Nineteen days after 9/11, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani took the stage at Studio 8H inside NBC’s Rockefeller Center headquarters for the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” after the terrorist attacks.
It was a solemn cool. Surrounded by the mayor, firefighters and police officers, urged spectators to face the tragedy. Paul Simon, wearing an FDNY hat, rendered a “Mail chnolic kick” of “The Box Xer”.
But the serious mood was fermented with humor, resulting in one of the most memorable moments of the show’s modern era. “SNL.” No. Lorne Michaels joined the mayor on stage and asked him: “Can we be funny?”
Giulini’s dadap reply no answer: “Why start now?”
The show’s 46th season premieres this weekend against a backdrop of national mourning and crisis. More than 200,000 people have lost their lives across the country since Kovid-19. Millions have been infected. The economy is ruined. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, meanwhile, have tested positive for coronavirus, undermining the White House and the presidential campaign.
The challenges for America’s Marquee Sketch Show are complete: At the highest reach of the American government, how can you pull off a 90-minute wide-ranging comedy and political satire amid an epidemic and public health crisis? Do you make fun of the president when he is fighting a deadly virus?
“The amount of trouble has increased a hundredfold,” said James Andrew Miller, co-author of SNL’s Oral History “Live from New York.”
The show began in 1975 with “SNL.” Michaels (with a few short-term exceptions in the 1980s), who chaired the party, suggested in an interview with The New York Times last month that he felt obliged to provide “sanity” and “community” in times of national crisis.
“We did a show with anthrax in the building. We did a show after 9/11,” Mitchells said. “We’ve always done that. It’s really important to show it to our audience.”
But this year, showing – and in particular, returning to the high-stakes live format – is not an easy task. The coronavirus epidemic, which caused the “SNL.” Forced to postpone live broadcasts in March and wrapped up three remotely produced episodes in its previous season, it has pushed the show into a tangle of unprecedented creative hurdles and logistic hurdles.
“There are countless challenges that manifest themselves in everything: the set, the makeup, the clothing, the choreography that goes backstage,” Miller said.
“It’s not easy, and will require significant adjustments,” Miller added.
It’s easy for the late night organization to see the reality of the new Kovid-era in a pair of photos posted this week on the show’s official facial Instagram account.
The first photo shows the host of the season premiere, Chris Rock, while wearing a white mask stepped out of the script. Another photo provides a zoom-out view: the cast and crew members, sitting individually at a folding table 6 feet apart.
In a recent interview with New York Magazine, Michaels said he was engrossed in meetings focused on “the intense physical challenge of what we can do in protocol.”
“The physical problems of doing this – the number of people who can be in the studio, the number of people who can be in the control room, how you separate the band so they are not in any danger – are all part of that,” Meetings said.
In the Kovid era, the creators of late night shows, medi shows and daytime time shows have come up with various ways to create a sense of normalcy. The “Tonight Show” studio returned to 30 Rock without an audience. Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah host their show from their home. The “Kelly Clarkson Show” features a virtual audience.
For their part, in a statement from NBC’s entertainment unit, “SNL.” The makers of are moving forward with plans for a “limited in-studio audience”. The statement said New York government Andrew Cuomo was working closely with Office Fees on the details.
A state official told NBC News that Cuomo’s office, along with the New York Department of Health, has “SNL.” Provided the criteria, so that the audience should meet to invite them back to Studio 8H. The criteria, outlined on the state website, dictates that indoor production facilities should not exceed 50 per cent in other regulations.
Ticketing website 1 Iota recently allowed potential audience members to register for a “pre-screening process” to “determine eligibility to participate” in the show’s audience. The list states that anyone selected must take the mandatory Covid-19 test in addition to other guidelines, submit for a temperature check, and cover the face.
Miller insisted that the in-studio audience was “SNL.” Integral to the constitution and formula, describes it as the show’s “oxygen and life-giving”.
“I can’t tell you how many cast members I’ve talked to, how many years I’ve talked about the impact on the audience,” said Miller, who spoke with TV critic Tom Schulz. Dozens of “SNLs” for the oral history book. Of players.
But will cast members need to wear masks during sketches and other on-air bits? Michaels gave the Times a little clarification, explaining that the performers would “wear masks until the red light comes on, at which point the velcro will return.”
If the first part of the new season – “SNL.” Starting with five consecutive episodes of five Oct. 10, 1, 2, five1, if it comes with some technical hurdles or obvious swings, the show will provide a model for the ceremony, Broadway shows and other forms of live entertainment. Which have been stabilized by a shutdown related to Covid-19.
“I think people in the television industry will come away with a better understanding of what they can and can’t do,” Miller said. “I think a lot of people will look for that.”
But like any season of the show, known for its political satire and ripped off-the-headlines, “When the clock strikes at half past eleven on a Saturday night,” S.N.L. “The covid-era will capture more than sanctions.
The show, unlike any other, is set to hit the airwaves in the final leg of the presidential campaign, a race that offers an overwhelming number of ridiculous possibilities.
The first presidential debate, a chaotic melee during which Trump repeatedly interrupted and former Vice President B Biden screamed, probably provided the show’s writing team with particularly fertile ground for parodies. But the president’s coronavirus diagnosis, announced early Friday, could move the show’s writers and the president’s potential to soften their edge when it comes to mocking the president, Alec Baldwin.
Nick de Semlin, author of the book “Wild and Crazy Guys: How the Come Madi Mavericks the 80’s Changing Hollywood Forever”, speculates on Twitter that his diagnosis may require the show to cut a lot of Trump-centric content.
“Maybe they’ll have to break a lot of them.” Wrote D. Samley.
Jim Carrey has been tapped to play the Democratic nominee – Woody Harrelson, who played Biden a few times during the primary campaign, and Jason Sudekis, a former cast member who portrayed him during President Barack Obama’s administration, have been tapped to play the Democratic nominee.
“With this election, it’s not an original idea or statement to say that a lot is at stake,” Michaels told New York Magazine. “Going back to Ford / Carter, our voice came, and we’ll work as hard as we can to keep that voice.”
