Top 5: Saturday Night Live Guest Hosts

Saturday Night Live has become an American TV institution as it goes into its 39th season.  It’s not just a comedy show, but a showcase for burgeoning musical talent and the home for the most influential political satire, arguably, in our nation’s history.  The show is only as good as the cast and the cast right now is….bad.  Take away Jay Pharaoh and it’s a desert island of talent.  But that’s ok.  It’ll come back.

The thing about SNL is that every time the show seems on the brink of obscurity or loses a huge cast member, a new cast gels and the show goes on a run.  We’d gotten spoiled because the last two casts pretty seamlessly transitioned from the Will Ferrell era to the Tina Fey era and then to Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and company.  The show’s been consistently good for about 15 years.  But there have been dark ages before.  The year after the original cast left (John Belushi, Dan Akroyd,  Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, etc.) was a dark, dark, dark year.  The show nearly tanked.  But then Eddie Murphy came along and off we went.

The variable each week is the host.  Hosting SNL is a celebrity rite of passage and lots of people have trotted down the steps to do a really bad opening monologue, but there are some that stick.  That really stick.  Some stick so much that they just keep showing up even when they’re not hosting.  Lots of people think Steve Martin was part of the original cast because he hosted and just showed up so many times that he held the record for most times hosting at 15 (not counting the dozens of times he showed up to do one sketch).  Then came Alec Baldwin.  He and Steve have had a battle over the record for years and in 2011, Baldwin hosted his 16th time, taking the lead (Steve Martin showed up when he tied AND when he passed him).  In recent years, Justin Timberlake and Jon Hamm have shown surprising comedic chops on the show both as hosts and as frequent drop-ins (NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams also seems to be a frustrated comedian given how often he pops up).

It’s tough to differentiate between “who is the best?” when you get into a select echelon of hosts.  So this is a very loose ranking of some of the most talented performers to make themselves part of the history of the show.  By the way, in case you’re wondering, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is the record holder for musical guest at 13 appearances.  Just as a note, trying to find the SNL clip you’d most want for these guys….not easy.  So, you’re getting what you’re getting!  Go watch it on Netflix or Hulu; they’ve got every episode.

1. Steve Martin
http://www.hulu.com/watch/115715
2. Alec Baldwin
http://www.hulu.com/watch/116203
3. Justin Timberlake
http://www.hulu.com/watch/465345
4. Tom Hanks
http://www.hulu.com/watch/277100
5. Christopher Walken
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4165
I’d be remiss if I didn’t feature his part of the Cowbell sketch
http://www.hulu.com/watch/311123
* Honorable Mention – Jon Hamm
http://www.hulu.com/watch/124875

Trailer Time: Grey’s Anatomy Season 10 (2013) *SPOILERS FOR PEOPLE CATCHING UP*

I have been binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy to catch up and really enjoying it for the most part after the great season four crisis.  It’s never going to be the show it was the first three years with the nucleus of the original cast, but it’s been able to weather more cast drama than most shows ever experience.  I’d love to one day see an honest behind-the-scenes documentary on all of the drama behind this show.  However, there are three characters I felt the show could not lose and viably continue: Meredith, Derek or Christina.  Sandra Oh, who should and does not have Emmys, for playing Dr. Christina Yang for nine seasons will be leaving after her tenth.  I really feel they should make this the show’s final season as well, though it’s such a ratings cow, only Shondra Rimes is really going to be able to put the brakes on it.  Yang’s character provides a tether to reality for Meredith’s and they’re so co-dependent, I don’t really want to see Grey’s Anatomy without her.  I’m now talking about the characters like they’re real people so that clearly indicates I need to take a break and watch something else for awhile.  This teaser for Season 10 contains spoilers from the Season 9 finale so watch it if you’re still catching up…like…y’know…ME.  Took a bullet for you guys, is all I’m saying.  Grey’s Anatomy will return to ABC on September 26th with a two-hour premiere that picks up right where season nine left off.

