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, [...]
Late Friday afternoon, NBC announced that it has declined to pick up John Mulaney's sitcom, Mulaney. It was a surprising move, given that the highly anticipated and already buzzy show had Lorne Michaels as a producer and an incredible cast. Having seen a version of the script, and based on Brad's on-the-scene reporting, I can say that it was a good pilot and that the series had enormous potential. It's a shame that it won't be on NBC's schedule this fall. But in the long run, what NBC will really regret is not just picking up the show Mulaney, but adding John Mulaney to its primetime ranks.
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The fall 2012 TV season is officially here, and tomorrow night, SNL returns from hiatus and kicks off Season 38. Even during its low points, SNL has given us plenty of incentives to tune in – cultural relevance, live television, pre-Tea Party Victoria Jackson. As we brace ourselves for this season, here are five reasons we’ll be glued to the TV on Saturday nights (or more likely, sit through 30-second ads preceding Hulu clips) over the coming months for network television’s oldest-yet-still-somehow-coolest late night comedy powerhouse:
The New York Times has a nice profile of Norm Macdonald in advance of his new show debuting on Comedy Central next week. Here's him talking about how he approached Weekend Update, seeing it as: “a specific experiment, where I was trying to strip all cleverness from the joke and try and make it as blunt as possible. I always told everybody the perfect joke would be where the setup and punch line were identical.”
