9/30/2017 0 Comments Best Snl Quotes Weekend Update CoDeadspin. Charlie Pierce on all this ESPN nonsense and newspapering and what not is so fantastic and I’m bitte. Charlie Pierce on all this ESPN nonsense and newspapering and what not is so fantastic and I’m bitter we didn’t run it. Go check it out. [SI]. Saturday Night Live is a ground-breaking NBC sketch comedy/Variety Show, broadcast live from New York City in what had been, up until its premiere in 1975.
![]() Great Movies We Wouldn't Have Without Saturday Night Live. The Saturday Night Live- based Mac. Gruber hits theaters next Friday and with it will come a cavalcade of lists ordering the movies based on the sketch comedy show. Presents under the tree for Wayne's World, stockings of coal for Stuart Saves His Family. We get it. Most SNL films have blown. Turning a three minute sketch into a feature length film usually doesn't work. In fact, the proposition frequently fails abysmally from conception. How Mary- Katherine Gallagher got her own movie before the Land Shark is anyone's guess, but endlessly slandering The Ladies Man doesn't tell the whole story. Saturday Night Live has always been a stepping stone. Put in five or six years of writing and character work and Hollywood will come calling. From A- list stars like Bill Murray to reliable cogs like Bill Hader, SNL has provided the stars and featured players for hundreds of movies during the last three and a half decades. It's time we started celebrating those. And why shouldn't we? Saturday Night Live may not have penned Elf, but would we even know who Will Ferrell was without it? Would it have been half the movie if it starred Adam Sandler? Err…I mean Ben Stiller? What about Chris Farley or Chris Rock or Chevy Chase or Jason Sudeikis or Phil Hartman or Robert Downey Jr or Anthony Michael Hall or Dan Akroyd or Eddie Murphy? Goddamnit. Would it have worked if it starred Jack Black? That's the dude I was looking for. No. Take away SNL and its cast members and the majority of memorable late 7. And its not just lighter fare. I can't think of a single genre which hasn't been affected. Lost In Translation, Iron Man, even Satan's Slay featuring Bill Goldberg had a Chris Kattan cameo. Here are 2. 5 great movies we wouldn't have without Saturday Night Live. Ghost Busters. SNL Connection: Bill Murray and Dan Akyroyd star as Venkman and Stantz. Ghost Busters was more than a movie. In a way it stood for something. Back off, I'm a scientist!" shouted Bill Murray's Peter Venkman. In the process he staked his claim as part of that new wave of 8. Ghost Busters was a product of a brighter time; a time when science trumped everything and where, occasionally, being smart meant getting the girl. It's a movie, quite simply, about science kicking the supernatural's ass; blasting it to bits with homemade proton packs, turning the unknown into just a speed bump which can be easily conquered with the application of brainpower. Venkman, Stantz, and Spengler were the direct forbearers of rock star geniuses like Jurassic Park's Ian Malcolm and the inspiration for millions of nerdy kids pulling back the curtain on the superstitions of their parents with homemade chemistry sets in their basements while other kids wandered around worrying about black cats crossing the path. Thanks to Murray, Akyroyd, and Ramis, we ain't afraid of no ghosts. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. SNL Connection: Mike Myers stars. Will Ferrell costars. The first Austin Powers is brilliant, brilliant in a slap- happy, overly confident, cock- sure, zany kinda way, a byproduct of uniting ridiculous men drunk on their own goofy confidence and commanding they continually ask but how can we take this further? The plot itself is ludicrous, an over- sexed, 1. Bob's Big Boy crypt of delicious menace and solitude, so ludicrous, in fact, that it almost commands itself to push further, as if Mike Myers thought “well, we've come this far”. An angst- ridden son who attends counseling with his evil genius father, a ransom call for one million dollars, a cat who's mere irritation causes his owner to kill without mercy, a corridor not quite wide enough to turn vehicles around, and a nefarious henchmen deftly played by SNL's Will Ferrell who refuses to die quickly. Austin Powers, like Clue, like The Princess Bride, like so many other perfectly constructed comedies, grows more charming with each re- watch. It is an amalgamation of the absurd, a cross- every- line, pull- no- punches, tribute to what can happen when a brilliant comedian at the top of his game fully invests in material that works. Watch out for the mutated sea bass, I hear they're ill- tempered. Tropic Thunder. SNL Connection: Written/directed by Ben Stiller. Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. Bill Hader costars. The number of A- list comedians Saturday Night Live has propelled to stardom is stunning, but perhaps more stunning are the scores of featured players who languished before ultimately finding success elsewhere. Chris Rock, Larry David, Sarah Silverman, Dave Atell, Jeanine Garafalo, and of course, at the center of Tropic Thunder, Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. Neither lasted more than a season, but the initial thumbs- up Lorne Michaels gave to their talent was spot- on. Who else but Robert Downey Jr could have pulled off blackface? Who else but Ben Stiller could have gone full retard? Throw in SNL's Bill Hader enthusiastically singing rap lyrics to a gyrating Tom Cruise, and you've got three wonderful comedic turns from former or current products of the variety show. Ben Stiller started the screenplay for Tropic Thunder nearly a decade before production finally began. He thwarted early offers before waiting on the perfect opportunity. SNL may not have made Robert Downey Jr or Ben Stiller, but its early offer set the wheels in motion to make opportunities like Tropic Thunder happen. It may not be Satan's Alley, but it's certainly funnier. Animal House. SNL Connection: John Belushi stars. There are few pure comedic talents in history like John Belushi and never was he better than as John "Bluto" Blutarsky in John Landis' Animal House. The quintessential college comedy, it set the bar for raunchiness back in 1. In many ways the film is an ensemble piece that gives all of its principals ample screen time, but it's hard to argue that the movie isn't Belushi's. Though his character is never fleshed out in the slightest – he might as well have been called Frat Guy #3 – Bluto steals the movie and creates some of comedy's most iconic moments. With scenes such as using a ladder to spy on sorority girls, filling his cheeks with mashed potatoes to imitate a zit, inspiring the troops with lessons about Pearl Harbor, and smashing a hippie's guitar, it is, simply put, one of the greatest comedic performances of all time. Landis' original choices for the characters Boon and Otter were Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, which would have made the film one of the more SNL- powered features of all time, but while the actors turned down the roles due to scheduling conflicts, Belushi provides all of the Saturday Night flavor needed. Wayne's World. SNL Connection: Based on an SNL sketch. Mike Myers and Dana Carvey star. Chris Farley cameos. Wayne's World is one of only two movies on this list actually produced by Saturday Night Live and based on one of the show's sketches. SNL's big contribution to entertainment has been in discovering and promoting new talent, without it we wouldn't have had any of the movies on this list. But in Wayne's World SNL made a direct contribution, helping Mike Myers and Dana Carvey break the bonds of late night television to create one of the best rock and roll comedies of all time. Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar are iconic characters, but the movie works in large part because Myers is brilliantly talented and Wayne's World is really just all about giving him a place to show that. Carvey, meanwhile, is the perfect sidekick and the movie's so good that even the sequel kind of works. It's unlikely that SNL will ever produce another cultural phenomenon like this one, but even if there were only this one, it's enough to justify the late night staple's contribution to movies. Elf. SNL Connection: Will Ferrell stars as Buddy Elf. Eight years after his debut on Saturday Night Live and after significant supporting roles in movies like Zoolander and Old School, it was Elf that solidified Will Ferrell as more than just comedic side character. Elf is brilliant, not just because Ferrell's funny, but because he's just as good at sympathetic and sweet. It's Ferrell and Ferrell alone who makes Buddy Elf work and in the process, with a little help from director Jon Favreau and Zooey Deschanel's soul- shakingly beautiful singing voice, Elf became an instant holiday classic. It's on the shortlist of movies we watch every holiday in my house alongside greats like It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and a healthy dose of Christmas Vacation.
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