michaela-watkins

Mocking Arianna The Way She Deserves To Be Mocked

Alex Carnevale · 11/23/08 10:00AM

On the heels of reports her megablog Huffington Post has received $15 million in venture capital funding, Arianna Huffington got the SNL treatment last night, and it was...really tame. New performer Michaela Watkins captured the details of the HuffPo founder as well as she did in her audition tape, but it missed out on so much of what's really meaningful about Arianna — you know, callous mistreatment of those under her employ, and a fondness for cults. Click for Ms. Watkins — and Arianna's — Weekend Update debut.Click to view She got the accent and nonsense-making fairly right, but what about Arianna's legendary pettiness? Hopefully next time we see Arianna, she'll be huddled over three BlackBerrys in her bathroom sobbing. All things considered, we preferred the original audition:

Hoax Revealed, New Faces on SNL, and Gay Superheros

cityfile · 11/13/08 10:45AM

♦ The Times has the skinny on "Martin Eisenstadt," the supposed McCain consultant who leaked info to the press. (He's an aspiring filmmaker, not surprisingly.) In the meantime, MSNBC's retracted its story. [NYT, AP]
♦ You might be enjoying CW's Stylista, but the ratings thus far haven't been especially encouraging. [NYO]
♦ Two new cast members, Michaela Watkins and Abby Elliott, will join Saturday Night Live beginning this weekend. [NYT]
♦ Showtime is developing an hour-long show by Stan Lee about a gay superhero. [Variety]

Estrogen Deficient 'SNL' Adds Two More Women to Its Cast

Kyle Buchanan · 11/12/08 03:38PM

Though MADtv was canceled today, elder sketch comedy statesman Saturday Night Live is still flying high — so high, in fact, that they've finally gotten around to addressing that whole "lack of women" thing! Season breakout Tina Fey wasn't actually a cast member this year (and won't be stopping by anymore), while utility player Amy Poehler is on Archibald-assisted leave, bound for Office-related parts unknown. So what two Los Angelenos has Lorne Michaels brought on to take some of the weight off Kristen Wiig and Casey Wilson?First, we have 21-year-old Abby Elliott (above left), daughter of Chris Elliott (let's hope her tenure goes over better than her dad's brief, mid-90's SNL stint). Abby may be familiar to fans of UCB's Midnight Show, but we discovered her at Defamer back in 2006! Here's Abby playing a quavery-voiced Kirsten Dunst in the impression that won our hearts: