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Posts tagged as fridays

Videolists

Larry David's Almost-Lost Sketches From ABC's SNL Competitor, Fridays

by | April 2nd, 2012

A decade before he started putting Seinfeld together, Larry David was hired as a writer/performer for the ABC live sketch comedy series Fridays, the network’s attempt to make an SNL clone. Fridays ran for three seasons and, for a short period, surpassed SNL in terms of popularity and quality, and David was no small part of the show’s success. Although Larry David is solely responsible for preventing Fridays from being released on DVD, devoted fans have uploaded several sketches online so that we can remember what the show was like.

For somebody who, for the most part, avoided acting for the next two decades, Larry David proves to [...]

History

Fridays: The SNL Ripoff That Nearly Surpassed the Original

by | January 31st, 2012

In 1979, ABC ordered an SNL show of its own. No variation; a straight copy. Same live format. Same type of cast. Musical guests. Fake news. Like Lorne Michaels before them, producers John Moffitt and Bill Lee scoured clubs and improv groups for talent. (Moffitt wasn't new to the process: he'd been Lorne's first choice in 1975 to direct SNL, which Moffitt turned down.) On April 11, 1980, Moffitt and Lee unveiled their LA version: Fridays. Even the name was abbreviated theft.

Fridays faced numerous obstacles. Most of SNL's original cast was still on the air, prompting negative comparisons. Critics were unkind, to the degree they gave Fridays any [...]

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