Isn't She Lovely

Warning: This post contains some damn good political satire.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't like Tina Fey? She's the best answer to series of so-so SNL regulars of late that I've seen in a while. Sure, Steve Carell is gold at times, but Will Ferrell is so tragic it's no longer even slightly funny, and guys like Dan Fogler are just far too like Chris Farley for me. Even if they do well on the show, so many of them do so badly off it that it's not really much of a "launching pad" anymore.

But Tina shows there is a light at the end of the unamusing tunnel. 30 Rock is a great show - great like Scrubs, Seinfeld and Family Guy in their heydays. It's the best thing to happen to sitcoms since Arrested Development, and the day they decided to cancel Two & A Half Men (not yet, sure, but that day will come, and I'll be there with the ticker tape).
Her debut movie lead Baby Mama didn't rake in the box office results, probably because people probably thought it was a real chick flick rather than a comedy-with-minor-love-story, and it went up against Sex & The City and lost. I saw it on a plane a few weeks ago and it was easily better than Get Smart and probably mildly beat Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which also has some awesome comic talent, but the ultimately doesn't use them to their funny-potential). The story is a little predictable but it's not about that - its the sparks flying between Tina Fey and fellow SNLer Amy Poehler (also the mum in Mean Girls) that is worth the watch. Steve Martin is also possibly the funniest I've seen him ever (possibly because this is not a "Steve Martin movie"). Anyway, Fey vs. Poehler. Successful-but ultimately-way-too-uptight-businesswoman in a surrogate mother relationship with white-trash-party-slut. I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.

Probably though the role that has put Tina's name on everyone's lips this year has been her parody of Republican VP-hopeful (well, she might hope, but we don't) Sarah Palin. Her feminist address with a parodical Hillary Clinton was eerily spot-on, while also hilarious. But it's the "Biden vs. Palin" debate parody SNL aired last week that has me in stitches.

The pretext for the parody is that neither candidate really debated one another, they merely said what they had rehearsed and come there to say. For Biden it was finding ways to attack McCain (a fair strategy, as people are voting for him and Palin doesn't need attacking, she takes her rifle to her own foot quite deftly). In Sarah's case, she'd got all the lines memorised, but seemed to forget she was supposed to adapt them to the question. Nevermind, she delivered them anyway.
Tina nailed Sarah so subtly in this sketch and yet so obviously that its comic genius. It's a pisstake, but it'd be damn hard to argue any point was slander or political smearing. It's also nice to see Biden made fun of too - after all, this isn't about picking sides, this is about laughing at the stupidity of people!

Here's the vid - my mate Eion says he can't load it, but so far he's the only one who's had trouble. Enjoy.


While we're on the topic of SNL, here's one of my favourite sketches from them: "Maraka", the fantastic parodia de Dora. Es muy hilaranta ;)