![]() ![]() To this day I can’t figure out what happened. After he finished, another guy, who is not as good of a storyteller, says, “You think that’s crazy, well listen to this,” then proceeds to tell the exact same story. Jim is a very good storyteller and the we were all laughing so hard the tears were starting. ![]() It’s not a good feeling as the sound of laughter turns to a muted, “Well, all right then.” One time when I was in college, we were had out local Friday night happy hour bar and a friend, Jim, was holding court, telling this crazy elaborate story about something I’m not going to even try to get into here. Still, it wound up being one of the last things I’d get to do in a public setting and seeing everyone, even the people we don’t get to see on camera, pull this off was remarkable.įirst, I think we all can relate with the feeling of trying to make a joke last a little too long and being the one who killed it. When, in reality, it most certainly was and there we all were packed into a small studio together. And, even then, it felt weird, but everyone just kind of thought this was a storm coming that wasn’t here yet. It was the second to last show before everything shut down. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: once you get a peak behind the curtain, you quickly realize that even the bad shows are a miracle.) This was a weird show to attend. (One of my favorite experiences doing this job was hanging out with the SNL set designers for a week as they put together a show. Both are good! But I went with this one because I saw it live in person and I’m still amazed what this show can pull off when it comes to just the technicalities like set design. These big elaborate sketches are now expected from John Mulaney, and we actually got two of them on one calendar year. And Bateman and Strong pull that off marvelously. Sometimes human being just like watching other human beings fall down. ![]() Seriously, this is some Chevy Chase-level pratfalls and, you know, not everything has to be a cerebral. After five I start to wonder how Bateman and String are doing this without serious injury. It’s genuinely the repetitiveness that makes this work. And here’s Jason Bateman and Cecily Strong, rolling and falling and tumbling around in giant clear balls, dressed as Mr. Sometimes we all just need some old fashioned slapstick. So, enough of this, let’s get to the ten best sketches of 2020. (Well, except for one of them that did not make me laugh, but made me feel pretty darn good.) Laughing seems like a good thing right now. I don’t need to see Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump ever again, if I’m being honest. (And, selfishly, the thought of putting every sketch that I found good in one place sounded appealing.) Though, I didn’t set any kind of rule, but I found myself excluding the straightforward political sketches. But this year felt special, in that it felt like a good thing to do to honor some of the great writing, and sketch comedy performing, and design, and directing that went into this tumultuous year. Personally, I haven’t done a list of SNL sketches in over three years, when, before that, I wrote about every single sketch that had aired over the seven years prior. But more, “hope it doesn’t come here,” as opposed to the more accurate, “this is already here.” In retrospect, cramming into a small studio without masks now seems like a nightmare.) There’s an obvious nervousness in the sketches about “what’s to come.” (Back in late February I attended the John Mulaney dress rehearsal and it felt … fraught. Doing this piece, putting together these ten sketches, it was most weird going back to the five shows before the world shutdown. But, yet, there it was, still going, now halfway through its 46th season. I’ll elaborate on that a bit ahead, but, especially this year, this impossible show to make seems even more impossible.
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