Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction

Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --

"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"

Hornswaggler
Culture, Humor, Sports
Workplace Distraction

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Phil Hartman



I was looking for Hartman's "sassy" sketches online and didn't find them. There's only a brief clip on his "Best Of" special. The fact that they're not available is a crime against humanity. But I did stumble across his SNL audition, which is pretty interesting.

The crazy thing is that it seems at several points that he's bombing. Granted, Lorne Michaels and whoever else watches the auditions aren't a nightclub audience -- they're not liquored up, and they're not liberal with the guffaws. Still, Hartman goes a few minutes without a hint of a chuckle in the middle of the clip, though that laser gun bit was admittedly not so great. I guess young performers should take some encouragement from the fact that someone as brilliant as Hartman would have to go through the wringer like that. Even he had to sweat it out.

It's also interesting that Hartman and Jon Lovitz had worked out the "One More Mission" sketch, in which Hartman is the fading actor and Lovitz is the studio executive, before coming on SNL. Similarly, in Dana Carvey's audition, he did the "Choppin' Broccoli" bit that later turned up on the show. In his audition Carvey had the ace up his sleeve of a Dennis Miller impression, which he used to crack up Miller, who was already on the show and apparently in the audience that day. Strange that both Hartman and Carvey did Robin Leach impressions. It's hard to believe that Leach was such a big deal at the time.

As for "Sassy's Sassiest Boys," come on, NBC. I would gladly pay to watch these videos, through advertising or iTunes or whatever you want to do. But if you're not going to put them out, don't crack down on people who fill the vacuum on YouTube. That's weak.

.: posted by hornswaggler 8:09 AM


|
Salon Articles
The Right Take on Libby?
Hurricane Horror Stories
"Looting" or "Finding"?
Run, Andy, Run!
Newsweek's Grand Inquisitor
Robert Blake
American Idol
Year in Television 2002
X-Files


Links
Andrew Sullivan
Atrios
Bigmouth's "Lost" blog
Chris Keating
Digby
Hendrik Hertzberg
Matt Yglesias
Paul Krugman
Peter Kinney
Talking Points Memo
Two Glasses


Contact




Weblog Commenting and Trackback by HaloScan.com