The Definitive Guide to Comedy
For all of the talk about cast changes, stunt casting and the word that Saturday Night Live would have fewer ad time this year, the 42nd season premiere felt a bit underwhelming, didn’t it? That’s not to take anything away from the three new cast members. Mikey Day (promoted from …
Natasha Rothwell has traded 30 Rock for the Sony lot, writing now for Issa Rae’s HBO series, Insecure. But Rothwell’s own characters in her half-hour special for The Characters on Netflix are quite secure, assured and ready to break down barriers. She had been writing and creating characters for years, …
The madness of another presidential election continues to shine all-star comedy on Saturday Night Live, as even before Larry David hosted this 12th episode of season 41, the Bernie Sanders campaign let everyone know that the Democratic junior U.S. Senator from Vermont and presidential candidate would leave New Hampshire for …
How great is Kate McKinnon? So great that on last weekend’s Saturday Night Live, McKinnon not only held her own but also continued delivering knock-out line after line as everyone around her broke into giggle fits or full-on laughs during a live sketch. “Close Encounter” found McKinnon, Cecily Strong and …
In primetime this past Saturday night, NBC rebroadcast the Mother’s Day episode that brought back several great female cast members to help Betty White host Saturday Night Live in 2010, and it reminded me — wow, so much has changed in just the past five years for these cast members, …
President Barack Obama has proven himself so great at delivering his remarks each year at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the only reason you hear about the comedian delivering the keynote after him is when he or she bombs. Which means Cecily Strong did great! Especially considering she entered the …
How long has it really been since Michael Keaton last hosted Saturday Night Live? Keaton hosted in 1982 when he first broke big with Night Shift (a year before Mr. Mom, even!), then again in 1992 when he was a two-time Batman hero, and then not again for another 23 …
Dwayne Johnson has known how to pump up soft material for going on two decades now, so seeing him show up for his fourth stint as host of Saturday Night Live, you could feel fairly confident on this WrestleMania weekend that no matter what the writers were cooking up for …
First-timers Chris Hemsworth and Zac Brown Band took the stage at Studio 8H to host and perform music on Saturday Night Live. Without his hammer, how would “Thor” bring the funny? Would he show a softer side, or would it be all muscle and brawn? Perhaps a bit of both, …
We’ve known for two weeks now that not only was Dakota Johnson hosting, but that we’d have plenty of references to her starring role in the film adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey. Johnson mentioned it during #SNL40, and all of the promos leaned on the source material’s S&M/T&A. I …
