Dan Aykroyd praises 'SNL' movie 'Saturday Night,' calls it masterpiece
Dan Aykroyd praised the new 'Saturday Night Live' movie, 'Saturday Night,' which stars Dylan O'Brien as a young version of him, calling it a 'masterpiece.'
Movie News: Saturday Night Live - 1975 behind-the-scenes retelling, started casting! UPDATE: New Trailer
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David Spade says people thought all his 'SNL' characters were gay
David Spade says 'Saturday Night Live' fans used to tell him that all of his characters seemed gay: 'When I look back, I'm like, yeah, I see it.'
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Andy Samberg nearly breaks former 'SNL' costar Kenan Thompson by using his real name
Returning 'Saturday Night Live' alum Andy Samberg made his former costar Kenan Thompson stifle laughter after using his real name in a sketch set in the Italian Renaissance: 'Ah, yes-a, Kenan.'
SNL alum Andy Samberg gets former costar Kenan Thompson to nearly break by using his real name in sketch
"Ah, yes-a, Kenan."By
Jillian Sederholm
Updated on October 13, 2024 09:31PM EDT
Andy Samberg's return to Saturday Night Live as a season 50 guest means he gets to reunite with his former costar Kenan Thompson — and attempt to crack up the show's longest-running cast member.
In the latest episode, a sketch set in Italy in the Late Renaissance saw Samberg and fellow show alum Maya Rudolph as parents trying to impress a prince (Andrew Dismukes) with their castrated son Antonio's (host Ariana Grande) singing. It served as an excuse to display Grande's ability to hit impressive high notes, but the sketch's own high note came near the end when Thompson, as a lute player, raised his hand to ask a question and Samberg replied in an Italian accent with, "Ah, yes-a, Kenan."
Kenan Thompson and Andy Samberg on 'SNL'.
Saturday Night Live/ YouTube
Samberg's name-checking of Thompson drew huge laughs from the live studio audience and caused the SNL mainstay to struggle to not fully break character as he stifled a laugh of his own and took a beat to maintain his composure, which is rare for the comedy pro.
Saturday Night Live recap: Despite delays, Ariana Grande and Stevie Nicks deliver an entertaining episode
The Lonely Island member was on the Saturday Night Live cast from 2005-2012. Thompson's own time on the show began two seasons earlier, in 2003, and he has remained ever since, holding the record for longest time starring on SNL, now at 22 seasons. Rudolph, who joined the cast in 2000, overlapped with Thompson for five seasons and the trio all shared the screen from October 2005 until Rudolph's exit in November 2007.
Samberg, who has been open about struggling with his mental and physical health near the end of his time on the show, returns to SNL this season for the first time since a 2018 cameo. In the season 50 premiere last month, he launched his stint playing second gentleman Doug Emhoff in a political cold open alongside Rudolph, reprising her impression of VP-turned-presidential-candidate, Kamala Harris. They were joined by fellow SNL alum Dana Carvey as President Joe Biden and comedian Jim Gaffigan as Harris' running mate Tim Walz. The quartet has returned for every show of the new season so far, including for a "Family Feud" cold open earlier in the Grande-fronted ep.
Every Saturday Night Live season 50 host and musical guest
Samberg recently gushed with ongoing admiration for Thompson while speaking to Kevin Hart on an episode of Hart to Heart earlier this summer. "I'll still be watching the show, and I've seen his moves, like I know what he's going to do, but it just kills me still," the Brooklyn Nine-Nine star said. "And he'll do some new s---. I'm like, 'How is this fool still killing it so hard?'"
He continued, "I would challenge anyone to go back through any episode he's been on, which is many, and find a moment where he missed a laugh, where he didn't get his laugh. If you give him a laugh, he hits it every time and it is mind blowing to think about because everybody, like the greats, you can watch and be like, 'Oop, they missed their cue card' or 'Oop, they broke,' or whatever it is. I literally can’t think of a single time that Kenan didn’t stick it exactly."
Andy Samberg and Keenan Thompson in 2007.
