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Adam Driver Sep 09, 2024

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This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast we welcome Ashley Bower back to the show, this time to discuss the four-time host, Adam Driver.Transcript: Track 3:[0:41] All right. Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is a thrill to be here back in the SNL Hall of Fame on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. My name is JD and welcome. Before you come on in, though, please do me a favor. Read the mat. Wipe your feet. eat. The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall. And that's how we play the game it's just that simple now one of the things we do before we play the game is we talk to our friend matt ardill and we get some trivia but before we do that i think it's important we know that we're going to be talking about adam driver today uh i gotta tell you he's one of my most favorite guests of this new era this new generation it would be mulaney and and driver for me for sure i could see them both being in the hall at some point it'll be interesting to hear what ashley bauer has to say in terms of building a case ash and we're thrilled so let's uh walk down the hall and talk to our friend mr ardill oh matt adam.Track 2:[2:10] Driver yeah yeah um One of my favorite hosts, to be honest. Six foot two, born November 19th, 1983 in Fontana, California. Did not expect him to be a Californian. I don't know why. Just doesn't have that. Yeah, just doesn't have that California energy. He attended Mishawaka High School and the University of Indianapolis before going on to graduate from Juilliard. This is a another juilliard grad uh who appears on snl uh he has been in had he has had 57 acting roles six soundtrack credits and two producer credits um as a youth he appeared in how to succeed in business without really trying uh into the woods and guys and dolls uh he's he's one of of those people who's had you know when you see an actor and they're like they just have depths that you didn't expect, Because they have lived experiences, and I feel Adam is one of those. He worked as a door-to-door vacuum salesman.Track 2:[3:19] He applied to Juilliard, was rejected, so decided, what the hell, I'll join the Marines. Where he was a Lance Corporal before being discharged due to an injury prior to deployment that made him unable to go into combat. So he decided, what the hell, I'll try Juilliard again. And this time was accepted. Does not like to watch his own performance and will decline to watch them in interviews, because he just does not like seeing himself on screen. Uh he's been nominated for oscars in lincoln a black k a kk black kk klansman i don't know how to pronounce the spike lee movie yeah it's a three k's it throws me off um and marriage story of course uh his wife is actor joanne tucker uh the uh their her grandfather is the politician henry Tucker, who is considered one of the most important politicians in Bermuda in history, who led the first government of Bermuda in 1968.Track 2:[4:29] Um watching his roles it's clear he's a bit of an intense person um because like after watching fight club he actually came away with the wrong lesson and decided to start a fight club in his high school um yeah so that was a choice uh now he did appear on broadway in mrs warren's profession and man and boy before going on to appear in Girls. Growing up, he was raised by a father and a stepfather who were both preachers, who had him sing in the church choir, which he doesn't really show off to the best of his ability inside Llewellyn Davis.Track 2:[5:13] Which is, to be honest, where I first fell in love with him as the singing cowboy. Boy uh but he's actually a very talented musician and in that episode where he played the piano on snl he actually played the piano he does know how to play the piano um now he's gone on found a charity uh called arts in the armed forces with his partner a non-profit that brings art to the active duty service members around the world and support staff free of charge uh together they have have a son uh but he actually kept it hidden for two years before the new yorker finally uh let it slip in 2019 so he is a man of uh many nuances and layers sounds that way what an onion he is yeah you know when i carve into an onion i often cry and when i listen to a thomas conversation Conversation with a guest, sometimes two, I often cry. Let's go to Thomas now.Track 2:[6:19] Grab your tissues. How's that for a segue, Matty?Track 4:[6:51] Well, hello, JD and Matt. Welcome to another edition of the SNL Hall of Fame Conversation. We are in the middle of a wonderful season six, continuing that today with a great nominee, one of my all-time favorite hosts. I'm going to be up front about how much I like today's nominee. It's Adam Driver, of course, and I'll be up front about how much I like today's guest as well. A very special guest first timer last season with kate mckinnon who i think uh will probably get in this year i mean a little soon after after her tenure at snl to get into the snl hall of fame i guess the voters decided that but i think um ultimately ashley will have gotten kate mckinnon into the hall um ashley uh joined me and daramie on a round table uh at the end of season five so So this is her third appearance to the show. So Ashley Bauer, thank you so much for joining me today on the SNL Hall of Fame, Ashley. Thank you so much for having me back. I'm kind of working my way toward my own five-timers club, hopefully. That's the goal. Slowly but surely. Yes, yes, you'll get there. You were very impressive in your first go-around, so I had to have you back this season. I've been following your exploits on Instagram, I'm not going to lie. So you're a world traveler, you're a Taylor Swift fan, so why don't you tell me, like, how's your summer going in both of those regards, Ashley? I'm kind of jealous.Track 4:[8:18] So it's a little bittersweet. So yeah, I went to Paris to see Taylor Swift at the Aris Tour in May, and it was everything I thought it would be and more. Like it was like being in Barbie land. Everybody supports each other. It's women supporting women. And it's this like happy, wholesome environment. And she's just such an incredible performer. And she was so amazing. And I was so depressed after the concert was over that I couldn't accept the fact that I would never see an AeroStore concert again. So I immediately booked another trip with a separate friend. And we were scheduled to go see her in Vienna. Just a couple of weeks ago but if anyone was watching the news they saw that the vienna shows did not happen um you know just terrorists or whatever no big deal wanted to blow up the venue so very grateful uh shout out to all of the national security agencies um in that country and whatever other countries may or may not have assisted because i'm here to talk on this podcast with you but yeah I know love traveling you're right 100% as often as I can get out of the country and go see somewhere new I'm gonna do it and if I get to combine it with Taylor Swift like.Track 4:[9:41] What better trip could I plan? So yeah, made the best of it, even though we didn't actually get to see her in concert. But got to explore. Still did some kind of musical stuff. We went on a Sound of Music tour in Salzburg. So made lemons, excuse me, made lemonades out of lemons. Yes. And now I'm just back in the U.S., I guess. Just back to the boring life. Yeah, just normal everyday real world. Not in Barbie land anymore.Track 4:[10:11] Oh, that's cool. So that's awesome. Again, I'm like admiring your travels from afar, admiring your Taylor Swift adventures from afar. So I'm glad you've had a great summer. And I'm glad you're back here with me in season six to talk some Adam Driver. And I'm going to be upfront, Ashley. I think Adam might be in my top 10 all-time hosts. He's a four-timer. I think he's already there for me. So I'm going to start the conversation with that to be full, you know, full disclosure with the listeners. I think I have him as a top 10 all time host. Is that aggressive on my part? No, not at all. And I promise he's not paying me to say this or to just agree with him. But like I 100% he needs to at least be in the five timers club. He is so natural. Like it was like he was born to be an SNL host or somehow like he needs to somehow be associated with SNL for as long as I'm capable of watching the show so yeah not aggressive at all and I know we're going to talk a lot about why, he's just so freaking good at it like it's hilarious it's intense it's everything.Track 4:[11:21] Yeah, and I was doing this exercise because I made an appearance on the Saturday Night Network's host countdown this summer. And I was just kind of doing my list and going through the hosts and everything like that. And I surprised myself and was like, I really have Adam Driver this high? I guess I do. And I guess I think he deserves it. So that's where I'm coming from. I think that's where both of us are coming from with this episode. So that's why I was so excited to do this one. So a little brief background on Adam. He did a little acting here and there. Until 2012, he started really getting breaks in 2012. He was in Lincoln, Francis Ha, the Greta Gerwig movie.Track 4:[12:02] Girls, though, was arguably his biggest break. So I first saw Adam Driver on Girls. Is that the case for you and your first exposure to Adam? Or was it like somewhere else that you first saw Adam? him no so unfortunately mine was it wasn't until he got a little bit more mainstream my first exposure to him was when he played kylo ren in star wars um and then it was kind of you know going back and realizing that he had been like making his way through and kind of breaking through over the last few years um but all that to say again i thought he nailed that role in star Star Wars, it was just so well done that playing this just villain that you kind of find yourself, rooting for in a weird way, which is terrible because obviously you're not supposed to do that. But I think just the way that he captures the whole essence and as they build his story and kind of his arc and realizing...Track 4:[13:02] You know obviously he chooses very poorly at the end but you know that there was something in there that was almost good um yeah and i'm not even really that big of a star wars fan like probably upset a lot of people with how little i know about it so very basic very mainstream for me to say like oh yeah he was so good in star wars that that's where i first got experience with him no he was so good in star wars though he played that role really well uh i think maybe i don't want to speak for J.J. Abrams or Rian Johnson, but you think you were supposed to kind of feel something for him, and especially with the backstory with Luke and all that. It's like, okay, maybe he kind of had a point as far as how angry he was, but Adam played those nuances really well, so definitely made his really mainstream mark playing Kylo Ren. On girls, he really stood out because Adam has this unique look about him. He doesn't look like the classic, and this is said with love, He doesn't look like the classic handsome Brad Pitt, George Clooney, movie star Clark Gable kind of person. Adam has a distinct look about him, and that came out in Girls. He was this kind of aloof guy who Lena Dunham's character had an on-again, off-again thing with. And you could see even then some of the comedy chops, and I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. He played intense really well, but then some of the stuff he said was low-key really funny in Girls.Track 4:[14:28] So, there were signs there for him being a good SNL host, I should say. Yeah, I think once somebody gave him the platform and gave him the opportunity to really flex those comedy muscles, he just needed somebody to give him that chance and let him demonstrate. I'm so glad they did.Track 4:[14:45] Yeah, that's what happens sometimes with people who aren't known for comedy. And that's what I wanted to ask you, just like in a general way. What's your initial reaction when someone is tabbed to host for the first time, but isn't necessarily totally known for a comedy? Is the anticipation still there for someone like that? I think so, because I think I've learned over the years that some people just really surprise you in a really great way about it. And I know like several, several years ago, the first time Mark Wahlberg did something with comedy, I was so shocked, like so shocked that Mark Wahlberg didn't just do a comedy movie, but absolutely nailed it. It was so freaking funny.Track 4:[15:28] And so I kind of used that experience to give other people like Adam Driver a chance. Answer because i admit yeah like because all i knew about him at the time was star wars when i first saw that he was hosting i thought okay this you know he's big you know he's popular i see what they brought him in but oh my gosh just even from the beginning his first time coming out with the monologue like it was like he had been there before it was so surreal to me it made me forget that that was his first time hosting yeah there's a comfort about it that you can see as snl fans We can see some sort of comfort level or some sort of fit, I think, right off the bat. And something that I've learned, Ashley, since I've been an SNL fan for going on almost 35 years now, is that the best hosts, in my opinion, are hosts who are really good actors. So being good at sketch, to me, isn't just about having a sense of humor anymore.Track 4:[16:26] It's about being a great actor and having timing and things like that. And Adam Driver happens to be a great actor and has a sense of humor. But I think a lot of those quote-unquote dramatic actors, people who are really skilled at that, are really good SNL hosts. Because I think you need to be a good actor to be good in sketch and not just funny. Oh, I completely agree with you. And I think that's what makes Adam so successful, is because he has the training and the just mixed with the natural talent of 100 committing.Track 4:[16:58] To a role in a situation and just completely dedicating to it and i think because of that i think you see this too in so many of his sketches i keep trying to look for when he's gonna look at the cue card and i can never find it yeah like sometimes i kind of wonder if i'm like making myself believe that his eyes moved just because I'm trying to catch him. I'm like, I don't think he does. I don't think he's ever looked at a cue card. And if he has, then he's completely fooled me. And I think that commitment and dedication to memorizing his lines to completely go all in with whatever sketch they've given him has really been a huge part of why he's been so successful in his hosting gigs. Yeah, 100%. And then we saw that, as you mentioned, mention his first host hosting gig was season 41 episode 10 uh musical guest chris stapleton and his monologue like he was comfortable they played off the whole uh kylo ren star wars theme he was promoting the force awakens but i thought it was really cute just to kind of like get to know…

