Saturday Night Live (TV Program)

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      ‘SNL’ Riffs on the State of the Union and Republican Response

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      The Republican rebuttal delivered by Senator Katie Britt already struck many viewers as parody, making Scarlett Johansson’s job look easy.It was inevitable that “Saturday Night Live” would sample heavily from the buffet of satirical potential offered by Thursday’s State of the Union. Perhaps the only question going into this weekend’s broadcast, hosted by Josh Brolin and featuring the musical guest Ariana Grande, was who would play Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, who delivered the much-discussed Republican response to President Biden’s speech.As it turned out, “S.N.L.” did not draw from its own cast for this role, but it didn’t look far to find someone: Britt was played by Scarlett Johansson, the two-time Academy Award-nominated actress, six-time “S.N.L.” host and — yes — wife of Colin Jost, the Weekend Update co-anchor.Following a brief introduction from Ego Nwodim as CNN’s Abby Phillip, the show began with Mikey Day, now the resident Biden impersonator at “S.N.L.,” taking his place in front of Punkie Johnson (as Vice President Harris) and Michael Longfellow (as Speaker Mike Johnson).“Folks,” Day said, “tonight I’m going to cover a lot. There’s going to be a lot of applause. So, Kamala, I hope you didn’t skip leg day, girl. You’re going to be up and down all night.” (Naturally, Johnson stood up and applauded; Longfellow did not.)Day continued: “Tonight, I’m also going to be talking about my predecessor,” he said. “Mainly because every time I say predecessor, Mike Johnson shakes his head, like he just accidentally caught 30 seconds of the show ‘Euphoria.’ Look at that weirdo.”After being booed by Heidi Gardner (who was playing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene), Day threw to the Republican response: “I think she’s going to help me more than anything else I could say here,” he said. “Enjoy.”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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      Shane Gillis Finally Appears on ‘Saturday Night Live’

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      The comic was fired from the show in 2019 before ever appearing on it, history he barely mentioned when he hosted on Saturday. “Please, don’t Google that,” he said in his monologue.Finally given the opportunity to take the stage at NBC’s Studio 8H, the comedian Shane Gillis did not say much about how he’d been fired as a cast member from “Saturday Night Live” before appearing in a single episode.Instead, Gillis, who has since gone on to become a popular standup and podcaster, delivered an opening monologue that perhaps suggested both he and “S.N.L.” were both better off for having followed separate trajectories.Gillis, who has performed in standup specials like “Beautiful Dogs” on Netflix and is a co-host of “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” was announced to be an “S.N.L.” cast member in September 2019. Just days later, “S.N.L.” reversed course and dropped him from its lineup, following criticism of resurfaced podcast segments in which Gillis used a slur to describe Chinese people and performed a caricature accent, and used a homophobic slur to refer to the filmmaker Judd Apatow and the comedian Chris Gethard, as well as the presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Senator Bernie Sanders.At the time, “S.N.L.” said in a statement that the language Gillis had used “is offensive, hurtful and unacceptable.” Gillis himself wrote in a social media post that he was “a comedian who pushes boundaries” adding that in comedy, “you’re going to find a lot of bad misses.”Returning to “S.N.L.” nearly five years later as a guest host, Gillis did not take a scorched-earth approach in his monologue, like when Norm Macdonald appeared as a host in 1999 after he’d been fired from the show. (“I haven’t gotten funnier,” Macdonald said at the time. “The show has gotten really bad.”)“Yeah, I’m here,” Gillis began. “Most of you probably have no idea who I am. I was actually — I was fired from this show a while ago. But if, you know, don’t look that up, please, if you don’t know who I am. Please, don’t Google that. It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.”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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      Shane Gillis to Host ‘S.N.L.’ After Being Dropped in 2019. Here’s What He’s Done Since.

