Legally blind New York Gov. David Paterson lambasted a “Saturday Night Live” skit for portraying him as an aimless bumbler.
But those who have watched the sharp-witted Paterson over his two decades in public service know how he might have deadpanned in the past: I didn’t see it.
The skit that aired Saturday featured “SNL” cast member Fred Armisen as Paterson, who must appoint someone to replace Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Armisen said he has three criteria for filling the job: economic experience, upstate influence and someone who is disabled and unprepared for the job - like himself.
He held up a chart illustrating the state’s job losses upside down.
“I don’t mind that they make fun of me, but I thought it was important of me to stand up for people who don’t have a voice and don’t have a job,” Paterson said.
Marc Liepis, a spokesman for NBC, which broadcasts “Saturday Night Live,” said the network would not comment.
Tina Fey has revealed the secret behind the scar on her face - barely visible here.
The beautiful funnywoman vamps it up for the January edition of Vanity Fair (below), where she and hubby Jeff Richmond note she’s never talked publicly about a mystery slashing incident, which happened when she was 5.
“It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and some body just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen,” Richmond says.
The “30 Rock” star has refused to discuss the scar. “It’s impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it,” she says.
Live from New York was the real John McCain alongside Tina Fey as Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.”
McCain took a break from the campaign trail to open the show poking fun at his own campaign’s finances following Obama’s blockbuster infomercial. Earlier in the day McCain appeared in Virginia and Pennsylvania at campaign rallies before heading for New York in a move that demonstrates, once again, how important the show has become this election season.
The opening sketch showed the Republican ticket hosting a show on QVC, spreading their message, and selling McCain-themed items (pork knives for cutting pork) due to their own limited funds. A silent Cindy McCain also appeared.
Later in the show, McCain appeared in Weekend Update, getting some boos when he first came out. He joked to anchor Seth Meyers about going “Reverse Maverick” and “Sad Grandpa” to try and win the election. Senator McCain also stayed through the curtain call.
McCain’s Saturday Night Live appearance was confirmed earlier this week. McCain last appeared in May.
source: John McCain On Saturday Night Live With Tina Fey As Palin (VIDEO) [huffington post]
The fake Sarah Palin has been doing great things for “Saturday Night Live,” but the real one put “SNL” over the top to its highest overnight ratings in 14 years.
“SNL” — with Palin as a guest — averaged a 10.7 rating/24 share in the 56 metered markets, according to preliminary estimates released Sunday by Nielsen Media Research. It would be the highest-rated “SNL” since March 12, 1994, when Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan was the host and Aretha Franklin the musical guest. “SNL” would also be the third-highest-rated show of all last week, including primetime, following only ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” (12.0/18) and CBS’ “CSI” (11.2/17).
Saturday’s program featured an opening with the real Palin speaking to executive producer Lorne Michaels while Tina Fey portrayed Palin in front of the studio audience. Among other things, Palin tried to get Michaels to agree to let her play Fey on “30 Rock,” on which Michaels is an executive producer. But Michaels declined, saying that nobody watches “30 Rock.” She was introduced to Alec Baldwin, another “30 Rock” star. Later during “Weekend Update,” Palin appeared on the set with Seth Myers and Amy Poehler.
Also on the show was host Josh Brolin and actor Mark Wahlberg.
Saturday’s show was up 161% compared with the average last October (4.1/10). It’s also up 47% compared with the Oct. 4 “SNL” that averaged a 7.3/18.
With all the buzz around Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression, a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit involving Andy Samberg imitating Mark Wahlberg was highly overlooked a few weeks ago … but not by Wahlberg himself. Let’s just say he’s not very entertained with the spoof.
In an interview with the New York Post, Wahlberg talks about Samberg’s “Barky Bark and the Donkey Bunch,” in which Samberg does a stellar impression of the former rapper-turned-actor discussing life with a mule. Despite Wahlberg’s claims that “it wasn’t like Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, that’s for sure,” the impression is flawless in our eyes.
Wahlberg goes on to further slam ‘SNL,’ saying it “hasn’t been funny for a long time.” He even says that he’s been asked “to do the show a ton of times,” but turned the offers down.
“I used to watch it when Eddie Murphy was there and Joe Piscopo and Bill Murray,” he said. “I don’t even know who’s on the show now.”
No joke: Amy Poehler’s leaving Saturday Night Live.
According to the Los Angeles Times, she tells the new issue of Men’s Vogue that she is taking a break after the November election as she prepares to welcome her first child. And she won’t be returning after maternity leave.
“It’s gonna be really hard — Boyz II Men hard — to say goodbye to yesterday,” she says. “SNL was dangerous, late-night, last-minute and star-studded, but like any good drug, you need to know when to put it down.”
Poehler won’t be off the small screen altogether.
She has signed on for NBC’s upcoming Office spin-off, set to air next year.
“I can kind of confirm that I will be working in some capacity on that show,” she said in July. “I don’t really have any other details yet.”
Next up: The Emmys. She is nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series for SNL.
She generated laughs this past weekend, portraying Hillary Clinton in a sketch with Tina Fey, who played Sarah Palin.
Presenting The 25 Funniest People in America. From Conan O’Brien to Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey to Craig Ferguson, let’s count down the names of the entertainers who make us laugh the hardest.
25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.
24. CATHERINE O’HARA
After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN
The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.
22. DAVE CHAPPELLE
The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.
21. DEMETRI MARTIN
You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY
Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?
19. CRAIG FERGUSON
Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK
Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)
17. DAVID LETTERMAN
With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.
16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS
Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.
15. WILL FERRELL
See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS
Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.
13. ELLEN DEGENERES
DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.
12. DAVID CROSS
All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.
11. CONAN O’BRIEN
Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….
The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.
9. LARRY DAVID
Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.
