In recent years “SNL” has become more obsessed with verisimilitude. More attention is paid to accuracy in hair, costumes and accents with less room for the bizarre. There are exceptions, particularly turns by Bill Hader, who does compellingly eccentric versions of Rick Perry, James Carville and an oddly sinister Shepard Smith, who introduced himself in one debate sketch with “I come from a town full of secrets.” →
This line of Jason Zinoman’s particularly astute NYT review of Fred Armisen’s Obama was the first thing to make me laugh this week, on the train on the way to work, no less. Hader’s impression of James Carville is a totally unnecessary and topicality-lacking impression in comparison to other choices, and yet, still so perfect and now utterly necessary. It also inspired in a much-less sober iteration of me (read: “shitfaced”) during a wedding in New Orleans this summer an attempted drunk sniping on Carville when I spotted him at the reception, the culmination of which would be me “palming” his shiny, bald head. Just as I snuck up behind him at the bar, wild-eyed and open-palmed, rising above him, primed to pounce (“like a vampire,” it was later recalled), the husband of the bride’s sister grabbed my wrist and intercepted what would have otherwise been the most shameless and amusing drunk party foul of my life. I remain moderately upset with him, and not the least bit thankful.
