October 16, 2016

“Watched 'Saturday Night Live' hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show."

"Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!"

Tweeted Donald Trump.

Unfunny? Judge for yourself:



We laughed a lot. Baldwin's impersonation of Trump certainly doesn't stink. Obviously, "SNL" is on the Clinton side politically, but why not laugh at yourself? And remember when Trump was on the show? That was last November, blogged here. They did a good job with him then, I think. But of course, back then, they probably didn't think he'd end up as the nominee... or they thought that if he was the nominee, Hillary would easily trounce him. Now, they must see the need to contribute to the effort to destroy him, and yet I thought the cold open (the embedded clip) was pretty gentle and mostly funny because it was silly — Trump looming in the background and moving around in the town hall debate.

36 comments:

Sprezzatura said...

IMHO, the HRC stuff makes her look pretty horrible.

But, a lot of the reason you could think the portrayal of her is more impactful is because her lameness is more likely to matter. That is, DJT can be going off the rails ten times worse that HRC, but if he loses who cares.

Sprezzatura said...

Anywho, maybe the SNL version of the Beyoncé video is what really pissed off the Don.

Sprezzatura said...

Btw,

SNL is missing something when the portray a celebratory HRC. How about the dab?

walter said...

Hmm. I don't know why he would object to being portrayed as a racist pedophile. I mean..in fairness..they really took the whole leaning attack to Hil. Ouch!
So..you know..pretty fair, right?
But the best part was how they skewered her about the emails. Wait..was that edited out?

Sprezzatura said...

Dabbing would really throw shade on BHO's mic drop.

Sprezzatura said...

"Hmm. I don't know why he would object to being portrayed as a racist pedophile."

I think you're on to something here. This way he's expanding his base. We already know the Alt-right racists love him. Now the pedophiles will jump on board the T Train.

Interesting analysis.

Sprezzatura said...

Maybe that same demo are the 400 lb guys in their basements who DJT thinks are helping him by hacking Ds?

walter said...

Wow..you can read people's subconscious thoughts and see into basements. Super-Jelly

Sprezzatura said...

My Dionne Warwick skills.

walter said...

Just be careful..you don't want to piss off 400lb hackers connected to Putin.

FullMoon said...

walter said...

Wow..you can read people's subconscious thoughts and see into basements. Super-Jelly

Vagina Jelly?

walter said...

Note they have Hillary refer to the women as "mistresses".

FullMoon said...

Here is the test for every "funny" program. Laugh along with the laugh track, or audience. See how it feels.

Bad Lieutenant said...

You find yourself laughing at yourself much, Althouse?

Clyde said...

I wonder if SNL figures somewhere in Podesta's Wikileaked emails? It wouldn't surprise me. The gleichshaltung continues.

Otto said...

Well you are correct, you should laugh at good comedy. But when the "good" comedy is always one-sided and is hurting your cause ,why acknowledge it. Maybe Elitism . My good taste(in your mind) is more important than the election. You know when someone is always trying to show how intelligent they are, maybe they have an inferiority complex.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

When does NBC log their in-kind donation to Hillary's campaign?

Kansas City said...

I thought it was moderately funny. It picked on both of them, probably more vicious on Trump, but what do you expect? It is getting a little old, but so is the election, especially for those who regret seeing the R's somehow hand a very winnable election to Hillary.

Rosalyn C. said...

I wasn't going to watch it because I didn't like Baldwin in the first skit, but since Althouse decided to run this story, I watched it. The skit started out funny but as usual, Baldwin's portrayal of Trump lacked any of Trump's charm and warmth. That's not humor that's an attack and it's bad acting. Baldwin's portrayal of Trump as racist against blacks was really not funny, that was truly vicious and Baldwin seemed to relish doing it. The inference from that is that Trump supporters are also racist bigots, an agenda that's been pushed by Hillary Clinton and her campaign. Did you find that funny? Hillary was mocked for being fake and contrived and ambitious and prideful. Also, I didn't like that the skit was factually wrong: Trump did not stalk Clinton, and Clinton did not come up with a creative answer to what she liked about Trump. This was a hit job. Not funny, more excruciating and sophomoric.

grimson said...

The bit with Trump moving behind Hillary was definitely the highlight. Two observations:

1. Do they even realize how condescending they are when they openly mock the-public-as-represented-by-the-audience for not being even remotely "camera-ready?" Calling Ken Bone "creepy" just adds to it. (And of course the audience registers its complete approval.)

2. It looks to me as if they actually costumed Kate McKinnon to be more tubby, like Hillary. Now if they can just do the age.

William said...

