quote:

When Vanessa Bayer was just freshman in high school, she was diagnosed with leukemia. While the news was a shock for her and her family, Bayer says her cancer battle ultimately led her to a career in comedy.

“I wasn’t really that scared,” Bayer says in the latest issue of PEOPLE. “My dad is a really funny guy, and we would make jokes about my leukemia. When my friends would come over we would joke about it too. It’s sort of messed up out of context, but it put everybody at ease. Being sick is the reason I went into comedy.”

After her diagnosis Bayer began an intense treatment program that included chemotherapy and radiation, which forced her to miss the end of ninth grade. In 1999 Make-A-Wish contacted her family and granted Bayer’s wish to take her family on a trip to Hawaii.

“It was amazing,” she says. “They took care of everything.” While staying in the presidential suite, “I remember my brother and I put all the robes on because it was just so fancy and fun.”



After she was hired [at SNL,] Bayer got the chance to work with the Make-A-Wish foundation again, this time granting children who are battling life threatening illness their own wishes to visit the set in New York City.

“It’s very emotional and full-circle for me,” says Bayer. “I’ve gotten to meet so many kids and their parents. When I tell them that I’m a ‘Wish kid’ too, it’s just so cool to see.”

ArtVandelay posted:

I've applied to the SNL lottery for 3 years now, and I never really expected to get tickets. Just got an email from NBC, i'm going to the December 3rd taping!

ArtVandelay posted:

Heading to NYC in the morning, i'll post whatever pictures i'm allowed to take. Probably won't be able to take any of the studio. To counteract, i'll take as many pictures of the screaming 16 year old girls in the standby line waiting to catch a glimpse of Shawn Mendes


I'm going to try to leave the studio when he's singing

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

i dont know what you're talking about those are the only monologues

Winkie01 posted:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/805278955150471168


lol

ArtVandelay posted:

Well that was quite an experience I was sitting 5 feet from Paul feig and questlove the whole show.

quote:

Here comes the judge! Decades excitedly announces the addition of Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In to our schedule. This groundbreaking ensemble comedy is a wild and funny portal back to psychedelic 1960s. Its of-the-moment catchphrases, unique sketches and topical humor, the influential series continues to live on in hosted comedy and variety shows today.

Laugh-In joins the Decades programming lineup beginning Monday, December 5, airing weekdays at 6pm/ET and again at 12am/ET. Find out where to watch in your area. The show was the most-watched program in America from 1968-70, and continually fed pop culture with hip catchphrases over its six seasons. "You bet your sweet bippy!” “Sock it to me!” “Very interesting.”

The sharp and sassy comedy debuted in January of 1968, setting the stage for many of the comedy, sketch and variety series that followed. The show’s regular cast included hosts Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, as well as Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Lily Tomlin, Goldie Hawn, Jo Anne Worley, Henry Gibson, Richard Dawson and featured guest performers such as Flip Wilson, Jack Benny, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Johnny Carson, Sammy Davis Jr., Tiny Tim, Bob Hope and John Wayne.

Produced by George Schlatter and Ed Friendly, Laugh-In featured a number of talented comedy writers including a young Lorne Michaels, who famously went on to create Saturday Night Live. In a prelude to future elections, presidential candidate Richard Nixon dropped in for an unexpected comedy cameo. Tune in for humor that remains as side-splitting and relevant as it was nearly four decades ago.

quote:

"Rowan & Martin's Laugh In"...Three Backstories Rolled Into One

(1) Fun (2) Editing on film and videotape (3) The Editor, Art "Jump Cut" Schneider

There is not a better way to illustrate how "Laugh In" was done than to start with this embedded blooper reel, which will be fun and instructive at the same time. As you watch these outtakes, notice the man in the at 1:25 mark with Marcel Marceau (the pantomime king) is the show's creator George Schlatter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98TMYHvR6kM

Believe it or not, the show was simultaneously recorded on black and white kinescope film and color video tape. Using the kinescope footage, Art Schneider (the videotape editor) and George Schlatter cut the show together the way they wanted it to be seen on the air. Only when that process was complete could Art begin to edit the color videotape.

With an average of 400 edits per episode, which no other show had ever attempted, editing "Laugh In" was in a league by itself...as was the editor. As a matter of fact, when Art left NBC after the second year of the show, it took 7 editors to replace him.

To give you and idea how hard it was to edit videotape in those days, here is Art Schneider editing with a Smith Block at NBC. The video will start at the part that features Art, but the whole thing is very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzZ4S2gkxaI

Below is a 1989 article from "WRAP Magazine" on Art...

For Art Schneider, A.C.E., it was one of the most memorable moments in his life. Bob Hope was taping a 1965 comedy special
at NBC and Schneider, Hope's videotape editor since the late 1950s, was standing offstage when Hope called him out. "Most of you don't know what goes on behind the scenes during the editing of our show," began Hope. "We have a man in the basement ... who fixes all our mistakes, and we'd like to honor him tonight with the annual Bob Hope Show Crossed Scissors Award for Jump Cutting Above and Beyond the Call of Duty".

To many in the industry, Schneider has always been known as "Jump Cut," the editor's editor, racking up screen credits and awards almost since the beginning of television. As an NBC staff engineer from 1951 to 1968, Schneider edited over 500 variety shows, documentaries, music specials, series and news programs, winning four Emmys in the process. His work helped define the medium.

