I thought that Mr.David’s comments about sexual predators was something that Jews and non-Jews alike have been thinking to themselves. Personally, I’m glad he said it. It was like cutting the toenails of the elephant in the room. His holocaust joke(s) was a high wire act of some brilliance, whether or not one found it funny.
13
Larry David put himself out there, this Youtube viewer thinks it was great comedy.
Hollywood has been the Mecca for sexual exploitation for the last fifty years. What an amazing coincidence that the people who have taken a fall for it lately have been black, Jewish, or gay. Larry is right to feel a bit isolated and other-ized, and it made for good comedy.
Concentration camps. If we can't laugh at those, what are we supposed to do with them? The Producers (1967, also the remakes) named it's lead character (Bialystock) after a Jewish ghetto uprising, The Nazis should be mined for more good comedy, perhaps people will be less inclined to whitewash the period.
5
SNL...too much pulp, not enough juice.
1
I thought the Larry David monologue was below tasteless. Spacey, O’Reilly, Ailes et al are not Jewish, by the way. Mr David just gives anti-semites fuel by invoking Weinstein as a ‘Jewish issue.’
And the Holocaust is simply not funny.
7
Actually I found it funny if clumsy. But I can see why the N.Y. Times wouldn't be amused.
1
I try to watch SNL, I just don't find it very funny. I'm not a Baldwin fan I think he is a creep, and has always been one.
6
I don't know what the Sarah Huckabee video meant. But I do know this was one of the worst SNLs I have ever seen. I almost turned it off at least three times before weekend update. There was a glimmer of hope at the beginning of the update that things would turn around but then they brought out the woman who was married to the boxer. Even Michael Che and Colin Jost seemed to be in pain trying to look interested. I couldn't take anymore after that. Did most of the writers have the week off? Dreadful.
3
Mr. Baldwin may have his issues, but he also renders a great service with his impersonations of the hoochie-grabber-in-chief. Let's separate his SNL character from his personal life, and say that the point he made about Trump getting off scot-free, while everyone else is under the abuse microscope, is a perfectly valid one.
A recent NYTimes headline: "Police Building Case to Arrest Weinstein". Where's the headline saying "Police Building Case to Arrest Trump"? After all, he's admitted highly inappropriate behavior on tape, and at least seven women have lodged serious allegations against him. It makes no sense to me that Weinstein's top contender for pig of the century isn't pursued simply because he's president.
That sends a pretty lousy message, well worth calling out, regardless of the messenger.
12
President Trump is ripe fruit, within arm's reach, in a whole orchard of ripe fruit, and the writers and performers of SNL still can't pull it off. Like his approval ratings, American satire is at an historic low point.
3
This reads like an NBC in house newsletter--with a transcript of the show! Will this be done for plays and films now?
2
"It was an awkward juxtaposition, " yes but one that is completely on point: Weinstein and Trump have committed virtually the same offenses yet one is heading to jail while we elected the other President.
6
Huh. I never saw Huckabee Sanders as being confident, so I guess it is a huge fantasy?
Huckabee Sanders is sent out there to be a brick wall. An unyielding and unsubtle, unmovable and unfunny total failure to communicate. She is like the outer limits of a black hole... no information escapes.
I once saw a definition of humor as the juxtaposition of two completely unlike ideas or things. Huckabee Sanders and Demi Lovato, and Huckabee Sanders and confidence would qualify. I guess.
3
I enjoyed the Huck skit. It's playing on what people maybe really think behind the voice you hear. They should make this a skit for Trump and other characters.
2
What's up with NYT's infatuation with SNL? Yes, there were some uproariously good episodes during the campaign and early in Trump's term. But you can't keep going back to the same well, and that's what SNL has been doing for months now with Baldwin impersonating Trump. If you don't have something good, then skip it, but it seems as if SNL keeps having Baldwin doing Trump regardless of whether the material is good. Why NYT would breathlessly keep track of this is beyond me--this piece, in particular, is utterly superfluous if you watched the show. There's no point in writing about mediocre, predictable television.
