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      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Takes on the N.F.L.’s Jon Gruden Scandal

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      An episode hosted by Rami Malek also featured appearances from his “No Time to Die” co-star Daniel Craig.You know an N.F.L. scandal has wide-reaching implications when it makes it as far as a “Saturday Night Live” opening sketch.This week, in an episode hosted by Rami Malek and featuring the musical guest Young Thug, “S.N.L.” led off with a segment about Jon Gruden, the former coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, who stepped down on Monday. A New York Times report had detailed emails from Gruden that contained misogynist and homophobic remarks, following the disclosure of another email from him in which he used a racist stereotype to describe a Black union leader.The “S.N.L.” sketch made use of several members of the show’s cast — even Colin Jost, who’s rarely seen away from the Weekend Update desk, and who played the N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell.Speaking as Goodell, Jost said, “When you see me on TV, it’s never good. This time, one of our coaches is accused of racism, misogyny and homophobia. But hey, at least no one’s talking about concussions.”Jost added, “I assure you all 32 teams in our league understand that diversity is our strength. And I know our Black coaches would agree. Both of them.”He then introduced Gruden, who he said “got on his knees and begged, and you know how much I hate seeing someone kneel.”James Austin Johnson, a new cast member who is rapidly adding to his roster of impersonations, played Gruden with some prominent cheek prosthetics. “I hope you won’t judge me on one email I sent 10 years ago,” he said. “Or the 20 emails I sent last Tuesday.”Alex Moffat, wearing a closely cropped wig, played the Raiders owner Mark Davis. “We need to do better,” he said. “We need to, as I always tell my barber, aim higher.”The lineup also featured Pete Davidson as the team’s new coach. “It is an honor to take over this storied franchise and a real shame that I have to immediately resign,” he said. “They just found my emails, too, and they are so much worse than the old coach’s.”He was followed by Andrew Dismukes, playing an equipment manager, who just learned he’d been made coach and must now also resign because of his old tweets. “I never should have dressed up as Jackie Chan for Halloween,” he explained. “But 2019 was a different era.”Chris Redd as appeared as the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick. “So much stuff coming out about the NFL is maybe racist, kinda,” he said with a dramatic pause. “Huh. I wonder if anyone tried to warn people about this before.”Finally, Moffat said he’d found the perfect coach for the team — “someone even Twitter can get behind” — fan favorite LeVar Burton (played by Kenan Thompson).‘Squid Game’ Segment of the WeekIt was only a matter of time before “S.N.L.” took on “Squid Game,” the dystopian South Korean serial that’s become a widely watched hit on Netflix. The show came at it from a somewhat oblique angle in this country music video where Davidson and Malek start out singing about the unusual lengths they will go to in order to earn money. As the lyrics run:Yes I’m broke and it’s a damn shameGuess I gotta play the Squid GameYes I gotta play the Squid GameMy only option is the Squid GameHave a number not a real name‘Cause I’m playing in the Squid Game.You know what comes next, of course: masks, jumpsuits, and a giant talking doll leading a murderous round of Red Light, Green Light.Celebrity Overload of the WeekA satirical game show called “Celeb School” allowed several “S.N.L.” cast members to indulge in offbeat impressions of famous figures, including John Oliver (Mikey Day), Jennifer Coolidge (Chloe Fineman), Adam Driver (James Austin Johnson), Kristen Wiig (Melissa Villaseñor), George Takei (Bowen Yang) and Lil Wayne (Chris Redd). But its real achievement may be providing a platform for Pete Davidson to play Rami Malek and for Rami Malek to play Pete Davidson. (One of them nails the assignment, but in fairness he has an Academy Award.)If that’s too conceptual for you, there’s also this segment in which Malek and Thompson play themselves, competing for the role of Prince in a biopic directed by Jordan Peele (Redd). Stick around to the end and your reward is a cameo appearance from Daniel Craig, dressed as a Renaissance-era prince and air-guitaring the opening riff from “Kiss.” (Craig also appeared in a later sketch, playing an audience member at an unusual improvised musical performance.)Weekend Update Jokes of the WeekOver at the Weekend Update desk, Jost and his co-anchor Michael Che riffed on President Biden and the latest challenges facing his legislative agenda.Jost began:The Biden administration’s climate plan is likely to be dropped from the budget bill after Senator Joe Manchin refused to support it. But you know what? I’m not going to let some bad climate news ruin this beautiful, 80-degree October day. Manchin, who’s from West Virginia, said he would only agree to Biden’s bill if it cuts clean energy and officially makes coal one of the five food groups.Che followed that up:A new report shows that President Biden is, on average, 22 minutes late for public events. Worse, he only does it to appeal to Black voters.Bowen Yang Sketches of the WeekIf you’ve felt like you haven’t seen enough Bowen Yang since he became a full member of the “S.N.L.” cast this season, this weekend’s episode made up for that in a big way.Yang got the spotlight first in a sketch about a middle school bug pageant, where he played a 7th grader cast as a feisty, fashionable daddy longlegs. (Asked how he traps his prey, Yang replied, “I slam my credit card down and say daddy’s got it.”)Yang later turned up at the Weekend Update desk, playing a gay Oompa Loompa who finds all the coverage of Timothée Chalamet’s “Wonka” movie to be “scrum-diddly-umptious,” but has not yet come out to his parents.“They live in Loompaland,” Yang explained to Jost. “It’s not as progressive as here. They, like, just got ‘Will & Grace.’” More

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      Kim Kardashian West Takes Aim at Herself in ‘S.N.L.’ Monologue

