October 13, 2019
Brilliantly executed parody: SNL's trailer for "Grouch."
This is so well done that I shifted from enjoying the mockery of the idea of taking a comic-book villain's origin story utterly seriously and filming it with high artistry (which is, I think, what happens in the movie "Joker") and getting drawn into the fantasy of how Oscar the Grouch (and other "Sesame Street" characters) could have become the people they are. "Sesame Street" has always been a falsely sunny fantasy version of New York City, so what's really there if you remove the sunshine filter. Who are these creatures? They're just puppets, it's all made up... that's what you're supposed to blithely tell your kids if they ever wonder. Hours and hours of watching these candy-colored freaks... but what if you looked past the surface and sought to understand them as human beings?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
17 comments:
I fully expect this idea to be turned into a movie.
Was that a canned laugh track? Or did SNL producers make the audience take Adderall?
That was well-done.
Maybe the time has come for SNL to put to rest the live skits and just make short films, instead.
Make it like a mini film festival each week: have the host introduce the film, show it, then have a few cast members on-stage afterwards for a few minutes to tell a funny story or two about filming or some such.
The live skits evolved from the 70s / 80s improv scene; that really isn't a prime driver of comedy talent anymore (which is why the skits often seem like a few comedians standing around, waiting to say their line(s) and then wait for the next -- they have grown up working solo).
Skits depend heavily on the actors interacting with fun, but also with intelligence -- there are no visual aspects to provide depth and pacing, being that is it a disposable set for eight minutes, then swapped for the next.
You could even have alumni for a short here and there, like Andy Samberg, etc.
Then they just would need to be consistently funny.
Uh oh.
I am Laslo.
How can they have a black nurse with the incredibly white-bread name of Susan Robinson and expect us grown-up kids to believe this was real?
gspencer said...
How can they have a black nurse with the incredibly white-bread name of Susan Robinson and expect us grown-up kids to believe this was real?
She was abducted (adopted) at birth, by a couple of Connecticut Honkies. She escaped, while at college, and has returned to Sesame Street to embrace her past...
But! The honkies screwed her up, SO MUCH, that she hasn't been able to reject their name...
Until,
Next YEAR'S
BLACK ANGEL OF DEATH! {brought to you by the letters PG, and the number 13}
Trump should tweet:
Congratulations to SNL (Real News!) on discovering the origin story of Elizabeth Warren!
Maybe Lazlo's onto something 7:02. That video was so much better than SNL has been for a long time, yet the same people did it. The Anderson Cooper caper was good but not as good. Maybe young people doing stand-up comedy are a generation out-of-genre.
Real satire from SNL! Is there no end to the ways in which American is being made great again?
Seriously, how has dramatic art come to the point where a literal cartoon villain, the Joker, is the subject of 3 full-length movie treatments, employing the best actors of each generation? Adam West is rolling in his grave, "I coulda been a (Oscar) contender!"
Excellent concept.
Meh execution.
Let's see what the remake/reboot looks like.
something to be Grouchy about
If the police show up at your door (in Texas, At Least)... They are there, to Kill YOU
A black Texas woman was shot and killed by a white Fort Worth police officer who was called to the woman's home for a welfare check, authorities said.
In a statement, the department said it received a call at 2:25 a.m. reporting an open front door at a residence. Responding officers searched the perimeter of the house and saw a person standing inside near the window, according to police.
"Perceiving a threat, the officer drew his duty weapon and fired one shot, striking the person inside the residence,"
The neighbor who called 911 about the open front door told Fox 4 the police officers didn't announce who they were or knock on the door before searching the outside of the house.
"When I made that non-emergency call, I didn’t say it was a burglary. I didn’t say it was people fighting. I didn’t say anything to make them have a gun. All they needed to do is ring the doorbell,” James Smith said.
“They didn’t park up front, they parked on the side. They sent SRT, which is the special response team.
Going back to Mark Twain, who was considered a humorist, it seems to me that he lived within society and knew many people. Later, he wrote about these people with a degree of honesty in addition to pointing out their unusual behaviors. This “Grouch” movie short is well done on two levels : mastery of the art of the movie preview and a reasonable view of what Sesame Street could be like if it were real. The big false note is Grouch shooting the pistol at the end. Last point: I agree with Laslo. YouTube has allowed the development of many talented short video creators. A new show should hire the best and broadcast their weekly creations.
If they had done this on Chapelle Show, it would have been a lot funnier.
Chapelle did do a bit on Sesame Street in his stand-up though. Compare and contrast.
"...candy-colored freaks": Indeed. Sesame Street was insipid enough, but Teletubbies was really beyond the pale.
Pee Wee's Playhouse, on the other hand, was fanciful and quirky enough to entertain adults too (at least, adults like me-- I always watched Pee Wee with my daughter).
Of course, the Lavender Mafia would never allow a character like Cowboy Curtis in a TV show these days.
My granddaughter enjoyed the Pee Wee reruns and my daughter watched it with her.
That’s actually funny. Kudos!
Make it like a mini film festival each week: have the host introduce the film, show it, then have a few cast members on-stage afterwards for a few minutes to tell a funny story or two about filming or some such.
That's a hit show right there. It's basically YouTube, but with a television "reach". But that's exactly why they can't do it. YouTube is filled with really really funny entertainment but it's hidden in mountains of absolute crap. But if they started highlighting where the good entertainment is they'd lose their (already dwindling) audience.
Is there a line between clever/humorous and funny?
I thought the sketch was really clever and humorous, but it didn't make me laugh.
I wonder if that's because I didn't see the Joker movie?
Does cleaver and humorous only achieve "laugh out loud" funny status when it touches or explains something already familiar within you?
Thanks for sharing that, it was really funny. I'm part of that generation that just missed watching classic Sesame Street as a young child. I was 9 years old in 1969.
Post a Comment