‘SNL’ new season roars back by mocking Trump

Hannity to interview US president

NEW YORK, Oct 1, (Agencies): The new season of “Saturday Night Live” wasted no time getting topical — or mocking Donald Trump — with an opening sketch that featured Alec Baldwin skewering the president for his response to the hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico, threatening Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ job and mentioning his stand-off with the NFL.

“It’s all part of the plan. The more chaos I cause, the less people can focus”, Baldwin joked as Trump, wearing golf clothes in the Oval Office. “Let’s keep the chaos coming”.

In the sketch, Baldwin’s Trump was unclear that Puerto Rico was an American territory, hung up on the mayor of San Juan, put Sessions playfully on his lap and admitted he liked football. “People say I remind them of an NFL player because I’m combative, I like to win and I might have a degenerative brain disease”, Baldwin said. His Trump said he rewards loyalty but then ends the sketch palling around with US Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.

Trump was also a target on the show’s “Weekend Update”, with Colin Jost pointing out that hip-hop artist Pitbull was sending a private plane to help victims in Puerto Rico. “How is the president of the United States worse at humanitarian aid than Pitbull?”

Michael Che also got into the act: “This isn’t that complicated, man. It’s hurricane relief. These people need help. You just did this for white people twice. Do the same thing. Tell Melania to put on her flood heels”.

Musical guest Jay-Z had his own political statement when he wore Colin Kaepernick’s jersey number, a nod to the football player’s decision to kneel during “The Star-Spangled Banner” last season. Those were the only topical moments.

The comedy show hopes to build off one of its most-watched seasons in more than two decades thanks to Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy’s appearance as former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Both actors recently won Emmys for their work, as did Kate McKinnon, who played Hillary Clinton on the show, and on Saturday played Sessions and Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany.

Ryan Gosling was the host and in his opening monologue, which Emma Stone joined, made fun of himself as the guy “who saved jazz”, riffing off his role in “La La Land”. Gosling featured in some bizarre sketches, including romancing a chicken, overreacting to a restaurant menu switch, playing a flute player in a bar and a man obsessed with the font on the “Avatar” poster.

In the offseason, “Saturday Night Live” saw the departure of cast members Vanessa Bayer, Bobby Moynihan and Sasheer Zamata. Those remaining also include Cecily Strong, Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney, Leslie Jones and Kenan Thompson.

Sunday marked a quarter century since the Cartoon Network burst upon the pastel-colored landscape of American television animation, redefining the way kids’ entertainment was beamed into homes.

Launched when ratings for morning cartoons were dropping and “The Simpsons” was starting to dominate primetime, many thought Turner Broadcasting Systems’s $320 million purchase of the Hanna-Barbera library was lunacy.

But Ted Turner, whose company already owned extensive back catalogues from MGM and Warner Bros, believed there was a gap in the market for a round-the-clock, seven-day channel showing cartoons that young and old could enjoy.

His vision has been spectacularly vindicated, with CN growing from a modest start-up to one of cable TV’s most popular programmers, seen in around 100 million American homes and in more than 170 other countries.

“The thing that separates us is that we have artists driving the process here for everything”, chief content officer Rob Sorcher told AFP and other media outlets on a recent tour of its headquarters in Burbank, California.

“That is a fundamental difference from most other studios, because the artists are telling the stories through drawings. There aren’t scripts getting done in most cases, and then animators animating them”.

In its infancy, the network showed re-runs of “The Flintstones”, “The Jetsons”, “Scooby Doo Where Are You!”, “Tom and Jerry”, “Popeye” and many other classics.

It went into original programming with “The Moxy Show” in December 1993, following up with “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” and, from 1997, “Johnny Bravo”, which raised eyebrows with its adult humor but became iconic.

More recently the network has churned out numerous hits including “Steven Universe”, “Star Wars: Clone Wars”, “Powerpuff Girls”, “Regular Show” and “Adventure Time”.

“Ben 10”, its longest-running franchise about a boy that can turn into aliens, has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim, winning three Emmys, with the associated merchandising estimated to have been worth almost $5 billion.

Writer Steven T. Seagle, whose Man of Action Entertainment studio produces the show, said one of the challenges has been to crank up the pace for viewers who are getting increasingly quicker at devouring information in the smartphone age.

“When I was a kid, if I found out about something I liked, I’d have to go to a library which might take a day to get to. I’d have to find some book somewhere and read it”, he said.

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LOS ANGELES: Fox News Channel has announced that President Donald Trump will sit down for an interview with Sean Hannity on the host’s evening show.

The interview will take place in front of a group of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents at the Morgantown Theatre in West Virginia and air Oct 4 at 9:00 pm ET.

According to the press release, Hannity and Trump will discuss tax reform, the economy, and news of the day, and there will be time allocated for a Q&A session with the audience at the end of the interview. The interview will be pre-taped.

This is not the first time President Trump has been interviewed on “Hannity”. He was previously interviewed live by the Fox News host during the Republican primaries, as well as following his inauguration in January. His son, Donald Trump, Jr sat for an interview back in July to discuss his meeting with a Russian lawyer. The show was still on its 10:00 pm timeslot and his interview delivered strong ratings for the show.

Possible subjects of discussion under “news of the day” include the ongoing crisis in Puerto Rico, the resignation of HHS Secretary Tom Price, and Trump’s comments regarding NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem.