On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 3:20 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > I dispute the description of him as being "always a solid impressionist". > > In the Fresh Air interview he described himself as a caricaturist, which > I > > think is right, and he also expressed some uncertainty as to how good > they > > were, which I think was also right.... > > Anyone who's trying to get laughs while doing impressions is going be > a caricaturist, whether we're talking about David Frye or Rich Little > or Frank Caliendo or Darrell Hammond. You can usually tell who > Hammond's doing without needing an introduction of the character, > unlike, say, Jason Sudeikis. >
I do not intend to be a Hammond-basher with my comments about his impressions. He made the distinction between someone who really tries to sound like the people being mimicked, and trying to find one or two essential characteristics that get exaggerated for comedic effect. He said this was what Lorne encouraged him to do. I don't see Hammond as being particularly successful at the Little/Caliendo approach, and doubt he would be well known if he just had a career as a club comic doing impressions. He was successful on SNL because he nailed something funny about both Clinton and Gore. I never hated Hammond, just did not think he was in the top third of my favorite SNL performers (he probably is in my middle third). When I was reminded the other day that he was the longest tenured SNL performer (not from the Hammond interview, but I think an interview with Seth Meyers) I looked up the list on wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturday_Night_Live_cast_members#Longest_tenures ) 1. Darrell Hammond 2. Al Franken 3. Seth Meyers 4. Tim Meadows 5. Fred Armisen 6. Kevin Nealon 7. Kenan Thompson 8. Will Forte 9. Phil Hartman 10. Chris Parnell 11. Amy Poehler 12. Maya Rudolph 13. Horatio Sanz What strikes me about this list is that while there are a few favorites of mine on it (Franken, Hartman, Rudolph) there are only a few break-out star performers (Hartman, Poehler) and the rest are more comfortable supporting players (I guess Armisen is supposed to be more of a star performer than a supporter in the current cast, but I never see that). And I realized that of course this makes sense - most of the really A-level star performers would be motivated to leave SNL relatively early (the list above are all 8 - 14 year vets) to move on to film or prime-time careers, so most of the relative lifers would be more middle of the roaders. All of that said, I still suspect that Hammond's 14 years are at least partially a function of Lorne trying to provide him with some stability and support. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
