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Showing posts with label saturday night live. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saturday night live. Show all posts
"Saturday Night Live" parodies the "Morning Joe" engagement. (Image source: YouTube)
The actors of “Saturday Night Live” took a brutal swipe at MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski over the weekend in a parody of the show following the couple’s announcement that they are engaged.
The announcement rocked the political punditry world last week, though the development didn’t come as a huge surprise to most given the close, and often flirtatious, on and off-air relationship between Scarborough and Brzezinski.
The engagement news made for a hilarious cold open on “SNL” on Saturday.
The skit parodied a typical “Morning Joe” segment on MSNBC, with Scarborough — portrayed by SNL’s Alex Moffat — leading the segment and Brzezinski — portrayed by SNL’s Kate McKinnon — following closely behind. The segment focused on the House Republicans recently voting to repeal Obamacare and replace it with the American Health Care Act.
But while the panel was discussing the news, Brzezinski and Scarborough continually exchanged words and made suggestive comments toward one another — much to the horror of their fellow panelists, Mike Barnacle, Mike Halperin and Willie Geist.
“This party — your party, the Republican Party — is completely morally bankrupt,” McKinnon, as Brzezinski, exclaimed.
“Oh Mika, that’s enough, O.K.?” Moffat, as Scarborough replied, adding “you know that pushes my buttons.”
“Does it — push your buttons?” Brzezinski replied suggestively while glaring into Scarborough’s eyes.
Moving on, Brzezinski went on to rant about how under the new Republican plan, “c-section” deliveries are now pre-existing conditions.
“Mika mouse, you’re being a little stinker,” Scarborough said.
“Oh, I’m being a stinker?” Brzezinski replied, getting close to Scarborough and putting her hand on his thigh.
“Hey, Mika boo, you’re being a stinker and it’s not going to work.”
The two then almost kiss.
Each time the couple argues and makes suggestive comments, the camera pans to a different panelist to show the look of sheer horror on their face.
Later, a White House staffer calls into the show, who went by the name “John Miller.” On the other end is Alec Baldwin, the actor who portrays President Donald Trump on the late-night comedy show. The call led Brzezinski to go on another rant about how Trump is “mentally ill.” The comments earned another suggestive rebuke from Scarborough.
“You’re being very naughty,” he said. “Maybe you need somebody to punish you for being naughty.”
The segment climaxed as McKinnon, as Brzezinski, gnawed on Scarborough’s nose.
Now, CBS broadcast a skit from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
in which Trump senior policy advisor Stephen Miller’s head appeared
on a pike.
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Yes, really.
The sketch had Miller showing up on The Big Bang Theory; The Walking Dead,
being threatened with a baseball bat; Stranger Things; and Game of Thrones,
with his head on a pike.
That last reference is a throwback to 2012, when HBO slapped George W.
Bush’s head on a pike.
HBO was forced to apologize for using Bush’s head on the show, with the
company calling the action an “inadvertent, careless mistake.”
But this was no mistake. This was clearly designed to underscore the notion
that violence against Trump administration figures is now decent fodder for
comedy. The New York Times tweeted as much:
That sketch followed on Saturday Night Live throwing Kellyanne Conway out
of a window and watching her break on the sidewalk several stories below,
before being reanimated as some sort of creepy zombie.
Imagine if Valerie Jarrett’s head had appeared on a spike in a right-wing
parody, or if Jen Psaki had been thrown out of a window in some comedy
video from the right. The outrage would have been deafening. But when it’s
Trump people, it’s just funny.
Then the left claims to be shocked by an increase in violent language and
imagery – and behavior – as the social fabric breaks down. But with each
day, they’re breaking down the fabric themselves more and more.
Alac Baldwin playing President-elect Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live." (Image source: YouTube)
Actor Alec Baldwin says he’ll end his impersonation of President-elect Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live” under one condition: if Trump releases his taxes.
Baldwin’s offer came via Twitter early Sunday morning in response to a tweet from Trump, who was criticizing Baldwin’s continued impersonations of him on the show.
“Just tried watching Saturday Night Live – unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can’t get any worse. Sad,” Trump wrote on Twitter just after midnight Sunday.
Baldwin said in response, “Release your tax returns and I’ll stop. Ha.”
In the latest episode of “Saturday Night Live,” Baldwin portrays Trump retweeting several people during an important security briefing. Apparently, the joke was that Trump is too busy with Twitter to pay attention to important presidential matters.
This is not the first time Trump has set his sights on “SNL.” He has periodically tweeted about the show during it’s latest season, which has featured Baldwin as Trump the entire season.
In October, Trump labeled one episode a “hit job.” Trump also said that “SNL” had an obvious liberal bias, claiming it was proof that the mainstream media was “rigging” the election in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Throughout his campaign, Trump promised he would release his tax returns, but never followed through. A report from the New York Times in October suggested that Trump did not pay any income taxes for more than a decade due to massive business losses in the mid-1990’s.
Donald J. Trump hosted “Saturday Night Live” this past weekend and gave interviews to at least four national television networks on Sunday. The result: an opportunity to reach millions of potential voters, without spending a dime.
