SNL: Saturday Night Live

As the most recurring hosts of "Saturday Night Live," both Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin have learned something about entertaining a live TV audience. Martin, who hosted "SNL" a record 14 times in its 31 seasons, has hosted the Oscars twice before, in 2001 and 2003, with a droll, well-rece...

Just 45 episodes were made of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" from 1969 to 1974. The crazy collection of absurdist comedy sketches, insurrectionist humor, bits of weird animation found a loyal audience first in England where it was produced and then on American public television, where...

They wrote in Balloon Boy a couple of times and even made a model of the runaway balloon to interrupt "Weekend Update," but it was more of a passing mention. They were more interested in the health care reform bill and that don't ask don't tell (there was another Weekend Update sketch about th...

It's the name of the fusion restaurant where the staff of the show is brainstorming ways to reach America's midsection. It's a metaphor for the series as well, which has done so well among critics and Emmy voters, only to flag in the ratings. It's still pretty strong, though, and  caps what ha...

Hosting "Saturday Night Live" these days is two-for-one proposition. Even he couldn't save this singularly mirthless show, featuring the most worn out of stock characters a no-joke Obama Nobel opening and a Weekend Update that featured Scrooge McDuck (bring back Darrell Hammond now!...

October means "Twitches" (Disney, 7 p.m.) and "Twitches Too" (Disney, 8:30 p.m.). In exhibition basketball, it's Golden State vs. Phoenix (TNT, 9:30 p.m.). In hockey, Islanders at Bruins (NESN, 7 p.m.). Drew Barrymore hosts a new "Saturday Night Live" (11:30 p.m.) with musical guest Regina Spektor.

SNL Weekend Update Thursday" falls from the schedule tonight, making way for "Community" (NBC, 8 p.m.) followed by "Parks and Recreation" (NBC, 8:30 p.m.). A new season starts for the viral video-trolling show "Tosh 2.0" (Comedy Central, 10 p.m.).

Darrell Hammond, apparently freelancing on the show now after the longest run as a cast member, made his first "Saturday Night Live" appearance of the season as Arnold Schwarzenegger, behind so much prosthetic makeup he was hardly recognizable. 

Unlike the mother show "Saturday Night Live" the half hour Thursday edition doesn't run credits or even say who's part of the ensemble. But it's clear it's not quite everybody from "SNL." Kristen Wiig is still about the only female; neither of the newer hires were around this week.

In the most crowded hour on TV also includes new episodes of "Vampire Diaries" (The CW, 8 p.m.) and the comedy of "SNL Weekend Update Thursday" (NBC, 8 p.m.) and "Parks & Recreation" (NBC, 8:30 p.m.), which have both starred Amy Poehler in the opening two weeks. "Update Thursday" is apparentl...

An underwhelming 35th season for "Saturday Night Live" this weekend. Maybe because the excitement of a new season has been undermined, not enhanced, by the prime time "SNL Weekend Update Thursday," which have also had one or two sketches better than the late night mother show, it turned o...

As portrayed by Andy Samberg, the goofy looking UConn student named Shep has big plastic rimmed glasses with thick lenses, braces on his teeth, Spider-man on his T-shirt and not a lot of sexual experience. That was the basis of the sketch between Shep and Seth Myers on "SNL Weekend Update Th...

Pretty good "Saturday Night Live" perhaps because they won't have another one until early next month (and because a seemingly light sketch load last week that resulted in the band playing three songs), they may have put in some extra effort.

lt;p>It might seem that the confusingly named "Saturday Night Live Weekend Update Thursday" made its debut tonight simply because the show has become used to spending just two days or less turning a political debate into a sketch.</p> <p><br />So the first sketc...

Just as Sarah Palin has excited the Republican base, so has it excited the "Saturday Night Live" season. People are still talking about Tina Fey's impersonation of the vice presidential candidate last week, but for tonight's show the opening sketch starred the top of the ticket: Darrell...

Said cast member John Slattery, "I'm glad our message of smoking, drinking and whoring has registered with the TCA." Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels may have been the most succinct recipient of the night in winning the Career Achievement Award.

By Hartford Courant Word of progress in the TV writers' strike is good news, especially when "Saturday Night Live" is digging further and further back for its reruns. It was so old, the cast still included such long-gone cast members as Horatio Sanz, Finesse Williams, Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch. One featured m...

By Hartford Courant That the "Saturday Night Live" this weekend was dedicated to Thanksgiving-theme sketches from the 30-plus years past was some sort of indication to some that this was a move designed to counter the strike-affected late night show.