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SNL Skit On Libs Herb & Marion Sandler Is Yanked. Libs Too Thin Skinned For Parody?

Cicero

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SNL Skit On Libs Herb & Marion Sandler Is Yanked. Libs Too Thin Skinned For Parody?

The sandlers fund Moveon.org, ACORN, Center for American Progress, Human Rights Watch, etc. I wonder why SNL caved in to the Sandlers request to edit out the good stuff? That Barney Frank impersonation is gold, Jerry, gold.

***.."A “Saturday Night Live” skit that skewered President Bush, Democrats, homebuyers and subprime lenders for their roles in the mortgage meltdown was removed from the program’s website because it “didn’t meet out standards,” a spokesman for the show said Tuesday. An edited version of the skit will be re-posted online soon, the spokesman said.

The skit, a parody of a C-SPAN news conference, ridiculed subprime borrowers, housing speculators and Herb and Marion Sandler, the real-life couple who built Golden West Financial into a subprime lending powerhouse and sold it to Wachovia before the subprime collapse. At one point in the skit, the Herb Sandler character says he made $24 billion off the subprime boom. Graphics then appear labeling the Sandlers as “People who should be shot.”

“Upon review, we caught certain elements in the sketch that didn’t meet our standards,” a spokesman for the program said in an e-mail message today. “We took it down and made some minor changes, and it will be back online soon.”***

The unedited version:
http://www.patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/
 
There is a small conspiracy theory that this was taken down because the Sandlers are big Obama supporters. The truth is, saying "People who should be shot" is too edgy for SNL these days.

Remember when Richard Pryor and Chevy Chase used almost every racial epithet in the book on SNL? Those days are gone. And that was just one sketch.
 
I've got to admit, that was an unusually relevant skit for contemporary SNL. The guy who had the role of Barney Frank wasn't a particularly good impersonator, but he was on message for sure.
 
Last year Bill Maher expressed dissatisfaction over the failed assassination of Cheney and he is still on the air. On the panel were Barney Frank and Joe Scarborough.

***.."I’m just saying if he (Cheney) did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact."..*** B.M.

This wasn't even satire. I guess HBO has different standards then NBC? Hard to believe.

http://newsbusters.org/node/11169
 
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You know who else is too thin skinned for parody? The conservatives. Did you ever see Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner? He was hitting them out of the park, and no one laughed.
 
Ladewig said:
You know who else is too thin skinned for parody? The conservatives. Did you ever see Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner? He was hitting them out of the park, and no one laughed.
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Did you notice the White House Press Corps, aka liberals, were also not laughing when they were the target of Colbert's barbs? He pretty much bombed that night. There is a difference between being funny and just being abusive.
 
Cicero said:
Did you notice the White House Press Corps, aka liberals, were also not laughing when they were the target of Colbert's barbs? He pretty much bombed that night. There is a difference between being funny and just being abusive.
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Bombed? It's one of the most watched youtube comedy performances. It's easily one of the most pervasive and hysterical pieces of political satire in a decade, delivered right in the faces of the people who didn't want to hear it. It's a ****ing jem.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Bombed? It's one of the most watched youtube comedy performances.
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What does that have to do with the audience at Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner? Was Colbert playing to youtube or the room? But did Bush 43 have youtube remove the video? No. C-SPAN pulled it. In the case of the SNL sketch, the liberal couple demanded it edited.

***.."the Washington press corps felt that Colbert had bombed. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen found that Colbert's jokes were "lame and insulting" and wrote that Colbert was "rude" and a "bully". Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer felt that Colbert "crossed the line". Hoyer told the newspaper The Hill, "[Bush] is the President of the United States, and he deserves some respect."..***

Sure seems that liberal reporters and liberal politicians were not amused.
 
To borrow from wiki:

Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik thought that Colbert's critics missed the point: "Colbert wasn't playing to the room, I suspect, but to the wide audience of people who would later watch on the Internet. If anything, he was playing against the room." Poniewozik called the pained, uncomfortable reaction of the audience to Colbert's jokes "the money shots. They were the whole point."[8]
 
The sketch was most likely written by James Downey, a Republican, who writes a lot of SNL's political sketches. He's been with them since the 70's heyday. He's probably solely responsible for what's left of any SNL satire towards the left these days.

My guess is that whatever lines were cut was because it simply wasn't funny and performed weakly in rehearsal. Not saying I agree with him -- the sun is setting on the quality of his work -- but I don't see any censorship in this. It's more about laughter and applause, followed by ratings, followed by advertising, etc.

ETA: I read too fast and misinterpreted the point of the OP. If the edit was just about removing two people's real names and an implication for them to be shot, it's a good call from a legal perspective.
 
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Cicero said:
What does that have to do with the audience at Colbert's performance at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner? Was Colbert playing to youtube or the room? But did Bush 43 have youtube remove the video? No. C-SPAN pulled it. In the case of the SNL sketch, the liberal couple demanded it edited.

***.."the Washington press corps felt that Colbert had bombed. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen found that Colbert's jokes were "lame and insulting" and wrote that Colbert was "rude" and a "bully". Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer felt that Colbert "crossed the line". Hoyer told the newspaper The Hill, "[Bush] is the President of the United States, and he deserves some respect."..***

Sure seems that liberal reporters and liberal politicians were not amused.
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Colbert was not there to amuse the Bush administration, senators, congressmen, or the press corp, even if everyone there was under the mistaken impression that he was. His intent was clearly to satire them and play to the televized audience.
 
Cicero said:
This wasn't even satire. I guess HBO has different standards then NBC? Hard to believe.
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Uh, if you find that "hard to believe," you must not be even remotely familiar with either entity.

HBO having different standards than NBC ranks up there in the "duh" category, along with bears pooping in the woods, the Pope being Catholic, and Sean Hannity being a twit.
 
Cleon said:
Uh, if you find that "hard to believe," you must not be even remotely familiar with either entity.

HBO having different standards than NBC ranks up there in the "duh" category, along with bears pooping in the woods, the Pope being Catholic, and Sean Hannity being a twit.
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Fascinating. These mysterious NBCs standards must fade in and out. When SNL inferred incestuous relationship between Todd Palin and his pregnant, teenage daughter, Bristol, there was no problem with the legal department.

You are right. Expecting NBC to apply the same standards equally to conservatives ranks right up there with Keith Olbermann and Raychill Maddow appearing at a McCain fundraiser.
 
Ladewig said:
You know who else is too thin skinned for parody? The conservatives. Did you ever see Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner? He was hitting them out of the park, and no one laughed.
Click to expand...

I have to note, that the clip of the PCD is from C-SPAN, who does not mic the audience. On C-SPAN, the lack of reaction from the audience is common because of this.
 
Putting "people who should be shot" is going way, way too far. I can't support this one at all. It's good they decided not to run with it.
 
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