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      Kardashian West hosted an episode featuring the musical guest Halsey and a parade of celebrity cameos that included John Cena, Chris Rock and Amy Schumer.When it was first announced that Kim Kardashian West would be hosting “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, the feedback was mixed — based on the reaction from some corners, you’d think they had invited Elon Musk or something.But Kardashian West, the reality TV star, entrepreneur, influencer and advocate, gamely poked fun at her own image in a self-mocking “S.N.L.” monologue that also took satirical potshots at her other famous family members and her divorce from the rapper Kanye West.And, as Kardashian West admitted in the routine, she was as surprised as anyone to find herself hosting the show.As she recounted in the monologue: “When they asked, I was like, you want me to host? Why? I haven’t had a movie premiere in a really long time. I mean, I actually I only had that one movie come out and no one told me it was even premiering. It must have slipped my mom’s mind.”Kardashian West said that “S.N.L.” offered her the opportunity to demonstrate that she was “so much more than just a pretty face.”“And good hair,” she added. “And great makeup. And amazing boobs. And a perfect butt. Basically, I’m just so much more than that reference photo my sisters showed their plastic surgeons.”She credited her father, Robert Kardashian, for stoking her interest in social justice while also reminding audiences that he was a member of the defense team at O.J. Simpson’s 1995 murder trial.“My father was and still is such an influence and inspiration to me, and I credit him with really opening up my eyes to racial injustice,” Kardashian West said. “It’s because of him that I met my first Black person. You want to take a stab in the dark at who it was?”Of course, she shouted out Kanye: “I married the best rapper of all time,” Kardashian West said. “Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America — a talented, legit genius who gave me four incredible kids. So, when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”And in true “S.N.L.” style, Kardashian West wrapped up the monologue by biting the hand that fed her. “I’m so used to having 360 million followers watching my every move,” she said. “How many people watch ‘S.N.L.,’ like 10 million? So tonight is just a chill, intimate night for me.”Embarrassment of celebrity riches of the weekIf you’re a vaccinated celebrity who lives within driving distance of Rockefeller Center, ask your agent why you weren’t asked to make a cameo on “S.N.L.” this weekend: This one sketch, a send-up of reality dating shows, featured an entire season’s worth of celebrity bookings, with Tyler Cameron, John Cena, Chace Crawford, Blake Griffin, Chris Rock and Jesse Williams appearing as potential suitors for a bachelorette played by Kardashian West.Amy Schumer also appeared as one of the producers of the fictional show, who has decided she wants to vie for Kardashian West’s affections. Maybe don’t get too invested in the hapless contestant played by Kyle Mooney, who is blissfully certain he has just as much of a shot as his famous rivals.Freaky Friday of the weekThere was no way a Kardashian-themed episode of “S.N.L.” was going to leave out the other members of that camera-friendly family. At least some of them are put to good use in “The Switch,” an homage to body-swapping comedies that finds Kardashian West and Aidy Bryant trading identities for what’s supposed to be 24 hours — until Bryant decides she isn’t swapping back. (If that didn’t satisfy your appetite for Kardashian-centric humor, there’s also this parody of “The People’s Court,” featuring a mix of actual Kardashians and “S.N.L.” cast members playing Kardashians and other assorted would-be celebs.)Weekend Update jokes of the weekAt the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on Facebook’s troubled week, in which a whistle-blower, Frances Haugen, testified about the company’s internal research, and the site and its products suffered lengthy outages.Jost began:This week we found out that sometimes a guy in a hoodie actually can be dangerous. Internal documents show that Facebook knew its platform was used to spread hate and misinformation, but they hid the evidence. Now the weird thing is, I went to school with Mark Zuckerberg and I was there when he created Facebook. And I feel terrible. Sometimes, I wish I had a time machine so I could go back to college and find Mark and say, “Hey, man … can I be part of your company?”He added:Facebook’s also denying a report that says using Instagram can cause users to develop a negative body image. Which explains their rival’s new slogan, TikTok: bring your fat ass over here.Che picked up on the social media thread:This week Instagram was down for an entire day. Forcing many Instagram addicts to fill their time with Twitter, TikTok or hosting “S.N.L.” [Behind him, a screen showed an image of Kardashian West delivering her monologue from earlier in the show.]Then he went on to note some other media news, with a personal touch:Fox News turned 25 this week and they celebrated their birthday the same way that I do: by paying white women to say some nasty stuff.Going your own way of the weekIf a whole generation of “S.N.L.” viewers doesn’t actually know what Lindsey Buckingham sounds like, it might be because they recognize him only as a perpetually silent guest (played by Bill Hader) on the overstuffed talk show “What Up With That?”The onetime Fleetwood Mac singer and guitarist has since been cut loose from his old band and released a new solo album, and “S.N.L.” finally let audiences hear Buckingham’s voice on the show — as sung by himself, accompanying Halsey on a performance of her song “Darling.” (Don’t worry, he still didn’t speak at goodnights.) 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      For Al Franken, a Comeback Attempt Goes Through Comedy Clubs

