March 11, 2018

"SNL" awkwardly needles the audience about the reality that Robert Mueller is not going to get Trump out of office.

There are many long silent pauses in last night's cold open (possibly because people were not up to speed on what happened recently on the reality show "The Bachelor"):



I've read enough about "The Bachelor" to get what they were parodying. The man who'd chosen a particular woman to marry later dropped in to give her the news that he wasn't going to marry her after all. She's surprised and crushed or something.

In last night's parody, a woman who'd been hoping that Mueller was going to get rid of Trump is dropped in on by Mueller who — in the style of The Bachelor — breaks the news that he's not going to be able to get Trump and we're going to need to find a way to accept and go forward with the reality that Trump is President.

Maybe you'll find it funny precisely because of the many long silent pauses that speak of the audience not finding it funny at all. The cast members — Kate McKinnon (as Mueller) and Cecily Strong (as the woman who can't believe this is happening to her) — are fully aware that they are — as actors say  — dying out there, and it's interesting to watch them soldiering on with the material to which they must remain committed until they finally get to the part when they can break character and shout "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night" and unleash the blaring saxophone music and the cornball announcer spewing as many unfamiliar names as a Mueller indictment.

72 comments:

Danno said...

SNL is still a thing? Just kidding!

Lyle Sanford, RMT said...

"and unleash the blaring saxophone music and the cornball announcer spewing as many unfamiliar names as a Mueller indictment." Now THAT'S cruel neutrality!

Quaestor said...

... and the cornball announcer spewing as many unfamiliar names as a Mueller indictment.

Lyle beat me to it, but this deserves another citation for excellence.

If Althouse wrote for SNL maybe they'd have a show.

tim in vermont said...

I would have gone with Stormy, sure winner.

rehajm said...

It wasn't bad as SNL parodies go. It must have been quite a shock for those who tune in for the weekly therapeutic Trump hate which at this point is everyone who tunes in. People looking for funny left long ago.

Bob Boyd said...

"scold open"

Perfect. That's what PC does to comedy.

Mark said...

CORRECTION --

I've NOT watched the show in years, but in its defense, it or any other comedy show does not necessarily always be funny. It can also be entertaining, which may or may not be ha-ha, laugh out loud funny.

Was this bit at least entertaining? I don't know. Didn't/won't watch it. But I did go and watch the Bachelor break-up -- followed by the stalker, why won't he leave now? -- video. Which was very awkward.

David Begley said...

“and the cornball announcer spewing as many unfamiliar names as a Mueller indictment.”

What?! You mean Bill Murray and John Belushi are no longer on SNL?

Six more years of Trump is right. A shocking admission by SNL writers. But great for comics.

Unknown said...

I haven't watched SNL for years but I really thought this was funny and brilliant!

Michael K said...

I agree, although I haven't watched in years, that the remaining SNL audience is just there for the Trump hate fix.

Oscar audience, too.

Bay Area Guy said...

Wow, the once mighty SNL has certainly fallen. You could more laughs from old Lawrence Welk Show reruns.

Ray - SoCal said...

Nice snl skit. I’m a bit surprised they did it.

Trump as Scot Adams prophesied went from being seen as a madman just like Hitler, to incompetent, to competent.

tcrosse said...

“and the cornball announcer spewing as many unfamiliar names as a Mueller indictment.”

What have we got for her, Don Pardo ?

MadisonMan said...

Good comedy has the ability to make you uncomfortable.

rehajm said...

I keep looking for the moment where Hollywood et al. succumbs to the economic realities of alienating half the audience. This probably isn't it but it seems a step in that direction.

Netflix will be smarting from my recently cancelled subscription, too. A nudge like that can't hurt.

tcrosse said...

Good comedy has the ability to get you blacklisted.

Paco Wové said...

I listened to the clip, and it didn't strike me as different from the usual SNL opening. Lame joke,
followed by nervous titters from audience – they paused, so that must have been a punchline,
right? I guess we should be polite and laugh a little bit here
.
(Disclosure: have not watched SNL since 1982.)

Wince said...

Much of what the public knows about Mueller is video of his body language rather than his voice and speaking style. The leaning forward, the eyes looking up, etc.

