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1 Good Reason to Watch 'SNL' this Week
As Mental_floss lists go, this one is pretty short. Normally I'd have 5 or 6 reasons -- but now that Amy Pohler is off the show, Tina Fey probably won't be doing any more Palin impersonations, Maya Rudolph has moved onto greener pastures and Kristen Wiig, while hilarious, can't carry every sketch, I was hard-pressed to come up with even one. That is, until yesterday -- when I heard that my friend Michaela -- starting this Saturday -- will become SNL's newest cast member! Which is good news for everyone, not just Michaela (whose dream since childhood has been to be on SNL), because she happens to be uproariously funny.
So who is she? I thought it would be fun to give everyone a sneak peek -- she's been in LA's Groundlings comedy troupe for several years, and there are some really funny clips of sketches she wrote and stars in floating around, a few of which I'll share here. She's also got a recurring role on The New Adventures of Old Christine, in which she plays Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' brother's girlfriend. (It was only after Michaela was cast that they realized she bore an uncanny resemblance to Julia herself -- and made it into a plot point.) She also stars in a short I just directed for Absolut Vodka and Ecogeek.org, which will hopefully hit the interwebs in a few weeks.
Right now the most-watched clip of Michaela is a dead-on impression she does of Arianna Huffington, which is hilarious (and pictured above) but NSFW enough that I can't just embed it here. When Michaela's slightly less crazed with moving to New York on five minutes' notice and being funny on live TV in front of millions two days from now, I hope we'll be able to interview her here on the blog about what this whirlwind has been like, and perhaps get some fun behind-the-scenes of life at SNL. Until then, enjoy these few glimpses of its newest member!
Don't!
Michaela shows off her character skills as a hot-blooded Italian.
Open and Open Case
Michaela plays the passed-over lawyer. This one has a few NSFW words in it -- but it's hilarious!
After Dinner Music
Michaela plays the attention hog.