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      Onstage, the ex-senator and “S.N.L.” star doesn’t exactly address his fall from grace. But he doesn’t not address it either. Asked if he’ll run again, he is noncommittal.It was a fairly typical night at the Comedy Cellar’s Village Underground with a procession of young comics telling jokes about bickering couples, body issues and unglamorous sex. After Matteo Lane finished his set with a story about sleeping with a porn star, the curveball came: The host introduced “the only performer on the lineup who was a United States senator.”Then Al Franken, 70, bespectacled and wearing a button-down shirt, slowly walked onstage. He looked back toward Lane, took a considered pause and in mock outrage exclaimed: “He stole my act!”Franken has been opening with that joke a lot lately as he’s been refining material in basement rooms around town in preparation for a national stand-up tour. It’s his way of addressing how much he sticks out in his return to comedy, following a Senate career that ended with his resignation after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct, including unwanted kissing. New York comics generally don’t do impressions of the Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, or earnestly explain the reasons they remain Democrats. And yet, the four times I have seen Franken perform over the past month, he has consistently gotten laughs or even killed. The only time he really lost a crowd was after midnight when the fury of a rant about the Republican Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, (involving a dispute about an assault weapons ban) crowded out the punch lines. Franken’s set went long, around 50 minutes, and a couple of comics who followed needled him. “I would have killed myself if it wasn’t for his gun legislation,” Nimesh Patel joked.In Franken’s new material, he explains how as a politician, he was often implored by his staff to not be funny. It only leads to trouble. His act presents a less censored Franken, one that includes a story of him inside the Senate cloakroom telling a joke about oral sex with Willie Nelson — with Franken deftly imitating the New York Senator Chuck Schumer and former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, both Democrats, as they dissect the joke. Franken’s delivery is a Minnesota mosey with a bristling energy hinting at unspoken feelings and future ambition.On the street after the Cellar show, Franken and I discussed Norm Macdonald, who had died earlier that day. Franken mentioned that when he was on “Saturday Night Live,” Macdonald had beat him out for the Weekend Update anchor job, then recalled how the NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer supposedly fired Macdonald for making jokes about O.J. Simpson, Ohlmeyer’s friend. Franken quipped: “Got to give credit to Ohlmeyer for sticking by a friend.”It’s a funny joke, but as often happens with Franken these days, it can’t help but evoke his own scandal. After all, many of Franken’s colleagues did not stick by him in the wake of the accusations. After a photo of Franken pantomiming groping a conservative talk radio host on a U.S.O. tour was released, many Democratic senators called for him to step down, and he did, denying the allegations in a resignation speech. Since then, many (but not all) Democrats have seen that reaction as a rush to judgment, including nine senators who had called for him to resign now saying they regret doing so. Some politicians who stood by their calls for him to resign, like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, have faced a backlash.Franken only recently began explicitly mentioning the fallout onstage, but glancingly, with a bit involving a masked ventriloquist’s dummy named Petey who wants to talk about how he was treated by his Democratic colleagues. Without giving away the twist, the conversation gets sidetracked.Is the comedy tour a way to rehabilitate his political career? Franken said, with a laugh, “I’m not sure this is the best way to do that.”Todd Heisler/The New York TimesAt an Upper West Side diner, Franken didn’t want to go into details, calling it a “no-win,” but said it hasn’t changed his politics. “Part of the irony of all this is I was maybe the most proactive member of the Senate on sexual harassment and sexual assault,” he said.As for his old co-workers: “I have forgiven the ones who have apologized to me,” he said, tersely.Outside the diner, a man approached and told him that he looked more handsome in person and then said in a pointed way that seemed beyond politics: “I’m in your camp.”At a few of the New York shows, there was a certain tension in the room before he got onstage, and a curiosity over how warmly he would be received. Franken said he was never anxious about it. “People like me,” he said, in a cadence that couldn’t help but evoke his character Stuart Smalley, the 12-step aficionado he portrayed on “Saturday Night Live.” After I pointed this out, Franken burst into an impression of the cheerfully cardiganed character: “I’m fun to be with.”Franken — who moves effortlessly from inside-showbiz yarns to political ones — is less deadpan offstage than on, with a slightly quicker delivery, puncturing many sentences with a booming laugh that sounds like a baritone quack.Long before he was a politician, Franken, who moved from Washington to New York in January to be near his grandchildren, was something of a comedy prodigy — performing at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles in a double act with Tom Davis while still in college, and going to work as a writer for the original cast of “Saturday Night Live.” He then pioneered a no-holds-barred style of liberal comedy with best-selling books like “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.” Franken still delights in skewering the right-wing media entertainment complex amid dissections of public policy, which he does regularly on a titular new podcast that welcomes a starry list of politicians, journalists and entertainers. In his show, he says, “The leading cause of death in this country is Tucker Carlson.”Franken says he is returning to comedy because it’s a “part of him,” and his conversation is filled with references to friends in the business. He said he went to the Cellar after speaking with Chris Rock and Louis C.K. But it’s hard to escape the impression that politics animate Franken more than comedy. He said he loved campaigning and being a senator, and for someone as well-known as he is, his act includes an awful lot of résumé highlights (like casting the deciding vote for the Affordable Care Act) coddled in a layer of irony that knows you can get laughs by playing the jerk. “You’re welcome” is a recurring punchline.His act presents a less-censored Franken. Todd Heisler/The New York TimesThere are moments onstage that have elements of a stump speech, and it makes you wonder