In fact, while many of his Republican presidential rivals have poured money into the airwaves in search of such exposure, Mr. Trump has not spent any money at all on television advertising since he announced his candidacy in June. Yet he has remained at or near the top of most national and state polls for months.
“TV ads are necessary, they can be effective, but in terms of overall value, being the host of ‘Saturday Night Live’ is probably going to get you a lot more as a candidate than 20 ‘super PAC’ ads,” said Dave Levinthal, senior political reporter at the Center for Public Integrity.
Thirty-second television commercials were once signs of a confident, well-financed candidacy for the White House. Now they are seen as a last resort of struggling campaigns that have not mastered the art of attracting the free media coverage that has lifted the political fortunes of insurgent campaigns like those of Mr. Trump and Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who has surged to the top of the polls.
Mr. Trump’s ability to command media attention and reach voters without depleting his campaign funds is just the latest example of the way that his campaign has upended the conventional approach candidates have used to communicate with voters.
In addition to having done countless interviews, Mr. Trump has been effective in using social media to attack his rivals, and many of his acrid and controversial quips on Twitter are rebroadcast by traditional news media outlets.
“I think he’s found ways to gain print and airtime by being available and quotable,” said Mike Schreurs, the founder and chief executive of Strategic America, a marketing and advertising firm based in Iowa. “He’s probably a more sophisticated user of media than any other presidential candidate we’ve ever seen.”
Always a boon for campaigns, free media — or earned media, as it is sometimes called — has become increasingly important this cycle for several reasons. Mr. Trump, a businessman turned reality-TV star turned politician, has commanded much of the media’s attention that otherwise could have gone to his rivals, without having to spend any money on television ads so far. (Last week, however, he went up with his first round of paid media — and opted for radio instead of television).
The crowded Republican field is another factor in the diminished importance of paid advertising. Positive ads in particular, which campaigns and outside groups typically use early in the election cycle, have been less effective in breaking through the clutter.
“In a big field like this, positive advertising has less value than you do in a two- or three-person race,” said Russ Schriefer, a media consultant who works for the campaign of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. “So I think what you’re seeing is people spending a lot of money on positives, and they’re not really moving numbers, particularly if those people have high name ID to begin with.”
At this point in 2011, Republican candidates and outside groups had spent roughly $6.7 million, compared with roughly $35 million this cycle, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, which tracks political advertising. But the influx of money this primary season, strategists and operatives say, has not necessarily yielded large gains in the polls.
Paid advertising right now, said Elizabeth Wilner, senior vice president for political advertising at Kantar Media, “is more of a show of weakness than strength.”
Paid television ads have so far failed to buoy foundering campaigns or to provide struggling candidates much help in the polls the way the did in previous election cycles. Between January and the end of October, for instance, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jeb Bush, and the outside groups supporting Mr. Bush, ran the most paid ads: 7,539 for Mrs. Clinton and 7,465 for Mr. Bush, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and Kantar Media/CMAG.
Yet Mrs. Clinton’s and Mr. Bush’s poll numbers dropped throughout the spring and summer. (Mrs. Clinton’s ratings have since started to rebound, but Mr. Bush’s numbers have remained low.)
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And Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin dropped out of the race just as a super PAC supporting him went on a $17 million spending spree.
The campaigns are quick to acknowledge the value of free media. Alex Conant, a spokesman for Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign, said its candidate — a young, telegenic Cuban-American — is one of the most effective tools it has to reach voters directly.
“We put him out there,” Mr. Conant said. “Whenever he’s on TV, that’s a good moment for our campaign.”
Some campaigns even track their earned media impressions, paying attention to which media markets and programs in the early nominating states have the best ratings with the candidate’s target voters. Mr. Rubio’s team uses that information to help determine which television appearances he will make.
Outside groups and the parties themselves are also paying more attention to driving free media coverage.
“We don’t have a candidate who can go out there and make news, so we have to figure out what’s going on and figure out how we can inject our messaging into what is going on in the news,” said Colin Reed, the executive director of America Rising, a Republican super PAC.
Television ads are still important, Mr. Reed added, but “people are getting their information from social media and different ways, as opposed to just television ads.”
And though the Republican National Committee has run several targeted cable ads against Mrs. Clinton, its focus is on building on an existing research file against her from her 2008 run, and trying to place a steady stream of negative stories about her, hoping to fan a perception that she is not trustworthy and does not care about average Americans.
“With Hillary, the ‘drip, drip, drip,’ as she refers to it, just reinforces the narrative, so it doesn’t have to be a $20 million ad,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the committee.
Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC supporting Mrs. Clinton, is similarly making more of an effort than in 2012 to inject itself in the daily media mix, in part to combat all the Republican candidates — and outside groups — attacking her.
Of course, earned media has always functioned in concert with paid advertising, and operatives believe that negative ads could upend the dynamic yet again.
“The real question with paid media will be when the candidates start to spend that money attacking one another, and what impact does that have,” Mr. Schriefer of the Christie campaign said.
