Download or read book Saturday Night Live American TV written by Nick Marx and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-02 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thought-provoking and “undeniably interesting” essays on this cultural institution of comedy and what it says about our society (Booklist). Since 1975, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” has greeted late night–TV viewers looking for the best in sketch comedy and popular music. SNL is the variety show that launched the careers of countless comedians, including Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Chris Farley, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Adam Sandler. Week after week, SNL has produced everything from unforgettable parodies to provocative political satire—adapting to changing times decade after decade while staying true to its original vision of performing timely topical humor. With essays that address issues ranging from race and gender to authorship and comedic performance, Saturday Night Live and American TV follows the history of this iconic show, and its place in the shifting social and media landscape of American television.
Download or read book Saturday Night Live written by Arie Kaplan and published by Lerner Publishing Group. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1975 Saturday Night Live came out of the gate swinging, with a daring, bold, and rebellious vibe that was new to television back then. With a cast of comedic actors known as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, television producer Lorne Michaels launched a style of live television comedy that appealed specifically to young viewers with a taste for questioning authority?and that style stood the test of time. From hilarious characters?the Conehead family, Wayne Campbell, the Spartan cheerleaders, the Target Lady, and Stefon?to impressions of US presidents and politicians performed with spot-on precision, the late-night comedy show has shaped American comedy for four decades. With millions of loyal fans across a wide range of viewership demographics, Saturday Night Live has made a significant impact on American culture. It introduced catchphrases such as "Well, isn?t that special?" and "More cowbell!" It influenced public opinion through satirical political sketches and news commentary. It provided rich material for box office hits such as The Blues Brothers and Wayne?s World. It created megastars out of dozens of comedians. And in the process, the show earned an impressive roster of accolades including thirty-six Primetime Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and three Writers Guild of America Awards. It's been ranked as one of the greatest shows of all time and has been inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Discover how the SNL brand of raucous humor has stayed meaningful and fresh over the years and continues to draw audiences today.
Download or read book Saturday Night Live FAQ written by Stephen Tropiano and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-11-01 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Television history was made on Saturday, October 11, 1975, at 11:30pm (ET), when Chevy Chase welcomed America to the first episode of a new late-night comedy series. With its cutting edge satire and cast of young, talented performers, Saturday Night Live set a new standard for television comedy while launching the careers of such comedy greats as John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Will Ferrell, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey. Saturday Night Live FAQ is the first book to offer the show's generations of fans everything they ever wanted to know (and may have forgotten) about SNL. Beginning with the show's creation in the mid-1970s by Lorne Michaels and the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, SNL FAQ takes you through the show's history with an in-depth look at all thirty-eight seasons. It's all here – the comedic highlights and low points, memorable hosts and musical guests, controversial moments, and, of course, the recurring characters and sketches, catch phrases, and film shorts that have made SNL the epicenter of American comedy for nearly four decades. SNL FAQ also examines the show's influence on American culture and includes profiles of over 100 SNL cast members, along with a comprehensive guide detailing every episode.
Download or read book Live From New York written by Tom Shales and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 870 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales's definitive oral history of Saturday Night Live, hailed as "incredible" (Vulture) and "required reading" (People). When first published to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, Live from New York was immediately proclaimed the best book ever produced on the landmark and legendary late-night show. In their own words, unfiltered and uncensored, a dazzling galaxy of trail-blazing talents recalled three turbulent decades of on-camera antics and off-camera escapades. Now decades have passed, and bestselling authors James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales have returned to Studio 8H. Over more than 100 pages of new material, they raucously and revealingly take the SNL story up to the present, adding a constellation of iconic new stars, surprises, and controversies.
Download or read book Saturday Night Live Hollywood Comedy and American Culture written by J. Whalley and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-06-21 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, and American Culture sheds new light on the ways in which Saturday Night Live s confrontational, boundary-pushing approach spilled over into film production, contributing to some of the biggest hits in Hollywood history, such as National Lampoon s Animal House, Ghostbusters, and Beverly Hills Cop. Jim Whalley also considers how SNL has adapted to meet the needs of subsequent generations, launching the film careers of Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell and others in the process. Supported by extensive archival research, some of Hollywood s most popular comedians are placed into the contexts of film and television comic traditions and social and cultural trends in American life.
