Saturday Night Live season 33

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Saturday Night Live had its thirty-third season, during the 2007-2008 television season on NBC. No new cast members were added to the show at the beginning of the season, and the entire cast from the thirty second season returned for Season 33. The 33rd season started on September 29, 2007 with LeBron James as host and Kanye West as musical guest, and ended on May 17, 2008 with Steve Carell as host and Usher as musical guest.

On November 5, 2007, after the Brian Williams/Feist episode, the Writers Guild of America went on strike. It was announced that SNL would air its next episode on November 10, 2007 (with host The Rock and musical guest Amy Winehouse), live on air, with a future episode to follow, featuring Jonah Hill and musical guest Kid Rock. However, on November 7, 2007, SNL's official website confirmed that those episodes were canceled and reruns would be seen beginning November 10, and would continue during the duration of the strike. The Rock/Winehouse show was canceled, along with the Jonah Hill/Kid Rock episode (though Jonah Hill would get a second opportunity, when he hosted the March 15th episode, with musical guest Mariah Carey).

During the strike on November 18, 2007, the cast of the show, along with host Michael Cera and musical guest Yo La Tengo performed an "episode" of the show entitled Saturday Night Live - On Strike! at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre (co-founded by current cast member Amy Poehler) in New York City. Every cast member except for Maya Rudolph appeared, with former cast members Horatio Sanz and Rachel Dratch and musician Norah Jones making cameo appearances. [1]. A similar performance of an episode of 30 Rock was held on November 19, 2007.

On February 12, 2008, the strike was announced to be officially over with a 92.5% vote to end it. Production continued on February 18, 2008 for the February 23, 2008 episode, hosted by former SNL castmember Tina Fey with musical guest Carrie Underwood.

Following the show's return from the strike, Maya Rudolph had left the show because she didn't have a contract to work with the show this year. New castmember Casey Wilson was hired as a featured player in January, but didn't appear until the Tina Fey/Carrie Underwood episode due to the strike.

Because of the 2007-2008 WGA strike, there are 12 episodes this season instead of the usual 20 (4 consecutive episodes were made between February 23 and March 15), making this season the shortest season in the series run, beating both seasons six (1980-1981 season) and 13 (1987-1988 season), which were also cut due to writers' strikes (but only had thirteen episodes each).

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Repertory players

[edit] Featured Players

[edit] Listings

[edit] Regular Airings

[edit] Prime-time Airings

  • December 8, 2007: 9:30 The Best of Will Ferrell
  • December 13, 2007: 9:30 SNL Christmas
  • December 15, 2007: 8:00 SNL Christmas
  • December 15, 2007: 9:30 The Best of Chris Farley
  • December 22, 2007: 8:00 The Best of 2006/2007
  • December 22, 2007: 9:30 SNL Goes Commercial ('aka' Best of Commercial Parodies)
  • April 22, 2008: 8:30 The Best of Chris Farley
  • June 15, 2008: 9:00 The Best of Mike Myers

