Now, here's how we talk about SNL when we talk about SNL. These be the rules:

Standardized Responses for SNL Threads.
1. SNL is still on?
2. I might have to watch this SNL sometime.
3. SNL hasn't been funny since _____ (insert name) was president.
4. The Tina Fey era was the (Choose one:) Best/ Worst.
5. (Canadians/Brits/Aussies:) You Americans can't say Fuck on the telly?
6. (Me, other Oldes:) Jane Curtin/ Dan Aykroyd - now there was a Weekend Update.
7. And I remember when Charles Rocket said Fuck. I got on my Commodore computer and typed a letter about it.

Normally this comes with the advisory of "don't be that guy." But last night's episode was so bad—so terribly awkward and painfully unfunny—I can't exactly blame anyone who contravenes house style, here. Should I even bother embedding some of the skits? It's not like we should condone this kind of awfulness. It's bad for the economy, for fucks sake. I considering doing this for a while, because it's patently lazy and relieves me of having to do any real work. On the other hand, this is about as authentic an assement of last night's episode of Saturday Night Live as you could probably get.

From last night's comment thread, live. And these are the Weekend Commenteratti being kind. It's like a linguistic Faces of Death, Comedy Edition. These are authentic reactions of complete, absolute, real horror:

• "You know, I started watching this with an open mind, determined not to be one of those "SNL sucks" snobs, but...This "Grace Kelly farting" thing is the worst piece of sketch comedy I've ever seen in my life. And I don't think that's an exaggeration. It's heinous." - MisterHippity. Also, this.
  
  
• "It was fucking PAINFUL." - mattchew03.
  
  
• "Dear God, please make it stop. This Rear Window skit is absolutely awful. I wondered if SNL was going to waste January Jones. Guess I got my answer." - OrneryBabe
  
  
• "Normally I defend SNL to the death, but good lord, this episode is painful to watch. I haven't been this embarrassed to be a fan of the show since Paris Hilton hosted. And January Jones's sucky cue-card reading isn't helping." - VioletViolet
  
  
• "I thought nothing could be worse than a Grace Kelly farting sketch, but I was wrong." - sweet_communist
  
  
• "This is the worst fucking episode ever, I think we may be watching history, bad, bad history." - TheProfessor69

Starting to get the idea?

Oh, and if it wasn't bad enough, from a deeply traumatized commenter, DahlELama:

OK, if you're watching SNL, you just saw Julia Allison. You can't pretend you didn't. I will not be the only one who's seen her onscreen. I can't be.

Yeah. They ran a Julia Allison commercial for Sony during SNL. Last night's SNL. And the Black Eyed Peas were the musical guest. Poor Fergie. First, Josh Duhamel does it with a stripper, and then she gets screwed by SNL by being on this episode. I'm going to take this moment to apologize to anyone who I might've suggested watch last night. I feel guilty. For the sake of history, let's learn from how bad this one was. The "good" skits don't even deserve to be talked about.

Here's your "Grace Kelly Farting" Rear Window skit. Reminder: jokes about Jimmy Stewart haven't been funny since Tom Hanks started acting. And jokes about farting haven't been funny since I was fourteen. Watch how January Jones breaks character at 4:55 and laughs. Probably because she thinks this is funny. Which is maybe why they went with it.

Here's a Digital Short where Fred Armisen keeps walking in on Andy Samberg taking a shit. I'm serious.

Like, honestly, no, fuck that, we're done here. See you next week, I think Dave Matthews Band is going to be on. Let's all get drunk and hope they play "Ants Marching," which, of course, they won't do. Lorne Michaels, you are mean. Especially considering the irony of this being the episode's musical centerpiece. I have no idea about the video's watermark, but it's somehow appropriate:

Dear god.

• Young women having personal drama in dangerous places seems to the theme of the CW's upcoming development slate, revealed yesterday. In the works: a drama about women at the CIA's spy school, a soap opera by Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas set in space and a show featuring original music by country star Brad Paisley about a young woman headed for Nashville stardom. [Variety]

• Hollywood perennial war — the battle between distributors and theater owners has heated up again, sparked by Paramount's attempt to sell the DVD of GI Joe and The Goods a mere 88 days after their theatrical debuts, within the 90 day window traditionally given to the multiplexes. "We don't know what Paramount is up to, but it's highly objectionable," was National Association of Theatre Owners president John Fithian's response to the plan. [THR]

