With the premiere of his new Fox show Brooklyn Nine-Nine set for the fall, Parks and Recreation showrunner and co-creator Mike Schur is poised to become one of the rare comedy writers with two shows on the air at once. Schur co-created Brooklyn Nine-Nine, an ensemble cop comedy that stars Andy Samberg, with his fellow Parks and Rec writer/producer Dan Goor, and it's one of the most eagerly awaited new comedies of the fall season. I recently had the chance to talk to Schur about where the next season of Parks is headed, how Brooklyn Nine-Nine came together, and his comedy beginnings producing SNL's Weekend Update for Jimmy Fallon [...]
It snuck up on us, didn't it? The end of SNL Season 38 brought along with it key staff changes, among them the upcoming departure of head writer Seth Meyers and the immediate departures of cast members Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and (unofficially) Jason Sudeikis. Few people have shaped SNL over the past 8 years more than these men — Meyers with his leadership in the writers room and charm as Weekend Update host, and Hader, Armisen and Sudeikis as the cast's workhorses and loadbearing performers. Indeed, many pegged Season 38 as a "transitional year" in the wake of Kristen Wiig and Andy Samberg leaving the show a year ago, [...]
What a weepy week it was for comedy nerds. NBC packed a double-whammy of goodbyes, with The Office's poignant series finale last Thursday, followed by Saturday's season finale of Saturday Night Live and final episode to feature Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and (perhaps) Jason Sudeikis as regular cast members, which was announced only days before. It is indeed the end of an era, not just for the network, but for TV comedy as a whole, and we will talk plenty more about this changing landscape over the coming days, weeks, and months.
Unlike last year's farewell to Kristen Wiig, which had a best-of-Wiig vibe that unfortunately repeated itself a week [...]
Here's departing SNL cast member Bill Hader doing a bunch of promos for this weekend's SNL season finale alongside host Ben Affleck. Affleck's Bill Hader impression is solid gold.
Fred Armisen's departure from Saturday Night Live was announced today, and though the news came somewhat expectedly after Bill Hader's announcement on Tuesday, it's still sad to see one of SNL's strangest and most absurdity-driven players move on from the show. In the spirit of Fred's departure after eleven seasons, we've collected some of his most memorable characters and sketches, from the rambling Update frequenter Nicholas Fehn to his impressions of Liberace, Penny Marshall, Prince, and more.
