Saturday Night Live on Netflix

As mentioned previously on this blog, we're a no-cable, no satellite family. Instead, we consume all tv content either through Netflix (both streaming and on disc), Hulu, or the CBS's website (which is a distant third for a reason).

Netflix streaming is our preferred option since it's on demand and accessible via the Apple TV. The big drawback to all tv on Netflix is that fact it's not current. For instance, I'm always a season behind on AMC's Mad Men since the discs for season three weren't released until right before the premier of season four(1).

However one show is giving me hope for a better tv-over-web delivery future: Saturday Night Live. The old reliable sketch show, now in it's 36th season, is putting it's episodes up on Netflix streaming in real time (well sort of real time, usually within a week after they air live)

Click to read more ...

NBC's Saturday Night Live in the 2000s Primetime Special

I've been watching Saturday Night Live (SNL) since I was a little kid. I can't put an exact date on it but I know that it goes far enough back that I remember watching it simply because I knew it was funny (even though I was too young to understand most of the humor).

My interest waned in high school, college, and post-grad since I wasn't usually at home on Saturday night's to see the show. However, sometime around 2002 I bought a TiVo and SNL has been a staple ever since.(1) That means that I've watched almost every skit in the decade being covered in this retrospective; crazy.

Click to read more ...

You could call them Aaron Burr by the way they're droppin' Hamiltons.

I mentioned my late night TV host preferences in the last post and failed to mention Jimmy Fallon. I've never watched one of his shows all the way through but some of the skits he pushes out to the internet are hilarious. Apparently he has a knack for reunion shows, as he's done a Saved by the Bell reunion, a California Dreams reunion, and now a reunion of Saturday Night Live (SNL) alumnus Chris Parnell and current SNL player Andy Samberg for their classic "Chronic-what?-cles of Narnia" rap - the first of many great SNL Digital Shorts (which are accompanied by many more not-so-great ones).

By the way, it's funny that Jimmy references this video and YouTube at the beginning of the skit. NBC goes out of their way to keep their material off of YouTube and back when the original SNL skit aired (December 2005) they weren't even putting clips up at their own site.

Jimmy Kimmel is funnier than I think

I never think about watching Jimmy Kimmel's late night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on ABC. I rarely watch late night tv, at all, and I've been in the Letterman camp since back in high school when I read The Late Shift. Conan is funny, too, but I never watched either oh his shows in regularity. 

However, I caught a preview for this which cracked me up:

Combining that with his appearance on Leno and the whole Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon (& Jimmy/Ben Affleck) thing a few years ago, I probably need to tune in more often.

By the way, he sure has great talent booking to get all those Hollywood-folk together for his skits.

Vegan cookie, cargo shorts, hemp necklace

We've been in Des Moines for more than six months now and we love it for a ton of reasons. Not least among them is getting to see most of my siblings (Sean lives in Arkansas, so we don't see him) regularly and enjoying inside jokes. One of which took place just last week and was documented on the interwebs.

Since I'm sure you're wondering what it is - I'll let you in. Check out this clip from Saturday Night Live a few months ago. 

We enjoyed it so we shared it at dinner one night. Several weeks later, my wife bought a vegan cookie at the coffee shop up the street...

 

...and informed the world on Facebook. We promptly jumped in...

 ...which made me laugh.

By the way, the last line is from a previous SNL sketch, a commercial for Jack Johnson's line of "shoes that look like feet" known as JJ Casuals.

Battlestar Galactica Alumni all over Fox in 2010

We're only a few weeks in 2010 but it seems like alumni of SyFy's now defunct Battlestar Galatica series are all over Fox programming this year. In both regular and guest roles so far I've noticed the following (apparently they cast in pairs):

24 (series regulars)

• Katee Sackhoff, formerly Starbuck, is now Dana Walsh
• Callum Keith Rennie, formerly the Cylon Leoben, is now Vladimir Laitanan

 Human Target (guest roles)

• Alessandro Juilani, formerly Lt. Gaeta, is now some bit character.
• Tricia Helfer, formerly the Cylon Number Six in all her incarnations, is also some bit character. 

On the subject of Human Target, which I first noticed boasted two David E. Kelley "Boston..." alumni in Boston Legal's Mark Valley and Boston Public's Chi McBride, I've watched two episodes and I think that I'm over it. Critic Tim Goodman, who I pay attention to, seems to like it so it's possible I'll come back to it at some point in the future if he presents a compelling enough argument.

Cedar Rapids, Des Moines and CBS's "How I Met Your Mother"

CBS's hit comedy "How I Met Your Mother" has long been a favorite of mine but they stepped it up a bit last night in the episode "Last Cigarette Ever" by making a little local connection.

In a storyline about morning show newsanchor Robin's new coworker they mentioned that he is a "veteran of no fewer than 38 local morning shows" and showed shots of their sets in Seattle, Beaverton, and my hometown of Cedar Rapids.

I'm not sure how many people noticed this but I'm sure anyone else from Iowa, like myself, gave a chuckle. It was only on screen for a few seconds but since I had it on DVR, I immediately backed it up and looked at the image behind the anchor desk and noticed that it looked more like Des Moines than Cedar Rapids.

Consulting some quick images on Flickr (see below) it looks like it's definitely Des Moines with the signature 801 Grand missing from the center of the image. The tall buildings on the "Get Up Cedar Rapids" set appear to be (L to R) EMC Insurance, the Financial Center on Walnut, the Ruan Center, and The Plaza. Feel free to read up on them here: Des Moines' Tallest Buildings. Several of the residential loft buildings are also in the image.

Image from bburnett71 on Flickr.com

One on hand, it's cool that the HIMYM production staff went so far as pull a local skyline image for use on the show. On the other hand, it's interesting that they felt Des Moines worked better than Cedar Rapids (which, as you can see below, does have it's own skyline).

Image from Okie Bill on Flickr.com