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Garrett Morris Sep 03, 2024

Show notes

This week on the program, Thomas, Matt, and jD welcome back Darin Patterson to the show. You can find his work at SNL Nerds where ever you get your podcasts.Transcript:Track 4:[0:42] Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is a thrill to be back here with you on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. Before you come inside, if you would do me a favor, please wipe your feet. The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Consideration once the nominees have been announced we turn to you the listener to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity inside the hall and that is how we play the game it's just that simple a little 411 for you we have a new email address it is the snl hall of fame at gmail.com that's the snl hall of fame at gmail.com shoot Shoot us an email if you have any questions about the show or would like to guest on this show or the SNL Hall of Fame Water Cooler with Joe and Shari.Track 4:[1:43] So there's that. This week we are joined by our friend Darren Patterson of the SNL Nerds podcast. You can check that out wherever you find your quality podcasts. Podcasts and uh darren has quite the track record of uh nominating people in episodes he joined us for the first time on season two where he nominated tom hanks who got in then in season three he kicked off the season by nominating dana carvey who also got in that year uh he took the year off in season four and didn't visit us in season five either but this year he's back and uh i'm excited about this episode so there's that.Track 5:[2:32] Here we go with an original not ready for prime time player it is the often overlooked garrett morris matt what do you have to say about garrett morris wow uh garrett uh he five foot eight born february 1st 1937 in new orleans uh he is uh an incredible talent he studied drama at the hb studio and attended juilliard he's a triple threat raised by a baptist minister grandfather he got his first taste of performance in the church choir uh with 116 acting credits six soundtrack credits and one writer credit it, he worked as a soloist and arranger for Harry Belafonte.Track 5:[3:22] Yeah, so he was part of Belafonte's band. During his time as a singer for Harry Belafonte, he was performing in Los Angeles and decided to go for a walk. Police cuffed him and dragged them to jail when he tried to show his hotel keys to prove where he's staying. After a background check, it came back clean. And then they checked the itinerary in his pocket and saw that he was part of Harry Belafonte's band. And all of a sudden they were like oh i'm sorry i'm sorry mr garrett morris i mr morris like we're so he's he that kind of uh changed his life um he became very active uh he joined the black arts repertory theater and school a cornerstone of the black arts movement um um, in New York and ended up being surveilled by the FBI during that time. Yeah.Track 5:[4:23] So he has a file. Um, but you know, he's also done things like he released an album called South African Freedom Songs with Pete Seeger and Guy Carowan. Uh, he appeared in broadway in hallelujah baby and ain't supposed to die a natural death and uh he.Track 5:[4:44] Wrote a play called the secret place daddy piku and stagger lee uh which he penned for the brooklyn uh school kids as part of a new york program uh to write a play for school kids in their in your home borough and on top of all of that he released a comedy album called saturday night sweet um which has some pure disco tracks on there it is it is incredible um he survived a brush with death having been shot in the chest and arm while being mugged uh and got to be kidding me yeah like he's that was.Track 5:[5:28] In 1994 so not even that long ago did not go well for the shooter because there were some garrett morris fans in prison and let's just say he didn't leave the prison uh so yeah that got that you don't mess with a good with great comedians you know people don't like that so yeah so garrett morris garrett morris in a in a wrapped in a bow by our friend matt ardell and now we're going to check in with our other friend Thomas Senna as he digs in on Garrett Morris.Track 2:[6:31] Jamie and Matt, thank you so much. Welcome to another episode of the SNL Hall of Fame. Today we have a Heritage nominee from Season 1, an original Not Ready for Primetime player. So I'm really excited to talk about Mr. Garrett Morris.Track 2:[6:52] And with me to talk about Garrett and his time at SNL is Darren Patterson from the SNL Nerds podcast. Somebody who I haven't had on in like two or three seasons. It was long overdue. I knew I needed to get Darren back for Season 6 of the SNL Hall of Fame. Darren, how's it going, man? It's going well, Thomas. It's going well. Yeah, it's been a minute. I haven't been around these parts in quite some time. I love what you've done with the place. yeah well thank you tied it up a little bit before before you stepped into the hall we make sure to dust and we make sure to everything is in its right place for special guests like yourself so from one snl podcaster to another i gotta make sure that my space is presentable for for you guys especially for other snl podcasters so it's wonderful to have you man i think you were on uh for a roundtable an end of season roundtable i think that's last time we checked in on you yeah yeah it was that was that was a lot of fun that was a that was a blast if i recall correctly yeah yeah no we had a blast talking uh talking about the different nominees from that season of the snl hall of fame uh i love chatting with fellow snl podcasters like we both were chatting beforehand that this is such a really neat community of snl podcasters like both buddies with john schneider from the saturday night network the guys gary and brad from the not Not Ready for Primetime podcast. Andrew Dick's doing his thing.Track 2:[8:19] So, yeah. So, it's just really fun to have a fellow SNL podcaster on. Why don't you tell us what's going on lately over at SNL Nerds? The listeners can go and listen to our 300th episode, which we just recorded. We hit the big 3-double-0. Wow. It's bonkers. Yeah, yeah.Track 2:[8:38] It's an episode we did with Mike Diva, SNL film unit director. The man who directed such hits as I'm Just Pete, the Pete Davidson pre-tape, the Waffle House pre-tape for the Jenna Ortega episode, Mario Kart in the Pedro Pascal episode, the Christmas Carol pre-tape on the Steve Martin, Martin Short episode. Yeah, this dude's done it all. So, guys, go check that out, our 300th episode. That's awesome. We got it. Yeah, yeah. It was a pretty big milestone for us. We were like, oh wow, we've been... We've been really doing this for a while. You know, most podcasters don't even get to five episodes. Really? Yeah, I think I read that somewhere. I think five episodes is like the average, if that. So people start a podcast, they bail after like one or two episodes. So 300 is amazing, man. Yeah, that makes us 60 times better than the average podcast. And you could fill it with you and John Trumbull, your co-host. Yes, yes. Yes. Me and my coach, John Trumbull, we're two guys in New Jersey who are obsessed with SNL, so we during the summer since they've been off, we've just been kind of talking about SNL quote-unquote related movies. Just because we've done all the directly connected to SNL movies, so now we're just like, we just had an episode of Throw Mama from the Train and Billy Crystal's in it. I think that's SNL adjacent. I don't know.Track 2:[10:07] As long as the cast member's on, I think that definitely qualifies. Yeah like as long as we can find one cast member in the cast or for something more produced we kind of shrug and be like all right that works like our next episode we're gonna do a league of their own one of my favorites john lovitz is in that so i was like all right that counts yeah that's one of my favorite things about your podcast is is you you've carved out your own niche in that like you're exploring like snl related movies which which i love so so 300 hundred congratulations darren congratulations john huge milestone go check out uh snl nerds follow them on social media and listen to their pod it's an awesome one so today we are chatting about mr garrett morris so uh garrett had a somewhat different path to snl compared to the rest of the cast he wasn't a groundling didn't come from second city uh garrett was a dramatic actor singer playwright so Lauren was looking for a playwright landed on Garrett who then obviously became a cast member of course part of the original cast so Darren like as an SNL nerd what does Garrett overall kind of mean to you, Oh, God, what does it mean to me? I mean, of course, right off the top, he was the first African-American cast member in SNL. I mean, that's a huge thing right there.Track 2:[11:30] I mean, and also when I think of Gary, I kind of also think of almost like what could have been a little bit just because it's like you said, like Gary really didn't come up with the rest of the cast members through the improv channels. Channels he just kind of he was like a theater kid basically he worked in the theater and playwrights and whatnot so he was he was i i always felt like he that's one of the things that's kind of separated him from the rest uh well i mean i think there was like a few things actually the fact that he well first you know african-american uh the rest of the other cast was uh white uh all the writers were white sometimes i think he was might be the only black guy in like the building yeah Yeah, yeah, seems like, right? It's very possible. Yeah, and so there's that. The fact that he doesn't come through the improv channels, that always kind of separated him. And the fact that he was, like, so much older than the rest of the cast, too, which is something I think a lot of people don't even realize, is because the other cast members, they were all in their 20s when they got to show, like, mid-20s, early 20s, something like that. Garrett was 38 when he got it. Right. It's like, aside from him and George Cove, like those are the old dudes so part of me does think oh maybe those three things kind of are what separated him from the rest of the crew and maybe writers and the cast members maybe didn't know exactly how to.Track 2:[12:55] Fit him into what they were doing so it always seemed like he was kind of doing his own thing the more I think about it I don't know if anybody actually.Track 2:[13:06] Wanted to write a sketch for Garrett it seemed seem more like the writers were like i have this idea for a sketch and if gary can fit in it okay right you know like it was even more something like because a lot of them came from second city i know lorraine was a grambling um but a lot of them have even had even had sketches that they performed together before snl so so that so there was just like an uphill climb uh for gary he had been in like uh uh i think he was in a band um with harry bell like not with harry belafonte But it was a band of like Harry Belafonte kind of like nurtured and like mentored a little bit So Garrett was like in that band. He was singing acting like I mentioned playwrights So that yeah, he was just he wasn't part of like that sketching improv inner circle Yeah, which probably? Was a disadvantage to him and you uh you alluded to it But I mean one thing of course that we can argue is that.Track 2:[14:07] Him being sidelined as a black man. And we saw for a long time afterward that SNL did have a problem with representation, Darren. Yeah, yeah, it really did. I mean, I don't know if maybe they just weren't quite looking for that or they were just kind of maybe more focused on just getting on the kind of humor that maybe they could only conceptualize or conceive as being radical without thinking about maybe how it may appear to other people. Like, you know, they've always had, SNL's always had issues with that. They're doing better, you know, the fact that we have, like now, like we had Bunky, but like people like Bowen or Devin and Ego and like all these other different perspectives, kind of Marcelo now, like all these other different perspectives coming up with ideas that, you know, like ideas that wouldn't have come to other, maybe certain types of writing but uh but you know like like sketches that maybe like ego has done like like things that kind of maybe include like a vernacular or have like a viewpoint from a certain community that you wouldn't have normally thought of like another i'm going off of the tangent here sorry like one sketch i thought of like was um uh the sarah lee sketch from the harry styles episode yes the one that had like cecily and bowen and then harry styles came in and he'd been posting all these odd things on Instagram.Track 2:[15:34] And the wordage they were using, I was like, oh, this is written by Bowen or something, because I don't see anybody else kind of... Unless you know about that community, then a lot of other people just wouldn't know about that. It seems like a lot of the writers who were around when Garrett was around didn't just quite know about his world, so they didn't maybe know how to write it. So that's why maybe they had a harder time trying to figure out what he could do.Track 2:[16:04] Yeah, and like the late 70s, I don't think it was as emphasized or writers and people behind the scenes didn't necessarily care about certain voices. And I think you can, like, if they thought that the audience wouldn't get certain points of view, you can still make those funny. You can kind of train the audience to understand certain things. You could put Garrett or somebody on Weekend Update and kind of – even if you have to kind of explain the backgrounds, explain the context for a few seconds. We've seen them. We saw them do that on Saturday Night Live all the time in the 70s. Even if you have to explain context, you can make it funny. So I don't – I think they just didn't care around that time. Yeah, I think – I mean I think that what you're saying is that that's something they finally caught around when Eddie Murphy kind of came on the scene. Scene and I mean I'm not sure exactly who was writing for him at the time he might have just been writing his own stuff or whatever but like I think when Eddie came in they're like oh this is.Track 2:[17:06] From a fresh new viewpoint that maybe we don't know about, but is worth exploring and investigating and making some sketches about. Yeah, I think there's a lot of credence to that, for sure. All that said, Garrett was such a great singer, such a great actor. I think he added a wonderful dimension to the show when it was on screen. Darren, I've always found this applies to hosts, especially in my opinion, but even cast members. I think some of the best people to do sketch comedy are good actors i think you need to have a sense of humor but you also need to know how to act that's something that they could have really tapped into with gary like talk about acting chops he's probably the best actor uh at that time maybe on the whole cast yeah no he that's true he could have done that i think what he might have done, which maybe kind of you know was was to his you know detriment was he tried to be maybe as funny…

