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    8 ‘S.N.L.’ Books and Cast Member Memoirs for 8H Superfans

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    Oral histories and rollicking memoirs by former “S.N.L.” cast members like Molly Shannon and Leslie Jones take you behind the scenes of the comedy juggernaut.“Saturday Night Live,” the late-night NBC comedy-variety show now in its 50th season, generally prefers to mine its material from other people’s dramas and the conflicts of everyday American life — as it is presently doing with its weekly satires of the 2024 presidential race.But over the years, “S.N.L.” has generated more than enough curiosity, controversy and gossip about its behind-the-scenes operations to fill a small library of books.For the comedy and showbiz nerds, there are scrupulous accounts of seemingly every day since Oct. 11, 1975, when Lorne Michaels, its creator and longtime executive producer, and the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players first hit the airwaves (a version of which is enacted in the new film “Saturday Night,” which opens in theaters Oct. 11).Other nonfiction books about “S.N.L.” have focused on discrete eras in its history, or on standout performers and how they exemplified larger trends in popular culture. Members of the show’s cast and creative team have also written memoirs pulling back the curtain on a workplace that can seem like a creative paradise — or like a cutthroat crucible that occasionally produces good comedy, too.Whether you’ve followed the show obsessively since the 1970s or only tune in these days when you recognize the musical guest, these books that offer a backstage look at “S.N.L.” will keep you happily occupied as you wait for the clock to strike 11:30 on Saturday night.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 Television

      Leslie Jones Gets Revved Up by Vinyl, Live Tweeting and ‘Euphoria’