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      The comedian was abruptly fired in 2019, just after being named to the cast, when offensive comments he’d made surfaced. Now a rising stand-up star, he is set to appear on the show this weekend.When the comedian Shane Gillis was dropped from “Saturday Night Live” in 2019 just days after the announcement that he’d been added to the Season 45 cast, he lost one of the most sought-after jobs in comedy. Immediately after his addition to the cast, multiple instances surfaced of him using language that the show called “offensive, hurtful and unacceptable” in a statement addressing his ouster.Among the inflammatory language he’d used, on his podcast and on others, was a slur to refer to Chinese people, along with a caricature accent, and a homophobic slur, which he used to describe the filmmaker Judd Apatow and the comedian Chris Gethard as well as the Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Senator Bernie Sanders (the latter two prefaced with the word “Jew”). “Fat, ugly idiots promoting hate, that’s what this is,” he said, ribbing himself and those with whom he was talking.Gillis could have become a pariah. Instead, on Saturday, he’ll make his debut on NBC’s storied Studio 8H stage, as a host.Since his firing, Gillis’s star has quickly ascended: His debut special, released on YouTube in 2021, has amassed about 24 million views; and his podcast with Matt McCusker, “Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast,” on which some of the problematic statements were made, has the most subscribers of any podcast on Patreon with more than 80,000 paying listeners, tens of thousands more than the next highest. He has also been touring rigorously, performing on comedy stages across the United States and the world.He reached new heights in September with the release of Netflix’s “Beautiful Dogs,” which had a lengthy run on the streamer’s Top 10 most popular shows list. In that special, he walked the line between satirizing conservatives and playing to them, according to The New York Times’s comedy critic, Jason Zinoman, who described its opening bit as “dumb and smart, cocky and self-mocking, homophobic but relentlessly self-aware.”“Don’t be surprised if he becomes an arena act,” Zinoman added.A few weeks ago, Bud Light announced that it was partnering with Gillis. “Welcome to the team,” the brand posted on Instagram along with a photo of the comedian. Bud Light has been scrambling to contain the fallout, which included plummeting sales, from last year’s right-wing backlash to Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, promoting the beer on Instagram.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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      Brian McConnachie, Humor Writer ‘From Another Planet,’ Dies at 81

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      A contributor to National Lampoon, “Saturday Night Live” and “SCTV,” he had a patrician presence that belied a whimsical and sometimes anarchic wit.Brian McConnachie, who brought absurdist humor to three comedy touchstones of the 1970s and ’80s — National Lampoon magazine and the NBC television series “Saturday Night Live” and “SCTV Network” — died in hospice care on Jan. 5 in Venice, Fla. He was 81.The cause was complications of Parkinson’s disease, his wife, Ann (Crilly) McConnachie, said.Mr. McConnachie — who stood 6-foot-5 and often dressed in a bow tie, suit and saddle shoes — had an elegant, patrician presence that set him apart from the wilder, more disheveled writers (most of them men) who often surrounded him.“Look, if you told me that he had been a welcomed member of the Algonquin Round Table, and he was there with James Thurber, I’d get that,” Alan Zweibel, an original “S.N.L.” writer who worked with Mr. McConnachie, said in a phone interview. “The rest of us were hooligans.”Yet even if he appeared to be more of a grown-up than other writers in the Lampoon and “S.N.L.” orbits, Mr. McConnachie’s laid-back, whimsical style — with some anarchic, disturbed twists — fit in well with the other writers’ contributions.“If the story of the National Lampoon were a script by Rod Serling,” Rick Meyerowitz, a leading illustrator there, wrote in “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead” (2010), his history of the magazine, “the main character would have been Brian McConnachie, a man who his colleagues were convinced was from another planet.”In addition to writing for National Lampoon, Mr. McConnachie appeared in its “1964 High School Yearbook Parody,” among other places.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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      Nikki Haley Appears on ‘Saturday Night Live’