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Water Cooler - Cheri Oteri Aug 30, 2024

Show notes

Join Shari and Joe as they discuss this weeks episode of the HOF podcast and share their visions for first-time hosts.Transcript: Track 2:[0:19] Hi, welcome to the Saturday Night Live Hall of Fame Water Cooler Podcast. You know, kind of a short, simple title. Or to put it another way, the SNL HOFH2L Podcast. Just to, you know, hashtag it. I'm Joe.Track 3:[0:43] And I'm Shari.Track 2:[0:44] And we're sitting here next to the water cooler, ready for this week's discussion.Track 3:[0:51] Yep. Are you filling up your cup, Joe? I'm filling mine up.Track 2:[0:55] And I'm good. All right. Let's do this.Track 3:[0:59] Okay. We're going to start it off by talking about this week's episode of the SNL Hall of Fame with the fabulous Thomas Senna and his special guest, Jamie Burwood. Wood jamie is a og snl hall of fame guest she's been on a couple of times and i believe all of her nominees have gotten in christopher walken and will ferrell will ferrell thank you joe because i blanked out and our latest nominee she finally got in in season five molly shannon so yes he's on a roll let's see if she can keep it up with sherry o terry did you want to continue on and uh so yeah.Track 2:[1:48] Uh yeah those two they had a great discussion uh they covered a lot uh so uh but i there's plenty left to discuss uh you know they brought up uh, that Sherry's often paired up with Will Ferrell, who, you know, they performed in the Groundlings together. They started at Saturday Night Live at the same time. Will Ferrell, Sherry Oteri, Chris Kattan. Basically, Saturday Night Live cleaned house around season 20. They got rid of those bums, Chris Farley, Mike Myers, and Kevin Nealon. No, they were great. It was just, they did their term. It was time for a change. It was time for a change. And then they brought in, yeah, Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, David Kegner, Daryl Hammond, and our focus for today, Sherry O'Terry.Track 3:[2:43] Thank you, Joe. That was a really good lead-in, recap. Thank you. You're coming up with all the good words, and I'm somehow blanking.Track 2:[2:52] It's cool.Track 3:[2:53] I think we're ready with that great recap. I think we're ready to talk about...Track 2:[3:00] Point counterpoint. Uh, so, uh, okay, let's go into pros and cons. All right. Now this week, uh, I'm going to take the pros with Sherry and you'll take the cons.Track 3:[3:12] Yep. We're switching places.Track 2:[3:14] All right. Uh, so, uh, as far as the pros go, the first thing, and I, they mentioned this on the other episode, she is very energetic. Energetic and the word i want to add on to that is she's energetic to the point where all of her characters are twitching i mean like she's just literally like shocking just you know um yeah like with our characters uh laura or whom i think who's the first one um yeah adele and uh.Track 2:[3:53] Where's the other one? The one that, oh, Colette Rairdon. I wanted to bring her up because she probably has a reason to twitch a little bit because she has a big box of prescriptions that she's on. But yeah, Sherry's very energetic to the point where she's twitching, gives 110%, and also she's just Just a hair below chewing the scenery. She's, you know, not hamming it up. She's not. Everything that she's doing with her energy seems appropriate and called for. And it makes sense within the character. So I just want to point out that she never, ever sleepwalks through a part. So, yeah, that's the first pro I got in your con.Track 3:[4:45] Okay, Joe, that is excellent. And she is very high energy. And Jamie Burwood said that same thing. In fact, her exact, well, maybe not her exact words, but her words were she brings a zaniness and a wackiness that is... Unparalleled. That was Jamie's words, and you pretty much reiterated them, Joe. Unfortunately, I'm here to bring the con, and that wackiness and that zaniness and that shout, she likes to shout. She shouts a lot. So her characters, Rita Del Vecchio, and you mentioned Colette Reardon and of course Simma Down Lady very over the top very shouty all of them and sometimes this repetitive habit with the shouting with the so over the top you and Jamie say that's you know that's a positive a lot of viewers and I've heard it from a lot of viewers over the years because I was watching her back in the day, felt like that was too much, like she was trying too hard. So, yes, she's not sleepwalking. She's almost the opposite of sleepwalking, and that gives viewers a lot of fatigue, and I think people got a little tired of that shtick. So that's my con. Back to you, Joe.Track 2:[6:11] I got it. No, and I get to the point where, yeah, because that happens with Saturday Night Live, where even the best characters get old, hence why she got there in the first place. Like Chris Farley was doing Van Down by the River, which to me is one of my favorite sketches ever. That first one with Christina Applegate, I mean, that to me is one of the top five sketches. However, it got old, and that's why they had to get rid of Farley, bring in new people, and that's how Sherry got there. So yes, that happens at Saturday Night Live. I agree. And with her in particular, yes, the shouting and the energy and the –.Track 2:[6:54] Does wear thin so i agree with that so okay my next pro is something i personally picked up on uh when i was doing all this research is her she does characters of all ages and it's almost to the point where it's like the same character just at different spots in her and the character's life like she did alfina which is this hyper character that visits the pilot um ariana the spartan cheerleader we have to mention her but we'll get back to that and then laura zimmerman the character she did with uh chris katan the hyper sexual hyper sexed couple uh and then rita the porch uh dweller and then finally colette reardon the uh prescription taker and it's like this it's almost like the same person at different stages of the character's life and it's it's cool to see the same actor being able to do that um i just thought that was kind of unique, and i enjoyed seeing that okay.Track 3:[8:00] Joe that is an excellent point she she really she really does put her whole self into her characters and she does do a variety of ages and the observation you made about it being almost like the same character at different points in their life was very interesting, but I'm going to go con now, and this is a biggie, and Jamie and Thomas discussed this quite extensively, and that's the fact that, A, she didn't do a lot after Saturday Night Live, a little bit here and there, some voice work, a couple of TV episodes, nothing major, I guess she was on Broadway, nothing.Track 3:[8:42] I don't even remember hearing about that, but apparently she was on Broadway, but it was very short lived. I think she's had some personal stuff. She keeps it pretty quiet. But the other part of this that's bigger to me is she's never really come back to the show. And I'll be curious to see if she even comes back for the 50th anniversary because I do not believe she was at the 40th. So she really, she didn't really make a connection. Like so many of them stay in touch. Like, look at Dana and David have their podcast fly in the wall. Sherry seems like she kind of disconnected from SNL altogether. And I'm sure she had her reasons. But that is a big reason that voters are going to be like, well, she doesn't care enough to come back to the show. Why would I waste a vote on her and get her into the very hallowed halls of SNL Hall of Fame? So I think that's going to be a biggie. I think that might even hinder her from getting that 10% that she needs to just stay on the ballot. So I guess only time will tell, right?Track 2:[9:49] That is a great point. Because here's something else. Because that whole trio of Farrell, Oteri, Kattan, they all started at the same time. It's kind of like all three of them went in separate directions. And when Will Ferrell hosted Saturday Night Live like three times or the first three times, he always seemed to bring back an old sketch, you know, like he did Jeopardy. He also did that one couple, the middle school singers with Anna Gassmeyer.Track 3:[10:24] Right, right, right, right.Track 2:[10:25] And you would think at least once that they would, you know, when Will Ferrell's hosting, that they would do the cheerleaders. You know like that to me is iconic as, You know, Farley and Spade, Wayne and Garth. Right. You know, like, Will Ferrell, because like we mentioned over and over again, Ferrell and Oteri, they physically look good together. Like, almost in this, not exactly like this, but almost in a Laurel and Hardy type way, where Will Ferrell's tall, Sherry's short, you know, and then she brings the energy to make up for it. So she's, you know, in a scene with Will Ferrell, you know, and she's able to catch your eye with her energy, which is both a pro and a con, you know. So, yeah, I agree.Track 3:[11:21] I guess only time will tell. I guess what we really need to do here is encourage people to vote.Track 2:[11:26] Yes. Vote.Track 3:[11:27] If you think Sherry is deserving, vote. Because if you don't, she's not going to stick around so you can vote for her next time. So if you're going to vote, vote because people left last season. Justin Timberlake is gone. Several others are gone because they didn't.Track 2:[11:53] Yeah, they didn't.Track 3:[11:54] The five seasons came and went. And there are some who didn't get the 10% and didn't get to come back this season. So think about that. That's why Joe and I do this pro and con thing. And now I think we're ready to, are we ready to move on now, Joe? Are you good?Track 2:[12:11] Yeah.Track 3:[12:12] All right. We are going to move on to hopes for season 50. And it's only like four weeks away. Yay! I can't believe it either. I can't believe it.Track 2:[12:26] I need a distraction from this election, and what better way to digest the election better than with Saturday Night Live? I need Saturday Night Live to take all of this craziness of the world, not just the election, but just everything that's going on, and I need to see it through the prism of Saturday Night Live.Track 3:[12:44] I couldn't agree more, and I'm so excited. Our hopes for Season 50, themed today, is first-time hosts. Hosts. We're going to talk about first-time hosts. And Joe inspired this idea. Joe, do you want to talk just a little bit about how this all came about? Because I know it has throwback roots for you, nostalgic roots for you. So why don't you let the listeners know all about it?Track 2:[13:15] Oh, I couldn't. And by the way, that's a joke to everyone who knows me because I talk about this to people that don't even want to hear it. So the fact that I'm on a podcast right now and it's the perfect opportunity to talk about it, I just wanted to make that one joke of going.Track 3:[13:32] Nah.Track 2:[13:34] Nah, I'm good. Let's move on. No. So, OK, here's how this list came about. It was about 2006 and Peter Sarsgaard was a they announced or whatever, like on the bumper that Peter Sarsgaard was going to be that the next week's host. And he's a fine actor to everything. Nothing against him. But just at the time, I had no idea who he was. And I'm like, man, it's really random who they get to host Saturday Night Live for the first time, aside from John Goodman, Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, and such. But as far as who gets to host for the first time, it's random because they're usually rising up in fame. Their TV show is becoming popular. They're about to be in a bunch of movies. They just signed a three-movie contract or something. Like they're about to be popular and another person of note is the fact that Bradley Cooper hosted like the February before the hangover came out so it is like you have to really pay attention to who's popular right now and like who's been on the rise and then match that to did they host yet and then if they didn't then they're most likely gonna you know and that's where I try and came up with this list and I just want to give out one more shout out.Track 2:[15:02] To my mom because I used to play this game with my mom until she just lost interest and it became hard but anyway one year I was like hey I made my list and I went on internet movie database tried to see who was you know on the rise and when their movie was coming out and like oh this person has three movies coming out this year and you know it's around in the fall so they probably will be on Saturday Night Live to promote it and stuff like that and I'm trying to carefully analyze and dates and stuff like this and then i kept telling my mom hey mom they're gonna you know the show's gonna come back you better you know because it's kind of cheating if you see who's hosting the first episode and then and then you pick so i kept hounding her hounding her and then i go mom come on let's just do this and she goes all right fine and she takes an issue of entertainment weekly and just sends through it and goes her him him her her and then made her list just off the cuff and then sure enough beat me that year you know like i think she picked out two more than me and i'm like how how you know and and then so and that's another point i want to make is it's it's kind of random and then uh the last thing i'll make to segue back to the podcast uh so originally the what the way i used to play it is uh i made out 25 a list of 25 names.Track 2:[16:25] Because you figure maybe half the people hosting Saturday Night Live would be first time hosts. There'll probably be 12 new hosts, so you figure 25 would give us odds.Track 2:[16:38] But for the podcast, just to keep it simple, do a whole 25, yeah, I guess we'll go back and forth talking about who we think is going to host for the first time in the 50th year.Track 3:[16:52] And also, I think we should also just mention very briefly, if we think they're on the road to possibly returning, if they do get asked, and possibly becoming a Hall of Famer. And then as they show up throughout the season, Joe, we'll come back and look at that and talk about their performance and whether it lived up to expectations and whether we see them being asked back and get continuing on the road to see if we're on target. Game so that'll be fun to watch and also one more thing you listeners out there if you have guesses that you want to send our emails at the end because i don't know by heart yet because this is only our second episode so listen to jd he'll tell you our email and let us know who you think the first time timers are going to be i know that the saturday night network already has this up on their Instagram page, and I tried not to look at it too much. I already had my guesses, so I didn't get spoiled or anything. But we'd like to know from our listeners what you think as well, because maybe it's different from what was in the S&N statistics. We could be wrong. They could be wrong.Track 2:[18:08] We could be wrong.Track 3:[18:10] Absolutely. All right. Did you want to start us off, Joe, with your first? First possible post?Track 2:[18:19] Because... This is a perfect example of, you know, who I think should host. I'm going to go in no particular order except for this first pers…

