What does “Live from New York” mean to you? It means that Saturday Night Live can be the most theater-conscious mainstream comedy show on TV. You can imagine the SNL writers staring out their Rockefeller Center windows waiting for inspiration to strike, glimpsing Times Square, then rushing to the typewriters.
The list is extensive. Highlights: 1981’s parody of 42nd Street (which featured then-SNL cast member Christine Ebersole, who 20 years later would appear in the Broadway revival of 42nd Street—in the same role she’d mocked on TV). 1994’s obscure Masters of Monologue battle between Adam Sandler as Eric Bogosian and Michael McKean as Spalding Gray. Jon Lovitz’ recurring impersonation of Harvey Fierstein. Last season’s Best of Both Worlds bit, with Hugh Jackman (Andy Samberg), Gerard Butler (Taran Killam) and Julie Andrews (Helen Mirren) boasting about their flexibility as performers. Plus numerous savagings of Cats.
Last night’s Saturday Night Live—the second episode of the new season—had no less than five stage-related routines, ranging from “very theatery” to “close enough.”
The host was Melissa McCarthy. I missed the first five minutes (caught them online today). Not having seen either the movie Bridesmaids or the TV series Mike & Molly, I didn’t know who she was when I tuned in. Turns out that before her TV and film fame, McCarthy honed her comedic talents onstage, in the Groundlings troupe.
Here’s the stagey line-up:
• McCarthy and Kristen Wiig doing a Fosse-esque dance routine, replete with sparkly black fedoras and bowties.
• One of those Andy Samberg SNL Digital Short videos that invariably bursts into song, about a savage battle between Stomp and The Blue Man Group.
• Rock’s Way, in which Chris Rock (Jay Pharaoh) is lampooned for having done Broadway. Even though he was in cutting-edge Stephen Adly Guirgis play, The Motherfucker in the Hat, SNL chooses to behave as if he’d been doing something embarrassingly commercial or uncharacteristic.
• A News Update segment about Andy Rooney leaving 60 minutes to do “a live-action version of Up,” with photoshop image of the curmudgeon dolled up as Ed Asner, holding a bunch of balloons.
• News Update again: A visit from Tyler Perry, highest-paid entertainer (who made his first fortune in live theater), impersonated by Kenan Thompson.
• McCarthy as a Mae West-like vaudeville star-turned film actress called Lulu, falling down stairs when trying to dramatize the line “Why don’t you come up there and see me sometime?” The sketch only seemed to exist in order to capitalize on Jason Sudeikis’ impersonation of American Movie Classics cable host Robert Osborne.
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