1
Great sketch! Totally tasteless just like our president and his cabinet/friends.
6
Worst SNL episode I have ever watched. I'm worried that the show has lost its footing.
Larry David is unbearable. His portrayal of Sanders is mean-spirited without being funny or accurate. David is done. His time is over and he is desperate.
1
Larry David's monologue gave voice to the persistent and very real fear Jews endure on account of antisemitism: this is the meaning of "you tolerate me," which is part of what followed. This is why it's easy for Mr. David to imagine himself in a concentration camp. Anxiety-ridden humor can be uncomfortable, but it can also lead to art, as in David Grossman's A Horse Walks into a Bar.
The acts of Harvey Weinstein and others feed into the stereotype of the hypersexualized Jew with power over innocent women (as in Svengali). Larry David was being all too serious when he anxiously wondered what this says about him--he dramatized internalization of external views. And perhaps he was asking how long and under what conditions Jews will be tolerated: every time a member of a historically vulnerable minority transgresses, other members feel more vulnerable.
66
All of my sexual harassment scenarios involved Jewish men, way too many to count going back to the 80's. The rape attempts were all black men, going back to the 80's and I can count those, a dozen times.
I must be such an elevated person to not be prejudiced, yay me.
But what I am is hyper-aware of everyone's (including women's) behavior and attitude they carry towards women, it is written everywhere, still so much is ugly, but so much is good these days with visionary unafraid women transcending and creating the world and living their lives past all people who happen to have lesser minds regarding women.
I like a lot that Larry David puts out, but he very much is old school sexist, women are separate and a hodge-podge of physical traits that should be commented on and acted upon for the most part...
It is truly stupefying that the old-school sexists that dominated western culture for so long now seem quaint besides the technological women-hating trolls, these are the new front of concentration makers, even if only virtual, bent towards hate and domination.
I liked Cecily Strong as Melania saying to the life-size doll of Trump, "You have nothing to say? Well then, for the first time in 10 years, I am going to tell you how MY day went." I thought Larry David's monologue was pretty good, and the Holocaust dialogue was benign by focusing ultimately on David's insecurity and narcissism, so ultimately he was mocking himself, which is true of much of "Curb My Enthusiasm." I really liked Kate McKinnon as Tilda Swinton, who is one of the most "out there" celebrities around and offers a wealth of potential jokes. I hope for more Tilda Swinton impressions in the future.
8
You asked what the SHS music video was about? In my opinion, how a person with an important job, can stand up in front of a room full of reporters and the nation and say the most outrageous, ridiculous things and get away with it. Confidence. And of course the suspension of one's morals, beliefs and values for the chance at a little power and fame.
18
As I watch a country I once loved almost as much as my own lose its foundation I think back three hundred years and Swift's Modest Proposal.
The humour may hurt but it is what is needed. How sad is it that only the fools can speak the truth?
Nobody wants to listen to lectures about neoliberalism and what 18th and 19th century Laissez Faire liberal economics really entailed. Larry David really sticks our face in the mirror and Donald Trump is really the President.
Sad
6
OK, Larry David was not very funny. But Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant were amazing. SNL has been uneven forever. Maybe what feels awkward is that satire too closely resembles reality these days.
As for Bryant's sketch. She is sublimating her diva fantasy at the press podium seems to me.
4
I watched only the cold open and thought it was brilliant and on target.
4
It's too bad Huckabee-Sanders is pretty much off-limits. Lots of material there.
3
Never tire of Baldwin's parody of Trump and McKinnon's of Sessions. Both are hilarious. Keep up the great work SNL!
10
The genius of SNL has been its ability to mix satire and comedy. And that can become a delicate balance. In the past, a bit of sophomoric comedy and plain old slapstick defused some of the tension attached to politics. Tough job with the Trump Administration.
