Comments on: ...oh look everybody, a black lady voter....

...oh look everybody, a black lady voter....

orthogonality — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:06:31 -0800

"'Hello pig farmers!'... oh look everybody, a black lady voter... I am going left with the political thumb pointed down... I am now the center of attention...." Rosemary Watson's impersonation of Hillary Clinton in That Hillary Show is dead-on perfect. Listening to the clips with your eyes closed, it's nearly impossible to distinguish the actor from the politician. Right down to the trademark Hillary chuckle. Except that Rosemary Watson's Hillary is far funnier.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:22:50 -0800

Obama/Watson08 ! Oh, no.... wait, um....

By: cavalier

cavalier — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:23:08 -0800

In a way I feel slightly bad for her because it looks like she would have had a dreamy meal ticket for at least 4 years. Funny stuff!

By: grobstein

grobstein — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:33:44 -0800

Ha, yeah.

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:34:18 -0800

In a way I feel slightly bad for her... I wish that I could remember his name, (...anyone out there know?) but when JFK was elected there was a comedian who could do a spot on vocal impersonation. He became extremely popular. But when Kennedy was assassinated, not only did the impersonator lose his main job, but I am told he became all but unemployable - it was just to painful to see/ hear him do anything.

By: carsonb

carsonb — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:39:56 -0800

Change Hillary!

By: R. Mutt

R. Mutt — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:42:41 -0800

Ah... here it is.... As Lenny Bruce said...."Vaughn Meader is screwed!"

By: aqhong

aqhong — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:46:21 -0800

Great stuff. The "nearly impossible" link doesn't work for me, though.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:46:58 -0800

Joe Quimby?

By: Kinbote

Kinbote — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:49:02 -0800

Yeah, the Vaughan Meader album, "The First Family" was completely off-limits when I was growing up in the 70's - getting caught listening to my dad's old Woody Woodbury albums was nothing compared to the time I tried to break Meader out of the record cabinet.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:50:11 -0800

aqhong writes "Great stuff. The 'nearly impossible' link doesn't work for me, though." "nearly impossible" should ink to the "Tipsy, Hill Talks About Thespian HealthCare" clip; you can get there via the That Hillary Show link.

By: synaesthetichaze

synaesthetichaze — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:53:46 -0800

Change Hillary! This is fun.

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:01:02 -0800

You owe me a new keyboard, synaesthetichaze. Because I just threw up on the old one.

By: synaesthetichaze

synaesthetichaze — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:11:33 -0800

Sorry, Card Cheat. Here's something to cleanse your mental palate. the gaze of the eyeless is fear

By: zardoz

zardoz — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:14:17 -0800

She's much better than the woman playing Hillary on Saturday Night Live. Then again, almost anybody is better than anybody on Saturday Night Live. Actually, as I wrote that, I just realized I haven't really seen the show for about 5 or 6 years, so it may be on an upswing but the few clips I've seen the web were really brutal.

By: billybobtoo

billybobtoo — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:16:50 -0800

well kinbote, i would have gotten an ass whoopin,with a razor strop mind you, if dad caught me listening to his old Busty Russell lp's. this may have been a year or two before Vaughn Meader. gosh, everyone bought that album... but it was only funny for the first few times. like any novelty record.

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:21:06 -0800

Vaughn Meader You're welcome.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:58:47 -0800

Then again, almost anybody is better than anybody on Saturday Night Live To be fair, Amy Poehler (sp?) is a very funny woman most of the time, although I agree that his Clinton is very bad.

By: Bathtub Bobsled

Bathtub Bobsled — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:05:27 -0800

To be fair, Amy Poehler (sp?) is a very funny woman most of the time "Most of the time", meaning outside of the 90 minutes every saturday.

By: ZenMasterThis

ZenMasterThis — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:06:38 -0800

Rosemary Watson's Hillary is far funnier. It could hardly miss, yeah?

By: bunnytricks

bunnytricks — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:30:54 -0800

How Amy Poehler went from being funny to a no-talent hack the moment she was hired on by Lorne Michaels is one of those great mysteries. SNL writing is crap but Amy Poehler is making Melanie Hutsell look like Tina Fey.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 26 May 2008 18:45:57 -0800

How Amy Poehler went from being funny to a no-talent hack the moment she was hired on by Lorne Michaels is one of those great mysteries. It's no big mystery. Good writing, including good comedy writing, is about knowing what to throw away. If SNL took 90 minutes of writing and produced a 20 minute show, they'd be golden.

