4- The Michigan Daily - Weekend etc. - Thursday, March 16, 1995 SNL: TV good, silver screen not 0 By Prashant Tamaskar Daily Arts Writer For the last 20 years, "Saturday Night Live" has been entertaining people with a style of humor that has transcended the skills of its cast. This explains the long-time success of the late-night program, despite the loss of such stars as Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray,JohnBelushi andDanAkroyd. Historically, popular SNL "players" have used the show as a steppingstone on their way to silver-screen fame. Yet it has not only been the cast that has found itself moving west for the riches of Hollywood. Throughout the years, theproducers of "Saturday NightLive" have exploited its popularity by mak- ing inferior movies based on well re- ceived skits. The only two SNL films that cannot be categorized as flops are "The Blues Brothers" and "Wayne's World." A combination of good writing, clever marketing and proper timing led to both the critical and popular acclaim that these two movies received. However, most of the movies have resembled the last two SNL films to hit the big screen - "Wayne's World 2" and "Coneheads.""Wayne's World 2" shamelessly attempted to leech off of the popularity of its far superior prequel and failed. Even the talents of Mike Myers andDanaCarvey could not save the movie from a script that did not contain much new material. Even more noteworthy than "WW2" was the release of "Coneheads" last summer. No one is quite sure why this film was made nearly 17 years after the characters were first introduced and the novelty had worn off. Many of the original people who first loved the Coneheads skit had outgrown it, while to the ever- important target audience ofhigh school and college students the concept seemed rather dumb and outdated. Needless to say, "Coneheads" was not exactly a smashing success. However, neither of these debacles even compare to the biggest flop of all - the movie based on the androgy- nous SNL character Pat. The film suf- fered many setbacks, including pro- duction problems. After it was finally completed it went straight to video, completely bypassing movie theaters. Sadly, this gives you an idea about what the producers thought about their final product. The main question to ask is: Why are the movies based on "Saturday Night Live" sketches so bad? There are several potential answers to this ques- tion. The first is that quite often the skits are overdone before making the movie. Unfortunately, SNL has a ten- dency to milk popular characters for all that they are worth. Consequently, by the time the film based on a skit is released, the material has grown stale. However, to promote the upcoming film, they create more related sketches on the TV show. So, by the time the movie is released, many viewers have had enough of it already and have no desire to see the film. The second answer is that the sketches are simply out of their ele- ment when placed on a big screen. Just because an act is funny for five minutes doesn't mean it's going to be amusing for an hour and a half. Also, placing characters in movies can force the con- text of the humor to change. Usually, this is not very successful (an excep- tion being Wayne and Garth often leav- ing their basement in "Wayne's World"). The final contributor to the failure of the SNL movies has been poor writing.The movies simply have not had the same snap in their humor as the TV show. And considering the talent level ofmany ofthe performersitprob- ably wouldn't be reasonable to blame them for these disasters. Unfortunately, it seems that the pro- ducers of "Saturday Night Live" have not realized that their movies simply are not very highly regarded. Two more films, staningAlFrankenas Stuart Smalley, and Dana Carvey and Kevin Nealon as Hans and Franz, are soon to be released. While the Hans and Franz movie comes as no surprise, the other one is quite a shock. Stuart Smalley is not that popular of a character to begin with and this skit does notgenerally elicitmuch laughter. Itcotild end up being the worst SNL movie yet. If this happens, maybetheproducersof"Sat- urday Night Live" will stop releasing bombs disguised as movies to the public once and for all. 0 Wayne's World is violent. See his bizarre sexual behavior as evidenced in this photograph. MAuLNI SRIRAMA & THE DANCES OF INDIA TROUPE WELCOME Rtm'anz- } ternaf W 'om an .g {. Ong inafIndian Dance Saturday, 14arcli 18,1995 ~7V.8pm Power Center AN MEO/DIv. OF STUDENT AFFAIRS PRESENTATION TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE MICHIGAN UNION TICKET OFFICE AND ALL TICKETMASTER OUTLETS. CHARGE BY PHONE 763-TKTS. Made possible with the support of the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs London $379 Paris $429 Frankfurt $429 Madrid $509 Fnswr rand W f t O&dMt&lg bwMch31. Rac. GM tx dswrt tJ.I fes ofhwtirldwfdk drstiOl3. CuncilM 1~ 1220 S. University Dr., Suite 208 (Above McDonalds) 998.0"00 "to " "y toayfo 14FRE Coneheads are phallic. 0 V1aN Alt-NVeW eAfl'debd'! TM I Last year, convicts and shut-ins made "Duckman" their #3show. This year find out why bpPoF? r I1 Vv . ' 4q . ; , K " S , "Weird, jazzy guitars; taut, offbeat yet dancy drums, and a unique, unpredictable, playful vocalist (here's to you, Renee LoBue), [make for] an excellent in;.Irv~.in . toi n ,rviat 1 Ma " _ 0 I