Re: SNY Review Part 2 -- Saturday Night You Bull Sessions

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Date Posted: 03:11:26 07/14/04 Wed
Author: CCS
Subject: Re: SNY Review Part 2
In reply to: Jack Farrell 's message, "SNY Review Part 2" on 21:26:24 07/12/04 Mon

Regarding my sketch, I'm rereading it and seeing how it could be pretty hard to get into and understand if you are unfamiliar with his previous appearances. Chameleon Man is a crime-fighting superhero embued with the power to turn himself "invisible." He first appeared about one year ago in the Luke Wilson update, where he played a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. His second appearance was in the Jack Black episode where he almost manages to save the day against that evil lunatic, Dr. Deadly. He's a bit jumpy, inept and indecisive. Whenever he has "phased out," we get to hear what's going on in his head as a voice-over. In the previous sketches, very specific camera instructions were given along the way to help clue everyone in, I kinda skipped putting them in because they made for boring reading.

Some further explanation of his powers: basically he wears full green. Typically he's in a costume that includes a hood and Green Hornet style mask. In this sketch, he's just going about his life so it's green street clothes. Basically, through a little trick in the editing room, you can replace everything that's green with a different image, in this case a still shot of whatever the room looks like behind him. This will <i>somewhat</i> give the illusion of invisibility, but in actual practice it will still reveal all the shadows and folds of the clothing and his entire lower face. No one in the sketches ever picks up on the floating face being there.

Anyway, I created him to see how well I could work with a recurring character without making them recurring sketches. I try to keep some stylistic elements consistent (the opening jingle is changed only minorly every installment) while not making the sketches seem like the same old thing. To explain in further detail, on SNL, I thought Chris Kattan's Buddy Mills was a really funny character, and his interaction with Mackey was top-notch. Unfortunately, the sketches almost had a "plug-and-play" format with the way elements were presented which made it a bit tiring in its latter installments. That's what I'm trying to avoid. In contrast, Jimmy and Rachel's Boston Teens appeared many times, but never fell back on a sketch formula of how the guest would fit in. Thematic elements were retained, like ending with an authority figure says something naughty and asking if they got it on tape - but there was no telling exactly where a sketch was going to go. The last Boston Teens sketch, the Affleck Cold Open, was not a rehash of a previous sketch, it was a whole new sketch with characters the audience is already familiar with.

Anyway, so that's what I'm going for. I know my humor can be overly understated, and nothing of what I've said above really says anything about whether or not the jokes work. I just want to see how far I can run while still doing original things with the character. This means not every sketch will be a supervillain showdown like the first two - a bit of an oddity when it comes to a superhero character - but it is a road I wish to tread anyway.

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