Kate McKinnon obviously recognized the opportunity and did a great job capturing the impression.

The long silent pauses should be called "Maddow pauses".

"HE USED TO BE HITLER. THEN HE WAS AN INCOMPETENT TODDLER..."

As the later Trump-based "This is U.S." SNL sketch indicated, however, the new anti-Trump theme seems to be dysfunction.

Curious George said...

"possibly because people were not up to speed on what happened recently on the reality show "The Bachelor")"

I don't think that's it. I think it's because they are not up to speed on what happened recently to the Mueller investigation. Inside the hive no one knows what a farce it is. You have to look no further than our resident dullard #IngaKnew

Ralph L said...

SNL needs to brush up on arithmetic.

They couldn't find a guy to play Mueller?

jaydub said...

NBC doesn't allow the video to play in "my country", which is Spain at the moment. So, I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Chuck said...

The choice of Kate McKinnon was so weird, that on this morning's Fox News Sunday, substitute host John Roberts mistook the character as Jeff Sessions (another Kate McKinnon character on SNL). Roberts should have known better; the sketch did make it pretty plain that it was "Mueller" as the character.

Usually the choice by SNL to gender-reverse the actor-character is meant to heighten the insult at the character. Think John Belushi as Elizabeth Taylor. Will Ferrell as Janet Reno. Kate McKinnon as Jeff Sessions.

Does SNL want to diminish Mueller? Weird.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Nice writing Althouse. Gotta 2nd Lyle in highlighting that last beautiful sentence.

Breezy said...

Are we now in the “Upward Turn” stage of Grief?

Ron Winkleheimer said...

That was schadenfreudelicious.

Mary Beth said...

"Do you have any good news for me?"

"Well, do you own American Steel?"

It's funny because it's true.

Ralph L said...

Gotta 2nd Lyle

Is that what the young guys call it now?

J Lee said...

Reminds me of the audience's reaction to the "Living in The Bubble" parody ad SNL did a week and a half after Trump's election, where there was muted laughter through much of the bit, with the loudest reaction being the applause when the bit show life inside The Bubble including $5 bills with Bernie Sanders' picture on them. In both cases, SNL's politics over the past decade has trained its studio audience to expect the comedy routines to come 100 percent from a liberal prospective, so when the show serves up a skit that doesn't fit the template the audience sounds lost and confused, as if they're sitting in on a performance wearing earpieces, where the cast is speaking in Mandarin and they're waiting for the translation to arrive.

Chuck said...

Mary Beth said...
"Do you have any good news for me?"

"Well, do you own American Steel?"

It's funny because it's true.

Not so good, if you own Ford, Caterpillar, Harley Davidson, Brown-Forman (Woodford Reserve), or Levi Strauss.

Mike Sylwester said...

I watched that Bachelor episode, and I found this SNL spoof to be brilliant. I posted the video on my Facebook page.

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

Hindsight is 20/20, but nostalgia is 20/10.

SNL casts have varied in quality over the years, but the formula works.

It's like 'The Ed Sullivan Show' if they just replaced Ed Sullivan every few years with a new Ed Sullivan.

I liked the old Ed Sullivan better; the new Ed Sullivan isn't stiff enough.

The Germans have a word for this.

Jimmy said...

It was a brilliant sketch. The audience was introduced to an idea that they already knew, deep down. That Mueller investigation was a total waste of time and money. That they laughed at all, was nice, given that the SNL audience is pretty much in the bag for the Dems.
Kate captured Mueller exactly- she is a wonderful actor.
One of the few skits I've seen that I enjoyed, other than the one on election nite. Both skits made fun of the left.
Honestly, I was surprised SNL went with it at all. As others here have pointed out, Adams nailed it when he said DJT goes from Hitler, to crazy to incompetent to competent. I think the acceptance part of the process is underway. At least for the public. The MSM will never get there.

StephenFearby said...

I've never watched ABC's 'The Bachelor'(and have absolutely no intention of ever doing so, especially after watching the SNL skit).

Turns out there's an extensive Wikipedia entry for 'The Bachelor' which includes a fake authenticity section, softened by Wikipedia to "Questions of authenticity".

