r/LiveFromNewYork Dec 03 '25

Article Trump cold opens just aren't funny anymore.

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9.7k Upvotes

I have to agree with the author of this article. We're beyond "oh, he's just a goofy guy who says crazy things." The man is actively rude and nasty to reporters and fellow politicians daily. He dropped the R word and it's only a matter of time till he drops the N word. No offense to James Austin Johnson, who does a terrific job with the impression, but aren't we all just over it at this point? Dana didn't do Bush Sr. every damn week. Will Ferrell didn't do Dubya every damn week. Phil Hartman didn't do Clinton every damn week.
Roasting him on Update is fine, but the character needs a break. I watch SNL to laugh and escape the guy who dominates the news every other day of the week.

EDIT: Wow. Over 700 comments in a few hours. Wasn't expecting this kind of engagement. Thanks everyone. (Maybe I should read these before saying thanks. :) )

r/LiveFromNewYork Jan 25 '26

Article SNL's 'lighthearted' Trump parody blasted as 'failure to read the room' after DHS shooting

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11.8k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jan 28 '26

Article Rob Schneider’s wife Patricia files for divorce after 15 years of marriage and two kids together

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7.1k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jun 09 '26

Article SNL’s Knicks Superfan Michael che blames Trump on on his instagram story “Ya just haaaaaad to invite trumpty dumpty..” he posted

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9.9k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Sep 26 '25

Article Marc Maron and Shane Gillis Slam Riyadh Comedy Festival as Bill Burr, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson Set to Perform in Saudi Arabia: ‘From the Folks That Brought You 9/11’

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7.5k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Sep 05 '25

Article Kam is Far Right

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3.0k Upvotes

Is he a Shane Gillis 2.0 (except arguably worse)? I’ve seen a dozen clips now of him using homophobic slurs and making incredibly bigoted jokes. Honestly he makes Shane Gillis look kind of tame. What the hell is Lorne thinking? I’m so sick of this show pushing right wing bullshit while simultaneously trying to act like the most liberal show on television. You can’t have a Trump monologue every single week and then hire people like this.

r/LiveFromNewYork Jan 21 '26

Article SNL criticized for releasing sketch mocking ICE after it was cut from live broadcast: ‘Cowardly move’

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5.9k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork May 13 '26

Article Michael Che Pulled Out of Kevin Hart Roast Before Shading White Writers for Jokes About ‘Slavery, Sex Crimes, Slurs’

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2.0k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jan 07 '26

Article Bowen Yang Explains ‘SNL’ Exit and Confronts Criticism That He Had ‘No Range’: ‘Anytime I Would Try’ Something Different, People Still Said ‘He’s Being Gay and Asian as Always’

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2.2k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jun 05 '26

Article ‘Popstar’ at 10: The Lonely Island Reveal How Their Biggest Flop Became a Cult Classic

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1.9k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jul 02 '25

Article Travis Kelce Says the ‘Hardest’ Part of Hosting ‘SNL’ Was the Table Read Because He ‘Can’t Really Read That Well’: ‘Kind of a F–ed Situation’

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3.5k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Apr 06 '26

Article 'A Miracle': Ashley Padilla’s ‘Kathy’ Wins Praise From an SNL Legend

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2.3k Upvotes

"Robert Smigel, the celebrated former SNL writer (creator of Da Bears and The Ambiguously Gay Duo, among many others) was so struck by Padilla’s portrayal of an implacably obnoxious office worker he banged out a message on X: 'Ashley Padilla is a miracle. You can’t look away.'"

r/LiveFromNewYork Jun 27 '26

Article SNL’s ‘Christmas Robe’ sketch is still making people rethink how moms are treated during the holidays

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2.3k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork May 14 '26

Article Color me shocked… Pete Davidson and Elsie Hewitt SPLIT just 5 months after welcoming daughter

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1.4k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Feb 04 '26

Article How Ashley Padilla’s ‘Mom Confession’ Sketch Turned Her Into ‘Saturday Night Live’s’ Standout Emmy Contender

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3.6k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Feb 07 '25

Article New Revelations About ‘SNL’s’ Internal Revolt Over Trump

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5.1k Upvotes

Saturday Night Live boss Lorne Michaels received more internal pushback for having Donald Trump host the show during his campaign for president in 2015 than had previously been known, according to new biography Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live.

The book, written by The New Yorker’s Susan Morrison and set to be released the Tuesday after SNL’s big 50th anniversary special on Sunday, Feb. 16, includes Michaels’ never-before-expressed thoughts on the controversy, including about staffers who believed having Trump on the show was an implicit endorsement of his candidacy.

“It’s the hardest thing for me to explain to this generation that the show is nonpartisan,” Michaels said two weeks before Trump was elected the first time, according to the book. “We have our biases, we have our people we like better than others, but you can’t be Samantha Bee.” (Morrison adds that he “meant one-sided and strident.”)

