I can't help it. Whenever I sit down to watch a Rangers game with Kathy, I always catch myself thinking that head coach Tom Renney...
... is actually Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels.
(Shown here with power forward Tina Fey.)
Okay, I've abandoned doing these Secret Ten posts one at a time, because hey, life's too short. So here are the answers to two more of Ami's questions.
First of all, we have:
2 sets 7 up on a date with their (2's) best friend. Would 7 be happy?
#2, as we know, is Margie Gunderson. I'm not entirely clear on who her best friend is--it's been a while since I've seen Fargo (Although I saw The Man Who Wasn't There just tonight, meaning I can once again say I've seen every Coen Bros. movie)--but I know she knows a guy who desperately needs a date. Desperately. Mike Yanagita, her poor acquaintance from high school, may just be the loneliest guy in the world. Here's a clip (start around 2:33), where you can see the entirety of Steve Park's performance -- an awkward pass at a married woman.
But Marge handles it with aplomb, and decides to set him up with #7 on our list:
The Church Lady.
The Church Lady is more than happy to get a date, especially since she's unaware that Mike was more than willing to break Commandment #7 in Margie would have only given him the chance. But by the time they get past the salad course, even the Church Lady finds Mike too clingy. Things go poorly after that.
Leading the Church Lady to make a fateful decision, spurred by another one of Ami's questions:
7 is planning a wild exhaustive night of smex with 8 and goes into an adult smex toy store for supplies, what does s/he get?
Yes, the Church Lady decides to get it on with Liz Lemon (#8). The mind boggles.
(No wedding, Liz. Just smex.)
I probably posted this before. But it makes me laugh every time I think of it.
Rob
Drinking doesn’t necessarily give me bad dreams…but sometimes it lets me wake up with bad notions. I got this idea soon after (during?) waking up this morning after a night of drinking strong beer with my friend Mike. The worst part is, I can’t convince myself it’s a truly bad idea.
It’s an idea for a Saturday Night Live sketch – a recurring one, in fact, called the Nova Scotia Board of Tourism. It stars a set of twin sisters as representatives of Nova Scotia in New York City, and they go about trying to raise Nova Scotia’s profile by horning in on whatever press conference is nearby. Some of their questions are about Nova Scotia (“What’s your stance on Lobster imports, Snoop Dogg?”) while most of the time they’re just trying to raise their own profile by asking what to them sound like hard-hitting questions:
Isn’t this just a case of connecting the dots, Congressman? Isn’t this just a simply matter of two times two equals five?”
“Um, two times two doesn’t equal five.”
“Then what times two times two equals five? Tell me that, congressman. And no fraction double-talk.”
Like I said, I’m not certain it’s a bad idea. But it’s hardly a slam-dunk good one.
Rob
I've been getting a real kick out of watching the old episodes of Saturday Night Live that NBC has been running in the 3 a.m. to 4:30 time-slot on Sunday Mornings (or Saturday night, if you're a nite owl like me). I'm never sure which episode they'll rerun -- NBC's website isn't particularly forthcoming, and neither is TV Guide -- but the ones I've seen have all been worth watching -- particularly the early episodes where they haven't slipped into the comfortable comedy/music pattern they've been in for decades now. And a few weeks ago, they played an 80s episode with Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Julia-Louis-Dreyfus, Rich Hall, and others -- they're honestly one of my favorite casts, purists be damned.
But last week's was an early one, with Peter Boyle hosting. There were some funny bits (a wrestling match between the Bees versus the Wasps, a car commercial poking fun at Ricardo Montalban, and the fantastic Dueling Brandos) and some odd cultural references (a Weekend Update gag about George Bush, head of the CIA) -- but the finest thing in this episode was the musical guest, Al Jarreau.
I'm not a big fan of the musical guest segments, and nearly fast-forwarded this one without a listen. I'm glad I didn't. Jarreau had just released his debut album, We Got By, and his performance of the title track was absolutely compelling. I've watched it three times so far, and will probably do so again before finding a home for it on VHS. His voice soars and bubbles, moving looping around wherever the song needs to go. It's a treasure. He also performed "You Don't See Me," another sweet couple of minutes of music that make it absolutely clear what an influence he's been on Vance Gilbert, an excellent singer-songwriter in his own right. Gilbert often sings Jarreau's "Could You Believe" in concert, but that now seems like a tribute to Jarreau's influence, not the extent of it.
But believe me when I tell you: Jarreau was amazing on this show. We Got By is definitely worth seeking out.
Rob