[edit] Episodes

Episode
Number		 Date Host(s) Musical Guest(s) Remarks
625 (33.1) September 29, 2007 LeBron James Kanye West
  • In the live east-coast version, the opening credits were not announced until Seth Meyers' name appeared on-screen because Don Pardo's microphone was not turned on, but was revoiced after the show for the west-coast airing.
  • Amy Winehouse was originally scheduled to be the musical guest, but dropped out due to personal issues.
  • Kanye West performs singles "Stronger" and "Good Life" in his first performance. In his second performance he performed "Champion" and "Everything I Am", during which he messed up a line and then freestyled about it.
  • According to audience members, Chris Rock was in attendance along with NBC Dateline's Ann Curry and Chris Hansen.
  • NBC Nightly News Anchor and future host, Brian Williams attended the show along with his family.
  • According to audience members, Dan Aykroyd and Garrett Morris also attended.
  • During reruns of this episode, the dress rehearsal version of the Lyle Cane Show is aired excluding the live version. This also applies the same for Great Moments in Guidance Counseling sketch, which had an unseen part involving Kenan Thompson as the guidance counselor, and Kanye West as the younger version of himself.
626 (33.2) October 6, 2007 Seth Rogen Spoon
  • Chevy Chase makes his first appearance on Saturday Night Live in 6 years, with the original Update set re-created for him. His last appearance was 6 years prior to the day during the Weekend Update of the Seann William Scott/Sum 41 episode when he revived his old recurring character, The Landshark.
  • A cartoon was announced at the beginning credits, but was never shown due to time constraints. On repeats, the announcement of the cartoon was just cut out all together.
627 (33.3) October 13, 2007 Jon Bon Jovi Foo Fighters
  • Bon Jovi makes a special musical performance during Jon Bon Jovi's monologue and the credits, while Foo Fighters only made one musical performance, yet Foo Fighters were still the official musical guests.
  • Jack Nicholson was in attendance; he introduced Bon Jovi's end of show performance.
  • Will Ferrell was also in attendance for this show (according to audience members).
628 (33.4) November 3, 2007 Brian Williams Feist
  • Barack Obama made a special cameo during the cold opening. Obama also started show by "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!"
  • Former cast member Horatio Sanz returned to play Democratic hopeful Bill Richardson in the cold opening and another sketch.
  • Bono, Al Roker, and Matt Lauer appear in a digital short. Host Brian Williams was taping an interview with Bono for NBC during the week and asked him appear in the short.
  • In addition to hosting, Brian Williams fulfilled his Nightly News duties and moderated the Democratic debate on Tuesday.
  • Maya Rudolph's final episode as a cast member. It was not intended to be, and nobody knew she had departed until the show returned live in February 2008.
  • An announcement was made for the November 10th episode hosted by The Rock with musical guest Amy Winehouse, but the episode itself was canceled due to the 2007 WGA strike.
Writers Guild of America Strike
629 (33.5) February 23, 2008 Tina Fey Carrie Underwood
  • This is the first live episode to air after the show was put on hiatus in November due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike.
  • Fey is the third female cast member to return to SNL as a host (with Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the first and Molly Shannon as the second), the second one female SNL castmember (next to Molly Shannon) who used to work under Lorne Michaels, and the first female castmember who used to work as a Weekend Update anchor.
  • With this episode, Carrie Underwood is now the first American Idol winner to be a musical guest on SNL more than once (Underwood was the musical guest for last season's episode hosted by Peyton Manning).
  • Casey Wilson's first episode as a cast member.
  • Maya Rudolph did not make an appearance in this episode, and her name was left out of the opening credits. She does not have a contract with SNL this year and her long-time partner, director Paul Thomas Anderson, was nominated for an Oscar the following evening (Anderson lost to the Coen Brothers). [2]
  • Steve Martin made a cameo appearance during the opening monologue.
  • Governor Mike Huckabee made a cameo as himself during "Weekend Update".
  • Announcer Don Pardo made a rare on-screen appearance during the goodnights in celebration of his 90th birthday, which was celebrated the previous day.
  • This is the first of four consecutive live episodes produced after the end of the writer's strike.
630 (33.6) March 1, 2008 Ellen Page Wilco
  • The real Hillary Clinton appeared in the cold opening right after Amy Poehler impersonated her. She is the second Presidential candidate to say "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night" after Barack Obama.
631 (33.7) March 8, 2008 Amy Adams Vampire Weekend
  • Due to the daylight saving change, the show started to glitch after 12:30 during the East Coast airings.
  • Amy Adams and Kristin Wiig performed What Is This Feeling? from the musical Wicked in the opening monologue.
632 (33.8) March 15, 2008 Jonah Hill Mariah Carey
  • Jonah Hill was originally supposed to host SNL in November with musical guest Kid Rock, but the episode was canceled (along with the planned episode after the Brian Williams/Feist show hosted by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson with musical guest Amy Winehouse) due to the writers' strike
  • Janet Jackson was originally confirmed on air to be musical guest in the previous episode, but due to the flu, she declined on the Tuesday of the performance.[3]
  • Mariah Carey was confirmed right after Janet Jackson dropped out.
  • Long-time SNL writer and scribe of the current political sketches Jim Downey portrayed Andy Samberg's father, Ben Samberg in the SNL Digital Short.
  • T-Pain guested on Carey's second song.
  • This is the fourth (and last) live consecutive episode produced after the end of the writer's strike, which hasn't been done since 1976.
633 (33.9) April 5, 2008 Christopher Walken Panic at the Disco
  • This marks the first episode hosted by Christopher Walken that doesn't include his recurring character, The Continental, or his song-and-dance monologue.
  • Connecticut Senator and former 2008 Democratic Presidential Candidate Christopher Dodd made a guest appearance during the SNL Digital Short segment.
634 (33.10) April 12, 2008 Ashton Kutcher Gnarls Barkley
635 (33.11) May 10, 2008 Shia LaBeouf My Morning Jacket
636 (33.12) May 17, 2008 Steve Carell Usher
  • Steve Carell's wife Nancy Walls, herself a cast member in season 21, appears during the monologue.
  • Ricky Gervais appears as himself to introduce a clip from The Office Japan. Sudeikis, Wiig, and Thompson reprise their impressions of Jim Halpert, Pam Beesly, and Stanley Hudson respectively, with Hader appearing as Dwight Schrute.
  • Presidental canadate John McCain appears as himself in a sketch and Weekend Update.
  • Besides being the musical guest Usher appeared as himself in a sketch.
  • Young Jeezy Performed with Usher during his second performance.
  • As the camera swoops over the audience just before the monologue, Lorne Michaels can be briefly seen on the left hand side of the screen, standing just behind the audience.


Preceded by
Season 32		 Saturday Night Live
Season 33		 Succeeded by
Season 34


[edit] Sources

  1. ^ SNL stages two-hour live theatre show in Manhattan
  2. ^ SNL Casting For An Obama/Maya To not Be on February 23rd
  3. ^ Janet Jackson cancels because of the flu.