SNL Takes On NBC Late-Night Wars, Weakly

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Saturday Night Live opened with their take on NBC’s late-night wars between current Tonight Show host Conan O’Brien and the network-backed Jay Leno — all of which are pretty closely tied with SNL. Not only is SNL an NBC staple, it’s Conan O’Brien’s alma mater, and SNL founder and exec producer is Lorne Michaels, who anointed Conan Late Show host in 1993 and is the exec producer of that show which now stars former SNL alum Jimmy Fallon. So it was a safe bet that an SNL sketch about NBC’s embarrassing late-night wars would play it a little safe.

This sketch, however, played it a lot safe, though at the very least it framed the issue pretty neatly at the top (an arrangement made in 2004 in one set of circumstances came to fruition in an unanticipated new set of circumstances, which contributed to the failure of said arrangement). The setup: Fred Armisen as Larry King talking it through with Darrell Hammond as Leno, Bill Hader as Conan, Jason Sudeikis as a manic David Letterman, and, briefly, Will Forte as Carson Daly. (No Jimmy Fallon though, which might have been an easy get!) Hader and Hammond, usually wickedly sharp at impressions, were weak here, as was the thin material.

Actually, here was the best line: “Coming up, Snoop Dogg tells us why he wants to work with Susan Boyle.” But, nonetheless, it is now part of the story, so here you go — Sigourney Weaver is hosting so presumably we’ll have some fun with giant blue kitties coming up. (But interesting note: her father, Pat Weaver, used to be president of NBC…and created the Tonight Show. A-mazing.)

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