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Cheri Oteri Aug 26, 2024

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Matt, Thomas, and jD are joined by friend of the podcast, TV graphs own, Jamie Burwood. Before her conversation with Thomas, Matt and jD go through some Cheri Oteri trivia. Enjoy. Transcript:Track 2:[0:43] Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is a great pleasure to be joining you all here outside the SNL Hall of Fame. If you wouldn't mind, as you cross the threshold, please take advantage of the mat out front and wipe those feet. The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Consideration once the nominees have been announced we turn to you the listener to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall and that's how we play the game it's just that simple this week we are joined by our friend jamie burwood to discuss the bona fides of sherry o terry but before we do that we are going to talk to our friend matt ardill and matt i've got a question for you my friend.Track 3:[1:44] Are you ready because i've got two words for you sherry o terry matt what have you got well sherry o terry is five foot five foot two born september 19th 1962 in what i what appears to be a snl hotbed upper derby pennsylvania the hometown of tina fey yeah so water there yeah yeah it's just i i guess there's something about that suburban experience that uh makes you crave uh making people laugh um or at least distracting yourself from being there uh she grew up around music her father was a nashville record producer and worked at amn records before joining the groundlings she earned 92 acting credits six writing credits five producer credits and four soundtrack credits um yeah she has played everything from uh the sidekick of inspector gadget to an animated tooth fairy uh she she is one of the uh folks from snl to go on to broadway having starred in the production of Musical the Musical.Track 3:[3:06] And is a friend of Paul Reuben's, playing husband and wife on an episode of Ally McBeal. Went on to be nominated for the Best Dance Sequence at MTV's Movie Awards and the Teen Choice Award for Best Comedian. Well, that's some cool stuff so far. Anything else on Terry O'Terry? No she's kept it pretty private she's one of those uh snl folks who's gone on to uh just just uh step back and and enjoy the show well we ask you to do the same step back and enjoy the show as we head to our friend thomas senna thomas take it away, All right.Track 4:[4:17] Guys. Thank you so much. You're so excited for this episode. Hello, and welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame conversation portion of the episode. Today, I am joined by an amazing guest, a mainstay at the SNL Hall of Fame, for sure. He's been advocated for a lot of great SNL, current SNL Hall of Famers, actually. So, like, what, Will Ferrell? Jamie, how many people have you gotten into the SNL Hall of Fame? I think you're on a pretty good run. I'm trying to think. We've definitely done quite a few episodes. I'd have to look to see what the actual track record is to know the percentage. Yeah, Will Ferrell got in. Yeah, and you were on for Molly? I was on for Molly. I don't think she got in, though. Did she? Well, Molly's a new inductee. Oh, okay. In the latest. Yes. All right. So Molly got in. Christopher Walken.Track 4:[5:09] Yes, that was my episode. So you're on a pretty good hot streak. Okay, okay. I think. Nice. So I think you're the perfect person to come on and chat about Sherry O'Terry. But I'm going to formally welcome you, Jamie Burwood. Welcome back to the SNL Hall of Fame. How are you doing? How have you been? I'm doing good. It's great to be back here this summer. Yeah, just having a good start to the summer, doing some beach time coming up. But yeah, it's been great. Happy to be here. Yeah, beach time for all of us. That's what this summer is about. It's beach time 2024. So I'm glad you're partaking as well. Is there anything you'd like to plug up top before we get started here? Talking about Sherry? Yeah, I feel like TV show graphs is still my go-to account on TV.Track 4:[6:03] Twitter, Instagram, all of the places, tvshowgraphs.com. Yeah, it has the whole library of a lot of the TV-related data deep dives I've done in the past, exploring a few new topics coming up soon. So hopefully as some of the summer travel slows down, there'll be some new stuff up there soon. But yeah, otherwise I kind of have just been chilling the last few months. So enjoying the start of the summer.Track 4:[6:27] Well, I think you've earned it. Your graphs and the website, side that's like quite the rabbit hole like a true tv fan could spend a lot of time going down that rabbit hole it's pretty cool so you you deserve it any sort of break you get you definitely deserve it jamie so today our nominee like i mentioned sherry o'terry right in your will house jamie like i said you've covered the air a few times here on the snl hall of fame and of course today talking about um somebody who's beloved to us sherry o'terry uh jamie for What was it about Sherry O'Terry that may have first got your attention when you saw her? Yeah, I feel like the zaniness and how memorable her characters are. I feel like she's somebody that, in my opinion, doesn't get talked about enough. And in some ways, she is well-recognized. She has her best of collection. I feel like people do acknowledge her role in that era of SNL and just how important it is. But there's just something really captivating about her wackiness and the way that she commits to all of these characters that she does. And I think for me, that was really what drew me in. Like, there's just something about watching a sketch with her where you can't quite look away in a good way, I think.Track 4:[7:47] Yeah, no, I agree. I agree. And I think sometimes, maybe sometimes I feel like I might throw around the term underrated or underappreciated a lot. But I honestly think in Sherry's case, it fits. And I have, I guess there are theories floating out there as to why she might be underappreciated. But if you actually look at her work, look at the type of performer that she was, I do think she probably should be talked about more and be held in higher regard than she is. So I really do think there's something to that, Jamie. It's not just like throwing out there like, oh, she's a little underappreciated. Like with Sherry O'Terry, I truly, truly think she is. So neither of us say that lightly. Absolutely. Yeah, I feel like she's somebody who...Track 4:[8:32] Just her role in that era, I hope that people recognize. And just, we've talked a little bit in the past in some of the earlier episodes, but just the role that she had in showing how funny female comedians on SNL can be. And just this willingness to go all out and commit fully. And I don't think she's the only one in her cast who does that. I feel like Molly, Will, many others embody that. But there's something to me special about Sherry in just the way that she went all in on things. And she's somebody who you could put her alongside Will Ferrell. And I would argue she doesn't get overshadowed. They match each other. And the chemistry just builds upon each other.Track 4:[9:19] And I feel like she had this knack for kind of elevating some of these sketches where she was working alongside other greats, other Hall of Famers. And she not only holds her own but just makes things so much better yeah i mean when you're trying to revive snl and we've talked about this before prior to season 21 they did almost a full house cleaning like molly was a carryover norm was a carryover there may be a few care but it was pretty much cleaning house from season 20 to season 21 and sherry i always thought crucial like almost a performer like that's necessary for the revival remind people just like how just how much that season 21 cast just revived this show yeah absolutely i feel like it was just a shift in a different kind of comedy at a time where the show really needed it right like it was away from that kind of like meaner vibe which had its time and place on the show but i feel like there were just aspects that were starting to feel a little bit tired, starting to feel not really keeping up with what people wanted to see. And I feel like the tone of the show really shifted into this very, like.Track 4:[10:40] Character centric we got lots of the great greatest of all time in my opinion recurring sketches recurring characters in this era and i feel like sherry in particular really embodied that kind of character actress character comedian and just not being afraid to be be silly and people responded to that really well i think and i think that was a big part of why why that era is remembered so fondly yeah i think it toward the end there it got exhausting just like there's a lot of that mean comedy a lot of the bad boy quote-unquote stuff and then we entered a stage you're right of like character driven a lot of goofy like a lot of goofball kind of comedy was very refreshing and sherry was such such a vital part of that as far as her path to snl cliff's notes not a ton honestly sherry seems a little private uh not a ton of known about her personal life she's from philadelphia the philadelphia area moved to la in her 20s she's a groundling so she did a lot of quality sketch training before starting at snl her audition was really great i don't know if you had a chance to see it it's on youtube uh so i encourage everyone to check that out but the her audition was like eight minutes and and what she showed in her audition she did three characters that ended up on the show but right away you can see like why Lorne and everybody else who saw that edition were like, we got to have Sherry. So I don't know, Jamie, if you've ever seen the audition. I haven't.Track 4:[12:08] Yeah, I do like them. I haven't watched hers. If I haven't, it's definitely been a while, so I'll have to go back and do that. Yeah, it's really fun. So she had a great audition. You could see why she got chosen for the cast. So she starts off 1995, season 21, Sherry O'Terry, Will Ferrell, the rest of the crew. So I want to get into it. like.Track 4:[12:30] What characters or sketches, Jamie, do you go to when you think about Sherry O'Terry? Yeah, so let me talk about a few characters because I feel like, honestly, most of my favorite Sherry sketches are around some of her well-known characters. And there are a few that are not, which we can talk about, too. But I feel like for me, a few of the ones that stand out, Rita Delvecchio, that like grouchy Philadelphia is the vibe woman who just is, I don't know if mean is the right word, but just that typical like kind of street smart lady.Track 4:[13:11] She's kind of like a little grumpy, but she's pretty likable at the same time. She's kind of that old lady who does who's like no nonsense she doesn't take any crap from the name especially the neighborhood kids i'm going on the porch for five minutes a piece the first one who calls me gets my slipper okay you kids got the whole street to play ball on but you're gonna play in front of my house that's okay because i keep it now okay i keep it it's mine now all right have your mother come get it i hear you smart ass but there's something very likable about her jamie like it's almost do you get the sense when you watch her do rita del vacchio that it's like a one-woman play it is i just for some for some reason that character in particular and like she does all sorts of different brands of like out there characters but for some reason like that what i just feel like is a connection and just work she does it so well and And the writing in most of the ones that she's done for her, I feel like, have been really solid. I feel like they tend to incorporate the host in a really fun way. Just kind of showing her amidst the neighborhood, I feel like.Track 4:[14:23] You then see kind of the host pop up and either like the neighbor or a kid or like all of these different like characters amidst her life. And it always just like feels really natural. Like I'm always happy when one of those sketches pops up in an episode. I'm like, Oh, we get to spend some time with Rhea. This is great. Yeah, no, it's amazing world building. And sometimes you're right. They'll, they'll work in the host and everything. And every now and then a character will come by a lot of times. It's just her standing there a lot of times by her front door, just like yelling at a neighbor. And she's and sherry's doing this such a good job of filling in the other person's dialogue there so it's just her on the screen but she's doing such a good job of making it a conversation.Track 4:[15:04] That only on screen only she's taking part in like she's so skilled at that and the whole role building this is something that she auditioned with she had this character sherry started building this whole world uh at the groundlings that that's just such a testament to her her talents is like a creative mind i think absolutely yeah i love the one with the the screen door and like the kids who are coming up to the screen door repeatedly that one always sticks sticks with me for some reason and you're right that is another example where it's like yes you have kids coming up to the door but she is like owning the comedy in each of those scenes and is having her like wild reactions to each one of those people coming up so completely yeah yeah and And she even made, in that particular installment, she even made kind of a boring host, Steve Forbes, like a very boring host. She actually made him, incorporated him really well into the sketch. She ended up stealing one of the kids' money that was coming up to take donations. She ended up taking the money and all of that. Yeah, that was a really great one with Steve Forbes. She puts a lot of love into that character. I think that's a great first choice.Track 4:[16:08] Yeah, she definitely does. And then I feel like for my second choice, and there's so many. But I just love Nadine and in terms of like when I was in high school and this era was I was in high school in the early 2000s ish so right around this era um there the whole like Simadown now, catchphrase was huge like I just remember friends I don't even know like when people first started saying it. I don't even think I really realized where it was coming from. And just like people embodying this character that she did on SNL only to like later recognize that connection. Excuse me, excuse me. My husband's been in a motorcycle accident. I think he broke his wrist. Yeah, I can't move it. It's swelling up really badly. Okay, everybody simmer down now.Track 4:[17:06] Listen, I would love to simmer down now, but you see my wrist is shattered. So I would encourage I encourage you to admit me now. Sir, your sass is unappreciated here. So before your obelisk becomes shattered, I suggest you fill out these forms and have a seat and then simmer down. That's correct. I love all of the Nadine sketches. I feel like the one with Garth Brooks is probably my favorite, like returning things at the desk there for the name of the store. But to me, that's a classic one and just, it's so fun. It's so fun. Yeah, yeah, I love it. You're ri…