They retired the other Trump impersonators because their impersonations were not sufficiently hateful. Charlie Chaplin was kinder to Hitler than Baldwin was to Trump. They tactfully ignored any mention of Hillary's email scandals. I've seen McKinnon do a much more devastating Hillary. After Hillary is safely in the White House, the gloves will come off. They don't particularly like her.......Slightly off topic: they're claiming that these leaked emails are the result of Russian mechanations, and maybe so. I know of another case where the Russians leaked information to the press. It was said that the Soviet Embassy was I.F. Stone's research assistant. They gave him plenty of damaging info about Vietnam. That in no way poisoned the well. Stone was widely praised for his courage and assiduity in passing along such info.

Rosalyn C. said...

I meant to say the skit missed the opportunity to be just as vicious towards Hillary Clinton. They could have easily portrayed her as habitually deceitful, pathologically corrupt and greedy, addicted to power, narcissistic, propped up by an army of sycophants who are rewarded with lifetime benefits and protection by the Clinton cartel, and reportedly subject to rage attacks and seizures. Just the kind of person we want to be the Commander in Chief.

chickelit said...

Baldwin is funny in the same way that Lena Dunham is funny.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely hilarious! Baldwin's Trump is amazing.

Ann Althouse said...

"You find yourself laughing at yourself much, Althouse?"

Not that much.

Anonymous said...

I laugh at Althouse's commenters whenever I read Althouse's blog posts.

narciso said...

the purpose of saturday night live is as court jesters for the regime, I would say baldwin wasn't too bad when the huntress was on 8 years ago, but that's about the extent of it,

Wince said...

Trump looming in the background and moving around in the town hall debate.

I could see Trump being pissed-off about the "stalking" meme.

Post Lazio, I'd expect he made a conscious effort to stay at his podium.

And by looking at the footage edited to make this unfavorable "Laugh or Die", Trump did appear to keep himself to the space around his podium.

Danny Elfman Scores Donald Trump 'Stalking' Hillary Clinton at Debate for Funny or Die

First Ellen and then SNL. Seems orchestrated, hoped for.

Trump likely perceives it as unfair depiction that could stick, like the "see Russia from my house" Tina Fey quote that was later widely attributed to Sarah Palin.

Trump probably now wonders whether the control room (CNN?) at the debate tried to keep him in the frame for that purpose.

walter said...

Producers probably yanked the disparaging cutaway of the "mistresses" the writers wanted to depict.

Brando said...

So SNL is totally biased against him even though he was the only candidate in this election cycle who was allowed to guest host the show last season when the primary was under way.

Maybe next time the GOP could try nominating an adult.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Brando, what will be your reaction if Trump wins?

Bad Lieutenant said...


Ann Althouse said...
"You find yourself laughing at yourself much, Althouse?"

Not that much.
10/16/16, 9:47 PM

but why not laugh at yourself?

Brando said...

"Brando, what will be your reaction if Trump wins?"

Slightly surprised. I don't think it's impossible for him to pull off a victory, but he has been doing a lot of things to foreclose that possibility.

I'll also be happy to see the end of the Clintons, and to imagine the look on Bill's face when he sees his old buddy ruined his wife's candidacy. Not just to lose, but to lose to someone as unpopular and flawed as Trump. That's gotta sting.

I won't be happy to imagine what sort of policies he'd try to enact, and my best hope would be that his whole candidacy was an act and that he's going to let smart conservative policymakers run the show for a change. Not that I have much hope in that, but I'll cling to it.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I won't be happy to imagine what sort of policies he'd try to enact, and my best hope would be that his whole candidacy was an act and that he's going to let smart conservative policymakers run the show for a change. Not that I have much hope in that, but I'll cling to it.

Maybe. Then again...

What does he owe "smart conservative policymakers"? What have "smart conservative policymakers" done for Donald Trump? vs. what have "smart conservative policymakers" done TO Donald Trump? What have "smart conservative policymakers" done to win Presidential elections lately?

Brando said...

"What does he owe "smart conservative policymakers"? What have "smart conservative policymakers" done for Donald Trump? vs. what have "smart conservative policymakers" done TO Donald Trump? What have "smart conservative policymakers" done to win Presidential elections lately?"

He doesn't owe "policymakers" but if he wins, it'll only be because enough conservatives backed him. And if he doesn't have conservatives on his team enacting policies, and (presumably) no liberals, it'll be a crapshoot.

So I don't have a lot of faith in him, but if he surprised me by doing that it'd be a pleasant surprise.

Bad Lieutenant said...

You don't perceive any downside risk, then. If you don't feel it's compromising, may I ask how old you are?