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SNL boasts comedy’s best, worst
Comedy is a big pari of our
lives. Humor is the one thing
that can unite us all in the face
of adversity. It is a commonality we
all share as humans. We use jokes in
all types of settings; at the beginning
of a speech to loosen up the crowd, in
the middle of a jam-packed elevator
I or in many of life’s
most embarrassing mo
ments.
We use humor as so
cial and political com
mentary. But, most of
all, we use humor to al
leviate stress. Laughter
is healthy.
_J So it is not surprising
to me that in the openly dysfunctional
society that we arc all apart, humor is
big business. Is it just me, or have you
noticed about a billion new, high pro
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over cable TV? In our desperation
and depression, we look for comedy
to be a universal language or common
thread that leaves no one out.
Comedy is a science to me. I use it
in my column, in the fiction stories I
write, in my job and in everyday
situations. I think most serious issues
come across better if they arc en
trenched in humor and sarcasm. But
being the comedy fanatic I am, 1 can’t
really pass up the opportunity to com
ment on what is thought to be the
greatest assembly of today’s comedi
ans — the cast of “Saturday Night
Live.”
Although my view lakes a critical
stance, SNL has come far in the last
five years. Case in point: “Wayne’s
World,” which grossed more than
Sl(X) million at the box office last
year and was developed from just one
of the popular V7 minute skits that
make up an 1 1/2 hour show every
Saturday night.
SNL has a great legacy behind it:
Chevy Chase, Dan Akroyd, Gilda
Radner, Steve Marlin, Jane Curtain,
Eddie Murphy and even a Wayans
before his brother gota dcal with Fox.
And the list goes on.
It used to be that SNL was seem
ingly a stepping stone to super star
dom in television and the bie screen.
Maybe, with“Wayne’s World,’’Lome
Michacls-and his crew will establish
their monopoly on the comedy world
once again. But with the recent fail
ures of Martin S hort and Denn is M i 1 ler,
I wouldn’t count on it.
Here’s my run down of the bestand
worst core skits of SNL and their
creators:
• I used to really like the nauseat
ing sorority skits lead by, most nota
bly, Melanie Hutslc. Maybe I laughed
because they were parodying not only
the entire grcck system but its mental
ity, which I found to be semi-accu
rate.
But it was probably because 1 was
a Tri Dclt and, damn it, I never knew
that many Tri Dclt clothes existed or
that someone else besides me had
actually thought of answering the
phone with an inspired “Della Delta
Delta, may I help ya, help ya, help
ya?”
• Poor Chris Farley. 1 think this is
such a waste of some decent talent,
but it seems as though the SNL con
science wants to go for the easy laugh
about the fat, dumb guy. I hate “The
Chris Farley Show;” the bit moves so
slow.
• In a way I feel sorry for Kevin
Nealon. It’s hard to follow in the
footsteps of Dennis Miller, who was
only behind Johnny Carson in quick
witted comebacks and Chevy Chase,
deadpan extraordinarc.
• My two favorite “new recruits”
arc Melanie Hulslcand Adam Sandler.
Hutsle as Jan Brady is so perfect that
the “Bradys” are a ripe target in 1 icu of
the Dan Quay le aftermath of accusing
TV shows of mocking family values.
Sandler’s greatest contribution is
“Cajun Man.” Sandler, in his deep
Creole accent, could make getting a
UNL parking ticket hilarious.
The greatest thing about these two
is that they know the limitations of
their characters and how much time
they should be the focus of the skit. It
is never overdrawn and overused and
therefore, funny. The supply is little
and my demand to sec them keeps
going up.
• I can’t say enough about Dana
Carvey. His performance at the MTV
awards sucked, but so did every one
clsc’s. One glitch is excusable.
No one touches him. His impres
sion of George Bush is so good that
every lime I sec Bush, 1 sec Carvey in
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our president instead of the real thing.
• Everyone knows The Simpsons
would be nowhere without the boom
ing voice of Phil Hartman. Neither
would SNL, and Hartman is the per
fect sidck ick and foil. Carvcy ’s Carson
is not as good without Hartman’s Ed
McMahon.
• I saved the best for last — Pat!
Our androgcnous friend mimics life
in such a realistic fashion that I have
noticed more Pats walking around on
the street, eating in the restaurant 1
work at, living life as hc/she/it. No
skit is more dependable, more laugh
able and more true. If I didn’t know
Julia Sweeney was the face behind the
amorphous body and incessant whin
ing, I would still be guessing what sex
was under that costume.
- Krnisse is a senior pre-med major and
Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Clinton’s past proves shiftiness
Anyone following the presiden
tial campaign with even a re
mote interest has to sense
something deep inside. Bill Clinton is
the most flawed candidate that the
Democratic party has offered up in
recent memory.