if this is all a prelude to another run. When asked, Franken shifted from casual comic to preprogrammed politician: “I am keeping my options open.”What about running for senator of New York? He repeated, “I am keeping my options open.”After chuckling at this diplomatic answer, I pointed out I’m not used to interviewing politicians. Franken let out another quacking laugh and acted out a scene imagining the ridiculousness of a comic answering a question about a joke with “I am keeping my options open.”It’s worth noting that even in his telling, the first time Franken ran for senator in Minnesota, his original impulse involved a measure of payback. After Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash, his successor, Norm Coleman, called himself a “99 percent improvement” over Wellstone. In his book “Al Franken, Giant of the Senate,” he describes his reaction with a flash of anger, saying he knew someone had to beat Coleman, before adding that his reasons expanded from that “petty place” to one more about helping the people of his state.In the aftermath of his scandal, which Franken described as “traumatic” for him and his family, he has been trying to work through it and rise above, he said. “I think we need more of that. It’s a struggle but I’m getting there. That’s my goal.”In a sympathetic New Yorker article from 2019, Franken said that after losing his job, he started taking medication for depression; mental health is an issue he has long worked on, he said. When I asked about this, the policy wonk, not the comedian, answered. He brought up the first legislation he passed, calling for a study of the impact on giving support dogs to veterans suffering from PTSD. The conversation moved to the gymnast Simone Biles and how she prioritized her mental health at the Olympics. Franken brought up the people who criticized her, appearing to earnestly address Biles’s situation before making a sarcastic pivot subtle enough that it took me a beat to appreciate the subtext. “So odd — people criticize other people out of ignorance,” he said, a hint of a smirk on his face. “I’d never seen that before. I was just shocked.”When asked what he would say to someone who thought this return to comedy was a way to rehabilitate his political career, Franken said: “I’m not sure this is the best way to do that.” He offered another big laugh before getting serious. “I’m doing this because I love doing this.”On Sunday, running his entire show at Union Hall in preparation for a Friday performance in Milwaukee (it’s not often you hear material in Brooklyn about the Republican Senator Ron Johnson), Franken earned a roaring response to his dummy nudging him to talk about leaving the Senate. At one point, a member of the audience yelled: “Run again!”As the crowd cheered, Franken looked momentarily flustered and flattered. He appeared to be contemplating his next move or maybe weighing a joke. But instead, he made eye contact with the man egging him on and said: “I will need your help.” More

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      Ego Nwodim Used to Be Obsessed With Jay-Z. Now She Is Again

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      The ‘S.N.L.’ comedian talked about navigating life with ‘The Four Agreements’ and why “The Town” will always be her favorite movie.The new season of “Saturday Night Live” was less than a month away. But Ego Nwodim’s brain was telling her she had plenty of time to do more.An avowed workaholic, Nwodim intended to pack her schedule to overflowing before returning to 30 Rock with her Dionne Warwick impression. Earlier this summer, she had traveled to Italy for a single day of shooting on the comedy “Spin Me Round,” opposite Alison Brie, and then flitted from Venice to Milan to Positano to Florence, with stops in between, “in that sort of nonsensical way,” she said.More recently she’d wrapped “Players,” a Netflix rom-com with Gina Rodriguez and Damon Wayans Jr. And just the day before she’d done a little audio tweaking for the second season of “Love Life” with Anna Kendrick, which begins Oct. 28 on HBO Max.“Today I counted how many jobs I did on my hiatus,” she said. “And I was like, ‘You actually did a lot.’ Because there was a point this summer where I go, ‘You haven’t done anything or enough.’ My brain told me that.”Nwodim rather famously majored in biology at the University of Southern California, a deal she made with her family so that she could move from Maryland to Los Angeles, where she honed her comedy chops at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. “I didn’t enjoy the bio major — it’s not my passion clearly,” she said. “But I have an aversion to quitting.”“I don’t encourage people to be like me,” she added with a laugh. “It’s sometimes good to quit.”In a video call from her light-filled Brooklyn apartment, Nwodim elaborated on a few of her cultural essentials, including “The Four Agreements” guide to living, the gold jewelry that makes even sweats look intentional and the cool quotient of Jay-Z.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz It is such a simple guide as far as how to approach so much of life and so many of the stressors that I encounter. I always start with, Don’t take anything personally. That’s not the No. 1 agreement, but that’s the one I find myself constantly going back to. Everything people do and say is a reflection of them and where they are in their life, even positive stuff. That is a fascinating one because it feels easy to apply to criticism. But I’m also not going to take praise personally? That’s tough.2. Jay-Z In college, I was obsessed with him. I used to get in arguments with people about how cool he was. Then I took many years off, calmed down and I was like, “That’s not a way to live.” And now, I’m back. I’m such a huge fan of his journey as a person, from drug dealer to corporate businessman and father, husband, son to Gloria Carter. I really admire his work ethic and the way he moves about the world. Look at me [smiling and laughing]! But this isn’t a crush. I just have the utmost respect for this person. I think he’s so freaking cool. And every time I go, “OK, enough about how cool Jay-Z is,” he just gets cooler.3. Ben Affleck’s “The Town” I know it’s not some art house film. But I like heist movies, and I saw that movie in theaters maybe six times. No joke. I still talk about this movie. I still quote this movie. Everyone