• Anheuser-Busch has signed a deal to be the sole and exclusive sponsor of this week's Saturday Night Live, buying out the entire ad space. The brewery will also be hosting sponsored watch parties of the branded episode around America. [LAT]

• The Wrap reports on Warner Brothers contradictory marketing plans for their upcoming Where the Wild Things Are release, selling it simultaneously as an adult film, with a campaign of branded merch sold at Urban Outfitters and as a kids movie. Having just seen it, given the choice between where its a grown-up and kids film, we'd like to vote neither. [The Wrap]

• Former Friends star David Schwimmer will direct Clive Owen and Catherine Keener in, Trust, the very un-Friends-like tale of a couple whose lives are turned upside down when their daughter is stalked by an online predator. [THR]

•The Toronto International Film Festival, the traditional start to the Oscar race, opened last night with the premiere of Creation, a Charles Darwin biopic starring Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany. The debut was marred by protesters angered by the festival's decision to use its "city spotlight" feature to focus on Tel Aviv. The protesters have not called for a boycott of the festival, although one Canadian documentarian withdrew his film. Among the TIFF's most anticipated films, the Ivan Reitman directed Up In the Air starring George Clooney which premieres tomorrow night. [Variety]

•Hopes may be high for Monday's debut of the primetime Jay Leno show but rates are low. Advertisers can buy a slot on Leno's show for about half what they would generally pay for a drama at the same hour. [WSJ]

• Tyler Perry looks to continue his box office stranglehold this weekend. His new film I Can Do Bad All By Myself faces off against the animated 9 Projections place Perry raking in around 20 million before Monday. [LAT]

•Producer/former studio chief John Calley will receive the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences honorary Thalberg Award this year. Special awards will also be given the Lauren Bacall, cinematogapher Gordon Willis and Roger Corman. The awards will not, however, be presented at the big show in March but at a special luncheon, safely off the primetime airwaves. [Variety]

• NBC has denied reports that SNL star Casey Wilson was fired for being overweight. E!Online had reported that producer Lorne Michaels had demanded Wilson lose 30 pounds and dismissed her when she failed to meet his goal. [TheWrap]

• Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page and Liv Tyler have singed on for Super, a superhero genre spoof. [Variety]

When asked by Williams for his thoughts on Armisen's impersonations of him, Obama was gentlemanly, almost making excuses for Armisen, remarking that his is a tough voice to imitate, then going on to note that "he seems to be starting to get it down a little bit," but you couldn't help but feel a palpable sense of disappointment over his lack of a standout comedic television doppelganger, ala Dana Carvey's George Bush, Phil Hartman and Darrell Hammond's Bill Clinton, and Will Ferrell's George W. Bush.

If you missed the special, NBC will likely be putting it online at the link below, where there's all sorts of additional interview footage available for your viewing pleasure.

Inside the Obama White House [MSNBC]

Sure, this celebrity mashup has been suggested before — but SNL actually made it funny. What if the most powerful person in the world actually flexed his beach-toned muscles instead of staying intellectually detached? Andy Samberg's smirking Rahm Emanuel completes the fantasy — until his "Rahmbo" character snaps out of it and realizes it was just a dream.

A symphony of atonal bangs, clangs and twangs accompanied by Martin's irritating coyote-hooting vocals, it was what we imagine a nursery school teacher's nervous breakdown might sound like.

Let's fast-forward now to this past weekend's featured musical guest: TV on the Radio—a critically lauded, genre-transcending act that earns consistently glowing reviews, not just for their studio work, but for their live performances as well.

We hand the reins over to Idolator:

You would think, then, that the performance would be a triumph-but instead, it was a trainwreck...The brass obliterated everything else in its path. Worse, they seemed to be either out-of-tune or differently arranged, clashing painfully with the vocal line...[I]t turned the triumphant energy of the song into something that more closely resembled a performance by an experimental high school marching band.

We present Exhibit A, their SNL performance:

For comparison, the same song, as performed on The Colbert Report:

That's quite a difference, even if you aren't familiar with the recorded track. Idolator writes:

I'm no sound nerd, but you can tell that the Colbert track was actually mixed to sound like a band, not a collection of errant noises that happen to appear in a room together.

We're now thinking back to other recent SNL performances—this Usher one comes to mind—and have concluded that there is a severe sound mixing problem going on in Studio 8-H. Perhaps jig-dancin', lip-syncin' Ashlee v.1.0 had the right idea all along.

