Mrs. John Anderson (Wife of SNL Slug): What are you doing, honey?
Mr. John Anderson (SNL Slug): I’m shopping for insurance on Obamacare.com so we don’t get fined.
Wife: What do you mean fined?
John Anderson: If we don’t buy insurance, which we can’t afford, we’ll get fined by the IRS. That’s Obama’s way of helping us.
Wife: Oh, that’s wonderful. The Girl Scouts should do that too. It would be great for their business! How much does the insurance cost?
John Anderson: I have no idea. I can’t get into the site. And the one time I did, it asked for all of our personal information, it accessed our credit, it demanded naked pictures of us, and then it locked me out.
Forget this, honey! They have a phone number: 1-800-FUK-YOUZ. I’m calling them!
//phone rings
Voice of HAL 9000: This call will be monitored by the National Security Agency to determined if you are a terrorist.
John Anderson: How did you know my name?
Obamacare Navigator: We know everything, Mr. Anderson.
John Anderson: You know, I have rights. And one of those is the right to privacy.
Obamacare Navigator: Go ahead, Mr. Anderson. Try to use that right. It will be interesting to see how you use it when you can’t speak.
John Anderson: Uh... I was just kidding. I’m looking to sign up for Obamacare.
Obamacare Navigator: Give me access to your bank account.
John Anderson: Wait a minute! You haven’t told me how much this will cost.
Obamacare Navigator: That’s none of your business.
John Anderson: I refuse.
Obamacare Navigator: Don’t make me drone you, Mr. Anderson.
John Anderson: Uh... just kidding again! Here’s my bank information—
Obamacare Navigator: We already have it. You’ve been charged $2,150.
John Anderson: Wow! That’s not bad for a year.
Obamacare Navigator: That’s for the first month.
John Anderson: But that's more than twice what I was paying before! Obama said this was supposed to be affordable!
Obamacare Navigator: He meant for the insurance companies.
John Anderson: He what?
Obamacare Navigator: Drones, Mr. Anderson... can you hear them?
John Anderson: Uh... yeah, that’s a great rate. What’s my deductible?
Obamacare Navigator: $5,000 a year.
John Anderson: But my current employer’s plan had a $1,200 deductible.
Obamacare Navigator: Then stay on that plan.
John Anderson: They cancelled it when Obama let Big Business off the hook. What is my yearly out of pocket?
Obamacare Navigator: You’ll find out.
John Anderson: What does that mean?
Obamacare Navigator: It means, we’re not telling you yet... not until we get your money.
John Anderson: Can you give me a hint?
Obamacare Navigator: It will be somewhere between $12,700 a year and $17,000, Mr. Anderson. But it could be higher too. And for the first year it’s actually $25,400 or more.
John Anderson: That’s insane! Why even have insurance!!!
Obamacare Navigator: Drones, Mr. Anderson... drones. So can I put you down for a yes?
[Scene changes to two old, white, male executives who have been monitoring this discussion and looking at Mr. and Mrs. Anderson’s naked pictures.]
Randolph Duke: Good things take time, Mortimer.
Mortimer Duke: Who would have guessed that we could use the US government to force people to buy insurance that is twice as expensive and covers less than their prior insurance?
Randolph Duke: The threat of force is a wonderful thing.
Mortimer Duke: Well, you won the bet. //hands over $1 bill You know, I’m surprised Obama agreed to this.
Randolph Duke: // laughs
Mortimer Duke: Why are you laughing?
Randolph Duke: Obama? You think there’s an Obama. Take a look at this picture of George W. Bush and compare it to Obama.
Mortimer Duke: My God, Randolph! You just painted the animatronic Bush black and put a wig on him!
Randolph Duke: Exactly, Mortimer. Did you really think I would let a negro run this country?
Mortimer Duke: Of course not. Now let’s work on that Girl Scout Cookie bill.
Randolph Duke: Why not?
I wish I could start a production company tomorrow. I hear they're doing amazing things with TV on the internet these days. The only thing...aren't Matrix references already a bit dated?
