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    ‘S.N.L.’ Celebrates 50 Years With Star-Studded Prime-Time Special

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    Stage and audience alike at Studio 8H were packed with cast, alumni and other celebrities in a night that was in turns sweet and self-satirizing.After a half-century of comedy and music (and what at times felt like an equal amount of buildup and hype), how do you at last kick off a prime-time 50th anniversary special for “Saturday Night Live”? Calmly and serenely, it turns out.The long-awaited “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” opened on Sunday with the musicians Paul Simon (an “S.N.L.” stalwart through the decades) and Sabrina Carpenter (who was its musical guest in May 2024) sharing the stage at the show’s familiar home base at Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.They exchanged a simple joke, setting a theme that would recur for the rest of the night: Time passes, whether you like it or not. Simon said they were about to play a song that he had performed on the show with George Harrison in 1976. “I was not born then,” Carpenter said, “and neither were my parents.”“I’m glad they’ll get the chance to hear it tonight,” Simon replied. And together he and Carpenter performed Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound,” the first musical number in a night that also included performances by Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus with Brittany Howard and Lil Wayne with the Roots.And who else could perform the opening monologue on this occasion but Steve Martin, a 16-time host whose own rising star in the 1970s imparted some needed credibility and momentum to “S.N.L.” when it was just starting out.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lorne Michaels Reflects on His ‘S.N.L.’ Legacy Ahead of the 50th Anniversary

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      Is it possible that Lorne Michaels is Lorne-ed out?Even for a man who enjoys being famous, all the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of “Saturday Night Live,” all the extra attention it has brought him, has been a bit much.“I say this not with any sense of modesty — I was famous enough,” Michaels said recently at Orso, one of his favorite New York haunts. Someone who knew him once sardonically suggested Michaels would like to have “LEGENDARY” stitched into his underwear. And he is, after all, known in some circles by one name, like Beyoncé, Cher, Ichiro. But Michaels demurs.“Everybody who had to know me, knew me,” he said. “I wasn’t in the public eye. But now, walking over here, a young comedian came up and said, ‘How would I audition?’”I said I would have loved to have seen that encounter.“You would not love that,” he said in his bone-dry voice and signature cadence.Since the 50th season premiered last fall, the anniversary of “S.N.L.,” one of a fragmented America’s few remaining communal cultural events, has inspired a steady stream of tributes to the show and its creator. There was a Jason Reitman origin-story movie called “Saturday Night,” as well as hundreds of feature stories and listicles in the press. Last month there was a four-part docuseries on the show and another documentary on just the music. Friday night brings an “S.N.L” concert at Radio City Music Hall, livestreaming on Peacock. A 600-plus page biography of Michaels titled “Lorne,” by Susan Morrison, an editor at The New Yorker, comes out next week.It all culminates on Sunday with a live three-hour prime-time special looking back on “S.N.L.” and its singular legacy. Like a Veterans Day parade with troops from different wars marching by, “S.N.L.” stars from different decades, among many other celebrities young and old — guests include Paul McCartney, Robert De Niro, Steve Martin, Sabrina Carpenter, Tom Hanks, Kim Kardashian and Dave Chappelle — are swirling around New York, ready to help Michaels celebrate the golden anniversary.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wallace and Gromit Creator Discusses the Characters, Technology and the Queen

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      Nick Park’s latest film in the stop-motion series is up for multiple awards at the BAFTAs and the Oscars.Wallace and Gromit is something of an institution in the entertainment world. Since its introduction more than 35 years ago, the stop-motion series has won three Oscars and five BAFTAs. The two protagonists — Wallace, the cheese-eating inventor, and Gromit, the long-suffering dog — have even appeared on Royal Mail stamps.The animation series’ latest iteration — “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” — is now back in the awards race with nominations at Sunday’s EE British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs, and the Oscars in March.“Vengeance Most Fowl” was directed by Wallace and Gromit’s creator, Nick Park, and by Merlin Crossingham, who said the film was shot over 15 months in a studio that was larger than a soccer field, with 260 people on set — including 35 animators and 50 puppet makers. The handcrafted clay cast has been expanded to include a robotic garden gnome called Norbot.“As a crew, if we got a minute and a half in the week, we’d have a megaweek,” Crossingham said. He described animation as a “magic trick,” because “you’re breathing life into something that doesn’t have any.”Park was born and raised in Preston, a city in northwestern England. His father was a photographer and his mother was a tailor and seamstress who made garments for all five of her children.Nick Park, left and Merlin Crossingham at the London Critics’ Circle Film Awards this month, where “Vengeance Most Fowl” won the best animated feature prize.Scott A. Garfitt/Invision, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Tony Roberts, Nonchalant Fixture in Woody Allen Films, Dies at 85

