I Got A Big Mouth -- Saturday Night You Bull Sessions

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, [10] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 04:25:20 02/15/04 Sun
Author: CCS
Subject: I Got A Big Mouth
In reply to: Patrick Lonergan 's message, "REVIEWS: Drew Barrymore 02/14/04" on 02:08:33 02/14/04 Sat

And I'm going to use it to review sketches. So there was an update. To be quite frank, it could have used a few more sketches. So, if you're someone that reads regularly but doesn't contribute, please consider giving it a shot. It's a lot of fun to bring that great idea bouncing around in your brain to fruition. Next week's host is, in some bizarre twist of events that I would not have believed prior to this season, Christina Aguilera. So, if you're looking to call her a ho-bag (and who isn't), why don't you write your insult in the form of a sketch?

Before I start, a few random thoughts on the actual Barrymore ep.

* How could anyone sign up to play guitar in Kelis's backing band? That's a stain on your record even Cheer with Color Guard won't get out.
* I don't mind Spy Glass, since it's really just a forum for a plethora of bad puns, but this episode was an unfortunate one to be in. I can only take ever so much celebrity humor; and following Versace, Access Hollywood, Weekend Update and Larry King Live just isn't helping it. Furthermore, the Brit Pat O'Brien should have been a one-time joke. It baffles me they would redo that. The whole Hobbit thing was funny though.
* Forte is a fantastic George W.
* Seth's been working on that Kerry impression, he easily gave his best Kerry performance tonight.
* Yet another bizarre talk show starring Maya Rudolph. Why?
* Anyone else catch JB Smoove in the Octane trailer?
* So is this World of Scott Wainio thing gonna recur? I dunno if I want it to. I know he's been writing for SNL for a while, anyone have any clue which sketches are his?
* Too much Fallon is a Bad Thing(tm)
* The White Stripes thing could have been funnier if it were actually a sketch and not just a reason for Fallon to do a song parody.
* I originally planned to only have a few notes, but the number just grew and grew.
* Did I mention Forte rocks?
* You know, you can scroll straight to your own sketch, no one's making you read this.
* The Dream Sequence(tm) made Jarrett's Room even more Wayne's Worldy than normal.
* Jarrett's Room needs to stop.
* Here now, the reviews:

cold open - ok, I read this aloud, taking time to annunciate and use my best Bush voice. Total running time: 8 minutes, 10 seconds. While I know you listed Parnell as Bush, the fact remains Hammond currently has the impression. And one . thing . about . Hammond's . Bush . impression . is . that . it . seems . to . go . on . for . ev . er. . . . . . . . . especially his long pauses between lines. A crowded sketch can sometimes seem like two or three sketches crammed into one. This cold open was about a Zulu army's worth of cold opens crammed into one. It just bleep - blop - blips from one issue to the next with no coherency, or reason. Nothing separates this from the tons of Bush you have written before. It's like you took all your rejected Bush cold opens, copy-pasted them into one document, and submitted that as a cold open. I am now going to take one of your paragraphs and point out a bunch of the grammatical errors it contains.

Next, acquiring [according] to a survey in Canada, the Canadian people don�t like me. 40% of surveyors [surveyors measure land] say they wouldn�t vote for me in November. [should be a comma] While, [should not be any punctuation] 15% of the surveyors [see above] said they would vote for me. How do you like that? The Canadian people don�t like me. Well, guess what! I don�t like you. America had has [drop the 'had'] never appreciated Canada being on top. What is Canada suppose [wrong verb tense] to be anyhow? It�s [needs an article] huge landmass of nothingness. It�s ice! They should just call it, [shouldn't be a comma; try a colon for a pause here] Iceland!

I try to be a little leniant about the grammar thing, but that's just a mess (especially the "acquiring" and the "surveyors").

monologue - it pains me that this is all we're getting from Pat this week. This was well-written, very well-paced. I really liked the subtle dig at Pardo over the Parnell thing. It may be a bit preachy about the state of the show, which I think generally should be avoided, but it uses metaphors and language for the jokes, instead of simply relying on irony. I like how your metaphors swayed back and forth, so that you were comparing the two things, eating at Cuco's and the Versace sketch, and then you'd jump to something that really doesn't correlate, like the burrito platter.

disease clinic - hah! What are the odds two consecutive sketches would include a guy named Martin? This was alright, but it felt like you didn't take it far enough. There's probably enough material for an entire sketch, and the faux-drama would probably shine through better in that setting.