sort of rolls their eyes at it. People have been like, “It’s just the white man version of ‘Set It Off,’” which probably sounds about right. Key moment: When Ben Affleck goes to Jeremy Renner, “We got to go do something. Can’t ask me what it is. Don’t ask me later.” And Jeremy goes, “Whose car are we driving?” That is best friendship.4. Gold Jewelry Before I had “S.N.L.,” I had a lot of gold rings that were not real gold because I was broke. I’m still not rich, by the way. I ran into my friend Khoby [Rowe] at a Comedy Central Emmys party, and I go, “I think I’m going to treat myself to a real gold ring — one that I can wash my hands and put lotion on and not have it turn.” And she was like, “Hell yeah. This ring on my hand, I treated myself, too.” And when I got “S.N.L.,” her text to me was like, “I think you’re allowed to get yourself a ring.”5. Yerba Mate I would watch friends develop coffee addictions. It became such a part of the routine, like, “I literally can’t get my day started without this.” And I basically want a life where I don’t need anything to function besides water and food — you know, Maslow’s hierarchy. So I don’t like to drink coffee, and if I do it’s because I’m really in a pinch. I prefer yerba mate. I feel like I get energized, and it’s natural, so they say. It could very well be a placebo effect, but I’m OK with that.6. “Death, Sex & Money” Podcast It’s about the human experience. “Death, Sex and Money” does a great job of reminding us that we’re connected. And so much of our experiences are shared regardless of race, gender, religion. Think of all the ways we are divided as a people. So, I love that podcast. Big fan. The tagline is “things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.” And it’s true.7. Prayer and Meditation I am a person of faith, is how I’d like to describe myself. And praying is just a conversation with God. I was listening to a podcast, and a guest, who I believe is sober, said that every thought, action and word is an offering to God. Kind of like everything’s a prayer. And if you can remember that in the moment, that’s really beautiful.8. Offerings in Los Angeles I lived in L.A. for 12 years, and I get disappointed any time a friend is in a different city and I need to send them flowers. Can’t find them elsewhere. Just the most beautiful floral arrangements. I’m so excited to hear people’s reactions to receiving those flowers, because they always have something to say. I sent them to Melissa Villaseñor once, and she goes, “I feel like a queen.”9. Solange’s “A Seat at the Table” What a beautiful body of work, top to bottom. I remember when I first heard it, I was sitting on the floor in my bedroom in Santa Monica, and I was thinking, “Great, this’ll be background noise while I get ready.” But I felt stopped in my own tracks. I was like, “Whoa, what am I listening to?” I got to see her on tour for that album at the Hollywood Bowl, and I wondered, “How is she going to be able to fill this space?” Because I think of neo-soul as such an intimate experience and the Hollywood Bowl is huge. And she did — someone’s essence and artistry can do that — and I was brought to tears.10. My Niece Sophia was born on July 25, and a picture came to my phone, and I was instantly in love. Then I go home to Maryland, and I get to hold her, and my heart just grows a hundred sizes in a way I did not know it could until maybe I had my own children. I would sit there and just stare at her sleeping. It’s cool to find out where your heart can take you. I’ve never felt that kind of love, and I think that love opened me up to other love. More

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      ‘Saturday Night Live’ Cast: Who is Leaving and Who is Staying for Season 47

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      Other “S.N.L.” veterans including Pete Davidson, Cecily Strong and Kate McKinnon will return to the show, which is adding three new featured players.“Saturday Night Live” isn’t necessarily a series known for its season-ending cliffhangers, but when this long-running NBC sketch show reached its finale last May, there were question marks hanging over many of its veteran cast members.Pete Davidson concluded a monologue by telling viewers, “It’s been an honor to grow up in front of you guys, so thanks.” Cecily Strong finished what felt like a valedictory performance as Jeanine Pirro by dunking herself in a glass tank that said “Boxed Wine.” Other long-tenured players, including Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon, were simply seen looking especially tearful, fueling speculation about their future at the show.But on Monday, NBC announced that nearly all of the “S.N.L.” cast members from last season will be returning to the show: That includes Davidson, Strong, Bryant and McKinnon, as well as the Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che, players like Chris Redd, Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim, as well as Kenan Thompson, who has appeared on the show since 2003.However, Beck Bennett, who joined “S.N.L.” in 2013 and portrayed characters like Wolf Blitzer, Mike Pence, Vladimir Putin and Vin Diesel, is not returning to the program. In a post on his Instagram account, Bennett did not give a reason for his departure but wrote, “Thank you for 8 years of remarkable people and incredible experiences that completely changed my life.”Lauren Holt, who appeared on “S.N.L.” as a featured player last season is also not returning to the show.Bowen Yang and Chloe Fineman, who had both been appearing as featured players have been promoted to full cast members, NBC said.“S.N.L.” is also adding three new featured players for the coming season: Aristotle Athari, a member of the sketch group Goatface; James Austin Johnson, who has acted in shows like “Tuca & Bertie” and in the film “Hail, Caesar!”, and has a viral series of Donald Trump impressions; and Sarah Sherman, who has worked on “The Eric Andre Show.”“Saturday Night Live” will begin its 47th season this Saturday with an episode hosted by Owen Wilson and featuring the musical guest Kacey Musgraves. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Citizen Hearst’ and ‘Saturday Night Live’