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      Sometimes even Leslie Jones doesn’t want to be Leslie Jones. That’s why her new comedy series, “Our Flag Means Death,” checks all of the boxes.“I was in as soon as they said, ‘Black pirate,’” Leslie Jones recalled about the offer to play Spanish Jackie in the HBO Max series “Our Flag Means Death.”Even better, Jones — a three-time Emmy nominee during her five audacious years on “Saturday Night Live” and a provocative live-tweeter on everything from Zoom backgrounds to the Olympics — was being asked to leave behind what she called her “crazy, out-there personality.”“We are so happy that Leslie Jones is here, but we don’t want Leslie Jones right now,” the comedy’s creator, David Jenkins, told her, giving Jones the freedom to embrace her inner rogue.“Our Flag Means Death” sends up the historical partnership between Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), an aristocrat turned pirate, and the legendary Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). The marauders first encounter each other in the Republic of Pirates, where Spanish Jackie, in a Prince-style get-up, is a fearsome bar owner with 19 husbands — and out for revenge for the death of the 20th, her favorite.“She came up hard, and she’s probably had to fight so many men and prove that she is the captain of her ship and the boss of her life,” Jones said. “I’m not saying Leslie don’t have a little of that in her, but Spanish Jackie embodies being a badass.”Jones will soon be transforming into another not-so-Jones character — Mrs. Claus — for an as-yet untitled Christmas movie expected in 2023.“Now, if Santa knows when you’ve been naughty and nice, you definitely know Mrs. Claus knows that, right?” Jones said while discussing her cultural appetite in a recent video call from Los Angeles. “If anything, she’s doing most of the work.”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Los Angeles Lifestyle I always was in L.A. before I went to New York to do “S.N.L.” But I don’t think I appreciated L.A. until I moved back, because New York is hardcore. If you stay there longer than two years, you’re going to get sinus infections. It’s terrible. I never thought of New York as a place to actually live, but people do. They love it, you know? L.A. is just more personal space, just the sunshine out here. I love how relaxed it is, because the last seven years have been hectic. It’s like a nice breath of fresh air.2. Vinyl Records My dad was a D.J. forever, and he used to collect albums. I think he had up to 2,000 albums and when he passed, I had to sell the collection because I had nowhere to keep it. I was broke at the time. So now I’m collecting a lot of albums back. I got my little private record player in my office. Then I got one for the house that I could play over the speaker. It’s been so fun to have people send me albums because when you see them again, you go, “Oh my God, I thought it was a dream.”3. The Olympics The Olympics were a very important thing [when I was growing up]. I remember us getting school time off. I remember people taking days off of work to support the Games and the athletes. I always loved it, especially the gymnastics and the figure skating. What it’s come to now is great and how beautiful it is. I’ve always thought that this is the one time that all countries put down whatever it is that they have against each other and just compete in the Games. It’s almost a moment of world peace to me. Of course, it’s not now, with the timing and everything. But I always loved it because you had a team to cheer for. It was like, “Yeah, our country! Yeah, U.S.A.!”4. Mental health accountability in sports This is what people need to understand: It’s not enough just to be physically fit for these Games. You have to be mentally fit for these Games. One doesn’t work without the other. And the pressure that is put on these athletes has to be enormous. The way that they attacked Simone Biles, I was ashamed of our country because, first of all, most of the people that complained were sitting on their fat asses on the couch. You’ll never do a cartwheel and you have the nerve to talk about someone and tell them that they let the country down? We have to start taking accountability that they are not actually superheroes. They do make it look like they’re superheroes, but they are humans.5. Live Tweeting It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I’m going be honest with you — I didn’t actually think people were going to catch on to it. The first time I live-tweeted might have been “Breaking Bad.” It had already been off the air for about five years, but it was so good that I was like, “I’ve got to tell people about this.” So it really did start off as fun. Now it is a job. The politics [commentary] started during Covid and sitting on the couch watching TV, and I don’t think people were paying attention to their backgrounds. I was like, “Does she know she’s in front of — what the [expletive] is that?” I’m always trying to find a way to make people laugh when things are bad. It’s relief. That is what a comic’s job is. We’re jesters.6. “Euphoria” Oh my God, it’s just such a great show. It also proved to me I was a [expletive] nerd if that’s really what’s going on in high school. And I thank my parents because this is the worst version of “Charlie Brown” I have ever seen. What in the absolute hell is going on in that town?7. “Bel-Air,” the “Fresh Prince” reboot I got to go to the premiere of “Bel-Air,” and it is sensational the way they did that. TV in the ’80s and ’90s used to be kind of goofy. But behind some of these goofy shows were great plots. So they took the goofiness out of it and made it an actual dramatic story. I told Will Smith, “This is chef’s kiss.” The Fresh Prince on the basketball court wasn’t just some goofy scene of the ball hitting the dude’s head. People got shot. It was like, “Whoa, so that’s why your mama got so scared to send you to L.A.”8. Stand-up I’ve been a comedian since 1987. All those years of hustling, hustling, hustling to be famous. And then when you become famous, the one thing that you’re so good at is not something that you can just go do anymore, because you’re known as a different person. For a long time, people didn’t even know I was a stand-up — they just thought I came on “S.N.L.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me? That used to pay all my bills.” Doing stand-up in its purest form is still something I love, but it’s not something I always get to do now because it’s hard to go into the clubs. I’m not going in as Leslie the comic, “Hey, can I get a spot?” I’m going in as Leslie Jones, “She’s about to bump everybody off the list.”9. Brown Bag Lady Charity in Los Angeles Everybody should know about Jacqueline Norvell. She literally started out on a bicycle with a basket full of lunches that she would give to homeless people. And now it’s turned into a big thing where she goes out every day. Sunday, she does a whole meal. She brings barbers down. She brings beauticians down. She gets some coats. She’s doing this by herself. I mean, everybody thinks that they can solve homelessness. You are not going to solve it. You just really have to be kind and do what you can. She’s taking that to the next level.10. Bryan Buckley, the director of her Super Bowl commercial Usually those commercials are kind of tedious or annoying. People will be asking you for stuff that you just go, “You’re not going to use that.” He was the first guy that I was like, “Oh, this guy knows what he is doing.” He asked specifically for what he wanted, and it’s just like, “Bam!” I think he’s known to be one of the best Super Bowl commercial directors. I was like, “I hope the commercial turns out OK, because it was so easy to do.” Usually when it’s really, really hard and stuff happens, the project turns out beautifully. I was scared that it was so easy. More

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      in Movies

      Watch Eddie Murphy’s Return to Queens in ‘Coming 2 America’