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      Tony Roberts, the affable actor who was best known as the hero’s best friend in Woody Allen movies like “Annie Hall,” and who distinguished himself on the New York stage with two Tony Award nominations and what the critic Clive Barnes of The New York Times called his “careful nonchalance,” died on Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 85.His daughter and only immediate survivor, Nicole Burley, said the cause was complications of lung cancer.Mr. Roberts played easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Alvy Singer, the hero of “Annie Hall” (1977), which won the Oscar for best picture, stuttered, dithered and fumbled his way around Manhattan’s Upper East Side alongside Rob (Mr. Roberts), his taller, better-looking, far more self-assured Hollywood actor friend and tennis partner. If truth be told, Rob would rather be in Los Angeles, where the weather is nicer, adding a laugh track to his sitcom.Mr. Roberts, center, with Woody Allen and Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall” (1977). Mr. Roberts appeared in several of Mr. Allen’s films, playing easygoing, confident characters that were a perfect counterpoint to the rampant insecurities of Mr. Allen’s.Brian Hamill/United Artists, via Everett CollectionMr. Roberts played similar types in other Allen films. In “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” (1982), he was a jovial bachelor doctor at the turn of the 20th century. “Marriage, for me, is the death of hope,” his character announced. In “Stardust Memories” (1980), he was a brash actor who brought a Playboy centerfold model to a film festival.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      Fun Things to Do in NYC in February 2025

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      Looking for something to do in New York? Enjoy laughs with Liza Treyger, learn about Clara Schumann, or see the Urban Bush Women in a Great Migration love story.ComedyLiza Treyger, above in her new Netflix comedy special, “Night Owl,” will host a “Show and Tell” at Union Hall on Friday.Netflix‘Show and Tell With Liza Treyger’Feb. 7 at 10 p.m. at Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn; unionhallny.com.Hot off the heels of the debut of “Night Owl,” her hourlong comedy special on Netflix, Liza Treyger is presenting this showcase in which her funny friends joke about their most cherished possessions.Treyger, who was born in the former Soviet Union and grew up on the outskirts of Chicago, has made a name for herself in the New York City comedy scene over the past decade through her blunt appraisals of herself and society’s sexual politics. This reputation earned her an appearance on Netflix’s “Survival of the Thickest” and a consultant gig on “The Eric Andre Show.” She recently had a supporting role on an episode of the Amazon Prime Video series “Harlem.”Taking part in Treyger’s “Show and Tell” on Friday are Tommy McNamara, Drew Anderson, Marie Faustin and Molly Kearney. Tickets are $15 on Eventbrite. SEAN L. McCARTHYMusicFrom left, Why Bonnie’s Blair Howerton on guitar, Josh Malett on drums and Chance Williams on bass, in Boston in 2022. The band will be at Night Club 101 on Friday.Olivia LeonPop & RockWhy BonnieFeb. 7 at 8 p.m. at Night Club 101, 101 Avenue A, Manhattan; dice.fm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Kinda Pregnant’ Review: The Belly of the Beast