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      A two-part documentary about William Randolph Hearst debuts on PBS. And “SNL” returns to NBC for its 47th season.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Sept. 27-Oct. 3. Details and times are subject to change.MondayAMERICAN EXPERIENCE: CITIZEN HEARST 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Any onscreen exploration of the life of the 20th-century media mogul William Randolph Hearst has to contend with an inconvenient fact: Orson Welles’s “Citizen Kane” (1941) basically did that, to historically great effect. This two-part documentary on Hearst leans into that inconvenient truth, both nodding at Welles with its title and including a discussion of “Citizen Kane” itself. The focus, though, is on Hearst and his life — from his days at Harvard, where, the film notes, he was known for keeping a pet alligator, to his death in 1951 in Beverly Hills. (If you’d prefer to watch Welles’s take, you can see that on Monday night, too: “Citizen Kane” airs at 8 p.m. on TCM.)TuesdayLA BREA 9 p.m. on NBC. The first episode of this new sci-fi drama begins with a mother and her two children navigating a distinctly terrestrial horror: Los Angeles traffic. But the situation becomes otherworldly quickly when a sinkhole opens up, transporting those that fall into it to a prehistoric world. The family gets broken up; the series follows them as they work to reunite.WednesdayThe filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché, as seen in “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.”Zeitgeist Films and Kino LorberBE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY-BLACHÉ (2019) 9:45 on TCM. The director Pamela B. Green revisits the life and work of the foundational early filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché in this documentary. Guy-Blaché was born in 1873 in France, and became one of the first people to innovate with the narrative possibilities that film allows — both as a director and producer, and eventually as the head of her own movie company, Solax Studios. Green’s documentary makes a case for Guy-Blaché’s importance while exploring the ways in which she has traditionally been written out of film history. The documentary also includes a fair amount of archival detective work, following Green’s efforts to research Guy-Blaché — the difficulty of which is telling in itself. It’s a “lively and informative” documentary, A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times. “By the end of ‘Be Natural,’” Scott wrote, “you won’t only have a clear idea of who this remarkable woman was; you may well have acquired a new taste in old movies.”ThursdayCAKE 10 p.m. on FXX. Despite its title, this comedy showcase series is really more a box of semisweet comedy truffles than it is a cake. Each season mixes bite-sized animated and live-action comedy pieces from an array of creators. The fifth season, which debuts on Thursday night, includes TV versions of two cult comic series: Reza Farazmand’s “Poorly Drawn Lines” and Branson Reese’s “Swan Boy.”FridayJeté Laurence in “Pet Sematary.”Kerry Hayes/Paramount PicturesPET SEMATARY (2019) 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Paramount Network. Stephen King’s 1983 novel of undead, sometimes four-legged, horrors is reincarnated in this modern movie adaptation. Following in the paw prints of both King’s novel and the 1989 film, this version stars Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz as a husband and wife who move their family to a small town in Maine. In the woods behind their new house, they discover a cemetery with supernatural traits that turn from horrific to alluring and back again. The directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer “overload the movie with arbitrary jump scares,” Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times. But, Kenny added, “when they settle into a groove that aligns with the novel’s, the movie delivers great unsettling jolts that approximate the power of King’s vision.” John Lithgow co-stars as the family’s new neighbor.THE KENNEDY CENTER AT 50 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Audra McDonald hosts this tribute to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Filmed earlier this month, the special includes performances from a formidable group of artists including the singer-songwriter Ben Folds, the soprano Renée Fleming, the jazz bass player Christian McBride and the folk quintet the Punch Brothers. Caroline Kennedy is a special guest.SaturdaySATURDAY NIGHT LIVE 11:30 p.m. on NBC. The continued cultural might of “Saturday Night Live” was on display earlier this month at the 73rd Emmy Awards, and not just because “S.N.L.” won the Emmy for best variety sketch series. The show’s reverberations were felt elsewhere during the ceremony. The “S.N.L.” alum Jason Sudeikis’s Apple TV+ show, “Ted Lasso,” was one of the night’s biggest winners. And the “S.N.L.” alum Norm Macdonald, who died on Sept. 14, was the subject of several tributes. Kenan Thompson was nominated in acting categories for both his work on the series and on his own sitcom, “Kenan” — a show that has surely gotten a boost from Thompson’s “S.N.L.” fame. And Bowen Yang’s silver boots were a red carpet show stealer. “S.N.L.” will return for its 47th season this Saturday, hosted by Owen Wilson. Kacey Musgraves is the musical guest.SundayA scene from “Nuclear Family.”HBONUCLEAR FAMILY 10:10 p.m. on HBO. The filmmaker Ry Russo-Young, known for indie movies including “Nobody Walks” (2012) and teen dramas like “The Sun is Also a Star” (2019), takes an autobiographical turn in this three-part documentary series. In “Nuclear Family,” Russo-Young revisits her childhood as the younger daughter of Sandy Russo and Robin Young. Russo-Young was part of the first generation of children raised by openly gay and lesbian parents. In 1991, her mothers were sued by the man who had donated the sperm for Russo-Young’s conception, Thomas Steel, in a case that made national news and resulted in Steel being granted legal standing as Russo-Young’s father. Russo-Young explores that history through home movies, photographs and present-day interviews. “It feels like this is my first film,” Russo-Young said in a recent interview with The Times. “Or all the films I’ve been making in my whole life have led up to this film.” The second of the three parts debuts on Sunday; the first is available now on HBO platforms including HBO Max. More

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      Here’s Why Norm Macdonald Was Comedy Royalty. It’s Not ‘S.N.L.’

