Comments (13)

• Ohlmeyer fired Downey and MacDonald because they made fun of OJ Simpson. Ohlmeyer was close friends with OJ and donated money towards OJ’s defense. Don was eating dinner with OJ when he first met 19-year-old Nicole Brown.

  If you think that big media doesn’t censor its writers because of management’s personal and political connections, watch Fox News and suck your thumb.

  Comment by Anon — Wednesday February 27, 2008 @ 11:17pm PST  Reply to this post

• Made SNL hot again? The sketch was about 3 minutes too long just like most of the others. The only sketch worth viewing was ‘DRINK MY MILKSHAKE’ and that was only because of the dead on impression Bill Hader did of Daniel Day Lewis. The rest of the show was sad by how unfunny it was.

  Comment by Jason Williams — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 12:18am PST  Reply to this post

• Last week’s cold open fell flat. I’m sure Downey (and everyone else at SNL) cringed when he watched Hillary get booed for repeating it. Remember that awkward feeling you had in junior high when you showed up at school on Monday imitating the SNL sketch everyone else thought was lame? That was Hillary this past Tuesday.

  Comment by anon — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 1:45am PST  Reply to this post

• SNL should credit specific writers, just stick their names in the corner of the screen at the end of their skits, where the network logo/ “bug” usually is… Or even on the NBC website after the episode airs. Not as a vanity-thing, but a quality control issue. Allow the viewers and critics to see who is producing strong material, and who is coasting on their ass.

  Comment by T.J. — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 3:39am PST  Reply to this post

• I’m not looking forward to another snoozer of a cold opening. Hopefully they get it together for the presential debates. It also depends on the impersantion as well. With all due respect to Mr. Armisen, they could’ve gotten someone with a better Obama impersantion.

  And yeah Downey is a very pivotal part of the SNL crew. One of the best writers in the show’s history, and someone who doesn’t get the credit he deserves at times. Same with Robert Smigel as well. And Update hasn’t been the same since Norm was canned. Nobody could handle a dead audience like him. His facial expressions, and ad-libs when a joke bombed were priceless.

  Comment by Arrested Development Fan — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 4:09am PST  Reply to this post

• Anon, right on about o.j. i got to listen to some of those phone calls when all that was all going down, and it was just ludicrous. Ohlmeyer having formal sit downs with a bit player on a late night show to censer his material??? (and over oj no less) Norm always was a true shit stirrer though…he did tell Ohlmeyer he would stop and his favorite thing was to leave after update and rush home to watch the last 1/2 hour at his apartment

  Comment by anon — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 9:39am PST  Reply to this post

• Downey, Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, and Andy Samberg are about the only talented people on that show at this point. How the Tina Fey who masterminds 30 Rock is the same Tina Fey who has overseen the abortion that has been SNL for the last few years is a paradox that will always puzzle me. They definitely need a better Obama – Arminsen has the look, but not the voice or the mannerisms. Plus he’s not funny, which will always handicap a comedy skit.

  Comment by Nick Graham — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 9:40am PST  Reply to this post

• Uh, Nick… you failed to mention Kristen Wiig. She carries that show. SNL as an abortion – sweet. You should write for them with your incisive wit. Caustic man… caustic!

  Comment by Cliff (Nick's spouse) — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 10:22am PST  Reply to this post

• I’ve gotta disagree. Right now, SNL has one of the best casts they’ve had in a while. I’m actually puzzled that you’d call Andy Samberg one of the only talented people in a cast that includes someone as fantastic as Kristen Wiig. She and Amy Poehler truly make the show right now.

  Comment by K-Hook — Thursday February 28, 2008 @ 1:45pm PST  Reply to this post

• I got the impression that they knew they needed to come back from the strike with a really great show, and they delivered. It was probably the best episode since Tina Fey left. Oh, she was back — maybe that was one reason it was so good.

  The show did fall short in one way, running some jokes too long. Knowing how to end a joke while it’s still funny was one of the things that made Tina Fey’s head-writer era so reliably great; she must not have been in charge of that this time.

  As for the debate, I thought Hillary Clinton’s reference to the show was one of her two high points in the debate, the other being (with apologies for getting out of the domain of the entertainment industry) her long-overdue admission that the authorization-of-force vote was a mistake. Mentioning a parody of herself showed a sense of “in touch with real people”. And because the show played up the idea that the press is behind Obama, mentioning it pointed to someone else saying what she probably wants to say.

  Comment by Steve S — Friday February 29, 2008 @ 5:18am PST  Reply to this post

• I agree, K-Hook. Besides that I thought the whole Obama girl thing was completely unnecessary, the cold opening was actually very funny. But yes, about 3 minutes could have been shaved off, but I can’t blame the kids. Three months is a lot of catching up to do in the political arena, especially in an election year.

  I think people tend to want to compare casts all the time. Each SNL cast is an entity all its own, you just can’t compare. This cast is quite excellent, and is getting better all the time. The strike actually might have been good for the show, since this was one of the tightest and best written shows in a LONG time.

  And ALWAYS good to see Tina fey

  Comment by Ivy — Friday February 29, 2008 @ 8:27am PST  Reply to this post

• Pathetic. I love Downey, but he is not suited to a fluff piece like this

  Comment by Jack — Monday March 3, 2008 @ 5:36am PST  Reply to this post

• That’s the whole point. Obama and Hillary ARE fluff.

  Comment by Kambiz — Thursday March 6, 2008 @ 3:25pm PST  Reply to this post