So if you watched the most recent
episode of Saturday Night Live, you
may have seen a sketch that aired after Weekend
Update about a group of Tina Turner impersonators performing on a river
boat. SNL is now coming under fire
with claims from a comedy troupe from the Groundlings, a popular theatre and
comedy school in Los Angeles, that the show ripped off their sketch. I stated in
my last post that the “River Sisters” sketch was a favorite of mine and I still
stand by my opinion despite the plagiarism allegations. While writing this
post, however, I’m trying to keep my SNL
bias out of this post and focus on the similarities and differences between the
two sketches. I’ve read just about every article that talks about the
controversy and I’ve also watched both sketches a number of times. I’ve come to
the conclusion that the only thing people are concerned about is that the
concept of both sketches are similar, the costumes are very similar and the
same song is used in both sketches. The jokes are different and the length of
the sketches are different. The only thing I would accuse these sketches of doing
is causing “Proud Mary” to be stuck in my head all day. SNL’s focused more on the production while The Groundlings focused,
I think, more on the voices of the characters more than anything.
I did notice that some of the facts were
different throughout all the articles. For example, the time period when the
comedy troupe performed the sketch in question. Some articles said this sketch
was performed over the summer while other articles said this sketch was
performed in September. Something else I thought was sketchy (pun intended) was
that the comediennes and their teacher at The Groundlings posted about the
sketch one to two days after the episode aired. Regardless of whether or not
they watched the episode in real time, this makes them look like they want their
fifteen minutes of fame. Ian Gary, a teacher at The Groundlings, has stated in
several interviews that he likes SNL
but states that they’re always stealing jokes and sketches from other
comedians. Gary also states that this “isn't an attack on SNL.” I think if you’re going to make a big deal out of the show
allegedly ripping off a sketch done by a couple of your students, you pretty
much are attacking the show. Though most of the articles I’ve read have pointed
the finger at SNL, I want to know why
both groups wanted to do this kind of sketch in the first place. I do want to
hear SNL’s side of the story and how
the idea for this sketch was pitched.
Overall, I think this controversy was
blown a little out of proportion. I think that everyone’s making a big deal
over nothing. Sketch ideas are going to be recycled over and over again and
this group at The Groundlings wasn’t the first group to do this kind of sketch.
This kind of sketch has probably been performed by other comedians at other
theatres like iO, UCB, and Second City. SNL
also did a sketch like this about twenty years ago when Jan Hooks and Nora Dunn
played their characters, jazz singers the Sweeney Sisters. Regarding the sketch
in question, SNL did not copy the
sketch word for word. The two sketches were similar and there’s no denying that
fact. If SNL did completely rip off
the sketch word for word, then that would be a different story. In my opinion,
I think this was pure coincidence and I don’t think anybody at SNL would deliberately steal material
from another comedian.
I’ve included links to both sketches.
What do you think of the controversy? Is SNL
guilty of plagiarism? Not guilty? You can be the judge of that.
SNL:
The Groundlings:
Thanks for reading!
Lauren
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