The Aidy Bryant/Sarah Huckabee Sanders segment illustrates perfect execution of how to put SNL's formula into action. The show's writers seem to understand how confidently the new Propaganda Secretary has become in her role replacing Spicey, who alas, lacked her ability to look the press corps in the eye and disregard the role she's being paid by the American public--nor feel any pang of conscience about it.
SHS has far outshone her father (Mike) and has long cast off his "Christian" values of truth, only referencing them when useful. Jesus becomes her friend only when she needs to lie.
SNL displays Sarah's "dual" personality--on camera as Trump's Trumpeteer with a sweet twangy Bible Belt Mom motif BUT SNL nails it--off camera, she's CONFIDENT (not much different from Kelly Ann/Kate McKinnon) and SEDUCTIVE--she'd love to lure you in with her folksy tales, beer analogies and McNugget maps. Demi Lovato's bustier is meant to distract you as is Huckabee's. Both of them are confident they will.
Aidy Bryant has found her character as long as SHS keeps her job. And if SNL is right, they're confident that she's going to keep seducing the American public into mazes created by the Trump Administration.
9
sorry you failed to mention michael che's "update" editorial with the cogent reminder that the president of the united states works for *us*. he couldn't have made a stronger argument -- and for me, it was another highlight in a dark-at-times but spot-on episode. as another commenter noted, comedy comes from those dark/dangerous places!
;-)
26
I thought the skit was hysterical. Please lighten up a bit. this is what makes conservatives go berserk about political correctness. there are interesting metaphors in them trying to keep each other clean anyway, and "washing", not watching, each others backs. it was wonderful and thank goodness SNL is willing to take risks in humour. If you relentlessly complain about this or that person being imperfect or unsuitable, no one would do anything. We are all flawed. And I am grateful for good satire where I can find it.
14
Remember the good old days when people watched comedy with the hope of having a good laugh? Today it seems, people watch with the hope of being offended.
1
I’ve watched Saturday Night Live from the beginning, over 40 years ago. For as long as SNL has existed, their programs have always included skits that are hits and misses. Last night was no exception. I agree that Larry David’s Holocaust monologue was cringe-worthy. However, that shower scene was priceless.
3
I'm sorry to say that the latest show for SNL was one of the worst ever. I can not believe that Larry David would do a monologue about a concentration camp. Two weeks ago SNL was sensitive about discussing Harvey Weinstein on the show, but last night thought it was OK to talk about dating in a concentration camp. I don't think Larry David will ever recover from that one.
4
Comedy makes us laugh because comedians say what we laypeople don't say. It's funny because we bottle up what's uncomfortable. I like how SNL takes it to the edge ... and feels awkward.
2
Larry David - thankfully - is not Jimmy Fallon - his whole oeuvre is to make you uncomfortable - if you were - he succeeded and I think he succeeded brilliantly last night in a fashion that no one else on that whitebread cast could have.
SNL has become a few tired impersonation sketches and a bit of their former what-did-I-just-see edginess.
3
Larry David is no longer funny, if he ever was. This latest season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is awful----stale and flat. Leon is the only funny thing on the show. LD should retire with his millions.
2
Satire of any topic frames it for assessment by contrasting it to social norms. Whether you agree with it or not is irrelevant. You're talking about it.
Larry David's monologue was surprising, human, .....and.....hysterically funny. He captured the mood of the day. He summed up the thoughts that many people are having and blurted them out as only a great commedian can.
6
I'm always so impressed that SNL can crank out a show in a week. I get tired of the Golden Era comments, etc. They do a great job. It's a TV show. Sheesh.
Larry David's piece was beyond awkward. It should have been cut out. It re=defined bad taste. Next time he thinks out loud, I hope I don't hear it. I have friends who are furious over that dialogue.
4
Right now in the current febrile atmosphere its best for older men who do not have very strong opinions in favour of female "empowerment" to shut up. Otherwise they risk saying things that can be misinterpreted or over-interpreted.
Did we watch the same show? I thought it was one of their better ones.
3
Hilarious and insightful, as usual. I love SNL. It's one of our best weapons against the destructive monsters of our country.