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAnatomy of a SceneWatch Eddie Murphy’s Return to Queens in ‘Coming 2 America’The director Craig Brewer narrates a sequence featuring the star alongside Arsenio Hall, Leslie Jones, Tracy Morgan and Jermaine Fowler.The director Craig Brewer narrates a sequence from the film, which has Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall reprising their roles from the 1988 comedy.CreditCredit…Quantrell D. Colbert/Paramount Pictures/Amazon StudiosMarch 5, 2021, 11:01 a.m. ETIn “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The best approach for directing a roomful of comedy giants? Let them laugh with each other long before saying “Action.”That’s the route the filmmaker Craig Brewer took for “Coming 2 America,” the sequel to the beloved 1988 hit starring Eddie Murphy.Murphy reprises his role as Akeem, then a prince, now the king of Zamunda, who realizes he fathered a child from a one-night stand on his previous visit to the States.This scene, narrated by Brewer, includes comedic work in various styles from Arsenio Hall as Akeem’s friend and right-hand man, Semmi; Jermaine Fowler as his newfound son, Lavelle; Leslie Jones as Lavelle’s mother; and Tracy Morgan as Lavelle’s uncle. It’s a lot of humor to wrangle.“When I was younger, I used to think that being a director meant that you constantly have to go in and assert yourself,” Brewer said. “But I’ve found, especially with comedic artists, is what they really want is a safe room. They want to feel like they’re free to try things.”Brewer said one of the best things he could do as a director, when he has Murphy, Hall, Jones and Morgan on set, is to not roll the camera immediately, but give them time and space to connect.“You’ve got to let these four people tell old jokes about people they knew on the comedy circuit,” he said. Or riffs that would sometimes include Murphy and Morgan re-enacting full scenes and dialogue from movies they love.“I would allow a good 10 to 15 minutes of just these guys coming into the room and laughing and joking and saying all this stuff. But then it was like, OK, now it’s time to get to work. And Eddie would nail it in two takes.”Read the “Coming 2 America” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      in Television