• Ayo Blogger Idiots... You Know "Saturday Night Live" Is Screwing With You, Right? [Idolator]

At least not officially — not yet — despite condemnation from the blind community and the governor's office itself. Instead, one of the outraged has pieced together this press release signed by Michaels, supposedly endorsed by NBC (using a well-known network publicist's name) and then disowned by SNL's actual publicist upon investigation. We'd let it go at that, except the fake is so crappy and loaded down with typos, hinting that maybe the sender, too, owes the governor an apology of sorts:

“On our program last week, during the Weekend Update sketch, we featured a parody of New York Governor David Patterson. [sic]

It was not our intention to insult the Governor or to demean anyone with a physical handicap. We have great respect for Governor Pattersonʼs [sic] achievements and his leadership of our great state, as well as for people all over this country and the world who continue to thrive in the face of adversity and better our world in spite of any physical handicap.

Sometimes, in attempting to make the audience laugh, people can be hurt or made to feel as if they are the butt of the joke. That was never our intention, and I hope that our attempt to entertain did not harm. Again, my sincerest apologies to Governor Patterson [sic] and to anyone who may have been offended by the segment.”

Don't mention it, "Lorne"! We're sure filmmaker Fernando Merrelies [sic] will be the next to send his contrite regards to those offended last summer by his allegory Blindness, which he now realizes "failed at the box office due to its vast, insensitive alienation of the sightless demographic, for which I am truly sorry." Surely he won't make that mistake again.

The dissatisfaction was less over the fact that Armisen was Caucasian than it was over his inability to effectively capture the President-elect's voice and mannerisms. All this led to wide speculation, mostly thanks to this Daily Beast story, that the show was actively auditioning African-American candidates to take over Obama duties. Clearly, however, Armisen wasn't going to give up that easily.

In "Obama Plays It Cool," Armisen debuted his New, Improved Obama Impression, in which he effectively spoofs the famous temperament—no highs, no lows, just cool, improvisational thinking for tough times. He doesn't merely speed up towards the end of his sentences now, but instead offers a finely textured approximation of Obama's bassy bedside manner. Close your eyes. That's some damn good Obama.

A little later in the broadcast, Armisen returns to more familiar waters—sexually androgynous superstars who hit in the 1980s—adding a formidable Boy George to his already spot-on Prince. He might not have that Anakin Skywalker bloat, but he blends in perfect measures the cockney obliviousness and fallen pop-star imperiousness that defined the former Culture Club singer throughout the entire, insane, hustler-thrashing affair. We'll tumble 4 that.

After the jump: Ooh, goodie! Just what we need—more annoyingly ubiquitous bus ads about teenagers fucking!

· A Gossip Girl spinoff is in the works. We think the title Chuck is already taken, but that's clearly where this needs to go. [THR]
· Collagen-enhanced screwball actress's rights spokesperson Anna Faris has signed on for two new projects: a buddy-sister comedy at Paramount, and 20 Times a Lady at Columbia, about "woman who goes on a trek through her sexual past in an effort to find Mr. Right." [THR]

She got the accent and nonsense-making fairly right, but what about Arianna's legendary pettiness? Hopefully next time we see Arianna, she'll be huddled over three BlackBerrys in her bathroom sobbing. All things considered, we preferred the original audition:

There are those for whom John Belushi and Gilda Radner was the last SNL worth watching. The next generation insisted that the show could never recover from the losses of Chris Farley, Mike Myers and Adam Sandler. Then Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan represented yet another peak that couldn't be reached. Really, it's just sketch comedy, and it's hit or miss no matter who the members of the cast are. And when you're opening your show with a satire of a congressional hearing with Detroit automakers, you know it's going to be a long night.

That makes it even more inexplicable that they're not doing more with Andy Samberg's sadistic Rahm Emanuel character. If you can't get a laugh out of a little Jewish man going crazy on a congressman, you have problems.

When even Kristen Wiig is having an off-night, you know the cast just needs sleep. Here's her clear retainer sketch featured after the monologue.

A Bond parody is always death, although this one wasn't too terrible. Still, you kinda felt like you were watching Jeff Foxworthy.

Do we really need another sketch where a white guy gets jokes for acting like a rapper? At least T-Pain half-saves this one. Although frankly, the weird human sculptures in his second song were more entertaining.

Bill Hader's Dateline parody wasn't terrible, but come on. We know they're considering hiring a new Obama, but the show's writers can't think of anything fun to do with Fred Armisen in the meantime?

The Advocate approached Meyers to defend the episode. Unfortunately, the one question we really wanted the head SNL writer to answer—what was up with that "Vote's over" thing?—is never addressed. He did have lots of defensive things to say about the rest of the show. Here are the greatest hits, in no particular order.