One pertinent example:

"...On March 26, 2009, Megan Parris argued that not only was the show scripted, but that producers bullied contestants into saying things to the camera that contestants did not want to say.[102] "There's nothing real about it," she said of the show's trademark "confessionals," in which contestants talk to the camera about the latest goings-on. "It is scripted," she said. "They basically will call you names, berate you, curse at you until they get you to say what they want you to say." Both ABC and Warner Bros., the studio that produces The Bachelor, had no comment.[103]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bachelor_(U.S._TV_series)

As the Apprentice President is wont to tweet, "Sad".

rcocean said...

I don't get why they used an actress in this sketch. I got so bored after 2 minutes I started to skip around.

Anyway, its very unfunny and goes on forever.

Maybe if you watch the Batchelor it's worth a few chuckles.

rcocean said...

Of course some people think its great, because some people think anything is funny.

Millions thought Ishtar was the funniest movie comedy ever.

Jerry Lewis is a comedy God to some, and not just in France.

Millions love Big Macs

Sebastian said...

"The audience was introduced to an idea that they already knew, deep down."

I am not sure. Perhaps they "know" that Mueller will fail in his essential mission. But I don't think they "know deep down" that Trump did not collude, that the whole business is a travesty. For all I know, they still "know" that Trump made a deal with Putin that swung the election and favored Russia.

Scott Johnson's Powerline exegesis of a Jane Mayer piece extolling the virtues of Christopher Steele illustrates the prog mindset. The bubble hasn't broken.

bagoh20 said...

If they watched Fox, they'd get the jokes.

Birkel said...

If they had chosen to parody Unreal and taken The Bachelor criticism meta, while still parodying Mueller, that would have been really clever and given far more room for humor.

The clapter in this skit was meh.

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

The best Saturday Night Live was from the Seventies.

No, not the one with Belushi and Radner* and Chase, etc.

I am talking about the one with Bull Murray**.

I am -- of course -- referring to "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell."

From Wiki:

"Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell was an American television comedy-variety program that ran on ABC from September 1975 to January 1976, hosted by Howard Cosell and executive-produced by Roone Arledge. The series ran for 18 episodes before being cancelled. The show was later remembered by its director Don Mischer as "one of the greatest disasters in the history of television", largely because Cosell and Arledge—both veterans of sports broadcasting—were entirely unfamiliar with comedy and variety programming.

Despite having highly notable celebrities both as cast members and guests, Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell has never been made available on home video...

The premiere episode featured celebrity guests Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Paul Anka, Siegfried and Roy, the cast of the Broadway version of The Wiz, tennis pro Jimmy Connors (who sang, while profusely sweating, Anka's "Girl, You Turn Me On" as a dedication to his girlfriend Chris Evert. Anka played the piano to accompany Connors), and John Denver.[3] The episode's musical guest was the Bay City Rollers, from Scotland, whom Cosell dubbed "the next" British phenomenon..."

(*note that I made sure to include a female cast member so as not to imply that this cast was funniest because they were men, and men are generally funnier than women.)

(**"The show featured Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Christopher Guest as regular comedy performers, dubbed "The Prime Time Players". In response, NBC's show Saturday Night called its regular performers "The Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players". ..")

A show with Frank Sinatra AND the Bay City Rollers? All on the same night?

The Germans have a word for this.

tcrosse said...

A show with Frank Sinatra AND the Bay City Rollers? All on the same night?

One night in the 80's Letterman had Bob Dylan and Liberace on the same night. Dylan played a number with his back to the audience.

Mary Beth said...

Brown-Forman (Woodford Reserve)

Is B-F supposed to be doing poorly? Or just Woodford? (I'm not sure why you included one of their label names.) I haven't noticed a shift in B-F's community involvement (specifically, support for local non-profits) that I had when other large area corporations have had problems in the past. I just have anecdotal evidence, so you may be aware of something I'm not.

Sure the stock spiked for a bit, but it's not like it's at an all time low now, it's just back to where it was last November, which, outside of the past few months, is still higher than it had historically been.

tcrosse said...

The best Saturday Night Live was from the Seventies.

For a few years in the early 80's ABC had a late-night sketch comedy show called Fridays, with among others Larry David and Michael Richards. Not bad for a knock-off.

Anonymous said...