9
Absolutely awful opening monologue! Where was the writing team at SNL?
It’s as if they think that all they have to do is put on the characters that worked in the past (i.e. Alec Baldwin and Kate McKennan) in a shower and improvise the rest. You still need to write good jokes!
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Larry, what happened? Jokes about how you pick up girls in a concentration camp? I can deal with the tastelessness if it were funny - but it wasn’t.
That’s where I had enough and turned it off. I think it will stay off for awhile - at least in my home. It needs fresh writing.
2
I for one loved the cold open....
2
Larry David's mockery of a disabled person was unfunny. When I was dating, I had to go through this "balancing" test all the time. Whatever positives I might have had were usually outweighed by being disabled. I doubt anyone in a wheelchair found this funny. The Concentration Camp jokes weren't good. SNL is confusing "edgy" with offensive.
1
I thought the opening sketch was hilarious.
SNL nailed it last night in the Sarah Huckabee Sanders skit last night. I'm out of the loop on the pop culture references (who is Demi Lovato?) but watched the thing in amazement and couldn't help thinking of the darkness and nihilism portrayed by the art of the German Expressionists leading up to WWII. Great stuff and much needed.
3
I found david's opening monologue appalling.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ daily performances ought to be a gift to professional comedy writers. As should Aidy Bryant, a solid actor who can be made to resemble her. But instead of smart satire, or extreme parody, or even unhinged performance art we got...? What a wasted opportunity to reward those of us who force themselves to watch her press briefings, and what a lost chance let others know how just far this woman is willing to go.
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SNL is the one thing remaining of US culture that matters. Everything is now absurd and unpredictable. It seems that Alvin Toffler's prediction of Future Shock is actually happening in that ordinary cultural communications is nonsensical or inexplicably complex. We're all "Waiting For Godot" and that turnip in your pocket might explode.
SNL, MSNBC, and CNN put trump in the white house, and I voted for Hilary. When Baldwin was announced as trump, it was considered the end of Trump and mckinnon as Hilary said as much in their fake debates. Instead of working hard in october 2016 Hilary took endless victory laps with Von fursternburg, Donna Karan(wwinstein supporter) instead of doing the hard work necessary CNN endless had 6 heads on screen with jerk trump "supporters" and condescending Hilary supporters who did nothing more(as did SNL) than give complacency to Hilary supporters and enrage and motivate Trump supporters. We are now 2 years into this and have embarrassing shows like last night..Larry David may NEVER work again(not that he needs to). I am encouraged by Kasich but there is a chance that Trump will win again thanks to the Brasile book(rings true as my wife supported kind of dumb Bernie and accurately saw the party and media bias) and sophomoric people who would rather exploit trump for humor than strongly offer alternatives. Go Kasisch and the nymag.com article today gives me hope.
Unlike the reviewer, I found the edginess of the sketches and humor refreshing, particularly in these times in which both the left and right are trying to limit speech. You may want to look in the mirror?
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As to the shower scene, I’m sorry but that was hilarious! Kate McKinnon is brilliant! Perhaps Alec Baldwin’s Trump is correct in suggesting we are a little too PC these days...
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This article criticizing SNL is a prime example of why I am so thoroughly disgusted with all the media, both news and entertainment media, including especially the New York Times. The media is obsessed to rigorously observe and intensely promote political correctness. It now is dedicated to promote the agenda of the feminists even though that agenda is in direct conflict with the US Constitution and with America's traditional concepts of justice that people are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt is a court which rigorously observes due process that requires actual evidence and the right to cross examine witnesses against them.
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I don't know what's more pathetic. Reading cringe worthy reviews by people that never followed through to SNL (cringe kicks in cause we know you probably took an improv class with bigger dreams), or reading commenters who sit at home who review SNL and follow through on nothing in their lives. It's an endless cycle of what I believe was a funny episode, with a funny cast.
Mr. David showed extremely poor taste in his monologue. I have never watched any of his shows so did not know what to expect. It was embarrassing and appalling.