ReplyDeletemay the dung of 100 camels infest the tent of NBC for a 1,000 years. I haven't watched SNL in at least 15-20 years. Not only did it, like journalism in general, become more openly partisan, most of the jokes (even apolitical jokes) simply sucked. They just weren't funny.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a great short for a film festival...but it wouldn't win because it's not "progressive".
ReplyDeleteHilarious skit, but there's no such animal as comic integrity. Instead of complaining that they are being neglected, conservatives ought to capitalize on a market opportunity the same way Fox News did.
ReplyDeleteSNL doesn't have a monopoly on sketch comedy and there are a lot of conservative comedians floating around (including ex-SNL alumni like Victoria Jackson, Dennis Miller and Rob Schneider) so why hasn't it happened? Some might say that commercial flops 'The 1/2 Hour News Hour' and 'An American Carol' are the answers to that question, but two failures shouldn't have killed the notion that conservative comedy can be commercially successful.
The cost of such experiments is a drop in the bucket compared to the money spent each election cycle so why aren't conservatives spending it? There could be the conservative equivalent of Key and Peele if there are as many conservatives out there as we like to tell ourselves.
Pretty good idea, Anthony. It would also be fun to watch the "main stream" critics universally rip the product regardless of the quality.
ReplyDeleteI was just talking with someone about how their political satire sucks nowadays, and it's probably due to a few factors, including bias but also the fact that most of the writers are young people who don't follow politics (i.e. people not unlike me).
ReplyDeleteI still watch the show and, sadly, my criteria is this: if I laugh once, it's a success. The performers are actually very talented, but the writing is what's lacking.
As an aside, while I think Victoria Jackson's a nut, if I were running HBO, I'd give Dennis Miller the post-Maher slot. "Here's $XYZ, do whatever you want!"
tryanmax, I'd love to produce television... even for the net! As for the Matrix, yeah probably, but no more so than Trading Places. Plus, GE seems to be using Agent Smith in some of their ads lately...bizarrely.
ReplyDeleteJed, I feel the same. They lost me over the years because it just wasn't funny anymore. And then after Clinton left, their jokes because hyper-partisan.
ReplyDeleteLL, Sure it is, it blames everything on Bush! LOL!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/opinion/op-ed-and-you.html?pagewanted=1&smid=tw-share&_r=0
ReplyDeleteHey, here is how to get an Op/Ed article in the NYT...theynare looking to "diversify" the Opinion section.
Anthony, Thanks! I agree. SNL does not have a monopoly and conservatives would be smart to create a comedy show, but not a political hack show like you see on blogs. Conservatives need to reach out into the culture and bring a subtle but firm brand of conservatism into the culture.
ReplyDeleteBev, I am diversity incarnate! I am a conservative... something they don't even have on staff, much less writing for them! Somehow, however, I suspect that "diversity" means hard-core liberals with different skin pigmentation or gay Muslims in wheelchairs.
ReplyDeleteScott, I think the real problem is bias. They just can't find anything to poke fun at about leftists like Obama. Seriously, Obama is the low-hanging fruit of the political parody world and yet they are too blind even to pick that.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I did not know that. In that case, I think an additional running gag ought to be that the man's name is actually Andersen and he keeps trying to correct the Agent. The Agent, of course, only gets mildly flustered and more perturbed.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, LOL! It's too bad it wouldn't work to make his name"Tuttle." Then we'd have a real Brazil thing going.
ReplyDeleteYep, here's the commercial: LINK. It's actually a creepy ad. I wonder if they realized that?
Andrew, I don't think they thought that through very well. On the other hand... it is GE we're talking about.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. He's not at all likeable in the films so I'm not inclined to respect his opinion, plus he's supposed to be Satan, so choosing him seems all around stupid. But then, a lot of ad companies do a lot of stupid things with the false "any attention is good attention" idea.
ReplyDeleteIf you make fun of Obama you're a racist...plain and simple...as least I've been told that...by liberals.
ReplyDeleteAndrew,
ReplyDeleteIf Agent Smith is telling you to do something then that means the system is telling you to do something and if the system is telling you to do something you should do it.
Hey hey hey! That "SNL Slug" has a name, and his name is Jason Sudeikis. Manners!
