Last year, when Bernie Sanders was a fun herald of our gloriously liberal future and not a painful reminder of how little it pays to be hopeful about anything, his passing resemblance to Larry David inspired Saturday Night Live to bring the Seinfeld co-creator on to host an episode of the show—an episode that turned…
A lot of people are very particular about fonts, flying into a blind rage at the mere thought of Comic Sans or marveling at the simple pleasures of Helvetica, but host Ryan Gosling gave a voice to font fans everywhere with a pre-taped sketch on last night’s Saturday Night Live. Gosling played a man named Steven who…
It feels like it’s been a long time since an SNL character made enough of an impact to warrant a spin-off of some kind, but it’s also been a long time since SNL had a character like David S. Pumpkins. Played by Tom Hanks and first introduced in a Halloween sketch last year, David S. Pumpkins was some kind of man in a…
Kyle Mooney’s new film, Brigsby Bear, gets it’s title from the fictional, fictional show within the movie, involving an anthropomorphic educational bear. So when Mooney was in Chicago on a press tour for the film, The A.V. Club asked if we could conduct an appropriately timed, “bear-themed” interview, in that we would…
One of the more obnoxious and spiritually degrading things about having a dumb president in the internet age is that we’re forced to see all of his dumb thoughts anytime he decides to send them to the tiny computers we keep in our pockets. Keeping up with every 140-character complaint, attack, and brand promotion the…
What makes Saturday Night Live one of a kind is also what makes it so consistently inconsistent. By putting the show together in a week and filming it live on Saturdays (and, in the last four episodes of this season, live in every time zone), SNL can summon the impressive, ramshackle charms of live theater even when…
This weekend’s above-average Saturday Night Live—we credit host Aziz Ansari and current MVP Kate McKinnon—featured a sketch that echoes an argument/conversation we’ve been having at AVC HQ for the past couple of months: Is La La Land a solid, enjoyable musical or is it made of some kind of film magic so extraordinary…
Look, no disrespect to Doctor Strange. It was a fun movie, full of dazzling special effects that require repeat viewing if only to fully absorb the CGI pyrotechnics director Scott Derrickson put together during those amazing city-transformation fight sequences. But the story was far from equal to the imagery. Aside…
Like a spoiled child living in a golden Manhattan penthouse who just got everything he ever wanted and is still being a dick to his parents on Christmas morning, Donald Trump has once again decided to go on Twitter and complain about Saturday Night Live being mean to him. He first started to catch on that the…
After the unexpected outcome of last week’s presidential election, many people wondered how Saturday Night Live would manage to be funny about a thing that a significant portion of the world’s population doesn’t find very funny in the slightest. Then, just after the election was finally on the books, Sony Music…
Earlier today, it was confirmed that Dave Chappelle will host next weekend’s Saturday Night Live alongside A Tribe Called Quest. This is a long-awaited return for both, even though they’ve remained busy; Chappelle never quite left comedy, he just left TV, and Tribe’s members never stopped doing provocative,…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
If someone placed a gun to your head and forced you to describe the upcoming Lorne Michaels-produced comedy Brother Nature based solely upon that information, odds are you’d survive just fine. “Well,” you’d probably say, “I’m guessing it stars two of Saturday Night Live’s current cast members, one of whom plays an…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
Who knows why, but for whatever reason, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was moved to defend the concept of slavery after First Lady Michelle Obama mentioned, during her Democratic National Convention speech, that she currently resides in a house built by slaves. On The O’Reilly Factor the other night, he pointed out…
My World Of Flops is Nathan Rabin’s survey of books, television shows, musical releases, or other forms of entertainment that were financial flops, critical failures, or lack a substantial cult following.
The presidential race is getting heated (okay, has been), which means it’s time for cooler heads to prevail. To that end, Will Forte brought back Tim Calhoun, his awkwardly gesticulating Saturday Night Live character, on The Tonight Show last night. Calhoun, in his typical whispery fashion, announced his bid for…
Back in November, Saturday Night Live did another one of its famous Star Wars audition sketches, in which a melange of cast members and celebrities come together to make a make-believe reel of unsuccessful audition performances. There was some good stuff in that, including cameos from Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Jon…
On the most recent edition of Saturday Night Live, Kyle Mooney brought back one of the strangest, most off-putting characters in his repertoire: Bruce Chandling, a hack stand-up comic whose utter lack of talent is rivaled only by his desperate need for the audience’s approval. Sad sack Chandling has no real “material”…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…