romeo - it almost feels like cheating to be writing a mockumentary without the improv that makes Christopher Guest movies so great, but oh well. I feel there's a few opportunities where I missed jokes that could have been, particularly where Danni says it was a prop sword. Counting the parents, the show's bodycount is now 2 and severed limbs notch up to 1.

women's issues - i'm interested to know for which show this was originally written, as in the sketch proper, Parnell's part is assigned to the host, and Poehler is listed in Drew's role. Dr. Whenever almost seems a Jekyll/Hyde character to me. Dr. Jeckyll is his jealous side, worring if he can measure up to the rapist. Mr. Hyde is his preaching side, traveling the country promoting his outrageous rape prevention technique while acting rather hostile to the callers. I don't think they mix well, they feel like two different people. Personally, I found the Mr. Hyde aspect funnier, but I'm sure you know my comedy style enough to have bet on that in the first place. I wish the sketch was more focused on that. Umm, not much else to say except that the word "rape" really is a charged word, and you gotta use it properly. You were quite liberal with spreading it throughout the sketch, and in a few occasions it felt awkward. For example, the host leads off: Today, we will be discussing rape. When the character's not supposed to be offensive, you gotta be a bit more careful than that I feel. Today, we will be discussing the frightening reality of rape or something like that. You get what I'm saying? I think also if Dr. Whenever didn't refer to his wife's rapist as "the man who raped my wife" so much, it'd help. While you could simply replace with words like assailant, one idea that came to me would be to have Dr. Whenever give the rapist a name, like Colin, even though he obviously has no clue what the guy's name is. It could be an odd quirk helping to make the guy seem just that much more off his rocker.

(fart) - well, I was instructed not to review this one. This immediately followed being told by JP that I write good reviews. So you know what. I'm gonna review it anyway. Unlike the previous sketch JP didn't want reviewed, Jimmy Fallon's ass is not complimented anywhere. I gotta say, this sketch involved a lot more fully written you's than I was expecting, awesome. Anyway, I thought this was fairly funny. The fart dialogue was well-written, but more importantly the sketch shifted seamlessly into a bit with scientists discussing the martian cure-all. Since I think it's safe to say no one survived the rubble, and that there were exactly forty-seven reporters, eight security guards, the translator, the martian, two janitors and a hung-over prostitute still sleeping it off in the basement, the total bodycount for the show is now at an incredible 62!

wu - My own WU jokes are left out of this. Great jokes: hindu nationalists, second half of purerestoration.com, the whole barbie thing, the pope. Good jokes: mp3 player, second punch of master p, kid rock (though i don't think they actually got married), movieoke, chocolate. Lousy jokes: lead off bush joke, first punch of master p, carson daly (you make it sound like people taking their tops off is a regular occurance on his show - and it's not. all that regularly occurs on his show is dry, uninteresting conversation, stand up sets [it's like the only late night show that still books em], and uncomfortable silences.), clark.

Onto the commentaries. Just a few notes about my own (Ryan McGregor). I think it's best when a commetary runs like this, with minimal Fey/Fallon interaction. Q&A can suck as much at the WU desk as it does in the monologue. Uh, and don't go needlessly long either, too much longer than what I have and it probably merits a normal sketch. That's bout it. K. Onto the next commentary (Hillary). I have to say, that was a good find there for the premise. In keeping with the minimal Fey/Fallon interaction theme (unless the character really calls for it, like Jacob Silj or Harry Carey), Fallon should not have so much to say to introduce Hillary. Specifically not belonging is this line: She, not being a guy, has raised some eyebrows. This is for the commentary to get to; Fallon has no need to say it. Less is more - Jimmy talking less means more laughter. For the commentary part of it, it needed some real punchlines. ...I am not a guy isn't really that much of a joke, no matter how often you repeat it. There's some good examples and metaphors mixed in with some not-so-great ones in here, but I just can't help but feel you didn't run hard or far enough with an incredible, totally true, premise. News bits like this don't just fall in our laps everyday, man. Finally, for a response to your Jeff Richards bit, read next week's WU commentaries. I got something planned.

