absnow54

I'm happy to see Dave Chapelle, but has he ever done anything associated with the show? I wouldn't mind if he shows up in one of the sketches tonight. It's been far too long.

Oh man, they were still 40 minutes over with material. I hope they release all the pre-recorded stuff they had to cut.

lol, that Dan Akroyd still thinks Kristen Wiig and Fred Armisen are on the show.

Oh the awkward of Sarah Palin next to Alec Baldwin.

I mostly agree with their top 30, but not necessarily in that order. It's tough to rank the entire cast without some polarizing opinions (Norm being the prime example, and Bobby Moynihan being a surprising one... I didn't realize it was possible to dislike him!) but the one that's throwing me off is Cecily Strong. What has she done on the show that's so remarkable? I think it's because she's ranked just above Molly Shannon, who had such an iconic presence on the show, while Cecily has yet to make an impression beyond, "sucks to lose that Weekend Update desk."

Watching Buck Henry's episodes in the rewind marathon, he was such a clutch host. I know he popped up as Liz Lemon's father on 30 Rock (perfect casting) but has he done anything SNL related since 1980?

I don't agree with the list, but I'm extremely grateful that Jarret's Room didn't make the cut.

I thought Jean Doumanian found him. The 1980-1981 season was her disaster.

Most of the episodes from the 70's look to be 90 minutes, so hopefully they won't be heavily edited. They're also basically spending 4 days on those five seasons, so it looks like the 80's (unsurprisingly) got the shaft for this marathon. I'm watching the Tom Hanks episode from the 85 season, and it was nice to see the 5 minutes that Damon Wayans was on the show. His son looks and sounds exactly like him.

The edits have been a little weird. I hate when they cut the monologue too, it really throws me off. Still, I'd rather have a wonky marathon, than no marathon at all.

Have they been cutting him out of the NBC repeats? He's appeared several times during the Vh1 rewind marathon.

I may be wrong, but I believe most of the musical guests are there as musical guests, and not sketch performers. I don't care much for the musical numbers, and could do without them in the anniversary special, but I see why they have their place, since musical acts have always been a part of the show.

I think Eddie Redmayne has really pulled ahead in the Best Actor race. The Best Picture race is getting interesting though, since Boyhood took both Picture and Director. I think Birdman has an edge though, since it's been winning all the Guild awards.

They're playing the Kevin Nealon Weekend Update episodes right now, and he played a very dry, heavily satirized version of a news anchor, which I really loved. I think Beck Bennett would be great in that kind of role.

Exactly, just look at Hannah from Girls. Mary Sue and "self insert" stories aren't the norm in fanfic, but they're common enough to be well known tropes. It's a shame that the worst of fanfic is what's being represented to the general public though.

Did anyone else cry during "Arthur's Theme" because of that one time Finn said, "How can you get stuck between the moon and New York City? They're a hundred miles apart!"

I wonder if John Mulaney would come back to do Update, since his sitcom didn't work out. I think he would have benefited from more exposure on SNL before trying to branch out on solo projects. Jason Suedekis was great with all his anchorman characters, and I think he would have had a Chevy Chase appeal behind the desk. Che and Jost just lack any charisma, which is the most important part of Weekend Update, two dudes reading the news isn't interesting.

Wasn't she the first choice for Piper in Orange is the New Black, but turned it down? She has to be kicking herself for that.

Yeah, I don't know if Bob Morley just sparks with everyone they put him in a scene with, but I was really feeling him with the grounder girl. Maya, who I've been pretty indifferent towards, was awesome this episode. I hope she sticks around. Drink the stagnant water, Claire! It was so gross. I couldn't tell you what happened in the scene, I was just staring in horror at that puddle.

Thankfully The Avengers, Star Wars, and the last Hunger Games are coming out this year.

They both hosted as well. The rule isn't strict, because generally, if these people are showing up, it's because they became famous (or with the case of Billy Crystal, was already famous and had hosted before joining the show) and have probably hosted since leaving.

I'm super nit-picky about narrative, and the fact that they broke first person to follow Frank for half an episode drives me bonkers. Up until episode 7, they had chosen to solely follow Claire's POV. She narrated, we heard her inner thoughts, she was the anchor to every scene, if she didn't understand something, we didn't understand it either. It was a very intimate POV, and breaking to Frank's or even Jamie's POV is incredibly jarring, and sloppy story telling to me. If something's important, we should be able to intuit it from Claire's perspective.

He showed up last season during Zach Galifianakis' episode, I think. I imagine with Mad Men ending soon, he'll be hosting before the end of the season. He's definitely one of my all time favorite hosts. He's a natural at sketch comedy.

Has anyone been watching the SNL rewind marathon on VH1 Classic? They're still in the 2000's, but it's been fun remembering the featured players who never were (Finesse Mitchell, Rob Riggle, Casey Wilson... even Abby Elliot is better than I remember her) and also the recurring sketches that never quite took off. One of my favorites in the early 2000's was Amy and Seth as the Needlers (or the couple that should be divorced) it was a real precursor to their Weekend Update dynamic, especially the "Really!" segment. And yesterday they played two of my favorite sketches, The Falconer with Kevin Spacey when they keep on going back in time to rescue Donald ("Donald, duck!") and the entire cast is dressed as the Falconer doing awful impressions. The other is the Ben Affleck episode when they get stuck on an escalator and they parody every disaster movie cliche. At one point Rachel Dratch does this over the top anguished scream and the entire cast just stand there with a blank expression to keep from breaking. Ben also gets extra points for performing most of the sketch with his back to the cue cards. They're almost to the late-90's era, this weekend is the Sandler years with a Chris Farley block/tribute, then Monday they're into the golden age of Hartman, Hooks, Carvey, Dunn... The non-Lorne years are Wednesday, and then Thursday through Sunday will be the first five seasons. Here's a pretty nice layout of the schedule. My DVR is getting quite a workout.

I've been scrolling through the channel guide and adding episodes to the DVR. I kind of wish they were playing it from the beginning, because I'll probably be burnt out by the time they reach the Hartman-years, and especially by the time they hit the original cast. They play the episodes from the late 90's through the present season so regularly (I'm pretty sure VH1 plays all of Justin Timberlake's episodes every weekend) I'm not too excited for the first week of the marathon. I still miss when Comedy Central had the rights to SNL reruns. They did a really good job of balancing episodes.