Download or read book Saturday Night written by Doug Hill and published by Histria Books. This book was released on 2024-11-05 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “ It reads like a thriller, and may be the best book ever written about television.” Associated Press“ A chilling real-life cliffhanger.” Washington Post“ An anthropological masterpiece.” Vanity FairSaturday Night is the intimate, original history of Saturday Night Live, from its beginnings as an outlaw program produced by an unruly band of renegades from the comedy underground to a TV institution that made stars of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, Garrett Morris, Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy.This is the book that revealed to the world what really happened behind the scenes during the first ten years of this groundbreaking program, from the battles SNL fought with NBC to the battles fought within the show itself. It's all here— the love affairs, betrayals, rivalries, drug problems, overnight successes, and bitter failures, mixed with the creation of some of the most outrageous and original comedy ever.This reissue features nearly fifty photographs of cast, crew and sketches.Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad covered television for a wide variety of popular and professional organizations and publications, including The Associated Press, The New York Times, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, TV Guide, Broadcasting/Cablecasting, and Advertising Age.
Download or read book Saturday Night Live and the 1976 Presidential Election written by William T. Horner and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2018-02-26 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debut of Saturday Night Live and the 1976 presidential election between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had enduring effects on American culture. With its mix of sketch comedy and music, SNL grabbed huge ratings and several Emmys in its first season. President Ford's press secretary, Ron Nessen, was the first politician to host SNL. Ford also appeared on the show, via video tape, to offer a comic counterpunch to Chevy Chase's signature line, "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not." Since then, it has become a rite of passage for national politicians to appear on SNL, and the show's treatment of them and their platforms has a continuing impact on political discourse.
Download or read book From Saturday Night to Sunday Night written by Dick Ebersol and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir by the legendary television executive detailing his pioneering work on Saturday Night Live, Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, the NBA, music videos, late night, and more. Think of an important moment in live TV over the last half-century. Dick Ebersol was likely involved. Dropping out of college to join the crew of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Ebersol worked the Mexico City Olympics during the famous protest by John Carlos and Tommie Smith as well as the Munich Olympics during the tragic hostage standoff. He went on to cocreate Saturday Night Live with Lorne Michaels and later produced the show for four seasons, helping launch Eddie Murphy to stardom. After creating Friday Night Videos and partnering with Vince McMahon to bring professional wrestling to network TV, he next took over NBC Sports, which helped turn basketball into a global phenomenon and made history as the first broadcaster to host the World Series, the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, and the Summer Olympics in the same year; it was Ebersol who was responsible for Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic flame in Atlanta. Then, following a plane crash that took the life of his fourteen-year-old son Teddy and nearly killed him, he determinedly undertook perhaps his greatest career achievement: creating NBC’s Sunday Night Football, still the #1 primetime show in America. The Today show’s headline-making hosting changes, the so-called “Late-Night Wars,” O.J. Simpson’s Bronco chase—Ebersol had a front-row seat to it all. From Saturday Night to Sunday Night is filled with entertaining and illuminating stories featuring such boldface names as Billy Crystal, Michael Jordan, Bill Clinton, Jay Leno, Peyton Manning, Michael Phelps, and Larry David. (Ebersol even inspired the famous Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza pretends he didn’t quit his job.) More than that, the book offers an insightful history and analysis of TV’s evolution from broadcast to cable and beyond—a must-read for casual binge-watchers and small-screen aficionados alike.
