Results tagged “snl”

Between health care and the failed Chicago 2016 Olympics bid, we knew the honeymoon was probably over for President Obama. Even SNL has turned on Obama as evidenced by last night's opening skit. Politics aside, we couldn't help but chuckle at the Chicago 2016 t-shirt joke.

• Two men were charged with the murder of retired Bartlett attorney Carl Kuhn; the men allegedly suffocated Kuhn to death and stole his extensive gun collection.
• The Sun-Times has the uplifting story of 11-year-old "hero" Adonis Bell.
• A pair of University of Illinois trustees refuse to go gentle into that good night in spite of pressure from Gov. Quinn.

In case you're one of the few folks (like me) who have yet to see Samberg & The Lake's follow-up to the popular "Dick in a Box" video, here it is. And even if you have seen it, it's probably worth another look, especially on a Monday.

Celebrity appearances at iO theater are not uncommon: Tim Meadows in Uncle’s Brother, Stephanie Weir and Bob Dassie in WeirDass to name a few - but there hasn’t been anything of the magnitude of last night's drop-in appearance since iO's 25th Anniversary show a few years back. This one had a twist: they were there to watch, not perform. Eighteen Saturday Night Live cast members and writers including Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, Casey Wilson, Abby Elliott, John Lutz, and Kristin Wiig popped in to watch teams like 3033, Carl and The Passions, and Bullet Lounge last night in iO's Cabaret Theater. John Lutz (everyone’s favorite, schlubby TGS writer) coordinated the trip. "A lot of ['SNL'] people haven't come to Chicago at all, let alone the Second City or iO. It's part of 'SNL' history as well," explained Lutz.

Sure, SNL took on Blagojevich again, but we much prefer this pretty funny Muppets skit to the tired Blago imitation. Come on, Sudeikis, you can do better!

This clip appeared on the show a month or so ago, but we just now found an embeddable clip online. Phew! The clip takes to task snarky bloggers. While we don't think we're that bad, actress Michaela Watkins does a pretty dead-on impersonation of Chicagoist Editor-in-Chief Marcus Gilmer. [via]

While this skit, from this weekend's episode of SNL, isn't the funniest Obama-themed skit the show has produced, it's worth it just for Andy Samberg's brilliant Rahm Emanuel impression.

And this is another why we love Kristen Wiig. When the sketch first aired, I was in another room and only heard the audio. My first thought was, "My God, they actually landed Bjork for this bit." Whatever you think of SNL these days, this sketch is proof they can still churn out some good stuff.

You knew it was coming. With Blago's story winding down this week, SNL had to get in one last shot. We've always enjoyed the work of one-time Chicago resident and iO member Jason Sudeikis (the Two A-Holes skits are top-notch), but we can only assume his channeling his uncle George Wendt and giving Blago a Bill Swerski-esque accent was to benefit the rest of the nation. Anyway. In this week's appearance - presumably the last for a while - Sudeikivich reads some original poetry and talks with "Brushie."

Last night, Governor Rod Blagojevich continued his march through the media, appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live" and pontificating about his innocence. If you used our drinking game, then you were probably passed out about 15 minutes in. Blago dropped some great lines, like calling Ed Genson "the F. Lee Bailey of our time" (as a reader pointed out - we thought F. Lee Bailey was the F. Lee Bailey of our time) and getting the same, "if I knew they were taping..." spiel. Perhaps the greatest part of the evening? Watching Blago's reaction to the late night comedy clips (video below), including when SNL's Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers went off on his hair. While he seemed to enjoy Jason Sudeikis' impression, there was something in his eyes when hearing all the hair jokes that almost made you feel a little sorry for him, that the producers were forcing him to watch the world ridicule him. Almost.

We got a pretty good laugh out of last night's Neil Patrick Harris-hosted SNL (though we - and by "we" we mean "I" - were disappointed with Taylor Swift's performance). And, of course, we weren't surprised to see the SNL kids give Blago and Burris the standard treatment. While we still don't get Jason Sudeikis' insistence on giving Blago an accent that he doesn't have, we love the way he portrays Blago as a straight-up asshole. Pretty funny stuff.

Watching this clip from last week's episode of Saturday Night Live, we realized that while we totally dig Obama taking his weekly address to the Youtubes, we find this kind of clip far more entertaining. So a note to our President-Elect for future addresses: less speechifying and more Miles Davis.

This made us laugh out loud. Much better than the just kind of weird Obama short. Even without the jokes, the thought of Malkovich reading the classic Christmas poem gives us the creeps.

With a new really good record out (that's right, haters), the next logical stop for Kanye West is Saturday Night Live. Kanye will make another appearance on the show on the December 13th edition, hosted by House star Hugh Laurie. Kanye's been on SNL before as isn't afraid to have some fun, as this clip shows.

SNL, which has had record ratings this fall by regurgitating Palin’s interviews virtually verbatim is continuing the political story lines by focusing on the transition. Last night, they portrayed Rahm Emanuel and his infamous mouth. Funny stuff.