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Introduce Yourself Aug 23, 2024

Show notes

Meet Joe and Shari as they assemble around the SNL Hall of Fame watercooler to discuss a variety of things relating the SNL and its Hall of Fame. Transcript:Track 2[0:22]All right. Welcome to the SNL Hall of Fame Water Cooler Podcast. I'm Joe Gannon and I'm sitting at the water cooler with...Track 3[0:30]Me, Shari Fasco. I'm very excited to be here. I've got my cup and I'm filling it up.Track 2[0:38]All right. And then there I go. All right. Let's get into it. All right. So on On this podcast, we're going to be talking about the SNL Hall of Fame and who we believe should and shouldn't be in it. But first, let's kind of just introduce ourselves. I'm Joe Gannon. I've been an SNL fan since, I guess, 1991. 91 and what I enjoyed about it was as I was watching it like as it was going on since 91 I got to watch the reruns like on Comedy Central E and whatnot so it's kind of cool seeing a show develop and then learn its history at the same time and I just found it absolutely fascinating about how important it is to our society about because the show makes fun of our society and politics, and everything. And the last thing is, I grew up in the central time zone, so the TV show was on at 10.30 to midnight. So to me, it was like a show that waited until the last hour and a half of the week to make fun of the previous week. And you, Sherry, introduce yourself.Track 3[2:00]Hi, I'm Shari, rhymes with Starry, as I tell everybody, and I am a Michigan native, and I have been into Saturday Night Live probably since I was about nine, since it started in 75. I was really, really young in 75, so I don't remember it that young, but I definitely, definitely remember watching it at like eight, nine, ten. I was really into Mr. Bill. I vaguely remember having a Mr. Bill t-shirt. I just always loved the show and it's always been like a rock for me. It's been something that I've always come back to when things are good and when things are not so good. My husband is also into it. He's been watching a lot of sketches with me lately, getting ready for this podcast. And it's just, it's really just, it's comfort food. Just like what Joe's saying, it's comfort food. It's something that's always been there. and now it's going into its 50th year. I'm 54. It's kind of incredible. It's kind of crazy to think that it's been around. So I'm really excited to be here with Joe. I think both of us are super excited to be talking about these incredible people. I think we're ready to get into it. Are we ready, Joe?Track 2[3:15]I believe so.Track 3[3:16]We're going to talk about the season six draft. We're each going to do the two people we would like to see get in. And then the two that we don't think really have much of a chance of getting in possibly. I will let you go ahead and go first, Joe, and then I'll go after you.Track 2[3:33]Okay. So the first person I think should get in is Lorraine Newman. I believe that the only reason why she hasn't gotten in sooner is there's just a series of people that are a little bit more obvious. Uh you know that just i feel like should be uh you know people that just feel like they should be in uh like will ferrell but um as far as the original cast like obviously everyone from the original five years should be in um as far as where lorraine is in that uh group she's not She's not really a household name. She wasn't a Ghostbuster. She wasn't a Blues Brother. She didn't have a sitcom afterward. Everyone knows Aykroyd, Murray, Jane Curtin, Chevy Chase, John Belushi. And I feel like Lorraine Newman, who is extremely talented, just doesn't have that star power name. So when people are voting and they see her name... It just doesn't connect, or they don't immediately remember all of the great sketches that she was a part of. Or, if they do, they remember someone else that was in that sketch.Track 2[5:01]So that's why I chose Lorraine Newman. All right, and who's your pick?Track 3[5:06]My pick, I just stuck to strictly the season six draft. So I went with one, two of the draftees for this coming season that I would like to seek it in that I'm not really hopeful about. But my first is Sherry O'Terry. For all of the reasons you just said about Lorraine, I think Sherry is very, very, very, very, very underappreciated. She is absolutely hilarious. hilarious she stands up against the likes of will freaking farrell and holds her own yes even though she's this diminutive little she can't be more than five two but against will farrell who's like i don't know six four she still holds her own her comedic chops are that strong that she can hold her own and i feel that way in the zimmermans with chris katan i i watched her playing against Sylvester Stallone in one of her Rita sketches. And she really is amazing and so funny and so able to bring real relatability to these outrageous characters that she plays.Track 3[6:19]And I'm feeling like I don't think she's going to get in on the first ballot, but I do hope that The people remember her. I know she was a long time ago. I remember her vividly because I was in college. And that's the time when you remember the gas.Track 3[6:38]So I hope there's a lot of Gen Xers and a lot of Zs and millennials that are going back and watching and listening to our great guest. And Thomas, of course, make an excellent argument for her this season, I'm sure. So that's my first choice. Now back to you.Track 2[7:01]You made a great point, and the only word I want to add to it, just literally one word, is energy. She was full of energy in pretty much everything she did. I mean, with the exception of maybe Barbara Walters, but that's because it wouldn't fit. But if you look at all of her characters, that's the common theme, is that she was almost like twitchy.Track 3[7:23]I totally agree.Track 2[7:24]But, yeah. That's an excellent, excellent pick. Okay, so I'm going to go with my one, and we're going to continue the female trend. Someone a little bit more current. I'm going to go with Kate McKinnon.Track 3[7:41]Absolutely.Track 2[7:42]She, yes, yes, yes. She is one of those people, she reminds me of Amy Poehler in the sense that her talent seems to have been made for Saturday Night Live. Um now just i want to say this on our first episode uh to me the three things that make up a great snl cast member are characters impressions and hosting we can update not doing characters but hosting now you don't need to do all three to be great sometimes you can like jimmy fallon will ferrell dan ackroyd uh sometimes you can do just one dennis miller however when you do two or three, that shows that you're able to play any position.Track 2[8:31]So with that being said, with Kate McKinnon, she did characters and impressions extremely well.Track 2[8:39]The various characters, like the alien abductions sketch, that to me is timeless. That is one of the latest great reoccurring sketches. Sketches um and then as far as her impressions uh you look at amy puller who did like you know hillary clinton um and ever uh ever levine um kate mckinnon said hold my beer and then did uh not only female impressions but male she did rudy giuliani uh and such and a bunch of other politicians um and just i mean i'm having a hard time thinking of all you know it's trying to like name all the santa's reindeer or the seven dwarves you know you like you get down a few or you're like wait uh there's also uh you know so i'm i don't want to um take up too much time saying a lot of urs and ums as i try and think of them all but she is just where she just blended into those impressions and then characters and she was like Phil Hartman where she could be in she could do the whole show, you know she could do and it was almost unfair to the other cast members I don't want to overhype her too much you can't overhype her but.Track 2[10:02]I will. I do, but I want to be fair to everyone else. I want to be fair. I don't want to make it seem like the rest of the cast that they were less. I don't want to make them seem like they were less than they were.Track 3[10:16]But she's amazing.Track 2[10:18]But she was just, Kate McKinnon was just, her talent was made for Saturday Night Live. And I'm not going to lie, I miss her.Track 3[10:28]She definitely left a hole and she was part of a she was part of a trinity when you talk about her and cecily 80 unbelievable with things like twin bad i mean back home ballers just amazing the three of them together will just fire so excellent choice joe i'm gonna shake things i'm gonna shake things up a little i'm gonna i'm gonna break i'm finally gonna break up our like female male domination that's going on, which I love, but I'm going to break it up a bit. Like I said, I chose two from season six because that's where my head was at, and I chose a musical act, and I know J.D. Mentions this. Thomas mentions this.Track 3[11:12]Musical guests don't seem to get into the Hall of Fame. I think Paul Simon might be the only one still. Dave Grohl is knocking on the door, and he's he's on my list but the act i want to talk about they're coming up this season like i said is one of my favorite bands and remember i'm a gen xer so i know you know joe who i'm talking about uh you too you do i mean i watched a couple of performances it's hard to find musical performances especially when you don't have peacock which i know right i know snl fan without peacock But anyways, I love you two. I could not believe how amazing they were on that 8-H stage. Thomas made a really good point in the draft episode.Track 3[12:03]They were selling out stadiums at this time. I mean, they were huge at this time. But then they could bring it down and be right on that 8-H stage and be intimate and personal. And Bono, let's face it, it's the Bono show, right? The man can sing. He has charisma oozing out of his pores. And he just captivates. And that's exactly what he did. it. These days on current SNL, the musical acts are really getting out of control. And I know they talk about this in several of the podcasts I listen to. They're throwing all these dancers and visual effects and explosions. You don't need it. If you can sing and you're talented, you don't need it. U2 does not need it. I'd love to see them get in at some point. I hope they get at the 10% to at least stay on the ballot. But after Dave Grohl, I think they should be in next because they're just amazing. So those are my two.Track 2[13:07]All right. So let's get into the two that we think definitely won't. I just want to go first because I want to continue the trend of what we're talking about with the musical guests. Now, you said that it's going to be really hard for musical guests to get into the Hall of Fame, because they're not really a major part of the show. They're rememberable, but not as much as the cast, the writing, the host. So they're kind of like the fourth tier. But they're very important, don't get me wrong. It's just not one of the initial people that you think of when you think of the show. So as far as my first pick, I'm going to say Randy Newman. I agree with everything that was said when they were doing the ballot show. I agree with Randy Newman's great toy story. I love L.A. He's funny. When he accepted an Oscar, I don't remember specifically what he said, but he had a great Oscar speech.Track 2[14:10]Let's just put it this way. When you're voting for an SNL Hall of Fame, you know, person, I doubt that you're going to vote for Randy Newman. I mean, there's just a lot of people ahead of him in line, you know, like, you know, like the people that we're saying, you know, and then there's you got, you know, you got hosts that are well known. You got cast members that are well known. Writers are kind of a gray area, you know. And then musical guests are just hard to get into, period. And then Randy Newman is, you know, like people might know him from Toy Story and such, but they might not know him that well, or at least current people or whatnot. And I'm not saying anything, I don't want to say anything too much, too negative about him, but he's just not really a household name anymore. So with that being said, like it would be hard to vote him in the snl hall of fame so yeah i don't i don't know what more i could say after that it's just kind of kind of cut and dry i guess like you know like it's hard for a musical guest to get in and he's not really that well known as a musical guest so agreed.Track 3[15:30]In fact i agree so much my first totally won't get in was also randy newman and i'm not gonna to rehash it because you said it well. And even when J.D. nominated him in the draft, he said that he wondered if people would remember because he hasn't been... I mean, I'm sure he's still doing music for movies and doing movie songs and things, but you don't hear about him much. Like, I don't know if he had a new song in the new Pixar movie, the one that just came out or not. But yeah, I'm not going to go into it too much since you did a great job. I will go on to my second person and then I'll throw it back to you. My second person is a writer and I have to disagree with you a little bit. I actually, well, I don't know quite how you feel about writers, but you kind of sounded like you thought they were gray area. I don't think they're gray area. I think writing comes first. Great writing.Track 2[16:34]I don't think it's important. It's just not, the writers might not be well known.Track 3[16:38]Oh, I agree with that. But I feel that writers are the most important. They're that base ingredient. read yet. I don't care if you have the best cast in the world, if the sketch sucks and is poorly written and the characters aren't well-developed, nobody's going to be able to bring that to life. Whereas if you have a great sketch or a great script, a so-so actor, like say even myself, could do a good job with it. I think writing is essential. I don't think writers get enough love in the Hall of Fame. I don't think they get enough love in general. So that all being said, I'm going to talk about Alan Zweibel. Unfortunately, unlike Jim Downey, who I'm so happy got in, he doesn't have name recognition. He's done a lot. I've been reading a lot about him, and I was sent a list of the sketches he's worked on. I mean, Roseanne, Rosanna, Dana, Anna, Letella, Emily Letella. He worked very closely with Gilda, very close with Gilda. He was very, very, very, very essential to those early years.Track 3[17:56]Unfortunately, and I worry about this with Garrett Morris, too. I don't want to get off track, and Lorraine. People don't have long memories always. And especially these days, Joe, you know the kids are jumping on, they're watching sketches, they're watching the Beavis and Butthead sketch, they're not watching the whole show. So it's very different now. And I feel like writers like Alan Zubow have been lost to the anals of time, unfortunately. And maybe I'll be wrong. I hope I am wrong, but I feel like there's other writers ahead of him a bit. However i'd be thrilled if he got in i'd like to see writers get more love but i don't think…