the club - this sketch was very good I thought. The only criticism I have, sketchwise, is that I think you spent too long on the set-up. I think a bit less is necessary to introduce the themes and the character. Not a big deal. The other criticism I have, SNLwise, is that there's just no way this sketch could be done in Studio 8H. I guess that's a minor concern, and honestly, in no way is really a knock at the sketch. In fact, I should simply call it a comment and not a criticism. But yeah, pretape would be the way to go with this one. I thought it spiraled off into craziness quite well. One think I liked was your use of magic powers to have Amy in the scene whenever you wanted to and removed her whenever you didn't want her there. Not unlike the powers of Pepe Le Pew and Bugs Bunny, it has scored major laughs throughout cartoon history, and I'm just surprised it's used so rarely in sketches.

racquetball - I think it was back in the early part of the summer that you sent me a draft of this to look at. I can't remember what I said then, but here's what I'll say now. I think there is enough of a sketch with just Bill asking Jim for racquetball tips against the boss. The extra factor of Bill not knowing how to play takes a while and doesn't really add any humor to the sketch; I found all the laughs to be coming out of the bad advice on how to play against the boss. In fact, it even causes a big audience disbelief problem if Jim is giving Bill the advice to beat the boss when Bill doesn't even know how to play. Granted, actual play has nothing to do with the funnier comments, but the set-up comments are all ruined by this interior logic flaw. I think I would have liked to see a few more bizarre pieces of bad advice (just random ideas: "The boss enjoys the smells of pain and sweat during exercise, so make sure not to wear any deodorant" "Don't be shy though, if his face looks too sweaty go right ahead and wipe it with a dry corner of your shirt"). The ending kind of runs on a bit past the sketch's expiration date, but your recent sketches are a lot better at ending than the ones that you wrote back when this was probably written, so I'm guessing it's just sort of a vestigal thing.

stacy's mom - you really, really need to start double-checking your writing. I am baffled as to how Rachel Hunter can ride a stripper pool... It was very recently in chat that I remember singing "Have A Cigar" with all the (8) and whatnot, and so I'm really hoping that part of the sketch was not inspired by my chatting antics. Cause if it was, that would be kinda lame. They already asked which one is Wayne, so when they get the name wrong it should be something of the sort: Foundations of Wayne, Wayne's Fountain, Sprinklers of Wayne, Mountains of Wayne, etc. MILF hasn't been a funny punchline, on its own, for about five years. Why is the meeting at Scratchie Records? After some research, I found out Fountains of Wayne are on the S-Curve label. This may seem trivial, but I happen to know James Iha and D'Arcy Wretsky are/were the owners/founders of the Scratchie label, and that no where on Scratchie's site is there stuff about Fountains of Wayne. Basically, if you're going to put a specifics down like that, spend the minute it takes to look at the amazon.com page and get your info right. I think the Lennon/Ono slant is a good one; however, it would have been a good bit of fun to see how this LoLo girl affects the FoW singer's songwriting instincts. Perhaps she has him write about wanting people's aunts, or their hot cousins. Like the Hillary thing, it seems like you stopped short of where all the really funny stuff is. On the plus side, you added one more notch to the bodycount.

grammy - hah! You put Kenan as George Clinton in a sketch, and it's the last of our update. Similarly, Kenan as George Clinton appears in the Prince Show, the last sketch of the actual SNL. That's got to be some kind of crazy cool SNY first. The dialogue in this is a little odd - particularly when the CBS Rep and the Manager start every comment with "Well, .." ("Yes, and.." anyone?). I semi-like the idea behind this; it's cool that someone on SNY is writing news-inspired sketches (not just jokes or "a message from .."). SNL uses this type of thing a lot (see both political bits from Barrymore), but it's oddly in absence at SNY. Overall, I think really the best thing you need to do from here is to work on your dialogue. The best way to do that is practice, just keep on writing (and reading) and you'll start to develop a sense of how to make characters speak to each other. It's a difficult task sometimes, knowing the information you want to reveal, but not how to make a character say it.

Statistics:
Bodycount: 63
Severed Limbs: 1
Recurring Bits: 0
Sketches by CCS: 1.25
Jeff Richards Appearances: 1

So, uh, that's my review. I'd like to thank you all for coming tonight, your presence has been an honor. Drive safely!

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

Kelis and thoughts about last night -- Lovesick Wescalade, 09:38:53 02/15/04 Sun
- Why is this in response to my thread? (NT) -- CC "SNY Reviewer" S, 15:29:01 02/15/04 Sun