TMC
11-12-2024, 05:13 AM
https://www.nathanrabin.com/happy-place/2023/11/15/louise-lasser-turned-saturday-night-live-into-a-clammy-psychodrama-for-one-unforgettably-awkward-episode
Like so many of the legendarily bad Saturday Night Live hosts that I have written about for My World of Flops, Louise Lasser professes to be a big fan of the show in her opening monologue. More specifically, Lasser says that Saturday Night Live “deals with stuff I like” and that it “makes new entrees into comedy that I approve of.”
Also like the folks I’ve written about so far, she then delivers a performance that suggests that she’s not at all familiar with Saturday Night Live, and if she were to ever watch it, she’d probably hate it.
Saturday Night Live might deal with stuff Lasser liked, and made new entrees into comedy that she approved of but she did not like the script for her episode at all. She found it salacious and smutty, singling out a scene where two teenage girls talk about sex that actually comes off as sensitive and even tender when performed by Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin.
Lasser did not want to be part of an ensemble. She did not want to appear in sketches opposite some of the greatest comic performers of all time. She wanted to do her own thing and do her style of comedy. She did not realize that when you host Saturday Night Live you do their style of comedy or you come across as both unprofessional and mentally ill.
When she hosted Saturday Night Live Lasser was strongly associated with a very specific style of comedy that was just plain wrong for Lorne Michaels deathless comedy institution.
Like so many of the legendarily bad Saturday Night Live hosts that I have written about for My World of Flops, Louise Lasser professes to be a big fan of the show in her opening monologue. More specifically, Lasser says that Saturday Night Live “deals with stuff I like” and that it “makes new entrees into comedy that I approve of.”
Also like the folks I’ve written about so far, she then delivers a performance that suggests that she’s not at all familiar with Saturday Night Live, and if she were to ever watch it, she’d probably hate it.
Saturday Night Live might deal with stuff Lasser liked, and made new entrees into comedy that she approved of but she did not like the script for her episode at all. She found it salacious and smutty, singling out a scene where two teenage girls talk about sex that actually comes off as sensitive and even tender when performed by Gilda Radner and Jane Curtin.
Lasser did not want to be part of an ensemble. She did not want to appear in sketches opposite some of the greatest comic performers of all time. She wanted to do her own thing and do her style of comedy. She did not realize that when you host Saturday Night Live you do their style of comedy or you come across as both unprofessional and mentally ill.
When she hosted Saturday Night Live Lasser was strongly associated with a very specific style of comedy that was just plain wrong for Lorne Michaels deathless comedy institution.