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I love great humor and I love great comedians who perform great humor.
I have watched SNL go over the top a few times but never like Larry David did on his riff about picking up women in the concentration camp.
It wasn’t just in poor taste — it was horrifying to any feeling person with a pulse. I get that he was trying to be edgy and get close to the line. Maybe he tried because he has proved that he is a great comedic talent and needed to move the bar higher. Whatever it was a very sad moment when one immediately had to conjure up a woman who with her head shaven, petrified beyond belief who may have just seen her children or parents thrown into a gas chamber. I don’t know what Larry David was thinking but I am sure that virtually everyone watching cringed and was tinged with disgust at this deplorable and contemptuous attempt at getting a laugh—- which it didn’t.
Maybe at a Klan or Underground Nazi meeting it would have engendered a few guffaws. Instead in the city with probably the largest Jewish population what did he expect?
Here is what he can expect. When his time comes, this little episode or lapse of judgment will be mentioned in his obit. Sort of that defining and bad.
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Alec Baldwin has to go. I can no longer separate his on-screen work with what we know about his personal life. His defense of Jim Toback and victim-blaming of Rose McGowan were nauseating. He's, in fact, nauseating.
Hey...we watch SNL because it is outrageous and sometimes awkward. Alec Baldwin has provided some of the best political satire of today's generation. Bravo SNL and Alec Baldwin!
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I didn't recognize the song or the video performance; so the humor was lost on me. Aidy Bryant does a great SHS impression when she plays it just as convoluted/tourtured/double-speak responses to questions; so the show's writers should stick to that.
3
The Baldwin PBS interview is quoted out of context. Baldwin was being honest about how most men have reacted to women in the movie business.He uses himself and his experiences in context to illustrate the presumption of male dominance. I thought he was refreshingly honest and was presenting his past behaviour in the context of what he has realized about its being inappropriate.He acknowledged the effects. I especially liked how he characterized the use of the agitated ir aggressive male voice in spousal arguments as a form of bullying. If we are going to grow as a society we need to have safe space to talk about discrimination whether it be individual to individual or systemic.
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It's convenient to watch the videos of SNL sketches through this feature. However, Mr. Itzkoff's witheringly superior attitude toward sketch comedy is neither witty nor insightful. In fact, it's little more than "judgey."
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SNL is one of the few shows I watch regularly and anticipate eagerly. Last night, I was ready to laugh. And be entertained. I laughed at Jeff Sessions, or Kate's rendition. After that, I got tickled when Larry David got tickled. Otherwise, the zip was missing. SHS is a perfect character to satirize, and Aidy Bryant had the goods to make something great happen. Last night, it just didn't work. It was off step and I kept waiting for it to get back in sync. I'll be ready next week. I love the show and actually think the cast is exquisite.
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SNL is not as gutsy and withering as it used to be. Today's writers are more timid and the actors, except Kate M., don't really seem to have that personal fervor.
4
I watched the interview on PBS when Mr. Baldwin said that it was for Ms. McGowan to have prosecuted the case. As a woman, I see both sides. I do not fault Mr. Baldwin for expressing one of them. As women, we MUST not excuse inappropriate male behavior or be silenced by compensation (advancement, money, because we don't want to "rock the boat,” or because the system is stacked against us and we will be dragged through excruciating legal system.)
When women opt out, we contribute to the continuation. In order for women to feel safe stepping forward, our society must correct lax attitudes of senior management, human resources, and law enforcement toward claims of sexual misconduct.
Odious male behavior can no longer be tolerated. But the professional, legal, and cultural landscape must change to protect people when they step forward. If women do not believe we will not be supported, we will continue to be quiet.
Flirting is human nature. But it should have nothing to do with job advancement, money, or professional relationships. The need to reject a sexual advance should not be necessary in professional environments for men or women. But if it is, then the receiver needs to state upfront, “I want to work with you, but I prefer we keep our relationship professional.” And the person who made the advance should take that seriously and not allow that decision to affect the professional circumstances.