Meyers: One of the things [Bobby Moynihan] auditioned with was Snagglepuss. I can tell you, as a new cast member your radar is always up to find ways to get the stuff you brought with you on the air. As it turned out that was a pretty funny way to get it in.

Meyers: Not to minimize, it but we are having the same issue this week with Thanksgiving. [Laughs] [...] I will say that it will be much harder with Thanksgiving because they will all look the same, where as with last week there were a lot of different looks.

Advocate: I think the gay community read [the kissing family scene] as a metaphor for learning not to judge how one family chooses to love. It is interesting that it wasn’t intentional.

Meyers: If you are talking about something like gay rights or you are talking about politicians or anything that people feel deeply about, you can’t try to not offend anyone. The comedy has to have teeth to some degree. Also, we have gay writers here, and I can sort of speak for everyone who works here that this is a place that feels strongly on the right side of that issue.

Advocate: Well, I think for the most part the gay community liked the show.
Meyers: That is good to hear. I will say you don’t love hearing, in the blogosphere or anywhere else, that people feel like you crossed a line. When that happens you step back and say, "Well, did we do anything?" But I look back on this one and I stand behind everything that happened.

Meyers: I don’t think we have ever done anything mean-spirited, because honestly, mean doesn’t play very well here. You wouldn’t be able to get away with it at the table if you wrote something and people thought your point of view was closed-minded.

The point isn't that the writing was mean-spirited; it's that it's lazy, and dated, and relies on gayness as a punchline unto itself. Two openly gay mechanics in love bickering over their wedding plans is actually a premise that could produce some well-observed comedy. But two deeply closeted mechanics admitting to sucking dick in glory holes, then suddenly announcing their engagement, is something else entirely. It's a Yes on 8 ad.

And while we're sure some of their best writers are gay, you know what might help even more? How about convincing Lorne Michaels to hire his first second openly gay SNL cast member? (Terry Sweeney doesn't count. That was the Dick Ebersol-produced season Apparently Terry Sweeney does count but that was over 20 years ago.) HAHAHA! Just kidding—we know that will never happen. Who's going to laugh at two guys sucking face when you know one's totally getting his rocks off by Andy Samberg while doing it?

• Seth Meyers's Big Gay Saturday Night [Advocate]

· The fun starts with a sketch about an overly affectionate family that builds to Samberg making out with Fred Armisen for no apparent reason.
· Then there was a legitimately funny Digital Short in which Rudd and Samberg paint each other naked, that ends in what has to be the most violent scene in the show's history. (If the episode had a secondary theme, it would be guns blowing people's heads off.)

· Moving along, we have a carload of seemingly straight guys admitting shocking things in song, that—surprise!—starts with Jason Sudeikis admitting he had sex with a male cab driver.
· Here's where things get really interesting. Seth Meyers introduces the topic of Prop 8 on Weekend Update. The crowd boos, which annoys the anchor, who admonishes them by saying, "OK. Vote's over." What follows is an over-the-top flaming Bobby Moynihan as Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss, who decries Prop 8, but denies he himself is gay. He finally admits it, and says he has a "partner"—the Great Gazoo.
· A parody of Beyonce's "Put A Ring On It" video featuring backup dancers Justin Timberlake, Moynihan, and Samberg in high heels and leotards. They could have played this straight, and it would have been funnier, but instead they lisp and mince the way gay people do (that's supposed to be sarcasm for those of you currently wearing your fierce, Tom Ford irony-ray-blocking sunglasses), and it gets old kind of quick.
· Another direct reaction to Prop 8 features yet two more characters in the closet—tough guy parking attendants played by Rudd and Bill Hader. The humor derives from the fact that they are so in denial about their homosexuality, they act as if their random sex acts in bathrooms, and with each other, is all a joke. It ends with them proposing to each other and talking about how excited they are to have a wedding.

Before you leap into the comments to either defend the material as hilarious and that's all that matters, or decry it as ugly stereotyping that couldn't come at a more insensitive moment, we'd just like to remind you all of one thing, OK?

Vote's over.