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      He may have been best known for his work on “Saturday Night Live,” but he should be really remembered for decades of club sets and you-can’t-miss-this clips.My favorite Norm Macdonald joke — and trust me, there’s serious competition — is one he told as anchor of Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live” in the late 1990s. Papers in front of him, he reported with a cheer: “Yippie! Jerry Rubin died this week.” Looking down, he apologized for his mistake and tried again: “That should read: ‘Yippie Jerry Rubin died this week.’”Silly, dark, ruthlessly concise, this gem is a model of craft, and like many of Macdonald’s bits, it proves how the smallest change in tone, language or, in this case, exclamation mark can radically shift meaning, providing the kind of jolt of surprise that produces belly laughs.Macdonald, who died Tuesday of cancer, maintained a studied modesty about his work. He said that his act had no substance, that it was all “gossip and trickery.” And he claimed without self-pity that he would be remembered only for his few years at “Saturday Night Live,” not his decades of stand-up, which he referred to as “a shabby business, made up of shabby fellows like me who cross the country, stay at shabby hotels, and tell jokes they no longer find funny.”He described his life as a sprint to outrun the wolves of irrelevancy. “They caught and devoured me years ago,” he wrote in his 2016 quasi-memoir, “Based on a True Story.”Whether he believed this about himself doesn’t matter (Macdonald was a very skillful liar) and there is some merit to his points about stand-up and his credits, but the ornate way he beats himself up hints at a deeper truth: Macdonald was not only one of the funniest comics of his generation, but also a sneaky aesthete who elevated stand-up, helping shift its cultural prestige over the past few decades into an art deserving respect.His legacy is not clear from his level of stardom or even his list of television shows and specials, although he has some signal accomplishments, including an early stint as a writer on “Roseanne” and one of the best Netflix specials of the past decade, “Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery.” Macdonald’s greatness is not on his IMDb page so much as in the number of you-have-to-see-this moments, the kind that friends tell you about at parties and then send you the clip the next day.Many of these came from talk shows, where he was a hall-of-fame guest. He told one of the most justly revered jokes in late-night history on Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight” show, a preposterous masterpiece of literary suspense-building about a moth in a podiatrist’s office. Another moment on the couch from the same show went viral decades later: He interrupted an interview with the actress Courtney Thorne-Smith to savagely insult Carrot Top, the star of the movie she was promoting, a brutally hilarious act of sabotage.Macdonald had other talents. When it comes to parodies of roasts, he stood alone, turning intentionally awful jokes at the roast of Bob Saget into disorienting performance art that remains one of the funniest bits of anti-comedy you will ever see. And on “Saturday Night Live,” he may have been at his best on the Weekend Update desk (ultimately getting fired after his jokes about O.J. Simpson), but he also delivered several singular impressions, including a version of David Letterman that was both accurate and far too bizarre to be realistic.Letterman proved to be a key figure in Macdonald’s career, a champion of the stand-up’s work (the talk-show host said no one was funnier) who booked the comic on his show’s final week. Macdonald, breaking from his trademark acerbic style, ended on a surprisingly moving tribute, displaying an emotional side that usually only lurked under the surface of his comedy.In a column from 2017, I argued that what distinguished Macdonald’s comedy was his sensitivity to language, his peculiarly poetic brand of plain talk. He made stylish turns of phrase and folksy flourishes seem conversational and offhand. A lover of Bob Dylan, Macdonald was also a sponge for influences, borrowing and repurposing figures of speech or unusual words to create funny-sounding sentences.But describing him as merely a master of joke writing misses his quickness, wryly deadpan delivery and, most of all, a unique level of commitment. He did not bail out of jokes and never pandered. You see this in his Bob Saget roast: the conviction to push through despite the confusion of the response. He pleased the crowd without being a crowd-pleaser. And no one had a nimbler and more assured sarcastic voice, which he used to find humor in ambiguity. There was a wonderfully odd moment on David Spade’s talk show a few years ago when Macdonald told Jay Leno he was maybe the best talk-show host ever, and no one, including Leno, seemed to be able to tell if he was being sincere.There’s a lot of fun to be had in this liminal space between earnestness and just kidding. One of Macdonald’s most impressive feats is writing an entire memoir that remains there. It’s one of the greatest comedian memoirs but also a pointedly frustrating mix of fact and fiction, cliché and originality. It’s very funny, sometimes tedious, occasionally wise. The title, “Based on a True Story,” isn’t just a gag. It’s rooted in his faith that, as he puts it, “there is no way of telling a true story. I mean a really true one, because of memory. It’s just no good.”Just because you can’t tell a really true one doesn’t mean that art can’t get closer to the truth. In an interview with New York magazine, Macdonald balked at the trend toward confessional art, saying he thought art was supposed to be about concealment. That was revealing.The fact that he struggled with cancer for a decade was something he certainly didn’t advertise in his work. His death came as a shock to many. But clues were everywhere. Death has been among his favorite subjects in recent years. In a great viral moment, he delivered one of the earliest and best comedy club sets about the coronavirus. It was at the Improv in Los Angeles in March 2020 right before venues were shutting down. “It’s funny that we all now know how we’re going to die,” he said. “It’s just a matter of what order.”At the start of his memoir, he tells a story about reading on his Wikipedia page that he had died. Then he imagines if it were true, laughing until a thought stops him cold. “The preposterous lie on the screen before me isn’t that far off,” he wrote. This seemed like jokey melodrama when I first read it, but now it hits differently.Macdonald once talked about an uncle dying of cancer, skewering how we now describe people suffering from that disease as “waging a battle” because that means the last thing you do before you die is lose. “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that if you die, then the cancer also dies at the same time,” Macdonald said on Comedy Central. “That to me is not a loss. That’s a draw.” More

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      Norm Macdonald, ‘Saturday Night Live’ Comedian, Dies at 61

