SNL: Souping and Trampolining demonstrate aging show still has legs

Who knew souping and trampolining could be so good for business. In an era in which many consider Saturday Night Live to be at a historical low point or flat-out irrelevant, SNL’s sudden insertion last week of two new terms into the lexicon shows that for all its gradually faded cultural relevance in the three-plus decades it’s been on the air, the show still has some legs left after all. All it took was a ridiculous skit featuring Emma Stone, perhaps SNL’s most “Who the hell is that?” host in years, and a good old mocking of the rather unhumorous topic of local nightly TV news – and yet it worked beautifully.

Poking fun at the manner in which local TV news tends to exaggerate or misrepresent local happenings in order to scare small town folks into tuning in, the mock-news broadcast claimed to warning parents of the dangers of two disturbing new teenage trends. “Souping” consists of drinking expired soup in order to get high. “Trampolining” involves a boy, a girl, a trampoline, a rooftop, and we’ll leave it at that. These two words had no cultural meaning prior to last week. But thanks to the aging SNL still being able to occasionally step up and deliver, souping and trampolining have been topics of discussion all across the internet this week. Here’s hoping that those discussing these two punchlines don’t mistakenly think that they’re real phenomena.

SNL host Emma Stone accused of souping, trampolining, Brett Favre

Saturday Night Live host Emma Stone played the role of the dumbfounded student tonight in SNL’s devastating mock-up of a local television news broadcast, which made light of the fact that such broadcasts are often designed entirely to attempt to scare the locals into tuning in with sensationalistic and/or fabricated stories. The sketch had the local news claiming that local teenagers were participating in a disturbing new trend called “souping” in which they were supposedly getting high by drinking entire cans of expired soup. Emma Stone portrayed a high school student who had no idea what to make of the obviously fabricated story, while her mother (portrayed by Kristen Wiig) naturally believed the entire story from top to bottom.

The SNL sketch then went on to profile the made-up practice of “trampolining” in which teenagers are supposedly performing oral sex on each other via the boy sitting on the roof of a house while the girls jumps up and down on a trampoline. As if to drive home the point that local news broadcasts routinely make up scary-sounding local crises out of thin air without shame, the news station posted a “disturbing photo” of two teens performing trampolining, which was nothing more than a stick-figure drawing. Again, Emma Stone’s teenage character had no idea what the reporters were talking about, while her mother once again bought into the phony story.

Another sketch on SNL offered a spin on the recent Brett Favre controversy. Combining Favre’s long running blue jeans commercials with recent accusations of him exposing himself in photos led to a sketch in which Favre was promoting “open fly jeans.”

SNL tonight: who is Emma Stone? Kings of Leon contagious?

Emma Stone is set to introduce herself to the world tonight as the host of Saturday Night Live. The twenty-one year old Emma Stone (not Emma Watson, not Emma Roberts, not Sharon Stone, not Sly Stone) is best known for her role in the 2007 movie Superbad, which will almost certainly end up being SNL sketch fodder before the night is over. Fun fact: five years ago, Stone starred in the TV pilot for The New Partridge Family.

Meanwhile tonight’s SNL musical guest is Kinds of Leon, whose latest album Come Around Sundown debuted earlier this month with lead single Radioactive, which is sure to be one of the two songs the band performs tonight. Fans will find out if the band’s radioactive popularity is contagious when it comes to the rest of the episode. No word yet on whether the quartet, whose lineup consists of three Followill brothers and a Followill cousin, will make appearances in any of the sketches. Notable SNL musical guest cameos in sketches in the past year have included Katy Perry in her Elmo shirt, and Pearl Jam on an airplane. More…

SNL tonight: Amy Poehler hosts (again), Katy Perry returns with Elmo

Amy Poehler is hosting Saturday Night Live tonight, and Katy Perry is the musical guest. Wait a minute, didn’t we just do this a few weeks ago? That’s right, SNL tonight is a repeat of the season premiere. It’s not immediately clear why NBC is putting SNL into reruns so early in the new season, but in any case there are some highlights. The most memorable moment of the episode is when Katy Perry appears wearing a rather low-cut Elmo T-shirt in a sketch, aimed at poking fun at the fact that Sesame Street dumped her already-taped appearance with Elmo after outcry from conservatives despite the fact that Katy’s Sesame Street attire was harmless. Her Elmo-themed SNL attire, however, was a little more fun.

Next week Saturday Night Live returns to episodes which are, you know, live, with host Emma Stone and musical guest Kings of Leon. Money says KOL performs their new hit Radioactive, which you immediately spot thanks to its catchy refrain “It’s in the water.” In the mean time, here’s more on tonight’s SNL episode.