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Beck Bennett Aug 19, 2024

Show notes

This week on the SNL Hall of Fame podcast we welcome back to the show, Kirstin Rajala to discuss and build a case for Beck Bennett.Transcript: Track 2:[0:42] Thank you so much, Doug DeNance. It is a thrill to be back here in the SNL Hall of Fame, bringing to you the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. Once again, we're back for season six. We really hope you enjoyed the draft episode. Now, why don't you come inside? You might notice I'm looking at your feet. Wipe them. Know what I'm saying? So there's that. The SNL Hall of Fame podcast is a weekly affair fair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer and add them to the ballot for your consideration.Track 2:[1:20] Once the nominees have been announced, we turn to you, the listener, to vote for the most deserving and help determine who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall. And that's how we play the game. It's just that simple. I am so pumped to be working with Matt and Thomas again for another season. We've got a banger of a year. We've got some fantastic, fantastic nominees and some really amazing special guests this season to nominate those nominees and build the case for them. We're also doing something a little different this year. We've got a new sister show that will be released on Thursdays or Fridays. I'm still flirting with that. If you have a preference, whether it's Thursdays or Fridays, send me an email, the SNL hall of fame at gmail.com. That's right. It's a new email address because it's a new year. It's a new season and we need a new email address. So there's that. Now, I will say that the SNL Water Cooler will be a visitation, a revisitation of the week's episode, and it'll also take a look at the episode of SNL, whether or not there are Hall-worthy performances or Hall-of-Shame-worthy performances that we might analyze down the road when we nominate so-and-so.Track 2:[2:47] So there's that. What do you say we wander down the hall and talk to our good friend Matt Ardill? I am going to pivot and make my way down the corridor here. Ah, there he is, leaning against the wall like a slug. Hey, if you got time to lean, you got time to clean, my boy.Track 3:[3:06] Matt, you've been around for four seasons, five seasons at this point. This is the beginning of your fifth season. How are you doing, man? Good, good. I'm happy to be here. And how about you, J.D.? I am pretty much good. I was camping, and I've been eaten alive. My ankles are all itchy, but other than that, I cannot complain. Yeah, but you got some fresh air, got out of the city, so that's always good. That's right.Track 3:[3:33] So what do you got for us this week? Today, I have Beck Bennett. Nice. Five foot eight, born on the best day of the year in Willamette, Illinois. Shares a birthday with luminaries such as Julie Andrews, Jimmy Carter, and myself. Hey. October 1st, 1984, which makes me feel all the more useless because he's 10 years my junior and has achieved so much more than I have. Oh, stop. Stop. Yeah, no, but he grew up a theater kid performing in children's theater at the Children's Theater of Winnetka. And in high school, played Jean Valjean at the New Tierra High School performance of Les Miserables. Yeah. So, now, he did go on to attend University of Southern California and the USC School of Dramatic Arts. Where he met and formed the sketch troupe Good Neighbor with Kyle Mooney, Nick Rutherford, and Dave McCary, all of whom went on to work at SNL.Track 3:[4:39] Now, after joining Good Neighbor, they created a series of sketch comedy shorts on YouTube which uh kind of make the parodies that they did later on in snl all the funnier um but this led to a series of ads where he's the at&t guy uh that uh had him interviewing children in a mock political talk show that's right yeah yeah uh and now that went on to become 84 acting credits seven writing credits eight producing credits four soundtrack credits including possibly the only person who can adequately capture the wonder that is launchpad mcquack on the ducktales reboot um now if anybody could do a live action ducktales that would be him i would love to see uh actually a darkwing duck reboot and bring back beck as launchpad but uh not you can only dream yeah yeah well you know disney plus is going to need to mine that content eventually um but yeah so he went on to marry jesse hodges another actor and they have a child together born march of 2022.Track 3:[6:03] Well, I definitely miss him on SNL. Yeah. He was somebody that became, like really grew into his role, I felt. And I really enjoyed him. And I also enjoy our friend Thomas Senna, who is in the conversation room with Kirsten Rajula right now, getting ready to teach us more about Beck Bennett. Matt, are you ready for that? I am looking forward to it. Well, let's get right to it.Track 4:[7:00] Alright, JD, Matt, thank you so much. Hey guys, welcome to another season of the SNL Hall of Fame podcast. I am joined today by, like, we had to kick off the season of discussions with just, like, an all-timer guest. So we're talking about all-timer nominees. Every week we talk about all-timer, you know, people from SNL history.Track 4:[7:25] I had to kick it off this week with an all-timer guest. So joining me for the first discussion of Season 6 for our first nominee is the one, the only, the lovely world traveler, Kristen Rahula. How's it going, Kirsten? It's great. What an intro. Thank you very much. And I didn't know this was the first. Oh my gosh. It's lovely to see your face and hear your voice. Yes, I've been traveling, and yes, I'm excited to be talking about SNL once again with some of my favorite people, the other super fans. And this episode is going to be great because we are talking about someone truly, truly deserving and who is so much fun to talk about because they are in everything. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Like ubiquitous right there with, of course, Beck Bennett, who's our nominee to kick off season six of the SNL Hall of Fame. Kirsten, so I like to do the plugs at the top of the discussion, the way this is formatted. So do you have anything? What's going on in Kirsten's world lately? Well, for people in the Toronto area, my bestie and I do an event series, and it's intergenerational storytelling, female voices. So if you're in the Toronto area, it's generationwomen.ca. Please come and listen to women of all ages tell beautiful stories. It's a really fun event, and we would love the support.Track 4:[8:54] Yes, that sounds awesome. Yeah, go check that out. Also, listen to Kirsten. You're probably going to be a panelist, I assume, for Saturday Night Network's coverage on Season 50? Heck yeah. Yeah, check us out on the Saturday Night Network, where we also cover all things SNL with an even larger group of superfans. That is also a fun one, so check that out. They have shows multiple times throughout the week. Yeah, yeah. I love hearing Kirsten pop up, whether it's a hot take show or the roundtables. Yeah, I love hearing Kirsten pop up. So check her out on the Saturday Night Network. But today we were chatting about our first nominee for season six. That's the one, the only Mr. Beck Bennett. So a little bit of the CliffsNotes here before we kind of get a dig into Beck's SNL time. When he was a freshman in college, he met Kyle Mooney. They started doing sketch and improv together. It was at USC. They were part of Good Neighbor, along with Nick Rutherford and Dave McCary, Mr. Emma Stone himself, Dave McCary. Beck was in a run of AT&T commercials in which he interviewed children. Do you remember these, Kirsten?Track 4:[10:13] No, because I'm in Canada. I was wondering. That's why I asked. I don't know what kind of TV y'all get up there. They don't have AT&T, so yeah, I wouldn't have seen it. But I'm going to look them up. Okay, yeah, so it was a series of commercials. He sat there. It was like a circle of children. He would ask them different questions, I think pertaining to phone service or something like that. So that's where I knew Beck. So when he got on SNL, I was like, oh, there's that guy from the phone commercials. That's crazy. He does sketch comedy. Okay, let's see what this is about. out uh so yeah yeah you need to go youtube some of those at&t commercials and you'll see beck put on his his commanding voice like like like he liked to do on the show um so he was making a nice career for himself when he got the call so september of 2013 he began his snl tenure along with his good neighbor cohorts along with kyle mooney debuted uh right then too so kirsten like what were any initial impressions you may have had uh of beck bennett when he first kind of got on your radar. What'd you think of him?Track 4:[11:17] He's one of those people, it's a little hard to separate all of the characters he plays with who I imagine he is in real life. I picture him as the kind of failure-to-launch jock at your high school read. But I know he's probably not. He's wonderful, I'm sure, and a very smart, smart man, because clearly someone has got to be intelligent to pull off the kind of nuance and range that he does. But it's fun to think of him as that man-child that he always was, bit of a douche, often befuddled, making the wrong choices. Like you love him but you're like shaking your head so he at the beginning kind of very quickly started to establish himself as like fitting into those slots you saw him play a dumb kind of doofus dad typical middle-aged white guy and he did all of those things with enthusiasm so.Track 4:[12:12] While some people start off kind of awkward and they're trying to tentatively find their way at SNL I wonder if it's because he had Kyle with him yeah that they really jumped into it and their style of comedy pretty easily and quickly yeah they brought in a lot of good like their good neighbor stuff like those SoCal's like inside SoCal was a good neighbor thing uh you're right like he just played this doofus what I like to call in the comedy realm confidently dumb um yes i think that's like was beck's you know that was his forte in a lot of ways just such a confidently dumb guy like stick into his guns but it's like it's just the wrong way to go and yeah so good at that um delving into his highlights like is there a certain role over his eight seasons that you think he kind of did settle into oh gosh yes again the confidently dumb. Like, where his colleagues, like other folks on the show, would go between, you know, playing a bit of a dumb-dumb, but then also.Track 4:[13:22] You know, they could play like a rocket scientist. He was typically, which is funny because I just said he has range and I still think he does, but he typically was in the kind of befuddled, even like a Mitch McConnell, he was kind of blubbering. Right. And so he, yes, he always nailed that. I'm the last one who gets the joke, but I'm going to laugh as confidently as the person who told it. Yeah. He brought that spirit to so many things. It, even when it was him doing the SoCal stuff or, you know, kind of playing teenage or child roles with Kyle, always kind of a bit of a doofus. Yeah, yeah. So he was that he also was able to play like, sometimes kind of more of a straight dad kind of character.Track 4:[14:10] Usually when he played a dad, it was like from some sort of angle, like a downtrodden dad or a dumb dad or something like that. But he, man, he settled so nicely in his eight seasons. Indispensable, in my opinion, toward the end there, I think. Absolutely. Like a real cornerstone of the cast. And a combination of physical comedy, absurdity, but then also subtlety. Like there were really small choices that he made that...Track 4:[14:43] Or what brought those kind of doofus characters to like the way he'd hold his face or kind of you know the intonation certainly kyle was the you know crown wear of intonation and flat affect but he was right there with him so a lot of a lot of subtle things that they did so it's funny because at one point he's playing you know office boss baby and he's you know flinging his limbs around but then he can also just with one kind of slack jaw do something completely different right right Right. Yeah, that office boss, I want to kind of start getting into his actual work. And that baby boss, he debuted that in his first season. I think he might have auditioned with that, it seems like. But it was Mr. Patterson, baby boss. Like, was it the physicality of Beck? Does it totally shine through instantly, Kirsten? A hundred percent. Yeah, he ended up doing that four different times. Sometimes, the creepiest one was with Cameron Diaz because they were actually talking about relations and her giving him a bath in the kitchen sink and that they were going to try and make a baby or they were pregnant. It got a little awkward there. I think they were pregnant. Yeah, a little awkward. Well, I'm not worried. You're going to be a great mother. Come here, you.Track 4:[16:06] You. Could we maybe just do a little toast here? Congratulations. A toast. Oh, look at that. A lemon. Been meaning to try one of these. Cheers. Mm, it's good, it's tart. But I like that they kind of put him back into other situations, you know, in the office and, He nailed it. Anyone who has spent a time around a toddler, baby or toddler, instantly is taken back to the way that they fumble with objects, the way they are amazed by holding something up in front of their face, distracted.Track 4:[16:53] The way they move around, slide downstairs. There is like it's such a studied performance which sounds hilarious to say but if you know you know he nailed that baby he nailed that damn baby character so well and it was such an interesting yeah yeah he's trying to give high fives oh my god the keys to distract him trying the lemon like there are so many little moments and it's such a weird concept but it worked and you know it did I did feel at times if they had, you know, they had like a Josh Hutcherson and they had Cameron Diaz and people that they're not always building a sketch around.Track 4:[17:31] Picking on Josh a bit, but that he would, you know, be the character of and they kind of put those other folks in reaction to him was a great sketch for that to happen. And if you needed to support that type of host. Yeah he always he he had that great timing and he knew how to deliver and he almost played against himself uh as you alluded to where where he would uh as the boss he would speak very like boss like like try to be commanding and he would say things that were commanding but then he would do and say things one second later of course that were baby like so beck got that he was able to shift back and forth between like oh we're so we're so proud we're going to be uh we're expecting we're going be raising a family and then he sees a lemon and it's like oh i've always wanted to try one of these and then let's appreciate how tough it would be like to the duality of those two things.Track 4:[18:26] Acting like a baby, but sounding like a CEO. Yeah. That's just weird and wild. And I don't know that we all are appreciating how darn tough that would be. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think this was probably the first character, certainly first recurring character that got attention for sure. You could go check out, that's early Beck in like season 39 and on. So that was like the baby boss.…

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Season Six Draft Aug 12, 2024