From the start, Schneider's modus operandi has been to edit quickly, efficiently and seamlessly. To improve video editing in the '50s-a cumbersome process, which involved the hand-splicing of tape, he worked with his colleagues at NBC to develop the first offline editing process as well as an early time-code system. As chief editor of the network's "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In" in the late '60s, he was notorious for his organization and imagination.

"To edit 'Laugh In', we had to adapt the technology to our concepts and not vice versa," says Creator and Producer George Schlatter. "At the time, video editing was primitive and considered a technician's job. Art helped change that. It became an artistic job."

Schneider's ambitions once lay elsewhere. When he was 18 and a model-airplane enthusiast, he entered the University of Southern California with the goal of becoming an aeronautical engineer. He explains, however, that he couldn't master the math required for the field. "I changed my major three times before I finally settled on cinema studies," he recalls. "There's not much math in that."

Schneider soon found he had a knack for cutting film, and it was during his senior year that a professor introduced him to an NBC executive searching for a film editor. "The job they offered was simple-editing leaders onto kinescopes, but they didn't want to spend the time training beginners how to edit," recalls Schneider. "They wanted someone who already knew how to do it."

A four-hour job interview led to what would be a 17-year career at the network. Although eventually he became the network's supervising editor, he began as a "Group 2 Engineer", hand splicing videotape and film, and operating kinescope machines and cameras because the term "editor" was not officially sanctioned by NBC until the '60s.

Schneider worked constantly, averaging 40 to 50 shows a year and racking up such credits as 51 Bob Hope shows, three critically acclaimed Fred Astaire programs, and specials starring Judy Garland, Pat Boone, Milton Berle and Jack Benny. "My USC training in cinema really helped," he says-particularly for specials, "which were tricky. You couldn't just grind them out like you might on a series. The star wanted to put the best foot forward."

In 1967, Schlatter, a former colleague from NBC's Colgate Comedy Hour, approached him with the 'Laugh In' pilot. "I thought it had a funny name and a pretty thick script," Schneider recalls, "but I said, 'Fine, I'll do it.' " The script was four inches thick, to be exact, and, at a time when 80 edits an hour for video was considered excessively complicated, Laugh-in weighed in at about 400. "It was a gargantuan task," says Schlatter, "and 'Laugh In' may have been the first show on TV whose editor was recognized for the contribution he brought to the whole."

With its quick blackouts, short sketches and zany music pieces, Laugh-in was an editor's nightmare. Schneider, with Schlatter at his side, spent three weeks of 20-hour-a-day edits to produce the pilot. "At the end of the first assembly [which took five days], George didn't like what he saw. He sat back and cried, 'What have I wrought?' " recalls Schneider, who wound up recutting the program five times. "After the fifth, George was satisfied, but I was still bothered by something that didn't quite click. I couldn't sleep, thinking about it." Then, as he lay in bed, he had an inspiration:

He would add a tag scene after the closing credits...a discarded piece of footage of Arte Johnson as a Nazi saying, "Verrrry interesting." Not only did Schlatter love the touch, the bit became a catchphrase of the series.

In 1968, Schneider left NBC to form, with Schlatter, Burbank Film Editing (where he continued to work on 'Laugh In'). Schneider left in 1970 to work at CFI, where he stayed until 1976 and helped develop the first CMX 300 on-line editing system. From there he freelanced on a variety of projects, including off-net hours for syndication and documentaries on pollution. In addition, he served on the board of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; became a member of the SMPTE education committee; and began writing (over 50 articles) and lecturing on his profession.

"To be successful," Schneider concludes, "you have to be very, very dedicated. And you have to work your butt off."

Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

The Muppets On PCP posted:

snl's live mixing was pretty decent up until the early 2000s

Fresh Like Zafo posted:

What the hell was that early cut to commercial? Weird.

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

I remember like 10 years ago when the entire nation pretended to be upset that Ashley Simpson was lip syncing and now it's like 6 times per season and we all pretend not to notice.

ArtVandelay posted:

I didn't even bother asking Melissa for a picture after the show. I think she was hanging out next to the audience leaving hoping to get noticed and no one cared.

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

Look I'm not trying to be a dick or split hairs but he has been in the credits for over a decade and his name is Kenan. I wouldn't have said anything but like five different people got it wrong. Also he is great.

General Dog posted:

Shneak posted:

When? I only remember the alien one w/ Gosling.

tarlibone posted:

But mainly, we have to talk about how SNL managed to book Fiery Mario to be the musical guest.

Aphrodite posted:

How is a sketch like this shown to the audience? On monitors?

SpiderHyphenMan posted:

maybe. maybe...

oh my god. it's a miracle. i came back to last year.

i can save the world. oh god, i can save the world.

pwn posted:

Still haven't heard who the guests will be on January 21st.

MC Fruit Stripe posted:

"Who cares" about what? It's a great clip and a great testament to their crew. They may have felt a slight tinge of defensiveness and needing to explain why a crew member was clearly visible on the live broadcast, feeling like they wanted to show why he was there, but I think that probably pales when compared to their earnest pride in what they do. It's just a quick peek at a great crew.

Timby posted:

So is the 12:55 sketch pre-taped, then? I didn't realize the studio was that small (I figured the opening sketch was done on a side stage or something), there's no way that the host and cast can get out of costume in the four seconds between the end of the last sketch and the hugathon to close the show.