November 21: Joseph Gordon-Levitt / Dave Matthews Band

[JZL]

I don't think they can get away with anyone but Fey doing it. Her success with it last year is a big reason they would even bother with a Palin sketch this year. Plus everyone would be wondering why it was Slate up there and not Fey, which would be distracting.

I agree with the general premise though, that Lorne needs to take a risk and let his current cast stand out or fall down, or SNL will devolve pretty quickly into the Wiig-Sudekis Show.

[ethan]

Kenan will play Oprah, I guarantee it.

[featured]

There's no way Slate's getting the Palin impression. That'd be like assigning Bobby Moynihan to do Bill Clinton. It's that ridiculous.

hmm not sure you can call it ridiculous - i'm sure there were people who said 'oh x can't do an impression of y, only z can do that' ...but eventually they are won over.

on a show that parodies long term popular figures, with a rotating cast, it is unreasonable to expect that a character will always be played by the same person.

how about we see what jenny can do? how can anyone possibly discount her till they've seen her?

[Friendlerson]

Jenny probably looks the most like Palin. I wouldn't be surprised either way.

[Does Gene Ray Burn]

i'm sure there were people who said 'oh x can't do an impression of y, only z can do that' ...but eventually they are won over.

I think a good example of that is the Bob Dole impression. Aykroyd originated it in various guest performances over the years, a very accurate and humorous impression. Then came along Norm MacDonald's impression: less accurate, but over-the-top hilarious and forever ingrained into our psyche. Or how about Bill Clinton? Phil Hartman did a very good impression over the course of three seasons, with some very imaginative sketches ("Arkansas COPS" is a definite highlight of a stumbling season), but it was Darrell Hammond who turned it into his signature character, thanks to America's greatest sex scandal. Otherwise, who knows, maybe it just would have been 14 seasons of Hammond doing Clinton stuffing cheeseburgers and whipped cream down his throat. The point is, newer cast members CAN turn older impressions into their own, if the producers are willing to trust their own hiring instincts. But I suspect the biggest obstacle regarding a Palin impression is the media's constant hard-on for all things Tina Fey. If she is called in this weekend, I won't be surprised if the news is leaked by the media ahead of time, thus rendering the novelty pointless and probably resulting in a sketch hastily thrown together for the sake of guaranteed media coverage.

[keineg]

I don't think they can get away with anyone but Fey doing it. Her success with it last year is a big reason they would even bother with a Palin sketch this year. Plus everyone would be wondering why it was Slate up there and not Fey, which would be distracting.

I agree with the general premise though, that Lorne needs to take a risk and let his current cast stand out or fall down, or SNL will devolve pretty quickly into the Wiig-Sudekis Show.

Fey's impression was way too popular last time. It was a ratings boost for the show - and it was above all, pretty natural for her to do (although didn't she say she was through doing it after the last time???). I too think it would be more of a distraction if they used anyone else? Oprah - I'd cut some slack and maybe Keenan could do it (although I'd love Tim Meadows to come back and do it).

[Shaq Plaque]

i'm sure there were people who said 'oh x can't do an impression of y, only z can do that' ...but eventually they are won over.

I think a good example of that is the Bob Dole impression. Aykroyd originated it in various guest performances over the years, a very accurate and humorous impression. Then came along Norm MacDonald's impression: less accurate, but over-the-top hilarious and forever ingrained into our psyche. Or how about Bill Clinton? Phil Hartman did a very good impression over the course of three seasons, with some very imaginative sketches ("Arkansas COPS" is a definite highlight of a stumbling season), but it was Darrell Hammond who turned it into his signature character, thanks to America's greatest sex scandal.

I think there's one thing that these two impressions have in common: one was president and the other was his party's nominee for president. If Palin runs a strong campaign through the primaries in two years, yes, I expect the impression to get passed on, and I would consider Slate a viable choice for taking over the impression. But as of now, Palin's only necessary for one-offs, and Tina's still in New York, and still working for Lorne.

I think a more relevant example would be Hillary Clinton, who Jan Hooks continued to portray following her departure from the show on the rare occassions she was needed. But a few years down the road, it was suddenly much more crucial to have a repertory member playing Clinton, and so it got passed to Ana and later Amy. Until Palin reaches that level of importance (and she's not there and I highly doubt she'll be successful enough in her presidential bid to do so), there's no impetus to pass the impression along and plenty of reasons it should stay with Tina.

Also, don't get me wrong, I'm all for passing Oprah to Nasim.

[vballa21]

They really need to do Oprah this weekend now that she also had that tearful goodbye. I would love to see another Oprah with Maya like the one where she gives away a ton of shit and the audience goes crazy. That one was classic.

[Does Gene Ray Burn]

I think a more relevant example would be Hillary Clinton, who Jan Hooks continued to portray following her departure from the show on the rare occassions she was needed. But a few years down the road, it was suddenly much more crucial to have a repertory member playing Clinton, and so it got passed to Ana and later Amy. Until Palin reaches that level of importance (and she's not there and I highly doubt she'll be successful enough in her presidential bid to do so), there's no impetus to pass the impression along and plenty of reasons it should stay with Tina.

You make a good point, and I would hope, two years from now, they aren't still falling back on Fey to do the Palin sketches. Eventually, that move will just look weak and pathetic. Yeah, I purposely used two big-ticket impressions as examples, though I also considered the ever-changing Larry King impressions as examples. Finally, regarding Jan Hooks as Hillary Clinton: a great example, although Hooks actually originated that impression two seasons AFTER leaving SNL. I suspect that was due to her natural rapport with Phil Hartman, since Janene Garafalo took over the impression (opposite Michael McKean's Clinton) in '94, and thus was not assigned automatically to Julia Sweeney. And, hell, I think Tim Meadows was my favorite Oprah impressionist!

[Shaq Plaque]

The fact that Jan didn't start playing Hillary until after she left the show makes it all the more appropriate an analogy Totally forgot Janeane had the role for a bit. How many times did she do it?

Also... think about if Melanie Hutsell had prematurely been assigned Mrs. Clinton. That would've been atrocious!

Tim did make the best Oprah although I did like Maya in that one sketch where she gave her crowd stuff and they started tearing each other's limbs off.