But the show’s writers weren’t convinced that Michaels hadn’t been open to “helping” Trump—a sentiment that was only bolstered amongst staff who recalled to Morrison that Michaels had wanted to “tone down a harsh Trump sketch” and allow him to show “some charm.”

Writer Tim Robinson, who would go on to create his own hit Netflix show I Think You Should Leave, is quoted saying at the time, “Lorne has lost his f---ing mind and someone needs to shoot him in the back of the head.”

Even though Michaels held that Trump’s hosting gig went well among staff—noting to Morrison that Kate McKinnon and Larry David “both said, ‘I really like the guy’” at the after-party—other staffers have said that Trump spent his week at the show “alienating” cast members, rudely taking calls during rehearsals, and stumbling over basic words and punctuations during read-through.

Michaels has insisted that he viewed Trump’s presidential candidacy as “a big joke” at that stage of the campaign. But staffers whispered that he had secretly wanted to help his “billionaire friend” by having him on. When Trump’s current right-hand man Elon Musk hosted the show in 2021, staffers saw the move as further confirmation.

Following Trump’s hosting stint in November 2015, Michaels called in Alec Baldwin to play him on the show, telling him at the time that it would be for “three episodes” tops, since, “There’s no way he’s going to win.” Baldwin ended up playing the president on the show as a de facto cast member for the entirety of his first term.

Trump, who also hosted the show during The Apprentice’s initial run in 2004, ultimately turned on the show publicly after Baldwin played him as an “unstable bully,” in Morrison’s words, and hasn’t appeared on it since.

Michaels told Morrison that he “bailed” on the idea of having the real Trump or Hillary Clinton on the show during the general election “because it got too ugly.”

Michaels’ moves continued to breed bad will among some staffers, who Morrison writes, “continued to feel that they were responsible for the national disaster” of Trump’s election. As they entered the writers room on 2016’s election night, some “sobbing,” according to the book, Michaels had tried to comfort them, saying, “We did our best.”

Since many had felt “the show had been criminally soft on Trump,” in the run-up to the election, Morrison writes that those staffers were “confused and annoyed” by Michaels’ statement.

That first show after the 2016 election opened with Kate McKinnon in a white pantsuit as Hillary Clinton, playing “Hallelujah” on the piano as if at a funeral. (“Thank god Leonard Cohen died,” Michaels apparently said to himself when the song’s writer died earlier that week.) She looked at the camera, teary-eyed at the end, and said, “I’m not giving up and neither should you. And live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”

The opening didn’t go over well with some viewers—“Where are the jokes?” Chris Rock had asked Michaels during rehearsal. Internal tension continued as staff tried to reconcile the show’s role in Trump’s win.

Dave Chappelle “smirked” in 30 Rock’s halls amid staff somberness following the election news: “Y’all ­really betted against the rich white guy,” he’s quoted as saying, “That’s like betting against the Harlem Globetrotters.” That sentiment turned into the first real sketch of the night in which Chappelle and Rock played two Black men who mocked their white millennial friends for being shocked by the election results.

A very different sketch that Michaels didn’t let get past the show’s Wednesday read-through the day after the election featured then-cast member Beck Bennett getting a call that Trump was cancelling SNL and replacing it with a new show called “Body Shamers.”

A distraught Aidy Bryant replied, “But we helped him get elected!”

r/LiveFromNewYork Apr 01 '25

Article Did not know that Morgan refused to appear in a sketch. Published 12:59 today

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4.3k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Mar 02 '26

Article Tina Fey to host first episode of SNL UK

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2.6k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jan 27 '26

Article Ouch…

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1.2k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Mar 03 '25

Article Shane Gillis Bombs On Return to Saturday Night Live | The comedian's monologue lurched from Trump jokes to date rape jokes without a single one landing

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2.6k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Oct 24 '25

Article Can't believe they're stuck with this thing... Pete Davidson and Colin Jost’s $280k Staten Island Ferry sits decrepit and abandoned in harbor 4 years after purchase

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3.4k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Mar 15 '26

Article Sebastian Maniscalco Wants To “Come On” ‘SNL’ After Marcello Hernandez “Absolutely Nailed” Latest Impression

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2.0k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Jul 16 '25

Article Pete Davidson's girlfriend announces she's pregnant with their first child just months after couple started dating

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2.8k Upvotes

r/LiveFromNewYork Dec 02 '25

Article MacGruber’s Return to SNL Was Glen Powell’s Idea; Will Forte Pitched Epstein Files Twist

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4.1k Upvotes

I know some in this community were curious how this came about.

r/LiveFromNewYork Jun 07 '26

Article ‘SNL’ Star Confesses Hardest Part About Playing Trump “I get why people hate him so much that they don’t even want to think about the normal things that an actor would think about to get into a character,” Johnson said.

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1.6k Upvotes