In perhaps the most anticipated season premiere this fall, 33-year-old Saturday Night Live more than delivered with a knockout punch featuring Tina Fey's dead-on Sarah Palin impression. It was so accurate, in fact, there's buzz Tina Fey will be back to reprise the role in the weeks before the election. This means I won't have to wait until October (30 Rock premiere, obviously) to get the Tina Fey fix I have been deprived of since May. Anyway, if you didn't see the three and a half minutes of uproarious Alaskan humor, YouTube it, stat. Actually, go to NBC.com, because YouTube hits only bring annoying news commentary about it.
I would love to report that this brilliant moment in sketch comedy ushered in an SNL premiere reminiscent of the days of Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon based on this past Saturday's show, I wasn't entirely convinced.
Aside from the perfect opening sketch, SNL had one too many skits featuring my new candidate for Worst Host Ever, Olympian and recent winner of 8 gold medals, Michael Phelps.
After a sort of funny joke that hosting SNL was the ninth best moment of his year,"" Phelps proceeded to be the worst actor/cue-card reader in the history of television comedy. I understand he is a great source of American pride, but, between the first and last sketch, my enthusiasm for political and social humor went from a 10 to a two. And this was after I came across an ad for Ortega tacos featuring Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson, who, if possible, was an even worse actress than Phelps. I have to assume the better the athlete, the worse an actor.
In other television political news, John McCain visited ""The View"" this past Friday and hilarity ensued. All the women were dressed in their best, except for Whoopi Goldberg, who wore jeans and an oversized vest. Of course, this was all before she asked the Senator if she could call him ""J-Mac."" Anyway, the political discussions were all fine and dandy until Elizabeth Hasselbeck (famous for her battles with Rosie O'Donnell and being on ""Survivor"") decided to ask Sen. McCain his views on Roe V. Wade. He hemmed and hawed about interpreting the constitution the way the founding fathers would which led Whoopi to ask, ""Does that mean I should be worried about being returned to slavery?"" That of course had everyone up in arms and Barbara Walters ""diffusing the situation"" by shouting something like ""Don't worry! Us white folk will take care of you!"" Great, great stuff. I don't know why I don't watch ""The View"" more often.
All this leads me to wonder exactly what damage television can do in the weeks leading up to the election? SNL will probably pick on McCain/Palin much more than Obama because Hollywood always leans left. But maybe not. Maybe after the media frenzy tires of Palin's home life, SNL will turn on Obama the way they did in late April and early May, leading up to the final primaries. Last season Fred Armisen did a mediocre Obama, keeping him straight and serious. I'm pretty confident with Darrell Hammond (yup, he's still there) doing McCain, but they'll need to up the ante this season to match McCain and Obama impersonations to Fey's Palin and Amy Poehler's Hillary Clinton.
In the meantime, keep up on your television politics, tune to SNL for hopefully more sketches of Tina Fey proportions, and let's continue to be proud of our U.S. Olympians. But unless it's ESPN, keep them far, far away from a video camera.
If you also miss the days when Saturday Night Live was hosted by actors, show Ali your support by e-mailing her at rothschild@wisc.edu.