I can't help feeling bad for our progs here at Althouse, though. Not quite the Mueller thread they thought they'd be gleefully commenting on c. mid-March '18, is it?

Paco Wové said...

Dunno what Caterpillar stock Chuck owns, but mine's gone through the roof. Thinking about selling and taking some profit.*

--
*(DISCLAIMER: Performance of individual stock does not imply anything about overall state of economy, or support partisan ankle-biting re: same.}

langford peel said...

The cast and writers of Saturday Night Live are part of the Hollywood liberal cabal. Along with the main stream media and college professors they are the bitter enemies of the normals. The American People.

The Germans have a solution for this.

Yancey Ward said...

I watched the premier episode of the Cosell show. I had forgotten, though, that it preceded the NBC show by a month. I also had forgotten that Bill Murray was on it!

ABC got the comedy sketch thing right, though, with Friday's.

Yancey Ward said...

I see I am not the only one who remembers Fridays. I loved that show.

n.n said...

The warlock is dead. Long live the warlock. Perhaps the liberal crowd can hold an abortion rite to relieve their stress.

rehajm said...

Friday's also had Michael Richards playing several recurring characters like the rollerskating lothario and 'Battle Boy'.

Also, the Any Kauffman fight from Friday's is legend.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Brown Forman seems to be doing pretty well.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=brown+forman+stock+price&qs=AS&pq=brown+forman+&sk=LS2AS2&sc=8-13&cvid=B187C95CA55043ADA430EFB178B74C5B&FORM=QBLH&sp=5

Which isn't surprising since bourbon and whiskey sales are booming.

https://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/news/2017/02/07/bourbon-and-american-whiskey-sales-topped-3.html

Ford's stock price is down, but that seems to be part of a long term trend as a look at the five year history will show.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=ford+motor+stock+price&qs=HS&pq=ford+mot&sc=8-8&cvid=FEB0F7874AB441068816FAB9F7017576&FORM=QBLH&sp=2

Caterpillar seems to be doing ok.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=catepillar%20stock%20price&qs=n&form=QBRE&sp=-1&pq=catepillar%20stock%20price&sc=8-22&sk=&cvid=B10535BBD2E54141B4BAFF7E339EF97C

Without even looking I'm going to predict that Harley Davidson's stock price is crap, but then everybody knows that, who pays any attention. Since their market sector is dying off (middle-aged doctors, lawyers, and other well compensated professionals having a mid-life crisis) that's not surprising.

aaaannnnd actually its not as bad as I would have thought.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=harley+davidson+stock+prices&qs=AS&pq=harley+davidson+stock+&sc=8-22&cvid=5CE3978E98D84EC2A2F569EF4ED6680A&FORM=QBRE&sp=1

and as for Levi Strauss

"The famous jean manufacture Levi Strauss' ticker symbol is LEVSTRP. The stock is privately held by family members and is not traded publicly."

So lets look at revenues.

$4.55 Billion in sales

https://www.forbes.com/companies/levi-strauss-co/

Profits did fall 23%, in 2015

There's these things called search engines and the Internet.

Anonymous said...

Ron W: There's these things called search engines and the Internet.

And plenty of financial advisors to choose among. No need to rely on Senate cloakroom stock tips.

Lewis Wetzel said...

There is no focus to the Mueller investigation because he is investigating no identified crime. I know people who are absolutely convinced that Trump has illegally colluded with "the Russians" during campaign 2016, but when I ask them to identify the crime they get vague, fast. Usually they end up falling back on obstruction of Justice for the firing of Comey.
I'm not a lawyer. I don't know if technically you can convict a person of obstruction of justice when no underlying criminal offense has been identified. I suspect that you can in a court of law, but this is politics, not law. Furthermore, I believe that in an ordinary case, the threat of prosecution for obstruction of justice would be a tool used by a prosecutor to get further evidence in a case involving an identified crime. A conviction for obstruction of justice would not be an end in itself.
Andy McCarthy, I believe, has said that the Carter Page FISC warrant was bogus because it identified no crime that was being investigated. This is the United States. We do not have secret police. The feds are not allowed to wiretap an American because they suspect that he may have committed a vaguely defined crime like being an unregistered agent of a foreign power.

bolivar di griz said...