Are you feeling the jitters? Can you feel the electricity in the air? Election Day is tomorrow and we can't wait. It's always exciting and this historic election should provide plenty to cover, both nationally and locally. As this long, at times very bitter campaign draws to a close, let's look back at two of the Presidential candidates sillier moments. First, is this weekend's appearance on SNL by John McCain, with a little help from Tina Fey and his wife Cindy. And after that is last year's SNL Halloween skit featuring Barack Obama. Want more SNL political tomfoolery? Check out their Presidential Bash special tonight, which will replay some of their best political skits from this election year and features a few Second City alums.

This weekend, SNL gave us their idea of what Barack Obama's upcoming infomercial is going to be like. Andy Samberg as Rahm Emanuel? Rahm's #1 fan, our own former Editor Margaret Lyons, said, "I was like 'ooooh, yay!!!' but then it didn't even matter.

Surprised to tune in to Saturday Night Live and find iO, Second City, and UCB alum Amy Poehler no where to be seen? Though she participated in the show's Thursday night edition and rehearsed all week, Poehler gave birth to son Archie, the first child for Poehler and husband Gob Bluth Will Arnett.

Crap, it's been an ugly week to be a Cubs fan (especially surrounded by Sox fans here at the Chicagoist office). First, the Cubs crapped the bed against the Dodgers. Then, someone threw a hissy-fit at Dodger Stadium, damaging a water pipe and the Cubs reputation. Then, a Cub fan gave the rest of us a bad rap by selling his soul allegiance on eBay. THEN, Jon Stewart and his Daily Show cohorts took pot-shots at the Lovable Losers. So someone had to stand up for us, right? While Sarah Palin didn't appear on last night's SNL Weekend Update Thursday show, Cub-lover Bill Murray did in the middle of another great debate sketch and...well, it didn't get any better for Cubs fans.

You know how every year they make up championship t-shirts for both teams in the Super Bowl? Except one of those teams has to lose, right, so their championship t-shirts end up being donated to children in third world countries? And those kids are now walking around in "New England Patriots 19-0" shirts? Well, consider this video kind of like that. Courtesy of our hilarious friends at Schadenfreude [who have a new show coming soon we'll be previewing] comes this Walter E Smithe commercial (that will never see the light of day) celebrating a successful Cubs 2008 postseason. Enjoy while you wait to see if Sarah Palin is gonna show up on that SNL special.

We mentioned earlier this week the potential mind-blowing Tina Fey/Sarah Palin appearance tonight on the premiere of Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update Thursday. SNL's audience has increased almost 50% since last year, in part due to Fey's uncanny Palin. Fey + Palin + Thursday night = ratings gold. So we thought we'd bust out our Great Detective Kit, try our hand at being sleuth-y, and see if there is any weight to the rumors...

We, here at Chicagoist, are big fans of the current Top Chef season which was filmed in Chicago.
s n l - t o p c h e f from seriouseats on Vimeo.

It wasn't so terribly long ago that in order to watch any sort of semi-obscure Japanese cinema you'd have to be prepared to invest in a region-free DVD player and sit through discs with dubious subtitles (when they were subtitled at all). Even a filmmaker like Kurosawa wasn't immune. Luckily for cinephiles the situation has really changed, and access to Asian cinema in general is better than ever.

[]

Man, you just can't fool anyone anymore. Try to skip out of jail using someone else's name, rob a bank with an initimidating T-shirt, or change your name to that of a famous football player, and someone always stops you. Plus, your damn five-year-old cousin won't stay out of the way when you want to audition for Girls Gone Wild. Aaaargh! On Tuesday, two sisters from Sheboygan, Wisconsin were charged with disorderly conduct after taking...

We’ll admit it, we haven’t watched "Saturday Night Live" in … well … let’s just say that the last time we watched "SNL" we thought it was about time for Kevin Nealon to finish up.

It's easy to watch a lot of crappy comedy on TV. "The Daily Show" is always reliable for some laughs, and "30 Rock" and SNL have their moments. But by and large contemporary TV comedy is a wasteland of retreads, anemia and laughless vulgarity. We're becoming increasingly convinced that the future of television isn't television at all. It's the internet. Because there's plenty of really funny stuff online, and most of it is even free.

Its concept isn't much of a stretch: Fey plays Liz Lemon, head writer of a late-night comedy sketch show (!) called “The Girlie Show.” Everything is going just fine until a new network VP (Alec Baldwin) is brought in to vamp up ratings. Idea #1 is to bring loose-cannon star Tracy Morgan, err Jordan, onto the show since he appeals to the missing demographic of “males between 18 and 49.” And Dratch plays a cat wrangler.

The wait is over folks. The final cast for “Saturday Night Live” has been announced. There were a few surprises (Chris Parnell is gone? Seriously? He was just getting good), along with Horatio Sans (no surprise there). Horatio is a friend of Chicagoist, a damn funny guy, and has one of the dirtiest minds we’ve ever known, but sometimes, the kid just laughs too much at his own jokes. We hope he comes home though; Chicago hasn’t been the same without him.