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      Acerbic and sometimes controversial, he became familiar to millions as the show’s “Weekend Update” anchor from 1994 to 1998.Norm Macdonald, the acerbic, sometimes controversial comedian familiar to millions as the “Weekend Update” anchor on “Saturday Night Live” from 1994 to 1998, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 61.His manager, Marc Gurvitz, confirmed the death. Lori Jo Hoekstra, his longtime producing partner, told the entertainment news outlet Deadline that the cause was cancer, something he had been dealing with for some time but had kept largely private.Mr. Macdonald had a deadpan style honed on the stand-up circuit, first in his native Canada and then in the United States. By 1990 he was doing his routine on “Late Night With David Letterman” and other shows. Then, in 1993, came his big break: an interview with Lorne Michaels, a fellow Canadian, for a job on “Saturday Night Live.”“I knew that even though we hailed from the same nation, we were worlds apart,” Mr. Macdonald wrote in “Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir” (2016), a fictional work with occasional hints of biography mixed in. “He was a cosmopolite from Toronto, worldly, the kinda guy who’d be comfortable around the Queen of England herself. Me, I was a hick, born to the barren, rocky soil of the Ottawa Valley, where the richest man in town was the barber.”In any case, he got the job, and by the next year he was in the anchor chair for the “Weekend Update” segment. In sketches, he impersonated Burt Reynolds and Bob Dole and played other characters.Mr. Michaels, in a telephone interview on Tuesday, said that Jim Downey, the show’s head writer at the time, had first brought Mr. Macdonald to his attention.“Jim just liked the intelligence behind the jokes,” he recalled.And Mr. Michaels saw it, too.“There’s something in his comedy — there’s just a toughness to it,” he said. “Also, he’s incredibly patient. He can wait” — that is, wait for a punchline.That, Mr. Michaels said, made Mr. Macdonald different stylistically from other “Weekend Update” anchors.“I think it took some getting used to for the audience,” Mr. Michaels said. “It wasn’t instantly a hit. But he just grew on them.”In early 1998, however, Mr. Macdonald was booted from the anchor chair, reportedly at the behest of Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC Entertainment, West Coast, who was said to have been annoyed by Mr. Macdonald’s relentless mocking of his friend O.J. Simpson.Mr. Macdonald as the anchor of “Weekend Update” in 1995. He got the anchor job 1994, a year after joining “Saturday Night Live,” and lost it in 1998.Al Levine/NBCUniversal via Getty ImagesMr. Macdonald stayed on for a few more episodes but didn’t return for the 1998-99 season. His post-“S.N.L.” television ventures were a mixed bag. “Norm” (originally called “The Norm Show”), a comedy about a former hockey player, ran from 1999 to 2001 on ABC. “Sports Show With Norm Macdonald,” on Comedy Central, lasted only a few months, in 2011. “The dedicated fan will identify two patterns in his television work,” Dan Brooks wrote in a 2018 article about him in The New York Times Magazine. “It is invariably funny, and it is invariably canceled.”But Mr. Macdonald said he didn’t think of himself first as a TV performer, and he continued to work as a comedian throughout his career.“In my mind, I’m just a stand-up,” he told Mr. Brooks. “But other people don’t think that. They go, oh, the guy from ‘S.N.L.’ is doing stand-up now.”Though known for “Weekend Update,” Mr. Macdonald did not do much topical material in his own routines. He liked jokes that would still be funny years in the future. Among his most famous is one he told on “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien” in 2009, about a moth that goes to a podiatrist. After a setup that rambled on for minutes, in which the moth pours out various emotional troubles, the podiatrist asks the insect why it came to a podiatrist rather than a psychiatrist. Mr. Macdonald’s punchline: “And then the moth said, ‘Because the light was on.’”Mr. Macdonald’s sense of humor sometimes got him in hot water. In 2018, for instance, he drew criticism for remarks that seemed to defend the comedian Louis C.K., who had been accused of sexual misconduct, and Roseanne Barr, who was under fire for a racist Twitter post. (Louis C.K. had written the foreword to Mr. Macdonald’s 2016 book, and Ms. Barr had hired him as a writer on her 1990s sitcom, “Roseanne.”) In apologizing for those comments, Mr. Macdonald made a remark that mocked people with Down syndrome.Missteps aside, Mr. Macdonald was always good for an unpredictable few minutes, or more, on a late-night talk show.“I’ve been interviewing Norm for 18 years, and he has consistently broken every talk-show rule,” Mr. O’Brien told The Times in 2011. “He tells anecdotes that are blatantly false. His stories have always been repurposed farmer’s daughter routines that he swears happened to him.”Mr. O’Brien added, “When Norm steps out from behind the curtain, I honestly don’t know what is going to happen, and that electrical charge comes through the television.”Mr. Macdonald in a scene from his sitcom “The Norm Show” (later called simply “Norm) in 1999. With him were Laurie Metcalf and Max Wright.Robert Votes/ABCNorman Gene Macdonald was born on Oct. 17, 1959, in Quebec City, according to IMDB.In 1998, his brother Neil told The Record of Ontario that Norm had had a flirtation with the newspaper business as a young man but that he had deliberately botched an interview for a job as a copyboy because he wasn’t that serious about the profession.“He once said he was interested in discovering the truth, but he hoped it would be within walking distance,” Neil Macdonald told the newspaper.He also recalled finding his brother hyperventilating in the washroom at Yuk Yuk’s, an Ottawa comedy club, before going onstage for his first stand-up gig. But he got it together and, as comedians say, killed.By 1984, Mr. Macdonald was skilled enough to spend four months opening for the comedian Sam Kinison. He eventually made his way to Los Angeles, and in 1992 he was hired as a writer on “The Dennis Miller Show” and then “Roseanne.”“I never wanted fame at all, I just wanted to do stand-up,” he told The Ottawa Citizen in 2010. “I found when I came to Los Angeles to do more stand-up comedy that people wanted me to do other things, which I really didn’t want to.”“Stand-up,” he added, “is an odd kind of job where, if you’re good at it, they figure you’ll be good at other stuff in show business, which is usually not the case.”Mr. Macdonald wrote the 1998 film “Dirty Work,” in which he starred with Don Rickles, Chevy Chase and others. Among his other credits were the “Dr. Doolittle” movies, in which he provided the voice of a dog named Lucky.His survivors include his mother, a son and two brothers, his manager said. “He was an original,” Mr. Michaels said, “and he didn’t compromise in a business that’s based on compromise — show business.”Dave Itzkoff More