ReplyDeleteHowdy, everybody. Critch, yep, I've heard that too. But I don't really accept that, nor do I care about liberals whining about racism. To the contrary, it's racist to pretend that black presidents are so inferior that they can't stand being made fun of.
ReplyDeleteKit, Always do what the system tells you.
ReplyDeleteWait, did I say "always?" I meant "never." Yes, never is the correct answer.
T-Rav, They have names? I thought they were "Chimp One," "Chimp Two" and so on?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of SNL, they did a comment on this story a while back on their Weekend Update, I bet you don't see a retraction. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2467626/Man-accused-writing-n---check-denies-writing-hires-handwriting-expert-up.html It's pretty bad when I have to go to a foreign internet news site to find this.
ReplyDeleteCritch, That's the thing about sensationalism -- you never issue a retraction because you want people to keep thinking something is true. And among liberals, if they are called out, they just explain it as "well, it could have been true."
ReplyDeleteHere's an interesting article which further points to the idea that the Republicans are moving away from the fringe because the fringe overplayed their hand:
ReplyDeleteLINK
Here are some keys:
Sources close to Boehner say the Speaker feels emboldened by scores of GOP lawmakers who have privately admitted they made a mistake by endorsing Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) strategy during the shutdown battle.
Going forward, the House GOP intends to highlight the flaws of ObamaCare, but it will not factor into a government shutdown scenario in mid-January, the next fiscal deadline.
****
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) said that Cruz and outside conservative interest groups calling the shots “really hurt themselves within the institution and conservative Republicans because they did more harm than good.”
The defund-ObamaCare-at-any-cost advocates harmed their cause last week when a key strategist fueling the Ted Cruz fire conceded that the House couldn't win the fight to repeal the president's signature law until after the 2016 elections.
Heritage Action President Michael Needham outraged GOP lawmakers when he said on Fox News Channel “everybody understands that we’re not going to be able to repeal this law until 2017."
A sophomore GOP lawmaker, Rep. Tom Reed, said his party is “passionate about repealing ObamaCare,” but questioned "why would you take us down the path and tell everybody in America we can do this?”
That article was good to read, Andrew. These past few weeks have been very discouraging, to say the least. Hopefully this is a sign of real change... A lot of times it seems like for every step the Republicans take forward, they fly back on a springboard.
ReplyDelete- Daniel
Daniel, I hope so. Either way, we are still in the middle of a Republican Civil War and that won't end until after 2014. But I think the right side will win.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Daniel, Cruz has spent the weekend blasting the GOP on all fronts. Freedom Works has too. I think it's undeniable that things are getting uglier. But the good news is that the GOP is fighting back this time. I'm very sure that the key will be the McConnell election. Even Palin has jumped into that one now.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I'm surprised about these developments... The fringe really is getting worse and worse. I hope the pushback you mention is enough to start turning the tide. I''ve been worrying about what will happen if it's not enough,as well as what will happen if the fringe is finally shut down. Does it look like they've got the potential to put together a good agenda yet?
ReplyDelete- Daniel
Andrew
ReplyDeleteWe don't need skits... I mean you can just play news footage of Obama saying Corpseman and talking about 57 states... you can't mock Obama as he is self mocking....
Daniel, They is getting worse and worse. It's reached a point where it really does mimic insanity. Some of the people I know are doing the most amazing mental gymnastics to keep up their enemy lists, and they should frankly be ashamed of a lot of the truly hateful things coming out of their mouths. Talk radio is just as bad. Not only does it reek of hateful propaganda, but they are even starting to use cartoonish cadences. It's like they have decided to model themselves on Hollywood versions of Nazis.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I do think the tide is turning and that's for the good. Though I suspect it will cost us the House in 2014. So that will be very bad.
Unfortunately, there is no agenda yet and no one is really talking about one. All they are concerned with right now is not doing what the fringe wants. That could change though. Right now, they are only finally finding the nerve to stand up to the fringe. Over time, I assume they will take the next step in becoming a party again.
Indi, He is indeed self-mocking, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun with him.
ReplyDelete