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      Amy Schumer plays a jealous best friend who fakes her own pregnancy in this Netflix comedy filled with dopey men and miserable women.If the aftermath of the pandemic saw a number of horror movies about the miseries of maternity, another subgenre is making a comeback: the pregnancy comedy. Like “Babes” before it, Tyler Spindel’s “Kinda Pregnant” (on Netflix) takes childbearing, rearing and regretting and spins them into a romp.Starring a feral Amy Schumer, this clunker of a movie opens with a first act that appears filched from “Legally Blonde”: a marriage proposal that isn’t. The romantic letdown — which finds our heroine, Lainy (Schumer), shrieking in Spanx in public — coincides with the pregnancy of her bestie, Kate (Jillian Bell). What’s left for a gal to do other than don a silicone belly in envy?The potential of this bizarre prenatal cosplay for blows — and burns, and a stab wound — to Lainy’s fake stomach does not go overlooked, although the traditional cycle of the seasons seems to have been. Despite tracing Kate’s gestation from autumn to spring, the movie’s weather and attire are all over the place.Most egregiously, the world of “Kinda Pregnant” is filled with dopey men and despairing women whose torments, parental or otherwise, make for a land mine of comedy duds. Will Forte, playing a deus ex man-child, does manage to pull off a few funny lines and some real chemistry with Schumer. But this is a movie less interested in relationships than in the sundry items, from a balloon to a rotisserie chicken, that Lainy can stuff under her shirt to fake a baby bump.Kinda PregnantRated R for foul language and rotisserie chicken gags. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      in Television

      Michael Palin on His Diaries and Adventurous Life

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      In 1969, the British comedy writer and performer Michael Palin, then building a career out of being extremely silly, did something utterly sensible: He quit his 40-cigarettes-a-day smoking habit and began keeping a diary instead.Over the years, his meticulously maintained journals captured the rise of Monty Python — the hallowed sketch troupe he formed with Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle and Terry Jones — including the creation of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” and “Life of Brian.” Later, they chronicled a surprising career development, when Palin reinvented himself as an amiable presenter of travel documentaries, crossing the globe for acclaimed series like “Around the World in 80 Days.”The first volume of his diaries, “The Python Years,” was published in 2006. The fourth, “There and Back,” will be released in the United States on Tuesday. In a video interview from his home in northwest London, Palin, 81, fielded questions about the four decades’ worth of life covered in his diaries and more. He’s come to expect this sort of inquisition.“That’s the thing about publishing your diaries,” Palin said. “I have to be able to justify my behavior in my life in a way.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did quitting smoking lead you to start keeping a diary?When I gave up smoking — it was virtually overnight — it was a quite extraordinary feeling of effective use of willpower. In the back of my mind, I thought, how else can I use this newly enlivened willpower? Keeping a diary must have been the first thing that came into my head.Palin started keeping a diary in 1969, the same year Monty Python began. “The diaries constantly surprise me, how I completely contradict myself,” he said.Max Miechowski for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Forget the Punchline. It’s the Setup to These Jokes That’s Tricky.

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      Ronny Chieng, Gary Gulman and other comics are experimenting with long buildups that can be audacious … when they work.A joke can be broken down into two sections: The setup, which isn’t necessarily funny, and the punchline, which better be.Facing a crowd that’s looking to laugh, comics tend to want to get to the payoff as quickly as possible. But there is a rich tradition of jokes that move in the opposite direction, where part of what’s funny is that the setup keeps going and going, long past what you expect.The most famous example might be the Aristocrats, the rare joke that inspired its own documentary. An old bit, it begins with a setup about family members trying to get an agent to book their act and its humor tends to be fundamentally dirty and gratuitous. But in the last year, some of the most ambitious new hours have used the long setup to develop more rarefied kinds of jokes, formally inventive, experimental and very funny.Witness the magnificently unusual joke midway through Ronny Chieng’s recent special, “Love to Hate It” (Netflix), which begins with him trying to find common ground with the MAGA movement, saying its supporters have a point that the country has problems. Slowing his aggressive rat-a-tat delivery, he lists evidence of decline — bad health-care outcomes, wealth inequality — and just when you expect a punchline to lighten the mood, he gets even more serious.Ronny Chieng kills with the long form in “Love to Hate It.”NetflixAdopting the tone of a politician, he says that we did not fulfill the implicit promise that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could make it. At this point, the comedy seems to have ground to a halt. It’s also when Chieng’s pace shifts, from slow and deliberate to pointedly sped up as he rapidly unspools a grand unified theory. The tempo of his hard-to-follow chatter, which covers tax and trade policy, among other economic minutiae, indicates a departure from logical argument and a venture into the ridiculous. It recalls how everyone from Stanley Kubrick to Benny Hill has used fast forward to create comedy.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More