Show notes

We're back and it's season 6! As is typical we've assembled a group to draft the nominees we will discuss this coming season. Join jD, Matt, and Thomas as they get together to build season 6!Transcript:[0:00] Thank you, Doug Donance. It's JD here, and I am thrilled to be back in the SNL Hall of Fame. Let me see if my key works, but before I do that, I'll wipe my feet. The SNL Hall of Fame is a weekly affair where each episode we take a deep dive into the career of a former cast member, host, musical guest, or writer, and add them to the ballot for your consideration. Consideration once the nominees have been announced we turn to you the listener to vote for the most deserving and help determined who will be enshrined for perpetuity in the hall and that's how we play the game it's just that simple but you know what behind the scenes folks it's not that simple because we have to curate a list of who we are going to discuss every season and we found the most fun way to achieve that is with a draft and we're going to do that again this year before we explain the rules i want to introduce the other two drafteteers they are your friends and mine matt ardill and thomas santa how are you doing fellas hello jd good Good to see you. Hey, J.D., great thanks.[1:28] That's a little inside baseball there, Thomas.[1:33] So, Thomas, do you want to go through the intricate rules of the draft? You are the master of the draft, after all. All right, sure thing. So, this is the third season, I think, that we've done a draft and had a draft episode. So, there's parameters. So the three of us, we each get five picks. So 15 total, we each get five picks. We each have to pick two cast members. We each have to pick one host.[2:05] We each have to pick a musical guest or a writer, and then we have the wild card. We can do whatever the heck we want with this, as long as it's a cast member, host, musical guest, or writer. But we have the wild card there. So that adds up to five picks each, 15 total, and I have in my hand a coaster that I'm going to flip. I'm going to give either JD or Matt the first pick. Uh so i want matt to call heads or tails matt uh tails tails it is so matt ardeal gets the first pick uh jd you get the second pick and i'll i'll round things out and get the last pick that's how the draft is working today folks um okay well i think for my first draft pick i am going to go with Garrett Morris aside from being an original cast member he's a Juilliard trained performer he can sing, dance, act the entire Nine Yards he just has incredible chops.[3:16] Amazing sketches or bits like the White Guild Relief Fund impressions of Chubby Checker that he did with Carrie Fisher first appearance of a Marvel character as ant-man um that's right and uh you know i i watched this one interview where he was talking about death row follies and it's like it was really interesting he was talking about how he was with harry belafonte's band and they were just chatting and he's like so the entire process was lauren just had an idea for a sketch and sent them off to write he didn't give him any direction It's like you're on death row, you're performing. And he's he went back to this memory. He's talking about how the core of improv is drawing from your experiences. He went back to this memory of talking to Harry Belafonte, band member who had watched an old like 1950s TV show. And if you remember the sketch, his bit is I'm going to get me a shotgun and kill all the whitest I see. And he's like well that actually originated from this old 1950s this is your life type of show where this woman had written over 300 songs and they brought her up from the audience and sat her down to interview her and.[4:32] Kind of of how the song went but she was a white woman from the south and uh so you can imagine how that was so he took it and flipped it and used that for comedy and it's just like you know it just brings so brought so much to the table and i feel like out of the original cast he's one of those people who just is is not given as much respect or acknowledgement as he's due and And I think it's his time to shine. JD, so this is Garrett's one of the last remaining original cast members that we have yet to discuss. This is exciting. What do you think, Jamie?[5:13] Yeah, I'm excited that we're kicking it off with an old school, an original seven. Is it seven? Right, it was seven. Do we count George Coe and Michael O'Donohue? Oh, no, I'm not. The core. I'm talking about the core. It's almost the same as the NHL where they have the original six, but there was errors before that had eight teams, you know, but whatever I digress, I think it's a great pick. I think it's an exciting pick for a show like ours. I know that he will be a tent pool, a tent pole rather in terms of episodes, you've probably noticed in the past that we, we stack, front stack and back stack with more high-profile performers or nominees, and Garrett Morris will certainly be one of those. That being said... I don't see him as a first ballot Hall of Famer. Lorraine Newman didn't make it in on the first ballot. And I can't imagine him doing better than Lorraine Newman.[6:18] Because I think, based on a time and place, he was critically misused. Yes. You know? He was the epitome of, you know, the South Park gag, the token, right? It almost smacks you in the face because you don't see him ever. And then when you do see him, it's like there's flashes of brilliance, like you were mentioning that. So I anticipate him going in, but not as a first ballot Hall of Famer. Yeah, there's not as much meat on the bone as far as his resume as a lot of cast members, but not necessarily his fault. Which i'll be interested to see if what if the voters may take that into account or anything but definitely you know a beloved original cast member i think this is uh this is an interesting um choice that makes sense for for an episode for us yeah i i think so i'm going to start with somebody who just really epitomizes my experience with snl in the last 12 years i would say I started watching this performer and I didn't like him that much unless he was with this other guy.[7:40] And then I started to like them as a duo.[7:44] And then I really saw that this next nominee was outshining not only his comedic partner, but several other male cast members. And I'm talking about Beck Bennett, who just recently became eligible for the Hall of Fame. So that may hurt his chances of getting in right away. But i think he's versatile i think he's the kind of guy and i know we overuse this statement but you ask him to do anything and he'll do it you know like he doesn't know an impression you know what he'll put it together in a week it's like that old school mentality yeah i don't know how to do a putin impression oh i know what i'll do i'll take off my shirt you know and and sound vaguely russian you know but it was one of my favorite reoccurring characters and i think one of the last sketches he did i might be wrong but it's a solo sketch with him as vin diesel yep that was his and that was the last sketch of of the of the night right yep yeah the onya taylor joy episode yeah that's right i just got such a kick out i got such a kick out of it so it was like Like, I sound so old when I say that, but I am. So there you go. By the time you're hearing this, I'm 50. I'm 50.[9:11] So that's my pick. Matt, what do you think? I agree. I think that's an awesome pick. I've always felt he's one of those performers that really grew on me. The longer he was on screen, the more I saw him. And yeah, I think I think that's a terrific choice. Also, he's he's in DuckTales. So, you know, I can't fault him there, you know, like.[9:37] Talented man of many many talents so if you ever want to hear a fantastic episode of it's a great podcast it's a stand-up comedian that hosts it there i'm narrowing it down substantially aren't i uh and it's got um he used to be in the hbo show called crashing oh pete homes pete homes yes Yes, he has a podcast, and he interviews Beck Bennett on an episode. Sorry, folks, for that previous ramble. That was very riveting podcasting, I know. But at any rate, he is featured on this episode of the podcast, and it's a long-form interview. It's like a three-hour interview, but they get into it. And he was a multimillionaire when he signed to go work at Saturday Night Live on the basis of those insurance company commercials he was doing with the kids. Oh, wow. I don't know if you ever saw that campaign, but it was a national campaign in the US and he booked it. And it became a reoccurring thing. And by the time it reoccurred for the fifth time, they signed him for six figures to do it. Oh, jeez.