Beyoncé's sketch with Paul Rudd brought back fond memories:

Unlike most of the actors in the Apatow milieu, Rudd didn't start out in sketch comedy or stand-up, as he explains in an interview:

This has been a strange trajectory for me. I’ve always been a comedy fan, but I never did sketch comedy, I never studied improvisation, never did stand-up, that was never my goal. I went to college and studied theater, I went to a theater conservatory, I live in New York because I wanted to do plays and still do plays. I love dramatic films and wanted to do everything. I still do want to go back and forth between different things. How I got started in comedies, with the comedies I’m doing now, I think a turning point for me was Wet Hot American Summer. It was not a standard Hollywood comedy— even Clueless, which I think is very funny and clever, more people will have liked Clueless than Wet Hot American Summer, but Wet Hot American Summer I really thought spoke to a specific part of my sense of humor. That’s how I became such good friends with David and Ken and a lot of that group. As a result I think it helped me get cast in Anchorman because Adam McKay loved Wet Hot American Summer. Within the alternative comedy scene and comedy writers, a lot of people like that movie, Adam McKay being one of them. It helped me get that part in Anchorman, which was the script I read that I had the strongest desire to be in since Wet Hot. I don’t have that kind of reaction to most things.

No longer just a cult movie, Wet Hot was directed by Wain as well, and was way funnier than his follow-up, The Ten. Rudd plays the most amazing asshole boyfriend:

It's too bad Rudd doesn't do more sketch, as he's the anti-thesis of Jimmy Fallon: a total stage pro. He still shows up in the format from time to time, though. This video short was a key part of the VHS tape that the Stella comedy troupe — Michael Ian Black, David Wain, and Michael Showalter — would screen and sell on the road, and eventually formed the basis of the Comedy Central series Stella.

Here's Rudd on a recent ep of Little Britain USA playing the French president.

Then there's the legendary parody of David O. Russell's tantrum on the set of I Heart Huckabees:

Fuckabees!

"It's interesting, in that everyone seems to project onto it whatever they want. Defamer was like, 'Tina Fey was there with John McCain and she was clearly over it, and didn't want to be there.' That may have just been physical exhaustion they were reading, but it was very clear that someone was projecting that."

Certainly, while writing a 4:04 AM post we may be more prone to projecting exhaustion, but we assure Tina that we meant no harm. OK, listen up everybody, we're going rogue now: It took a lot of courage to stand next to a candidate for president and systematically satirize every facet of his campaign while never breaking character, and any jokes we made were motivated from a place of love (and an overriding concern for the gem that is 30 Rock).

• Entertainment Weekly

First, we have 21-year-old Abby Elliott (above left), daughter of Chris Elliott (let's hope her tenure goes over better than her dad's brief, mid-90's SNL stint). Abby may be familiar to fans of UCB's Midnight Show, but we discovered her at Defamer back in 2006! Here's Abby playing a quavery-voiced Kirsten Dunst in the impression that won our hearts:
SNL's other addition is Michaela Watkins, a Groundlings main company player who can currently be seen as the Hamish Linklater-romancing Lucy on The New Adventures of Old Christine.
Kudos on the gig, ladies — though we're still surprised that there's no one being added to the cast who could conceivably play Michelle Obama (or even Sheri Shepherd!). We hope Maya Rudolph enjoys all those JetBlue miles she's bound to rack up.

• Two more reasons to turn on SNL: Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins join the cast! [The Comic's Comic]

"It's true," said the highly-placed source. "We're finishing out the season, then we're done."

Fox had been experimenting with potential MADtv replacements over the last few years, though none of its hush-hush, taped pilots ever made it to series. We're hearing, though, that the network has currently decided to keep its other late-night offering, Talk Show with Spike Feresten. Developing!

• MADtv [Fox]

The SNL Digital Shorts that Andy and Lonely Island writing partners are so frequently involved in can be hit-or-miss, but when the sketch hits, it's usually a big winner. McCain throwing his running mate under the bus is what we'll likely remember from last week's SNL, but "Giraffes" is typical of Samberg and his writing partners, whose comedy I would describe as a tender blend of The State and The Kids in the Hall:

I'm not sure whose brainchild "Dear Sister" was, but this incredible parody of the season two finale of The O.C. never fails to amuse me for some reason. The video below is a parody of a parody, with some kid cutting himself into the misery:

"Andy's Dad" was from last season, when guest star Jonah Hill began a sumptuous bouquet of a relationship with Andy's father Ben Samberg. This is a great example of something you wouldn't necessarily have seen on SNL in years past, from the unconventional structure to the explicit oral:

Who can forget Andy's serenade of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "Iran So Far" from last season's premiere?

Lastly, just for kicks, there's Andy Samberg's introduction on Weekend Update:

What did I miss? Please nominate your favorites below.