8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT
The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?
7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER
Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.
6. CHRIS ROCK
Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.
5. STEVE CARELL
Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.
4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY
It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.
2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM
The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE
Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”
The sports world has no doubt had its fair share of hot female athletes, here’s a list of the Top 10 of all time.
10. Peggy Fleming
Peggy Fleming was a figure skater in the 60’s, winning a gold medal at the 1968 Winter Olympics. She parlayed her good looks into a job commentating on figure skating events that she held for over 20 years, including several Winter Olympic games. Fleming is now a breast cancer activist after successfully battling the disease in the late 90’s.
9. Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova is absolutely stunning, but she’s also a phenomenal athlete which makes her all the more attractive. While some women make this list almost primarily for their looks, Sharapova is just as noteworthy for her career achievements. Watching her play is always an enjoyable experience.
8. Gabrielle Reece
Gabrielle Reece was named by ELLE magazine as one of the five most beautiful Women in the World in 1989. Even though she was a very talented beach volleyball player, Reece was probably more well known for her modeling and television work. Most people who grew up watching MTV in the early 90’s will remember her as host of MTV Sports.
7. Danica Patrick
Danica Patrick is so hot she makes people care about IndyCar racing, at least for one weekend a year. That’s a hell of an achievement and pretty much enough said.
6. Biba Golic
I feel pretty comfortable saying that Biba Golic is the hottest table tennis player to ever live. She’s also the only table tennis player I’ve ever technically heard of, but I’m still willing to bet she’s the hottest.
5. Jennie Finch
Softball players don’t immediately come to mind when you think of hot female athletes, but Jennie Finch is definitely the exception. Probably for that reason, she’s the most famous softball player of all time. Finch has appeared in SI’s swimsuit issue and won an online ESPN.com poll naming her hottest female athlete.
4. Chris Evert
Chris Evert is one of the most popular women athletes the United States has ever had. Her nickname for quite awhile was actually “Chrissy America”. She was linked to damn near every high profile actor and athlete in the 70’s (including Burt Reynolds, Geraldo Rivera, Adam Faith, Vitas Gerulaitis, Pat Boone, and John Gardner “Jack” Ford, son of U.S. President Gerald Ford) and even hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live.
3. Anna Kournikova
Anna Kournikova would probably break the internet if she ever posed nude. She gets slammed unfairly for being a poor tennis player (she’s never won a singles tournament), but she was at times one of the best doubles players in the world, even reaching #1 at various times. And she has a poker named after her. Ace King. Looks good but hardly ever wins.
2. Katarina Witt
Katarina Witt appeared in Playboy in December of 1998. It was the second issue of Playboy to ever sell out, the first being the inaugural issue featuring Marilyn Monroe.
1. Natalie Gulbis
Possibly a controversial choice, but Natalie Gulbis is ridiculously, ridiculously hot. Female golfers have come a long way in perceived attractiveness in the past ten years, and Gulbis is leading the way, having sold a personal calendar as well as posing in magazines like FHM.
Katarina Witt NSFW photos after the jump!
For more pictures of these lovely ladies, visit [popcrunch]
She left Saturday Night Live two years ago and then was replaced on 30 Rock. What’s she up to now?
“Maybe you can tell me,” she said at a Smart People screening on March 31. “I know you’re supposed to come up with fake stuff you’re doing. But honestly, I’m not doing much.”
After SNL’s hectic pace, isn’t downtime nice? “It’s starting to get old,” she said. “I’m starting to go crazy. I’m ready for a job.”
The low point came, she said, when last month’s Vanity Fair arrived with its cover story on women in comedy, featuring a dozen top comediennes—none of whom was Dratch.
“Dude, that was a dark day,” she recalled. “I was like, Oh, there’s everyone I worked with.” She’s not picky about her next gig. “I’d work in a black-box theater company at this point,” she said. “I’d work with George W.”
source: Unemployment’s a Downer for ‘SNL’-er Dratch [ny magazine]
Here’s the not-shocker of the day - Britney Spears’ album was ripped apart by critics. I know - you almost fell out of your chair on that one.
One critic’s opinion,
On many tracks, Britney sounds so worked over, she doesn’t even seem like a person. Instead, she comes off like some machine that bleeps and bloops out an airy array of oohs, ahhs and groans. If a blowup sex doll could sing, this is what she’d sound like.”
Lyrically, Britney spends most of the CD in a state of erotic mania. “My body is calling for you, bad boy,” she coos in “Get Naked.”
In terms of studio trickery, Paris Hilton’s album was practically “Unplugged” compared to this.
If you think about it too much, it’s hard not to see her as that old Saturday Night Live “drunk girl” character, the sad lush pawing men at a party.
I say if you do sex sounds well, just go for it. Who needs actual lyrics?
After going on and on and on about being shafted at the VMAs and then appearing drunk on the Wendy Williams Experience exclaiming that he’s the number one human being, it appears Kanye West has a sense of humor about the whole thing. Or at least he’s pretending he does for the pub.
Here’s Kanye on this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live”, appearing as himself in a 106 & Park sketch in which he makes fun of himself after losing the Kid’s Choice Awards, the Nobel Prize, and hosting duties at SNL. He may be an arrogant crybaby, but it appears that at least he’s aware of that fact.
Source: “Kanye: ‘Give a Short Black Man a Chance!’” [TMZ]
“Maybe you can tell me,” she said at a Smart People screening on March 31. “I know you’re supposed to come up with fake stuff you’re doing. But honestly, I’m not doing much.” 
On many tracks, Britney sounds so worked over, she doesn’t even seem like a person. Instead, she comes off like some machine that bleeps and bloops out an airy array of oohs, ahhs and groans. If a blowup sex doll could sing, this is what she’d sound like.”