 

Key Poster for The Walking Dead Season Four *Season 3 Spoilers*

AMC has released this as the ‘key’ image for season four, which seems to indicate that the prison’s time as a safe haven for our little band may be at an end.  Not that the prison proved much of a harbor.  In the comic, they hole up there quite nicely for a bit, but having just watched season three in two days, I never really saw much benefit to their being there.  The casualty rate seemed higher than on the road.  We’re down to, what, five original cast members?  Season one was pretty faithful to the comic.  Season two (stupid missing Sophia) diverged much more but most of it ended up in the same place, though we began to see that being alive in the comics, did not guarantee you life in the show.  Season three was off the reservation.  Not that it was bad.  It was much better than season two and the pacing felt much more appropriate than the slog that season two was.  It’s getting bad when you’re actively rooting for a little girl to turn up dead so the plot can just move onnnnnnnnnnnn.  I have no idea where they’re going from here.  They’ve killed so many characters who lived longer in the comics and added so many that aren’t even in the book, that you really at this point have to consider them separate entities.  Just leave Michonne alone.  Let her cut zombies to pieces with her sword and do not screw with her character.  Don’t “Andrea” her, AMC!  Took one of my favorite characters from the book and made ME want to hack her dense head off……ok, so I need to clearly take a break from watching zombie stuff for awhile.  The Walking Dead is back October 16th on AMC.

 

Trailer Time: RoboCop (2014)

2014’s first big release is a reboot of the 1980’s action series Robocop.  Peter Weller played the first iteration and it was always kind of a cool concept, but I was not enthused for a reboot.  My bad.  This looks like it has a hook to pair with this awesome image and make a movie out of it.  Free will.  The trailer, at least, promises a movie about free will wrapped in a lot of ‘splodeys awesomeness.  Maybe I’ll be wrong but I’d like to hope early 2014 will surprise me in some way because the line-up looks grim.  Now I also have no real attachment to the Weller film’s so it’s easier to come at this fresh for me.

Robocop stars Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson and opens in theaters on February 7, 2014.  Official synopsis below:

In “RoboCop,” the year is 2029 and multinational conglomerate OmniCorp is at the center of robot technology. Their drones are winning American wars around the globe and now they want to bring this technology to the home front. Alex Murphy is a loving husband, father and good cop doing his best to stem the tide of crime and corruption in Detroit. After he is critically injured in the line of duty, OmniCorp utilizes their remarkable science of robotics to save Alex’s life. He returns to the streets of his beloved city with amazing new abilities, but with issues a regular man has never had to face before.

Thor 2’s Alan Taylor to Direct Terminator 5 Plus Plot Details *SPOILERS*

After Game of Thrones and Thor The Dark World, director Alan Taylor will next be taking on the task of righting the mess that is the Terminator franchise.  Taylor has signed on to direct Terminator 5, the first in a stand-alone trilogy.  Terminator (as it is currently titled….as opposed to THE Terminator) is scheduled for a July 2015 release and Laeta Kalorgridis (Avatar, Shutter Island) and Patrick Lussier (Drive Angry) are attached to write the screenplay.

Is Arnold going to be in them?  Yes.  How is he going to manage that now that he is not quite the specimen that appeared out of nowhere and walked naked into a biker bar in T2?  Well, I have details for you and they will explain his age and why his image is used for the Terminator.  This is a treatment that has been floating around for a while, so it may not be what Taylor and company go with, but if you don’t want to know anything, run away screaming like a little girly man now…….still there?

SPOILER PARAGRAPH BREAK ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS

OK, hopefully that cleared out anyone who might whine about this, which originally was broken by AICN:

A source close to the project says one idea being considered for the film could throw fans of the Terminator franchise for a loop. According to the scenario outlined, T5 may be a prequel set in the days of Sarah Connor‘s parents, marking the first time terminators have been sent back in time to kill a character that existed before both John and Sarah Connor.

Incredibly, Schwarzenegger may not play the role of a machine in the next film, but a potentially heroic human figure in or close to the Connor family. One theory is that Schwarzenegger’s remarkable ability to protect the Connor family in the 1940s or 1950s with antiquated weaponry by today’s standards ultimately inspired the machines to develop a terminator in his likeness that was eventually sent to 1984 when Sarah Connor was first targeted for termination.

So Grandpappy and Grandmammy Connor will be targeted for termination by a different Terminator (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been mentioned, but he just signed to do another film and they’ve got to get going if they’ll make 2015) and they will be protected by Schwarzenegger, who will do such a good job at terminating the terminators that the terminators make him essentially their god. It’s one idea.  Arnold’s going to be in it, so it seems as likely as anything else.  I like the director choice.  I’m less enthused about the script being penned by the people who brought us the dialogue of Avatar and Drive Angry.  As further, Terminator bits float along the stream of geekery, I will pass them along.