Day: October 17, 2008

Mere hours after Obama and McCain made jokey jokes at a fancy dinner that had global television reach, word comes down that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — you know, the lady who might be (vice) president — will appear on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live. The AP gets confirmation but no details. But Palin herself apparently said in a radio interview today…"I haven’t seen a script — not at all. They haven’t even hinted about what that script is going to say," said Palin. "But you know, I just want to be there to show Americans that we will rise above the political shots that we take because we’re in this serious business for serious challenges that are facing the good American people right now. That’s why we’re campaigning hard. That’s why we’re working hard." (via ABC News) Seriously? The smart money would have had Palin play Tina Fey in a digital short spoofing Fey’s American Express ads with Martin Scorsese, since Fred Armisen has played Scorsese before. They still may do that, or go live with such a premise. But if Palin thinks this will show she’s "in this serious business," and yet not looking at a script the day beforehand…this could be fun. Related: Listen to Sarah Palin’s radio interview with Neal Boortz. No...

If Thursday night’s second weekly edition of SNL’s Weekend Update Thursday seemed a little too quick and easy, well, then you saw what I saw, but let’s try to give them a break since they’re also trying to mount a full 90-minute edition of SNL on Saturday. And if that’s not up to snuff, then, well, we’ll just have to wonder why they tried doing two new live episodes in one week. That said…let’s get to the recap. The cold open spent 10 minutes on Wednesday night’s final presidential debate, with Fred Armisen as Obama, Darrell Hammond as McCain, and former SNL’er Chris Parnell returning again to play the moderator, this time CBS Washington bureau chief Bob Schieffer. In those 10 minutes, Hammond managed to mention "Joe the plumber" 17 times. He also captured the manic eye blinking. And revealed that Joe had a magical budget-cutting plunger, and lived in a cigar box under McCain’s bed alongside his imaginary friend, Simon, who is a unicorn. Alrighty then. What else? Most of the cast got the night off, but Kristen Wiig appeared as that "crazy lady from the McCain rally" who now not only thought Obama is an Arab, but also "cavorts with terriers," will change the White House into a pyramid and many other outlandishly false assumptions. So, yeah, the show made no attempt to hide its leanings for...