Download or read book Sketch Comedy written by Nick Marx and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of sketch comedy on American television and analysis of what it says about American culture and society. In Sketch Comedy: Identity, Reflexivity, and American Television, Nick Marx examines some of the genre’s most memorable?and controversial?moments from the early days of television to the contemporary line-up. Through explorations of sketches from well-known shows such as Saturday Night Live, The State, Inside Amy Schumer, Key & Peele, and more, Marx argues that the genre has served as a battleground for the struggle between comedians who are pushing the limits of what is possible on television and network executives who are more mindful of the financial bottom line. Whether creating new catchphrases or transgressing cultural taboos, sketch comedies give voice to marginalized performers and audiences, providing comedians and viewers opportunities to test their own ideas about their place in society, while simultaneously echoing mainstream cultural trends. The result, Marx suggests, is a hilarious and flexible form of identity play unlike anything else in American popular culture and media. “An excellent study of a long-neglected area in television/media studies and is part of a larger turn toward the centrality of comedy in post-war U.S. culture.” —Jeffrey Sconce, Northwestern University “A stalwart of television . . . sketch comedy finally gets the in-depth critical attention it deserves . . . Marx shows how sketch comedy has fit (and been constrained by) TV’s industrial contexts, from live variety shows in its earliest days to movement across media in the era of multiple platforms. These case studies not only chart sketch comedy’s past, they provide the theoretical and analytical tools to consider its future.” —Ethan Thompson, Texas A&M University Corpus Christi
Download or read book Political TV written by Chuck Tryon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book serves as an accessible critical introduction to the broad category of American political television content. Encompassing political news and scripted entertainment, Political TV addresses a range of formats, including interview/news programs, political satire, fake news, drama, and reality TV. From long-running programs like Meet the Press to more recent offerings including Veep, The Daily Show, House of Cards, Last Week Tonight, and Scandal, Tryon addresses ongoing debates about the role of television in representing issues and ideas relevant to American politics. Exploring political TV’s construction of concepts of citizenship and national identity, the status of political TV in a post-network era, and advertisements in politics, Political TV offers an engaging, timely analysis of how this format engages its audience in the political scene. The book also includes a videography of key and historical series, discussion questions, and a bibliography for further reading.
Download or read book TV a Go Go written by Jake Austen and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2005-07 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Elvis and a hound dog wearing matching tuxedos and the comic adventures of artificially produced bands to elaborate music videos and contrived reality-show contests, television--as this critical look brilliantly shows--has done a superb job of presenting the energy of rock in a fabulously entertaining but patently "fake" manner. The dichotomy of "fake" and "real" music as it is portrayed on television is presented in detail through many generations of rock music: the Monkees shared the charts with the Beatles, Tupac and Slayer fans voted for corny American Idols, and shows like" Shindig! "and "Soul Train "somehow captured the unhinged energy of rock far more effectively than most long-haired guitar-smashing acts. Also shown is how TV has often delighted in breaking the rules while still mostly playing by them: Bo Diddley defied Ed Sullivan and sang rock and roll after he had been told not to, the Chipmunks' subversive antics prepared kids for punk rock, and things got out of hand when" Saturday Night Live "invited punk kids to attend a taping of the band Fear. Every aspect of the idiosyncratic history of rock and TV and their peculiar relationship is covered, including cartoon rock, music programming for African American audiences, punk on television, Michael Jackson's life on TV, and the tortured history of MTV and its progeny.
Download or read book A History of Television News Parody in America written by Curt Hersey and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-07-26 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Curt Hersey explores the history of U.S. media, demonstrating how news parody has entertained television audiences by satirizing political and social issues and offering a lighthearted take on broadcast news. Despite shifts away from broadcast and cable delivery, comedians like Samantha Bee, Michael Che, and John Oliver continue this tradition of delivering topical humor within a newscast format. In this history of the television news parody genre, Hersey critically engages with the norms and presentational styles of television journalism at the time of their production. News parody has increasingly become part of the larger journalistic field, with viewers often turning to this parodic programming as a supplement and corrective to mainstream news sources. Beginning in the 1960s with the NBC program That Was the Week That Was, the history of news parody is analyzed decade by decade by focusing on presidential and political coverage, as well as the genre’s critiques of television network and cable journalism. Case studies include Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update;” HBO’s Not Necessarily the News; Comedy Central’s original Daily Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Colbert Report; and HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Scholars of media history, political communication, and popular culture will find this book particularly useful.
