lorne michaels
Fake ‘SNL’ Apology Regrets Depicting Blind NY Governor As an Idiot
3:45AM STV | A statement sent to Defamer purports to offer an apology from Lorne Michaels, who regrets equating NY governor David Paterson’s blindness to garden-variety retardation last week on SNL. But wait, says NBC: He’s not sorry! More »
Barack Obama Fetches $US4,600 For 90 Minutes Of Ecstasy With Lorne Michaels
5:45AM STV | And now, for what will presumably be its last trick before tumbling into a three-and-a-half-year election hangover, Saturday Night Live is rumoured to have booked Barack Obama for an appearance on its Nov. 1 episode. The cameo replaces the candidate’s original guest spot on last month’s season premiere, which Obama was said to have backed out of in anticipation of Hurricane Ike. But one blogger’s recently posed conspiracy theory is way more fun, suggesting that Lorne Michaels and Obama campaign overlord David Axelrod instead colluded at the time for a November surprise. But like Alec Baldwin, whom Michaels is said to have coaxed to the set last week with Harvey Levin’s home phone number and a week’s supply of gay venison, Obama, too, is pay-to-play through Election Day: More »
Inside The Obama-Starring ‘SNL’ Premiere That Never Happened
8:05AM Defamer Hollywood | While the Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin cold opening attracted some of Saturday Night Live’s best notices in years (and best ratings, too — it was the highest-rated season premiere since the 2001 opener following the 9/11 attacks), nothing else that followed had quite the same water cooler buzz. However, if the show had been able to stick to its original plan, there would have been at least one other moment that would have had people talking: a Barack Obama cameo. Though the presidential candidate was forced to cancel due to Hurricane Ike, Michaels reveals to the Washington Post exactly how he would have been used (and what other surprise celebrities got involved as a result):
Since No Other Black Comediennes Exist, ‘SNL’ Hopes to Lure Back Maya Rudolph For Michelle Obama
7:20AM Defamer Hollywood | A while ago, not long after after Barack Obama won the Iowa caucus, NPR put forth a story asking, “Is America Post-Racial?” “Probably not,” we thought to ourselves, “otherwise America’s premiere sketch comedy show would actually have this famously black presidential candidate played by, y’know, a black guy and not Fred Armisen.” Now, Saturday Night Live has reminded us of that musing once again, because TV Guide reports that instead of adding a black actress to its troupe to play Michelle Obama, the show would rather entice former cast member Maya Rudolph to return. An excerpt, with new details from Lorne Michaels on whether Tina Fey will play Sarah Palin, is after the jump: More »
‘SNL’ Wants You To Want Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
2:50AM Defamer Hollywood | When we mused last week that this 2004 cover of Life was the closest we’d ever get to our dream of seeing Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin, we thought we were speaking practically. After all, Saturday Night Live already has at least two performers capable of the role (the Palin-resembling Casey Wilson and the Phelps-derobing Kristen Wiig), and Fey’s hands are too tied as a full-time Baldwin wrangler for her to keep making cameo appearances at her old stomping grounds. Today, though, we stumbled on this Vulture interview with 24-year-old SNL scribe Simon Rich (son of NY Times political columnist Frank Rich), and while the writer is perfectly chatty about most matters, he clams up provocatively when asked about rumours that Fey might return to SNL for this Saturday’s season premiere:
Hollywood Privacywatch: Adrian Grenier Not Afraid Of A Little PDA
7:40AM Mark Graham | PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our millions of Defamer operatives. We’d like to remind you that this feature is powered by you, so if you want to see more installments of PrivacyWatch, then all you’ve got to do is to send us your sightings. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put “sighting” or “PrivacyWatch” in the subject line so we don’t lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Adrian Grenier getting ready to Diving Bell the Butterfly out of “some model looking chick.” More »
Live, From New York, It’s Saturday Night: Defamer Pays A Visit To Studio 8H
12:40AM Mark Graham | It’s difficult to properly convey to you the excitement level that hits you the second you walk through the revolving doors at 30 Rockefeller Centre before a live taping of Saturday Night Live. After all, it’s one of the hardest tickets to get in show business. So, unlike a concert or athletic event where you can see the eyes of some attendees glazing over from boredom, everyone who is in attendance is someone who desperately wants to be there. As anyone who is in the building will attest, the energy in these moments is both palpable and kinetic. And that’s just in the lobby of the ground floor of the building! More »
‘Time’ Mag Names 100 Most Influential, Awards High Honors To Lorne Michaels And…Peter Gabriel?
5:35AM Molly Friedman | It’s official: the world-saving baby-making duo of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are no longer mere entertainers. They are “heroes and pioneers.” At least according to the categorical rankings of Time’s 100 Most Influential List released today. And not only are they the most influential heroes, they’re apparently more influential than Oprah Winfrey. And Tony Blair. In any case, among the “artists and entertainers,” the mag happily ranks Lorne Michaels and Robert Downey Jr. high above icky Suze Orman and preachy George Clooney, but we do take issue with several other entries, after the jump. More »
Chris Rock Explains How ‘Chippendales’ Killed Chris Farley
7:30AM Molly Friedman | As we learned recently, SNL’s Chris Farley was far from coddled or loved during his final years by fellow cast members. And now, a new biography on Chris Farley titled The Chris Farley Show will divulge more depressing tales from friends of Farley and how exactly they went about attempting to help the struggling addict get better (hint: they didn’t). From former co-stars dishing on his desperate attempts to be loved using prostitutes to anecdotes involving his habit of licking everything from his shoelaces to his wallet, one revelation made by Chris Rock stands out: “‘Chippendales’ was a weird sketch. I always hated it…The joke of it is, basically, ‘We can’t hire you because you’re fat.’ There’s no comic twist to it. It’s just [bleep]ing mean. Chris wanted so much to be liked. As funny as that sketch was…it’s one of the things that killed him.” More dismal details regarding Farley’s last days after the jump. More »