I hope current revelations contribute to a sea change. But education is key.
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Is odious female behavior still tolerable? What is the nature of flirting? Why is flirting even tolerated in professional environments?
"As women, we MUST not excuse inappropriate male behavior"
Women must do this. Women must do that. It's women's fault that men continue to behave this way.
I've got news for you. UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE MEN IN QUESTION.
Women are not to blame for men's unacceptable behaviour and they are not fundamentally responsible for stopping it.
Women are groped... Women are raped... Women are murdered... Women must behave differently to avoid causing these things to happen... No subject in this kind of analysis, no perpetrator, just an object.
I turned it off. After the holocaust monologue, I felt sick. Some things just aren't funny. The Weinstein bit was horrible. It was like blaming Muslims for the tiny percentage that are terrorists. Neither are funny and I ain't no snowflake. Sexual assault and death camps are not something to poke fun at.
This episode started off bad and went downhill really fast. That's what the off button is for.
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References to Hitler, the Holcaust or Concentration Camps should be scrutinized by people who use them to reference these subjects in the context of a humorous anecdote or any form of tihis kind. For over seventy years the pain that survivors and families that suffered through this modern inquisition of Jews continue to experience this by being exposed to this callous rendering of history.
Mel Brooks (a self-admitted Jew) has no equal in parody. "Springtime for Hitler" and Nathan Lane cinched the Broadway show version of "The Producers" several years after Gene Wilder in the film version. Trump, on the other hand, is his own version of irony.
2
I almost turned it off with the subtly homophobic opening---but thought maybe I just needed to not be so easily offended. Should have stuck with my instincts.....the Larry David monologue was an utter disgrace.
1
SNL has two problems:
1) With the exception of Kate McKinnon, Michael Che and a very few others, the regular cast members just aren't funny. In its golden age, the mere appearance of Bill Murray or Dan or Gilda elicited laughter before they uttered a word. Eddy Murphy, Phil Hartman, Amy Pohler, the list gets thinner as the history gets more recent. The Kristen Wigs and Bill Haders and Tina Feys get snatched up more quickly by the movies and other projects--there's just more competition for talent and it drains the show. And this applies to the writers as well.
2) By the time the events of the previous week have been given a thorough going over by Seth Myers, Colbert, Kimmel, Trevor Noah, Conan, Sam Bee et al, the funniest observations have already been delivered. And anything with legs has been skewered beautifully by John Oliver. (If it were only the unfunny, and politically uninterested Jimmy Fallon who opines with the most predictable and anodyne commentary, and only when it is unavoidable--SNL might have a fighting chance.)
That there is any wit or relevance at left at all to this show is a miracle, and not worth staying up to wait for.
108
Michael Che is fantastic--but so is Leslie Jones, who is SO underutilized! I also think Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon are comedy geniuses. Honestly--some uber smart producer should hire that team away and place them opposite and let them go.
2
I agree with you partly, John, but I was there for the beginning of SNL, and my girlfriend and I watched every episode of the original cast. Both of us thought that in between hilarious moments (Dan Ackroyd's plumber's butt, for example) there was a lot of really unfunny stuff going on. After a few years we stopped watching SNL altogether.
For a very brief time in the early days, SNL's only ensemble competition was a show called "Fridays." It was mostly unfunny, too. As you mentioned, the competition today makes it almost impossible for SNL to stand out, so it has to abandon good taste and genuine humor in order to shock people into watching just so they can see if Larry David really said that.
The Sarah Sanders "Confident" short was extremely well done and timely. It is in the same spirit as the Frank Bruni Times editorial, which talks about how Sanders is not simply parroting this administration's lies, but she unapologetically embraces and doubles down with confidence and disdain. This is in the spirit of the original Demi Lovato song and video. It was a brilliant piece of commentary and satire.
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I for one am delighted at the number of opportunities Aidy Bryant has been given this season. I think her SHS is marvelous...she has the twang along with the malicious intent. In last night's "press conference" with fantasy she was fearless. More Aidy please!