JIMI CELESTE/Patrick McMullan via Getty
Watch Stevie Nicks on Saturday Night Live nearly 41 years after her last appearance
Samberg can be heard sharing memories from his SNL days on the The Lonely Island & Seth Meyers Podcast, alongside his longtime friends and Digital Short collaborators Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone, and former "Weekend Update" anchor and head writer Seth Meyers.
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Watch Thompson, Samberg, and Rudolph in the "Castrati" sketch above.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.
How ‘Saturday Night Live’ Convinced Advertisers to “Let Go Some of the Control” for Season 50
Allstate, Maybelline, Volkswagen and T-Mobile are among the brands on board to sponsor the 50th season of the NBC late night series.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
How ‘Saturday Night Live’ Convinced Advertisers to “Let Go Some of the Control” for Season 50
Allstate, Maybelline, Volkswagen and T-Mobile are among the brands on board to sponsor the 50th season of the NBC late night series.By Alex Weprin
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October 8, 2024 3:37pm
'Saturday Night Live': Ego Nwodim, Chloe Fineman, host Nate Bargatze, Marcello Hernández and Ashley Padilla during the “Sabado Gigante” sketch on Oct. 5, 2024. Will Heath/NBC
Brand marketers are a conservative bunch. Relentlessly on message, and careful when it comes to dispensing brand equity, CMOs and marketing executives like to have a say on the final cut, to use Hollywood parlance, when it comes to their advertising messages.
For Saturday Night Live’s 50th season, however, a handful were willing to put their brands in Lorne Michaels’ hands.
NBCUniversal ad sales chief Mark Marshall was joined by several SNL sponsors for a panel during New York Advertising Week, exploring just how NBC incorporated the marketing messages into the broadcasts and online in a way that is authentic to the show … without terrifying the brand managers.
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“We’ve been very protective about, how do we let brands get close to this IP, because occasionally — and some of you have been on phone calls with me — the brands become the butt of the joke, occasionally,” Mark Marshall said. “So we had to be very careful of how we did this, but we’re so thankful to the four up here, as well as Capital One as our partners.”
Marshall was joined in the conversation by Maybelline executive Jessie Feinstein, Volkswagen marketing executive Jennifer Clayton, T-Mobile executive Kari Marshall and Allstate marketing exec Dave Marsey, with Morning Joe and Sunday Today’s Willie Geist moderating.
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Marshall actually said he had to turn away some interested sponsors for the 50th season, because he knew that their brands would not be the right fit.
“I give credit to all of them, because this is not an easy one going into. You don’t have the same creative control, you’re going to lean on the show in a different way. I had many people … who said that they wanted to be partners and I said they couldn’t, we typically in the sales group don’t say that,” Marshall said. “So I love that these people signed up because their brand has the right tone that could live with this.”
In the case of Allstate, the partnership includes an upcoming digital short from the team at Please Don’t Destroy, one that will feature the “Mayhem” character (played by Dean Winters) in an upcoming episode.
“For Allstate, we try to fit well into an existing experience or environment,” Marsey said. “And SNL, especially 50, was the right opportunity to make a leap and try something new, and put ourselves in a position where we were a little uncomfortable in a good way.”
“Lorne and the whole team have leaned in in terms of, how do we make sure the brands are included in what we’re doing?” Marshall said. “We feel unbelievably lucky that they’ve partnered with us, and they’ve let go some of the control, because that’s when SNL is at its best, is when you allow them to do what they do best.”
Other activations include Volkswagen giving college football viewers a sneak peak at SNL‘s dress rehearsal and T-Mobile sponsoring behind-the-scenes content. The brands have also leveraged castmembers like Chloe Fineman and former castmembers like Vanessa Bayer in spots.
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But it helps when a brand is willing to lean in and embrace the joke.
“We’re willing to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, too. It’s very easy to make fun of makeup,” Feinstein said. “Maybelline is a brand that’s not only born in New York, but it has a wink. It has a personality.
“Looking to be culturally relevant in that moment is very hard today, especially in makeup, which moves at the speed of TikTok,” she added. “So a trend today might not be a trend next Thursday.”
It speaks to a “communal viewing experience,” as Marshall says, one that people can watch live on TV, on Peacock the next day, or in bits and pieces on social.