Download or read book American Political Humor 2 volumes written by Jody C. Baumgartner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-10-07 with total page 809 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume set surveys the profound impact of political humor and satire on American culture and politics over the years, paying special attention to the explosion of political humor in today's wide-ranging and turbulent media environment. Historically, there has been a tendency to regard political satire and humor as a sideshow to the wider world of American politics—entertaining and sometimes insightful, but ultimately only of modest interest to students and others surveying the trajectory of American politics and culture. This set documents just how mistaken that assumption is. By examining political humor and satire throughout US history, these volumes not only illustrate how expressions of political satire and humor reflect changes in American attitudes about presidents, parties, and issues but also how satirists, comedians, cartoonists, and filmmakers have helped to shape popular attitudes about landmark historical events, major American institutions and movements, and the nation's political leaders and cultural giants. Finally, this work examines how today's brand of political humor may be more influential than ever before in shaping American attitudes about the nation in which we live.
Download or read book We Killed written by Yael Kohen and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kohen assembles America's most prominent comediennes to piece together an oral history about the revolution that happened to (and by) women in American comedy.
Download or read book Popular Fads and Crazes through American History 2 volumes written by Nancy Hendricks and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-08-17 with total page 897 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This informative two-volume set provides readers with an understanding of the fads and crazes that have taken America by storm from colonial times to the present. Entries cover a range of topics, including food, entertainment, fashion, music, and language. Why could hula hoops and TV westerns only have been found in every household in the 1950s? What murdered Russian princess can be seen in one of the first documented selfies, taken in 1914? This book answers those questions and more in its documentation of all of the most captivating trends that have defined American popular culture since before the country began. Entries are well-researched and alphabetized by decade. At the start of every section is an insightful historical overview of the decade, and the set uniquely illustrates what today's readers have in common with the past. It also contains a Glossary of Slang for each decade as well as a bibliography, plus suggestions for further reading for each entry. Students and readers interested in history will enjoy discovering trends through the years in such areas as fashion, movies, music, and sports.
Download or read book A Very Punchable Face written by Colin Jost and published by Crown. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In these hilarious essays, the Saturday Night Live head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor learns how to take a beating. “I always wanted to punch his face before I read this book. Now I just want to kick him in the balls.”—Larry David NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Cosmopolitan • Vulture • Parade If there’s one trait that makes someone well suited to comedy, it’s being able to take a punch—metaphorically and, occasionally, physically. From growing up in a family of firefighters on Staten Island to commuting three hours a day to high school and “seeing the sights” (like watching a Russian woman throw a stroller off the back of a ferry), to attending Harvard while Facebook was created, Jost shares how he has navigated the world like a slightly smarter Forrest Gump. You’ll also discover things about Jost that will surprise and confuse you, like how Jimmy Buffett saved his life, how Czech teenagers attacked him with potato salad, how an insect laid eggs inside his legs, and how he competed in a twenty-five-man match at WrestleMania (and almost won). You'll go behind the scenes at SNL and Weekend Update (where he's written some of the most memorable sketches and jokes of the past fifteen years). And you’ll experience the life of a touring stand-up comedian—from performing in rural college cafeterias at noon to opening for Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall. For every accomplishment (hosting the Emmys), there is a setback (hosting the Emmys). And for every absurd moment (watching paramedics give CPR to a raccoon), there is an honest, emotional one (recounting his mother’s experience on the scene of the Twin Towers’ collapse on 9/11). Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy—with a face you can’t help but want to punch.
Download or read book Battle Hymns written by Christian McWhirter and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2012-03-19 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Music was everywhere during the Civil War. Tunes could be heard ringing out from parlor pianos, thundering at political rallies, and setting the rhythms of military and domestic life. With literacy still limited, music was an important vehicle for communicating ideas about the war, and it had a lasting impact in the decades that followed. Drawing on an array of published and archival sources, Christian McWhirter analyzes the myriad ways music influenced popular culture in the years surrounding the war and discusses its deep resonance for both whites and blacks, South and North. Though published songs of the time have long been catalogued and appreciated, McWhirter is the first to explore what Americans actually said and did with these pieces. By gauging the popularity of the most prominent songs and examining how Americans used them, McWhirter returns music to its central place in American life during the nation's greatest crisis. The result is a portrait of a war fought to music.