George McGovern, Jimmy Carter,
Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis
had their problems, but they were
confined to their public
lives. Their policies ei
ther were tried and
failed or struck Ameri
cans as likely to do so.
Bill Clinton, on the
other hand, has short
comings not just with
Impolicies, but with his
non-public persona as
well. It’s a symbol of the hysteria
whipped up by the media about how
awful things arc in the United States
that this man could get within a mile
of the nomination, much less the presi
dency.
A disturbing pattern has emerged,
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and now 10 Clinton’s journey to Mos
cow in 1969 and his anti-war activi
. tics.
The charges arc aired. Clinton de
nies them.
More evidence surfaces, contra
dicting the denial. Clinton hedges,
hems and haws, admitting they ’ re true
but pulling his own little gloss on it.
Still more evidence surfaces, show
ing anyone with a functioning higher
brain that the man is flat-out lying.
And then Clinton gels this sad,
insufferably sanctimonious kx>k on
his face, and tells America how sad it
is that the Republicans have to sloop
to this to win an election, when they
should be talking about change —
that already-overused buzz word of
1992. And the media lapdogs play
into Clinton’s hands.
Let’s take a look at the facts in this
latest episode in Bill and Al’s Excel
lent Adventure.
Clinton went to Moscow in the
second year of his Rhodes Scholar
ship for 40 days in the winter of 1969
70. He never wcntioclasscsand never
got his degree.
A search for Clinton’s passport
records, requested by Newsweek
magazine, showed that the data from
that period is missing. The FBI is
investigating.
There’s nothing wrong, I suppose,
with traveling to Moscow at the height
of the Cold War. The problem I have
is not with Clinton’s actions in 1969,
but his explanations of them in 1992.
Asked about the charges on “Larry
King Live,” Clinton nervously
laughed it off, and made the incred
ible claim that in 1969, “there was a
warming of relations between our two
countries.”
It’s a llat-out lie. The Soviets were
giving aid to North Victnam, shooting
down our jets and enslaving their own
people at the lime. Nixon didn’t make
it to Moscow until 1972, to inaugurate
detente. Warming, indeed.
There’s something here yet to come
out. Anyone who looked in Clinton’s
eyes when he made those denials could
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entrapment, that the hounds were
drawing ever closer.
Moreover, Clinton has lied about
his antiwar protest activities while at
Oxford and in the United Stales.
Clinton claimed in a 1978 interview
with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
that he only attended two protest
marches, as an onlooker. Maybe it
was a great way to meet women —
who knows?
Now, though, a pro-Clinton book
demolishes his alibi. He not only at
tended and participated, but also
helped organize protests. Clinton look
a leading role in helping form the
Moratorium Committee, the premier
anti-American protest group, which
held a demonstration in Washington
in November 1969. This from Robert
Levin’s “Bill Clinton: The Inside
Story,” quoting Moratorium founder
David Mixncr.
While at Oxford, Clinton orga
nized a March of Death on the U.S.
Embassy. And, according to Father
Richard McSorlcy, another Clinton
ally.hccarricdacoffinto thccmbassy
compound, and negotiated with po
lice to allow it inside. This from “Peace
Eyes,” McSorlcy’s 1978 book.
McSorlcy also figures in a trip
Clinton took to Oslo. Clinton’s take is
that he ran into McSorlcy by accident
at the train station and lagged along.
McSdrley claimed in his book that
Clinton planned the trip ahead of lime
and met with conscientious objectors
and members of the World Peace
Council. The group was declared in
1980 by the Senate Intelligence Com
mittee to be a KGB front.
Last week McSorlcy said of
Clinton: “He’d be foolish to tell the
truth about what he did, now that he’s
running for President.” Several days
later, McSorlcy endorsed Clinton’s
version of events, no doubt after f ran -
tic calls from Little Rock, Ark.
Unbelievable.
Surveying this train of half-truths
and outright lies, I am amazed that
this man has gotten away with it all.
A c i hr* dnrinc nfhic i/niithinl indis/’r^.
lions broke, for the first lime I felt fear
for the consequences to my country if
this man is elected president.
And I am stunned that so many
people want to ignore it, say: “Thai’s
history, it docsn’1 matter.” Funny —
history did matter when it wasClarcncc
Thomas or Robert Bork.
Well, it docs matter, people, and
you had better realize it. It’s not about
questioning patriotism, it’s about judg
ment, about character, about truthful
ness.
Let’s not get so carried away with
change and the misty depths of a
promised future that may or may not
come to pass. People don’t live in a
vacuum in the present — they arc
formed by their pasts. And that is why
Bill Clinton’s past, and his present
interpretations of it, disqualify his
claims for the presidency.
Kepfidd Is graduate student in history
and an alumus of the U N I, College of I ,aw and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
- •
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17,1992
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