Muppet Show skit on Saturday Night Live on May 15, 2021

[kathy26]

Check out what SNL did last night.

 

[The Count]

Thanks for posting this.

Laughed or at least chuckled with the typical heckler humor, though I don't get why the SNL live audience was laughing with the two toughs. Basically, the sketch boiled down into an excuse to beat up Statler and Waldorf.

You know, today's world could do with learning what's really funny or should constitute true comedy. SMH.

 

[minor muppetz]

Somebody on Facebook thought that the inclusion of Lily Tomlin was meant to be a reference to the fact that the Muppets were on Saturday Night Live, but I’m not really getting that as a reference. Of course there are many celebrities who could have been featured as the guest star (would have been cool of Steve Martin made a surprise appearance, since he was on TMS and is one of SNL’s most-frequent hosts), I guess it is better that the guest star was one who was never actually on TMS.

I wasn’t expecting an opening referencing TMS on Disney Plus. I’m guessing that was the main reason to do a Muppet Show parody (which is kind of sad). I should watch it again but I’m thinking the Disney Plus thing was kind of straight forward (maybe Disney Plus is an important sponsor).

One of the bouncers made a comment about a guy with orange hair who blows things up. I wonder if they were referencing Crazy Harry but got the hair color wrong (maybe we’ll see the dress rehearsal version and See a difference), or if they were randomly referencing Scooter or Beaker causing explosions. Or maybe they were just referencing explosions without it being intended for any actual character.

 

[jobi71]

Somebody on Facebook thought that the inclusion of Lily Tomlin was meant to be a reference to the fact that the Muppets were on Saturday Night Live, but I’m not really getting that as a reference. Of course there are many celebrities who could have been featured as the guest star (would have been cool of Steve Martin made a surprise appearance, since he was on TMS and is one of SNL’s most-frequent hosts), I guess it is better that the guest star was one who was never actually on TMS.

I wasn’t expecting an opening referencing TMS on Disney Plus. I’m guessing that was the main reason to do a Muppet Show parody (which is kind of sad). I should watch it again but I’m thinking the Disney Plus thing was kind of straight forward (maybe Disney Plus is an important sponsor).

One of the bouncers made a comment about a guy with orange hair who blows things up. I wonder if they were referencing Crazy Harry but got the hair color wrong (maybe we’ll see the dress rehearsal version and See a difference), or if they were randomly referencing Scooter or Beaker causing explosions. Or maybe they were just referencing explosions without it being intended for any actual character.

I wondered about the orange hair reference. At the time thinking Animal? But I think you're right with Beaker. Beaker doesn't create explosions a la Harry but he is an agent of chaos. And it may not have been the best way to invoke the character I bet a number of viewers made the leap. Lily Tomlin hosted SNL 3 times and had a memorable sketch singing a duet with Scred. So there is a history there. And Melissa Villasenor does a good impression of her. Melissa may have been involved in the writing and the result was Lily. As for the ad, SNL does now have sponsors who pay to be featured in a sketch. The argument SNL offered in favor of this was that they would take one fewer commercial breaks, and still have the sponsorship dollars. Farrow and Ball paint for example. Or Olive Garden. Both were made the butt of the joke, but the sketches were funny. Disney + may have done that in this case. As for the puppetry: at first I thought it was bad. And then so bad maybe that was somehow part of the joke. And then I decided it was so bad that even if there was a joke about it that it was not worth it. Though there was a bit by the performer of Kermit who did a nice Kermit scrunch and did a good job silently puppeteering a frustrated frog.

 

[The Count]

Kermit the Frog? The bouncers don't even know who that is, they keep calling him Kramer the Dragon, let alone know if Crazy Harry's hair is orange or not or whether it's Beaker they're thinking of. There was a chance for to appear when they kept using words like "bomb" and "blast", missed opportunity. And Lily Tomlin did appear with the Muppets back in the day as toughpigs pointed out in their review of the sketch in The Muppets Go To The Movies.

 

[Fozzie6]

SNL isn't funny anymore. Not surprising they are hitting all time lows in ratings.

 

[minor muppetz]

Watching the beginning again, I now see that the third Disney Plus program is a joke, but I also noticed before that, the audience starts chuckling at Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I checked to make sure that's a real show and not a joke (and if it was a joke, I'm not familiar with those characters to know what the joke would be). Don't know why they were laughing over the mention of two real programs before a made up one.

So Saturday Night Live is eliminating one commercial break by putting product placement into the show. Any special reason? I'd like to think to do more show, but I'd expect the time allotted to commercial breaks to be the time they use to swap out the sets, of course they could do that also with the pre-recorded stuff. Are they doing more pre-recorded content or are they doing segments that are way longer?

 

[MuppetSpot]

I know for certain because it’s been confirmed that Noel did the puppetry for Statler, I do not know who are the other puppeteers.

 

[jobi71]

Watching the beginning again, I now see that the third Disney Plus program is a joke, but I also noticed before that, the audience starts chuckling at Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I checked to make sure that's a real show and not a joke (and if it was a joke, I'm not familiar with those characters to know what the joke would be). Don't know why they were laughing over the mention of two real programs before a made up one.

So Saturday Night Live is eliminating one commercial break by putting product placement into the show. Any special reason? I'd like to think to do more show, but I'd expect the time allotted to commercial breaks to be the time they use to swap out the sets, of course they could do that also with the pre-recorded stuff. Are they doing more pre-recorded content or are they doing segments that are way longer?

Yes, Falcon....is a real show. It's very popular so maybe folks were laughing with recognition of the show? Maybe while the clip of the show was running on TV the studio audience saw Kermit and Melissa and/or the balcony set and laughed at that? I've been at some dress rehearsals for SNL and the crowd there can be pretty generous with their laughter.

As for the promos. They are not eliminating a whole break, but getting additional advertising dollars without having to take a break. I don't know for certain if this was the case here. DIsney, Muppets and Marvel are all fair game for satire, so they may just have been topics for jokes. You are correct they do use the commercials to swap sets and costumes, so they really cannot shorten them too much. I don't have figures to back this up but I would say yes there are more filmed pieces.