By: bunnytricks

bunnytricks — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:04:23 -0800

It's no big mystery. Good writing, including good comedy writing, is about knowing what to throw away. If SNL took 90 minutes of writing and produced a 20 minute show, they'd be golden. That's largely true, but in the ten or so episodes I've seen since she was hired, Darrell Hammond has never failed to be at least marginally amusing. The digital shorts work about half the time. Even Kenan Thompson has made me laugh a couple of times. Amy, however, now sucks the funny out of every scene like Gallagher Too draped in moist sackfuls of drowned kittens. She can't even make Weekend Update work, and the jokes tell themselves there.

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:14:43 -0800

Amy Poehler could mow down a schoolyard full of children and I'd still give like her based on how much I laughed at her performances as Andy Richter's kid sister Stacey on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

By: hifiparasol

hifiparasol — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:29:00 -0800

Wow. I came here looking for some good ole fashioned Hillary-hate, and I've stumbled onto the Amy Poehler Parallel Universe Fan Club. Hillary sucks amirite?

By: (bb|[^b]{2})

(bb|[^b]{2}) — Mon, 26 May 2008 19:50:40 -0800

Tina Fey makes me feel funny in my crotch.

By: good in a vacuum

good in a vacuum — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:51:00 -0800

I think I saw Amy Poehler on some talk show somewhere acknowledging that her Hillary impersonation isn't very good. I guess she got the job because there's only three female cast members, and she's the only blonde one, or something. Impersonations just aren't her thing, and the show is set up so that they can really only work with the cast members they have. They need more women who are talented impersonators.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:56:22 -0800

Tina Fey makes me feel funny in my crotch. Protip: Remove hands from pants. Repeat as needed.

By: !Jim

!Jim — Mon, 26 May 2008 20:58:50 -0800

I thought the Tina Fey\Amy Poehler weekend updates were really funny.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:24:20 -0800

That's largely true, but in the ten or so episodes I've seen since she was hired, Darrell Hammond has never failed to be at least marginally amusing. The digital shorts work about half the time. Even Kenan Thompson has made me laugh a couple of times. Amy, however, now sucks the funny out of every scene like Gallagher Too draped in moist sackfuls of drowned kittens. She can't even make Weekend Update work, and the jokes tell themselves there. So why are you watching it? I don't watch it very often, but when I do I find it pretty funny. Including Poehler on weekend update.

By: davejay

davejay — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:29:44 -0800

Funny on SNL or not, I'll go to my grave remembering Amy Poehler ambling onto the Second City mainstage during a late-night improv session suddenly finding herself playing an extremely belligerent and overweight woman, and somehow managing to palpably convey a sense of outright heft that made it shocking to see her suddenly start moving like her own weight again. Nothing about the work you've seen Tina Fey or Amy Poehler (or the Upright Citizen's Brigade boys, for that matter) can match the stage work they did that led up to their current careers, it was simply brilliant at times. and what's wrong with throwing 'em a little love for that?

By: Gary

Gary — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:38:25 -0800

If SNL took 90 minutes of writing and produced a 20 minute show, they'd be golden. On their good days, they still accomplish this by organizing their sketches properly. The funny sketches come first, then the musical guest, and then Weekend Update. After that is a no man's land of weird sketches and test characters hoping something is quirky enough to find an audience (Christopher Walken and the googly eyed plants, for instance). But if you don't like it, no one's really expecting you to stay up after the news. On their bad days, I'm glad I can tape the east coast showing three hours earlier and fast forward through the duds.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Tue, 27 May 2008 08:42:03 -0800

> Amy, however, now sucks the funny out of every scene like Gallagher Too draped in moist sackfuls of drowned kittens. She can't even make Weekend Update work, and the jokes tell themselves there. Exactly how I felt about Jimmy "I'm so funny let me crack up at myself for the 5th time this broadcast while getting paid an obscene amount that's more than YOU'LL ever see in your life for doing so" Fallon.

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:40:47 -0800

bunnytricks writes "She can't even make Weekend Update work, and the jokes tell themselves there." Well ... I'm not really a fan, but I have to admit the best Weekend Update team they've had in a long time was Amy Poehler and Tina Fey (however, arguably the worst is Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon). But I also liked Kevin Nealon and Norm Macdonald, so what do I know?

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:46:10 -0800

Gary writes "On their good days, they still accomplish this by organizing their sketches properly. The funny sketches come first, then the musical guest, and then Weekend Update. After that is a no man's land of weird sketches and test characters hoping something is quirky enough to find an audience" This was always the approach, more or less. The timing changed, but it was always a few great sketches (on a good week), a mixed bag of other material of hit-or-miss, and a few really experimental pieces. I always liked the more experimental stuff, because a lot of the decent sketches since the departure of the Second Great Cast (e.g., Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo, etc.) are funny but also meant to be repeatable the following Monday at work. So, you get some great water-cooler lines, but the writing isn't as cohesive as it used to be.