Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[crazy canuck]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

I agree with Shielbh, there is definitely an age and stage role in this.  For me the current cast is never going to measure up to Akroyd, Belushi, Murray and then Murphy.

Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller and Mike Meyers didn't.  So the current group has no chance with me. 

[Sheilbh]

I'm going to assume that Smack the Pony is a quaint British show that nobody outside of the UK has ever heard of. 

Not quaint. It's late 90s-early 00s, mostly women who work with Armando Ianucci and Steve Coogan who've been in loads of other British comedy stuff. There's definitely a catching me at the right time thing - but I think it's incredible and have always loved it.

I think because they never really did catchphrase sketches which was a huge thing in mid-90s (Harry Enfield, the Fast Show) and then in the later 2000s (Little Britain) but which I was never a massive fan of

A sketch show I really liked and whose sketches I kept finding funny even after many years (although some are pretty dated by now) is Chappelle's Show, which only lasted for 3 seasons (that might help in hindsight as it didn't have time to lose quality). Key & Peele (only 5 seasons) has some very good sketches as well, but many of them don't hit at all for me. SNL has been on for... (goes to check) 46 seasons ( ), so besides their greatest hits it must have produced industrial amounts of filler material as well.

Yeah I think that is very key and why they obviously need to constantly re-fresh the cast/writers.

SNL isn't really a thing here - I think because they're quite aggressive on the rights. So the only concept we have of SNL is that it exists and is an institution, and that lots of actors in Hollywood comedies came from it

[grumbler]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

I agree with Shielbh, there is definitely an age and stage role in this.  For me the current cast is never going to measure up to Akroyd, Belushi, Murray and then Murphy.

Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller and Mike Meyers didn't.  So the current group has no chance with me. 

Edie Murphy's time on SNL is almost the poster child for Yi's impression:  a funny guy surrounded by stiffs.  Joe Piscopo was the only other person carrying water.

[crazy canuck]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

I agree with Shielbh, there is definitely an age and stage role in this.  For me the current cast is never going to measure up to Akroyd, Belushi, Murray and then Murphy.

Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller and Mike Meyers didn't.  So the current group has no chance with me. 

Edie Murphy's time on SNL is almost the poster child for Yi's impression:  a funny guy surrounded by stiffs.  Joe Piscopo was the only other person carrying water.

With Murphy and Piscopo, all you really needed was a supporting cast.  Sure, SNL in the early 80s wasn't the first cast, but it was still very good - and for my (and I think your) age group at the time, it was must watch TV.

[garbon]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

The world was also a very different place with fewer sources of entertainment. Not entirely germane, but for reference, the UK only got Channel 4 at the end of Belushi's time on SNL.

[celedhring]

Nonetheless, I've never been that much of a fan. Not my favorite sketch comedy show by long shot.

And it's quite rare that a sketch show lives up to your memories when you revisit it. The only exception I can think of is Smack the Pony which is consistently and enduringly brilliant.

In most cases you forget a lot of filler.

Oh absolutely. That's why I rely on internet curation for most of these shows 

Incidentally: writing sketch comedy is one of these things I've never got the chance to do, and I would love to do at some point. But it's fallen relatively out of fashion over here.

Well, at least over there you guys have "Polonia".  At the national level it has fallen out of fashion quite spectacularly, yeah, nowadays it's a format that is only used for end of the year specials by José Mota.

That's 100% political humor though (and with a heavy pro-indy skew as you know  ), I feel it's not quite the same.

It used to be quite popular in the 1980s. I still had a sketch writing class at my uni, in the late 1990s.

Then there was that off-kilter sketch comedy wave in the 2000s (Hora chanante and similar) but the genre seems dead in Spain nowadays.

[crazy canuck]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

The world was also a very different place with fewer sources of entertainment. Not entirely germane, but for reference, the UK only got Channel 4 at the end of Belushi's time on SNL.

Yeah, I think that had a lot to do with it.  What else was there for us at the time?  Not much.

In Canada we had SCTV and that was much better than SNL, but less of an audience, even in Canada.

[Tonitrus]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

The world was also a very different place with fewer sources of entertainment. Not entirely germane, but for reference, the UK only got Channel 4 at the end of Belushi's time on SNL.

Yeah, I think that had a lot to do with it.  What else was there for us at the time?  Not much.

In Canada we had SCTV and that was much better than SNL, but less of an audience, even in Canada.

Weren't many of that early/best SNL cast also SCTV refugees/carpetbaggers? 

[crazy canuck]

Back in the day SNL permeated our culture - people used the punchlines in every day speech.  I still can't hear someone saying they want a Coke without thinking about Belushi's line. 

The world was also a very different place with fewer sources of entertainment. Not entirely germane, but for reference, the UK only got Channel 4 at the end of Belushi's time on SNL.

Yeah, I think that had a lot to do with it.  What else was there for us at the time?  Not much.

In Canada we had SCTV and that was much better than SNL, but less of an audience, even in Canada.

Weren't many of that early/best SNL cast also SCTV refugees/carpetbaggers? 

Some would definitely make that claim   

[Barrister]

Elon Musk announces you can no longer buy a Tesla with Bitcoin.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/musk-bitcoin-is-bad-for-climate-and-you-cant-buy-teslas-with-it-anymore/

Musk says the environmental benefits of buying a Tesla is outweighed by the environmental cost of mining the bitcoin.

The article looks at it, says a Tesla Model 3 produces 8.85 tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime.  One bitcoin (which is about what that Model 3 would cost) would produce 400 tonnes of CO2.

[Grey Fox]

That's pretty great.

[garbon]

Is this because he supports dogecoin? Or is this an actual turn against crypto currency?

[crazy canuck]

Is this because he supports dogecoin? Or is this an actual turn against crypto currency?

Probably he understood that selling a car as environment friendly was undercut by accepting payment in Bitcoin.

[garbon]

Is this because he supports dogecoin? Or is this an actual turn against crypto currency?

Probably he understood that selling a car as environment friendly was undercut by accepting payment in Bitcoin.

Undercut how they sell like hotcakes?

[The Larch]

Is this because he supports dogecoin? Or is this an actual turn against crypto currency?

Apparently Dogecoin took a tumble after his SNL episode due to some of the comments he made during it.