I got a magnet. And thats about all I’m legally allowed to say about today.
If by “new SNL” you mean “unfunny, only sporadically relevant, and coasting on its name recognition and people’s residual fondness for Will Farrell” then, yes, yes it is the new SNL.
Also, guy that wrote this article, you use the word “powerhouse” in your subtitle; can something be called a powerhouse if it’s failing to turn a profit and being kept alive solely by rich people who need a place to post their terrible sketch ideas?
Considering the operative word in the title is “Best”, this is an outstanding list, and not just because I vividly remember watching all but three of these live. Also because #10, #3, and #6 are (in order) my all-time top three favorite YouTube videos.
(And no matter how many times I see #21 and #13 they never get old.)
I dont know how long Jon has been working on his Glenn Beck impression, but however long it’s been, it was absolutely worth it. He knocks it out of the park here.
Chuck Klosterman
Oh Chuck, I really wish you would stop stealing my thoughts and feelings and then articulating them far better than I ever could. I mean although this quote could have come straight from my head, I guess its not a totally uncommon sentiment. But the fact that in your latest book you wrote about Chris Gaines/Sasha Fierce and how they relate to the idea of authenticity, an idea which I myself had been working on writing about for some time, is pretty damn freaky.
Lloyd Dobler
20 years on, still a good life plan
At this moment, there are more females serving on the United States Supreme Court than there are writing for Late Show with David Letterman, The Jay Leno Show, and The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien combined. Out of the 50 or so comedy writers working on these programs, exactly zero are women. It would be funny if it weren’t true.
Its no overstatement to say I was raised on David Letterman, so it pains me to post anything even remotely critical of him. But this isnt so much an indictment of Dave himself, but rather of an entire community, an entire culture, and dare I say it, society itself. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times - the latent sexism of dorky comedy types is far more troubling to me than the obvious frat boy/beer commercial brand of sexism.
Come on people, we can do better than this (although part of me fears we never will).
This being tumblr and all, you can be sure I have some thoughts on seeing Where The Wild Things Are this weekend. They’re here if you care to read them. But I think the thing that really struck me were all the trailers for kids’ movies beforehand. This one in particular.
There are just so many questions I have.
-Why would you cast someone who barely speaks English as the lead in a comedy?
-Since when are Jackie Chan, Billy Ray Cyrus, and George Lopez big enough stars to headline a movie?
-When did Uma Thurman change her name to Amber Valletta?
But most importantly: If you went back to 1994, the year Dookie was released, would anyone believe you if you told them that one day Green Day music would be used to advertise family friendly comedies?
How did we get to this place?
(via fredtheonlinejournal)
I know this piece has been circulating the internet for awhile now, but if you havent read it yet I urge you to check it out. Its one of the best things you’ll read this year.
Q: Hey Andy can you give us an example of what you think of when you hear the phrase “comedy at its finest”?
A: Why, of course. I’d be glad to.
I’ve always noticed that it takes me about five minutes to scroll through the B section of my iTunes, but I never realized until today just how many artists I love start with such a seemingly random letter. I would understand if we were talking about S or T or even M, but B seems like such a unlikely letter to be so wildly popular. By my count I have 118 artists in my iTunes whose names start with the letter B. Hell, there are 13 artists alone who start with the word “black”. S may technically outnumber B (129 to 118) but the number of heavy hitters in B is just staggering. The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Beck, The Band, The Beastie Boys, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and of course Bone Thugs and Harmony are all some of the biggest names in the last half century of popular music. And if you want to go back further than that there’s Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. I don’t know why B is so popular, but maybe it provides some explanation as to why when I was three years old I insisted on going as the letter B for Halloween.
In case you forgot how many people live in New York.
Very Small Array is a blog full of great beautiful charts and graphs.