      Best Comedy of 2020

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookBest Comedy of 2020Comedians like Leslie Jones, Chelsea Handler and Hannibal Buress adjusted to the new abnormal, turning to Zoom, YouTube, rooftops and parks.The pandemic halted most live performance but comedians adjusted and adapted. Clockwise from bottom left: Leslie Jones, Eddie Pepitone, John Wilson and Ziwe Fumudoh.Credit…Clockwise from bottom left: Rahim Fortune for The New York Times; Troy Conrad; HBO; Chase Hall for The New York TimesDec. 15, 2020, 5:59 p.m. ETThe comedy boom finally busted. Not only did the pandemic shut down comedy institutions, but New York clubs like Dangerfield’s, which was half a century old, and the stalwart The Creek & the Cave closed for good, as did the city’s branches of the improv powerhouse, the Upright Citizens Brigade. At the same time, comedians adjusted to the new abnormal, transitioning to Zoom and Instagram Live, and to shows in parks and on rooftops. It was a period of experimentation and stagnancy, contraction and accessibility, despair and occasional joy. In a low year, here were the highlights:Funniest SpecialDo you find an angry blue-collar guy yelling about being high on molly funny? Does the phrase “Stalin on Spotify” amuse you? Do pivots from ragingly unhinged roars to an NPR voice make you lose your breath in laughter? No? Not to worry: Eddie Pepitone will still delight. An overlooked master of the form, he’s perfected a persona of the silly grump that makes anything funny. Smart comedy that aims for the gut, his new special (available on Amazon Prime) is titled “For the Masses,” but he jokes that is by necessity, in one of several insults of his audience: “I would be doing jokes about Dostoyevsky if it wasn’t for you.”After leaving “Saturday Night Live” in 2019, Leslie Jones had a viral year that included the Netflix special “Time Machine.”Credit…Bill Gray/NetflixBest Complaint About 20-SomethingsLeslie Jones made the most of her first year after “Saturday Night Live.” Not only did she go viral roasting the clothes, furniture and décor of cable news talking heads in social media videos, but she made a dynamite Netflix special, “Time Machine,” where she castigated today’s young people for failing to have fun. “Every 20-year-old’s night,” she preached, “should end with glitter and cocaine.”Best 20-Something CounterAbout six weeks after the release of Jones’s special, the breakout young comic Taylor Tomlinson made an impressive Netflix debut with “Quarter-Life Crisis”; in it, she says she’s sick of people telling her to enjoy her 20s. “They’re not fun,” she said exasperated, in one of many cleverly crafted bits. “They’re 10 years of asking myself: Will I outgrow this or is this a problem?”Best Opening GambitBy describing her special in detail, beat by beat, at the start of Netflix’s “Douglas” — Hannah Gadsby’s follow-up to “Nanette” — she seemed to be eliminating the most important element of comedy: surprise. But like Penn & Teller deconstructing the secrets of magic while hiding some new ones, she just found a new way to fool you.In his YouTube special “Miami Nights,” Hannibal Buress told a story about an encounter with a police officer that led to his arrest.Credit…Isola Man MediaBest Closing StoryIn his funniest and most stylish special, “Miami Nights,” on YouTube, Hannibal Buress ended on a 20-minute story about an unsettling encounter with a police officer in Miami that led to his arrest. It’s a master class in comic storytelling that sent himself up, skewered the police, hit bracingly topical notes with throwaway charm while adding on a coda that provided the visceral pleasures of payback. It’s stand-up with the spirit of a Tarantino movie.Best Silver LiningOne nice side effect of the shutdown for live comedy is that in transitioning to digital, local shows became accessible to everyone with an internet connection. So it was a nostalgic treat that the weekly Los Angeles showcase Hot Tub, which pioneered weird comedy in New York before moving to the West Coast, once again became part of my comedy diet, via Twitch. While there were many new faces, much hadn’t changed, like the eclectic and adventurous booking and the dynamite chemistry of its hosts Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler.Best Alfresco SpecialStreet comedy, a subgenre of some legend, was all but dead when the pandemic pushed stand-up outdoors. By the fall, several comics, like Chelsea Handler and Colin Quinn, even made specials there, working crowds whose laughter did not echo against walls. The sharpest was “Up on the Roof” by the workhorse comic Sam Morril (it’s his second punchline-dense special of the year), the rare person to translate New York club comedy to rooftops (with the help of cameras on drones).Cole Escola portrays a cabaret performer in his YouTube special, “Help! I’m Stuck! With Cole Escola.”Credit…Cole EscolaBest Sketch ComicWhen comedic dynamo Cole Escola produced his own special featuring deliriously bizarre characters wrapped in pitch-perfect genre spoofs, and released it on YouTube under the title “Help! I’m Stuck! With Cole Escola,” he was surely not trying to embarrass networks and streaming services for never placing him at the center of his own show. But that’s what he did.Best New Talk ShowThe charismatic Ziwe Fumudoh has long been comfortable creating and sitting in the tension between the comedian and the audience in small alt rooms, but in her interview show on Instagram, she repurposed this gift for cringe and applied it to probing conversations on racism with guests like Caroline Calloway and Alison Roman. It made for essential viewing during a protest-filled summer.Best Siblings“I Hate Suzie” provided serious competition, but the best British comic import this year was “Stath Lets Flats,” which found a home on HBO Max. This brilliantly observed office comedy focuses on the mundane travails of an awful real estate agent and his sister. Jamie Demetriou (who created the show) starred, along with his real-life sister Natasia, better known in the United States because of her dynamite deadpan in the FX vampire comedy “What We Do in the Shadows.” The show is cringe comedy whose beating heart comes from their relationship. Look out Sedaris siblings. A new talent family has arrived.The stand-up comic Beth Stelling released a special on HBO Max titled “Girl Daddy.”Credit…HBO MaxBest Debut SpecialThe stand-up comic Beth Stelling’s pinned tweet is from 2015: “I’ve been called a ‘female comic’ so many times, I’ll probably only be able to answer to ‘girl daddy’ when I have children.” This year, she released a knockout special on HBO Max titled “Girl Daddy.” It’s a virtuosic performance, conversational while dense with jokes — with a portrait of her father, an actor who works as a pirate at an Orlando mini-golf course, that manages to be scathing, loving and sort of over it, all at the same time.Best Experimental ComedyIt’s a good sign for adventurous work that last year’s winner (Natalie Palamides’s solo shocker “Nate”) is now a Netflix special. But the revelation this year was HBO’s “How To With John Wilson,” a kind of reality show about New York City that pushed formal boundaries while unearthing the hidden and the overlooked in poignant, funny new ways.Best DirectionIn one of her final projects, Lynn Shelton masterfully shot the latest Marc Maron special “End Times Fun,” on Netflix, demonstrating that great direction doesn’t need to be about showy camera movements. Her shot sequences emphasized and played against Maron’s jokes, working together effortlessly, like dancing partners that intimately know each other’s moves. Two months later, in May, she died of a blood disorder. Memorializing her movingly on his podcast, Maron, her boyfriend, said: “I was better in Lynn Shelton’s gaze.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More