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      Ayo Edebiri hosted in a show that focused much of its energy on politics, along with Taylor Swift conspiracy theories and a “Dune” popcorn bucket.“Saturday Night Live” resumed its election-season tradition of bringing on political candidates to play themselves, inviting Nikki Haley for a cameo in its opening sketches this weekend.Haley, who has tried to make use of comedy and popular culture as she trails former President Donald J. Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, appeared in a segment that was presented as a CNN town hall event with Trump (played by the show’s resident Trump impersonator, James Austin Johnson).Johnson fielded questions from other “S.N.L.” cast members, explaining how he planned to beat President Biden and would “stop Taylor Swift from infiltrating the Super Bowl.” The town hall moderators then introduced a question from an audience member “who describes herself as a concerned South Carolina voter.”That voter turned out to be Haley, the former governor of South Carolina (as well as an ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration). “Yes, hello,” Haley said to Johnson. “My question is, why won’t you debate Nikki Haley?”“Oh my God, it’s her!” Johnson said. “The woman who was in charge of security on Jan. 6. It’s Nancy Pelosi.”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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      ‘S.N.L.’ Wonders What Men Will Do After Football Season Ends

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      Dakota Johnson hosted and Justin Timberlake was the musical guest in an episode that brought back some old favorites and also offered a few surprises.The Super Bowl may still be two weeks away, but as far as “Saturday Night Live” is concerned, this is your last weekend to experience authentic N.F.L. football.This latest “S.N.L.” broadcast, hosted by Dakota Johnson and featuring the musical guest Justin Timberlake, kicked off with a parody of CBS’s coverage of the A.F.C. championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Baltimore Ravens, with Andrew Dismukes and James Austin Johnson playing the anchors Tony Romo and Jim Nantz.Dismukes began with some enthusiasm for the game: “We’ve got two generational talents at quarterback,” he said. “Two elite defenses. I expect this to be an all-out battle for the next three hours.” Then a hint of emotion crept in as he added, “And after that, it’s all over.”“All over?” Johnson asked.“Football,” Dismukes said. “After today it’s just — it’s done.”Yes, there’s the Super Bowl, but, as Dismukes said: “That’s not real football. The Super Bowl is for commercials and Usher and people who never watch football asking how many points a touchdown is worth. Today is the last real football day for just us guys.”The rest of the CBS broadcast team tried to make their peace with this eventuality. “What are men supposed to do on Sundays now?” asked Mikey Day, who was playing the analyst Bill Cowher. “Just go to their friends’ houses for no reason?”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?  More

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      ‘S.N.L.’ Turns Back to Its Favorite Topic, Trump

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      Alaska Airlines also came in for mockery, with a parody ad that imagines finding the public relations upside in a flight where a door plug blew out at about 16,000 feet.With 2024 underway and the presidential race in full swing, it was time for “Saturday Night Live” to get back to doing what it loves best: lampooning former President Donald J. Trump.In its first new broadcast of the year, hosted by Jacob Elordi and featuring the musical guest Reneé Rapp, “S.N.L.” kicked off with a sketch featuring its resident Trump impressionist, James Austin Johnson. It parodied Trump’s impromptu remarks outside a courtroom in Lower Manhattan where he is again on trial facing accusations that he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll, after an earlier jury verdict in May that Trump defamed and sexually abused her.After a brief introduction by Chloe Fineman, who played Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer, (“I am new at this, and I am learning,” she said), Johnson entered as Trump and quickly dressed down his own legal representation.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?  More

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      There will be many onstage reunions for the 75th Emmys anniversary.

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      Monday’s ceremony will be the 75th edition of the Emmy Awards, and Anthony Anderson, the show’s host, will get some support in the form of onstage reunions from celebrated shows.Several cast members from “Cheers” — the beloved NBC sitcom that aired from 1982 to 1993, winning four best comedy Emmys along the way — will join together, including Ted Danson, Kelsey Grammer, Rhea Perlman, John Ratzenberger and George Wendt. Two cast members from “The Sopranos” — Lorraine Bracco and Michael Imperioli — which celebrated the 25th anniversary of its premiere last week, will be there; so will several actors from “Ally McBeal,” the 1999 best comedy winner (Calista Flockhart, Greg Germann, Peter MacNicol and Gil Bellows). There will also be cast reunions for “Grey’s Anatomy” and the 1990s Fox sitcom “Martin.”Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, former Golden Globe hosts and “Saturday Night Live” Weekend Update anchors, will also present.Emmy producers expect to pay tribute to many other beloved classics, including “I Love Lucy,” “All in the Family” and “The Carol Burnett Show.” More