As Daniel greenfield suggests Mueller may be the one in the thrall of a foreign power, namely Qatar,

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/03/amulets_white_noise_and_trump_reality.html

There are strong hints the dossier was initially deripashas attempt to get back at manafort, through the likes of Adam Walkman.

Original Mike said...

”There's these things called search engines and the Internet.”

This is the internet. “We can fact check your ass.”

bolivar di griz said...

Who was labeled as source a (he had served lavrov in a legal capacity) hence Warner who has his own Russian ties through yandex sought to contact steele.

Clyde said...

Obviously she needs to rebound with the NYT's "The Man Who Knew Too Little."

MayBee said...

Imagine being disappointed the President of the United States is not guilty of collusion with a foreign power.

MayBee said...

You are so far out of touch with your fellow Americans, you would rather the man they voted for be in thrall to a foreign power to get where he is.

Original Mike said...

Blogger MayBee said...”Imagine being disappointed the President of the United States is not guilty of collusion with a foreign power.”

Yeah. “Traitorous”, while a bit over the top, is not completely out of line to describe these people.

tim in vermont said...

Not to mention all but erupting in cheers when the stock market went a little bit wobbly for a short while.

tim in vermont said...

Coneheads in on, still holds up. Illegal aliens. Notice at the time that the govt actually tried to catch them.

FIDO said...

Well, for all the prog-ramed Liberals who are whining and complaining about Trump 'getting away with it' because Mueller can't do anything as prosaic as finding any evidence.

I give you the hundreds of Chinese people who fled the country to protect the Clintons.

So yeah...I know what you feel...except that there was actual evidence against the Clintons and not these ghosts and shadows that Mueller is weaving.

The Godfather said...

Thanks to my wife, I've seen parts of some of the final episodes of The Bachelor. But this was a funny skit even if you didn't know much about that show. Mueller has failed Becca (Liberal America). Frankly, contrary to the skit, I don't think he's ready to quit, and that's kind of scary. Doesn't he need a scalp to hang on his teepee? Some poor son of a bitch is in for a world of hurt.

Luke Lea said...

That SNL skit really made me laugh, especially the line do you own American steel. Sent it to all my Trump-hating relatives and friends, which means just about everybody I know.

Rumpletweezer said...

The Bachelor ought to be called America's Got Skanks.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

If you are going to have a woman impersonate a man, and you go to the trouble of creating aged hair and make-up, the least the woman could do is drop her voice an octave or two to simulate an actual male instead of the ones from NPR.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Something to keep in mind about SNL, and I know this because my half-brother used to work on the set (which puts me two degrees from Kevin Bacon).

Before they go live, they do all of the skits that are written for the week in front of the studio audience. The skits that get the best reaction from the audience that fill the necessary time are the skits that they then re-do live while the cameras are rolling. So the open you saw live was the best open according to the audience.

FIDO said...

The drag act by McKinnon was creepy and distracting. It made me feel like SNL wanted to 'play it safe' in the MeToo movement by not having a man hit on an actual woman. Maybe the male actors, who have seen so many of THEIR Liberal scalps on the Feminist teepee, demurred. Comedy is not an excuse or warrants any forgiveness (see Franken and Louis C.K.)

JAORE said...

Breaking it to the audience gently. Bit by bit.

Shawn Levasseur said...

I think the problem with the skit is more the deliberately awkward pacing, that really didn't lend itself to frequent laughs.

I'm guessing that it was supposed to emulate the awkwardness of the Bachelor final episode. But that really left them delivering the punch line 1/3 of the way through the skit and treading water after that.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Ace of Spades on this one: "That sketch isn't funny -- nothing on SNL is -- but it is telling that even SNL knows What Time It Is, but the NeverTrumpers do not."

Bad Lieutenant said...

FIDO said...
The drag act by McKinnon was creepy and distracting. It made me feel like SNL wanted to 'play it safe' in the MeToo movement by not having a man hit on an actual woman. Maybe the male actors, who have seen so many of THEIR Liberal scalps on the Feminist teepee, demurred. Comedy is not an excuse or warrants any forgiveness (see Franken and Louis C.K.)

3/12/18, 7:25 AM


Maybe she's the only one on SNL with talent.