[10:49] And pete holmes pulls that out of him like afterwards he's so mortified because pete holmes like is like he's like would you get like 50k he's like no he's like 200k he's like oh i don't really want to talk about it like 750k it's like okay it was a million dollars.[11:10] I digress on the insurance commercials yeah yeah it was it was uh their telephone phone commercials telephone commercials yeah he had a group of kids and he was almost like the moderator and ask kids questions or whatever and so when he got hired to snl i was like oh that's the guy from the commercials so i had already known his face and i'm like i didn't know he did comedy and he's on snl now that's gonna be interesting he turned into like a steady hand he turned into like like basically almost the rock of the show like he and keenan we're almost like the steady hand rocks of of the of that era of snl i'm excited about talking about back, Yeah, it's going to be a great episode, I suspect. Who do you have for us? Yeah. Try. So I am going to go, I want to go a different route. I'm going to use my musical guest early. And probably in a lot of ways because I think I already have a guest booked for this. One of my favorite guests to bring on the SNL Hall of Fame to talk music. So I'm going to pick you two as a nominee. And with the understanding that musical guests haven't had such great luck here on the SNL Hall of Fame, I think Paul Simon is in, and that's about it. I think I'm going to keep banging this drum all season. Dave Grohl should be in, and I will be talking about that as much as I can.[12:40] This is Dave Grohl's final season on the ballot. But I digress. You two, amazing band. Some memorable appearances at SNL four times on the show. And I think I have an awesome guest lined up to talk about U2. So I'm going to take U2 off the board early as my musical guest. They would have been one of my picks tonight, I suspect. They were on my musical shortlist if I didn't pick a writer. So they could have ended up a wild card for me. That being said, when did their appearances start? Were they always like a superstar band on the show? Well, that's the thing. Yeah, no, I don't think they appeared until the 90s.[13:23] Until like Octane Baby. Yeah, that's one of the things about them. From my recollection, I think they did pop. But they didn't appear when the Joshua Tree came out. They kind of missed like that. So I think their first appearances were in the 90s. So that'll be discussed, I'm sure. On our show as far as like timing of their appearances to me it reminds me maybe a little bit of prince in some ways uh as far as timing of their appearances for me they appeared after i'd already burnt out on them like i was that joshua tree era fan and really wasn't that zuropa.[14:03] You know kind of era didn't really click for me but i do know a lot of people of my age who were completely over the moon when they were on snl uh so yeah i mean they're a great band no arguments there but uh i don't know it's just for me they don't they aren't as as it isn't as memorable but i i can understand why because they are still such an amazing band and they did really put it all on the table whenever they did perform i just think for me the fact that the first time they showed up on SNL, if they were touring Octoon Baby, then it was either the Zoo TV tour, which was a stadium tour, or it was the one that had the cars hanging from the arena. I forget what that part of the tour was called before they went into Zoo TV and stadiums. So you have this band that's playing stadiums around the world coming into 8H.[15:00] This little wee stage. Right. That's what I mean. That's frickin' Hall of Fame. Yeah, I agree. That's one of the fascinating things about SNL and musical guests is sometimes we take for granted, like Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift or somebody like that. We're seeing these acts in a more intimate setting instead of these stadiums. U2 definitely qualifies. I think that's a really good point. Yeah, so that's my pick. We have Garrett Morris, Beck Bennett and you, too. It's back to Matt.[15:32] I'm going to go with my host card next. I am going to nominate Adam Driver. Again, one of those really strong players. He really brings his heart to every performance and he'll do things that like I'm pretty sure other people of his caliber of stardom would really push back on. I mean, you look at that cold open sketch that where he was Epstein and John Lovitz was Alan Dershowitz during the impeachment trial, the dark gallows humor that he was willing to go to in that for that sketch.[16:11] But then you also see like really over the top, silly things like when he was playing Dr. Rock hard, the porn doctor. And it's just, he's willing to like, you know, he's another one of those performers like Jon Hamm, like the star, his stardom doesn't get in the way of him doing silly stuff that takes down his own myth, like even like the undercover boss is Kylo Ren is so I'm going with Adam driver. Great pick. I think Adam driver, he wasn't on my short list, but I think it's a fantastic pick because he's. He doesn't have a dud. He doesn't have a dud episode. And that's key to being a Hall of Fame host, in my opinion. I tend to lean toward the five-timer being, you know, sort of a cutoff for me, and he just misses that.[17:06] But man, I can't wait to see those other performances working with this group that is starting to really find itself yeah this adam driver is one to me he's one of the better hosts of this whole era of snl and matt you did me a favor because adam driver was on like a short list and i was going to be debating between the shipping driver these other people so you just made that decision easier for me uh by taking adam driver because he was definitely on my like short very short list of hosts uh that i was considering he's just a guy He did some comedic stuff in Girls. He had some comedic moments, but I wouldn't describe him as a comedian or a comedic actor, but he showed those chops on SNL. I think a lot of times that's what happens. A lot of those good actors tend to do really well as SNL hosts because they can just slide in and do really quality sketch work. He was definitely up for anything. I love this. I'm super pumped to talk about Adam Driver. Yeah, it's going to be a great conversation. Anyone in mind off the top of your head? Not at all.[18:15] I'll put the fillers out there. I'll get…

Full show notes at the publisher

Class of Season Five Nomination Episodes Revisited Jul 22, 2024

Show notes

Al Franken and Tom Davis were among the last writers hired for Season One of Saturday Night Live.

They repeated this behaviour concerning their induction into the SNL Hall of Fame. On their last kick at the can before being struck from the ballot, the duo hit the threshold of 66% in the Class of Season Five.

They finally took a place they rightfully deserved.

On this episode of the program we go back to mid-March of Season One where Dave Buckman joined us to discuss the merits of the pair of writers/comedians.

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Class of Season Five Nomination Episodes Revisited Jul 15, 2024

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This week on the show, we revisit the nomination episode for Molly Shannon from Season One, Episode Fourteen.

Of course, this episode is appropriate because Ms. Shannon is an inductee into the SNL Hall of Fame in the Class of Season Five.

Molly was inducted with 68.18% of the vote on her fifth and final ballot.

So join Jamie Burwood and jD as they discuss the career of SNL SUPASTAR, Molly Shannon.

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Class of Season Five Nomination Episodes Revisited Jul 08, 2024

Show notes

Maya Rudolph made it into the Hall of Fame this past season with a whopping 84.55% of the ballot. It's good that she made it as this was her last year on the ballot. Congratulations Maya, you deserve it! And now we'll revisit her nomination episode from Season One with Liz Shannon Miller!

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