3
Kate McKinnon as Sessions is comedic brilliance. She captures this man's twisted nature, disguised in a child-like wonder- there is glee behind those eyes. McKinnon makes us laugh until it hurts.
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Somehow out of the blue the New Yorker started to appear in my mailbox once a week. 99% of the time I don't know what their covers are about. When I read the title inside it is reduced to 98%. Clearly there are cultural references that are supposed to be immediately apparent to millions of people. The same here. These sketches are supposed to be funny. The hold of power and celebrity and political violence continually seem to be both ridiculed and re-enforced in ways that go over my heads or maybe fly by the side of my head.
Just felt like adding my reaction since I have absolutely nothing to say about the specifics but had a need to join everyone else making comments on this early Sunday morning.
11
I urge you to keep trying to understand the 'New Yorker' covers. Think of them as very closely tied to current events, such as those that grade school children share with their class once a week. Additionally, not all, but many, are very, very funny. And, for the record, oftentimes, the cover is merely a depiction of the season at hand in the Big Apple.
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I hope you are reading their stellar reporting. The electronic New Yorker also covers breaking news, often with more point and purpose than most. There's the funny and brief Borowitz report, which is satire at its best. For example, Jane Mayer's "The Danger of President Pence" is a cautionary and educational tale: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/the-danger-of-president-pence
I tend to find SNL too over the top, and think Colbert and Seth Meyers are the best, along with the in-depth reporting from John Oliver and Samantha Bee. In particular, Alec Baldwin's Trump is too heavy handed and comes from an older version of Trump who has gotten so much worse that the caricature is now imitating itself rather than the original, my opinion.
34
My sense is that Baldwin doesn’t capture the ridicoulsness of Trump’s narcissism. He captures buffoonery, but not the real pathology that makes Trump so disdainful, so Trump comes off as first of all physically fitter then he is, and second as an almost forgivable dunce. Tina Fey was just as funny but somehow depicted Palin embracing her own ignorance in a ridiculous way.
4
Okay, I'll give it a shot.
SHS has to be smarter than the southern diction and folksiness make her seem, because those are tactics to deflect questions. It takes a lot of confidence, as in lyric of the Demi Lovato song, to stand up there and utter nonsense. At the same time, if SHS is in fact smart and capable, she must constantly have the nagging feeling of "What's wrong with me?" to be doing something that ought to be beneath her (a lot of talented women sexually writhing in videos must ask themselves that too). And yet it's a sort of "in your face" performance that celebrates her power.
Here's where the writers went wrong. They have SHS writhing sexually and bunching up her boobs because they can't get over the habit of imagining that all women who dress dowdily really long inside to be sex objects, so that underneath it all, SHS is just a plump girl wanting to be sexy. Whereas, the video imagines that Lovato's protagonist escapes the bonds of the evil male who controls her through allying with another woman and turning jointly on him.
Trouble is, in the original video the protagonist gets to ally with Michelle Rodriguez, and the SNL writers were unable to imagine a powerful woman who would rise to the task of helping take down SHS's boss. Instead, at the end SHS is revealed in her underwear, as in an anxiety dream.
Initially OK concept that cluelessly imported "sexiness." Shows how SNL still finds it tough to use women unless they're as genius as Kate McKinnon.
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Pork Chop is pretty close to completely talentless. Take away her standard "we've been perfectly clear about that" and "I'll have to get back to you on that", and the woman may as well be a Femalemute.
Per request:
To us, the Sarah Huckabee Sanders bit fantasizing over the Demi Lavato video, is in the same vein as the fantasy constantly looping in the windmills of the mind of her boss, His Unhinged Unfitness - namely the music video theming djt's entire raison d'detre, Meghan Trainor's 'If I Was You I'd Want to Be Me Too':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDRORgoZxZU
The rest of the planet also realizes Trainor is djt's avatar, which will be evidenced in the ego-stroking receptions rolled out this week in Japan and China, as they strive to out-do the Saudis in red carpeted, gilted pomp and circumstance for our Alfred E. Neuman leader of the Free World.
