Paterson Not Happy With SNL Skit
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- December
- 15
Governor Paterson is not pleased with Saturday Night Live over their skit about him, which makes fun of his blindness and his admission of previous use of cocaine.
“I can take a joke. But only 37% of disabled people are working and I’m afraid that that kind of third-grade humor certainly adds to this atmosphere,” he told the Daily News yesterday. “Let’s just say I don’t think it helped.”
Disability rights groups are also upset over the skit, below.
The National Federation of the Blind told The Associated Press that the skit, which features SNL cast member Fred Armisen playing Paterson, is a slight on blind people.
The skit showed Paterson confused about where the cameras were and holding up a chart about the economy upside down. Armisen playing Paterson was asked about picking a replacement for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat and said:
“It’s time we get someone from Utica, Syracuse or Schenectady – towns where people have something a little off about them. I mean, they don’t have to be blind. I just need someone with like a gamey arm or maybe the giant gums with the tiny teeth.”
The fake Paterson then says about replacing former Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March that the next senator, like him, must “be caught totally off guard and be comically unprepared to take office.”
“Come on, I’m a blind man who loves cocaine who was suddenly appointed governor of New York. My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie.”
Later in the Weekend Update, the fake Paterson wanders in front of the camera during cast member Amy Poehler announces she is leaving the show.
Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield issued a statement saying that “the governor is sure that ’Saturday Night Live,’ with all of its talent, can find a way to be funny without being offensive. “Knowing the governor, he might even have some suggestions himself.”
This entry was posted
on Monday, December 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am by Joseph Spector.
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“My life is an actual plot from a Richard Pryor movie”
Sorry, but this skit was hilarious. Too bad the Gov can’t take a joke…
If I were the governor I would be more upset about the cocaine jokes. If my memory serves me right I don’t remember anyone being judgmental about the skits when McCain can’t lift his arm above his shoulders during the election. There is nothing handicap about the governor of New York. He is a governor who happened to become the governor by default and also happens to be legally blind. If Saturday night live wants to turn that into a joke. I don’t see what the problem is…...
I have to agree with the governor…the snl wasn’t really
funny…joking about physical disabilities is not exactly
what i would call humor…they could have been a little
more circumspect and still have gotten some laughs…
Not funny at all. I love to see pols get skewered, including him. but SNL writers need a shakeup. Where’s Phil Hartman when we need him? (I know where he is, by the way, for those who are itching to respond.) Even that birdbrain Washington wannabe, Stuart Smalley is funnier than anyone on the present crew.
The skit was the cool. It was terrific.
Humor is based on life experiences in the negative and positive. It is not unusual for SNL to do humor based on a person’s weaknesses. It has been done for years. Some say it is sick humor but for those that do not like it, why are you watching it. Just shut off the Boob Tube and go to sleep.