How we did it: SNL – “The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders” (2013)

It’s funny that while this is Ed Norton doing an Owen Wilson impression, it could very well be Owen Wilson doing Ed Norton.

It's worth appreciating how fluent all of these people are with their craft to create something of this quality on that timeline.

The director got the script on Wednesday! Look at the set layouts, the lighting plans, and the lens choices that were made on the fly. Not to mention somebody had to actually make those costumes and build those sets in a day - and modify them on demand to make the kitchen 8' longer. They were still editing it while the show was being broadcast!

You don't generally see "improv" in a field with a lot of preparation like filmmaking, or like software. It's cool to witness somebody who is so comfortable with their tools that they can e.g. live-code a hack-the-box solution or build some new web service on a stage and make it look effortless, and it's equally cool to see this kind of fluency in film.

That was one of my favorite SNL episodes. Really interesting to learn about how much work was behind this. It really showed in the final product.

I'd seen this one before but not the Djesus Uncrossed [0] one they mention here.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqISX2o0a4A

Site got hugged to death.

Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20220512210526/https://www.alex-...

When I try to play the linked video, YouTube reports the video as private. I believe this is the video.

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/wes-anderson-h...

This should be a crime against humanity:

  body { font-size: 12px; line-height: 17px; }

SNL must be like bad quality candy that is so part and parcel of one's childhood that one can never quite outgrow it or fail to not cherish it, despite now knowing that nearly candy from any other part of the world has superior, wholesome and more nourishing ingredients than the HFCS-sweetened, off-tasting, peanut-packed kind - the only kind - you've known growing up.

For the most part - and with the exception of unintended humor owing to the broadcasted-live nature of the show - I've never really found SNL to be very funny or talented or thought-provoking. I never quite got what the fuss was all about.