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I recommended -- but only after I "googled" Meghan Trainor. (At least I already knew the name -- if not the music ... of Demi Lovato. Hey...I'm 68. My first-purchased records were 78s!!! Google that.)
P.S. How much more dire is "Alfred E." than Mr. Cop-a-Feel/Thousand Points of Light (and son) .... To "keep rockin' in the free world" just gets harder and harder, as sarcasm and disdain moves to abject fear and loathing. (Reminds me ... I must re-read Hunter S. Thompson. Google him, too.)
P.P.S. Hope your in Austin. Even if...I still feel sorry for you. Ya know...the livin' in Texas thing, in the years before it turns blue (and, to the horror of your at-present-dominant political party, 'browner.')
1
Thomas - Being only a half-decade behind you, no need to Google Hunter or 78's :)
Unfortunately (or fortunately, have you seen their traffic ?) everyone can't be in Austin, but we're close enough to visit often, as the state hopefully gets bluer like it was when we were coming up. Giving up and fleeing the state for friendlier political climes is what GOP'ers certainly hope/urge more of us blue Texans will do each day - but as a native, whose ancestors were here before this was a state, and whose ancestors even further back, Ben Franklin wrote about as his Pa. neighbors, we're just not really the giving up kind; not in the nature of us older ones to be marginalized/ignored, is it ?
Besides, it is our task to try and make sure what's happened under GOP'ers down here doesn't metastasize even more nationally, which is something Gail Collins helpfully highlighted in her tome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/books/as-texas-goes-by-gail-collins.html
There were warning signs down here, and Molly Ivins tried to alert everyone :)
2
Great article. I have the show taped but not watched. But going by the description, most of the awkwardness is, imho, due to the real life characters we are blessed with at the moment and having so many of their unimaginable actions in vogue.
73
I was surprised and pleased to see three Houston Astros. Altube looked espeially amused......and petite.
Speaking of the Astros. Winning the World Series and marrying Kate Upton. Could life be any more of a dream?
25
Not sure I can say that I "fully grasped" the Huckabee Sanders sketch, though I do like Bryant's impersonation. I recall that Lovato performed that song at the DNC convention - did it have something to do with that?
10
Sanders confidently lies through her teeth. That is the point.
4
I thought the shower scene was hilarious. Trump must be especially enraged by Kate McKinnon's portrayal of Jeff Sessions. Seeing talented women comics like her and Melissa McCarthy play male members of his administration reportedly annoys him in the extreme. Imagining his distress adds to the entertainment value.
410
There were very few funny moments on SNL tonight and none involved Larry David.
Was that Kate McKinnon as Jeff Sessions? Pure genius.
As for Aidy Bryant as "The Huck" I missed too much because I was laughing so hard. Breakthrough moment for Aidy.
147
It's SNL. Sometimes they go over the edge. On occasion they go way over the edge. Bad taste might spill onto the floor. It's called sketch comedy and if and when the content of said show is so unbearable to the delicate sensibility of the New York Times that it causes such indigestion/righteous indignation, those afflicted need only to turn if off. If enough people agree, they will not watch the show, the ratings will drop and the sponsors will demand changes. In the process, the guardians of right think on West 41st Street will be vindicated ...at least in their own minds. If viewers don't agree and keep on watching, then they probably aren't worth saving. Clearly they weren't going to be granted entry into the upcoming Post Trump social utopia anyway.
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Brodston - Please post more often :)
40
The great thing about SNL is that, unlike so much else these days, they are willing to push comedy right up to the edge ... they take risks and more often than not, they work and have us rolling on the floor laughing ... at politicians and ourselves.
208
Thank you. It wasn't a great episode, for sure, but when comedy doesn't try to go over the edge, it becomes stale. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it goes too far. I'm so tired of the righteous indignation.
24