Kristen Wiig on SNL

[Sarah]

I was going to mention Dorchester but figured I'd leave that to one of you Bostonians.

[samir]

I love Kristen Wiig.

I concur. She wins.

[John Junk 2.0]

And Wahlberg reacted in the manner of a humourless meathead. Now in video!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OOSioIQhszk

Mark Wahlberg doesn't come off as the better man here.

speaking of better man...

[chrisfoll577]

I was going to mention Dorchester but figured I'd leave that to one of you Bostonians.

I appreciate that Sarah. Dorchester's a pretty nice and diverse neighborhood but it has its problems... among them the prevalence of racist meatheads like him.

But as I like to say, we're not as bad as Southie.

[jbissell]

I think she has the most natural comic talent than anybody on the current cast, and with Amy Poehler's departure, she's going to be my favorite cast member.

She's right up there with Hader in my book.  I remember she was on some fake reality show on Spike TV a few years before she joined SNL and she was easily the best character (she was a troubled psychiatrist).  As much as I love Amy Poehler, I like her non-SNL work much more (and I feel the same way about Tina Fey).

[erechoveraker]

Casey Wilson is another story all together.  I can see her being on MADtv.

This I agree with. Maybe she just hasn't gotten any of her own sketches on yet (has she?), but so far everything she has done otherwise has been really lackluster, if not downright bad for me. Everyone says she is funny, so maybe I am just not getting to see it yet?

[todd]

Casey Wilson is another story all together.  I can see her being on MADtv.

This I agree with. Maybe she just hasn't gotten any of her own sketches on yet (has she?), but so far everything she has done otherwise has been really lackluster, if not downright bad for me. Everyone says she is funny, so maybe I am just not getting to see it yet?

I don't have an opinion of her other than: that little wavy singing voice she does needs to GO. She does it every time she's supposed to sing and I don't think its gotten a laugh once!

That said, Kristen Wiig is amazing.

[ericluxury]

Kristen Wiig is really great I think. The problem is SNL. When someone becomes one of the stars of the show, they get put on lots of sketches. Because of the way SNL is made, its like baseball, when it hits 1/3 of the time, thats a good episode. So being on the show and a star you are in a lot of the crappy sketches also and it makes the star seem less than amazing. I started to feel that way about Will Ferrell before he left.
But Kristen Wiig has already had a bunch of funny non-SNL work and she will prove you wrong, Andy.

[todd]

The thing I don't understand about SNL is... think back on the long history of SNL and remember your favorite, all-time, classic sketches. Were any of them a television parody? Were there a bunch of celebrity impersonations?

There are a few exceptions (Sean Connery on Jeopardy), but in general the best sketches are just fucking sketches.

The show has a great cast and great writers, I think they must just have weird priorities. Or maybe they're under pressure from NBC to write a bunch of pop culture garbage. At least they're finding ways to cram celebrity impersonations into weirder premises (Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals, Lawrence Welk show).

An aside: speaking of the Lawrence Welk show sketch, did anyone else notice Wiig's baby hands thing was lifted from Jon Glaser's "Tiny Hands" online shorts? I hope Glaser got a paycheck for that bit.

[erechoveraker]

I don't have an opinion of her other than: that little wavy singing voice she does needs to GO. She does it every time she's supposed to sing and I don't think its gotten a laugh once!

I think I said pretty much the exact same thing over on the comedy zone board recently. She did that I think in 3 different sketches one night too, weird and not funny.

[erechoveraker]

An aside: speaking of the Lawrence Welk show sketch, did anyone else notice Wiig's baby hands thing was lifted from Jon Glaser's "Tiny Hands" online shorts? I hope Glaser got a paycheck for that bit.

That got brought up on the comedy zone board too, and ended with some guy actually getting mad about the whole thing because he felt it was making fun of some real disease that his sister or someone he knew had. I swear.

[daveB from Oakland]

Kristen Wiig is really great I think. The problem is SNL. When someone becomes one of the stars of the show, they get put on lots of sketches. Because of the way SNL is made, its like baseball, when it hits 1/3 of the time, thats a good episode. So being on the show and a star you are in a lot of the crappy sketches also and it makes the star seem less than amazing. I started to feel that way about Will Ferrell before he left.
But Kristen Wiig has already had a bunch of funny non-SNL work and she will prove you wrong, Andy.

Along those lines, I don't think Molly Shannon ever found a great character on SNL. Mary Katherine Gallagher was okay, but they did that one to death ... then they made a movie out of it. Actually, I think her funniest character was the rich, angry drunken wife on Talledega Nights. She stole the show from the big-name dudes in that movie (and I'm saying this as a huge John C. Reilly fan).

[tenspeed]

... everything she has done otherwise has been really lackluster, if not downright bad for me...

I don't know what's wrong with Casey Wilson.   Her chemistry is way off with the rest of the cast.   It's as if she's fake-bad acting but it's not overly obvious.  Can "fake-bad acting" be considered a schtick?   I don't want to sound mean, but maybe she's too boring/conventional-pretty to play over-the-top characters.  Especially when she's sitting next to Kristen Wiig or Amy Poehler.  It's almost as if she  should start playing the straight-woman next to those two.

When someone becomes one of the stars of the show, they get put on lots of sketches.

My favorite cast member on the show is Will Forte.  I think in part because his characters aren't overly played, with the exception of McGruber, and for the last two seasons he wasn't on that much--again, with the exception of his McGruber shorts.

[samir]

just watched last night's SNL weekend update special

did anyone else think of timmy von trimble when hammond-as-mccain was talking about joe the plumber?

[cutout]

I don't have an opinion of her other than: that little wavy singing voice she does needs to GO. She does it every time she's supposed to sing and I don't think its gotten a laugh once!

I used to date a "wacky" theater major girl in college who would write spontaneous songs with her other theater major friend. They were always in the style of the Sweeney sisters and always used that "funny" wavy voice. Then they'd look around the room to make sure everyone was paying attention and laughing. At that point, I was usually slowly edging out of the room. The relationship didn't last.