Elon Musk Teased on Twitter with Ideas for SNL Comedy Sketches (sfgate.com) 65
"Always the innovator, Elon Musk is crowdsourcing ideas for his upcoming Saturday Night Live appearance," writes USA Today.
SFGate reports: Both Musk fans and critics weighed in, with the tweet drawing over 4,500 quote tweets at time of publication (and 113,000-plus likes from his devotees). One of the top responses skewered his recent move to Texas.
"How about a skit where a selfish billionaire has a tantrum and makes a showy to-do about moving his factory to another state, but that new state is so dysfunctional it has a third-world power grid and runs out of electricity to run his factories and cars? That would be hilarious...."
As a result of his controversial image, "SNL" announced that cast members will not be required to act alongside him if it makes them uncomfortable. No cast member has publicly decline to perform yet, but cast member Chris Redd did jump into the Twitter fray to correct Musk on his use of the word "skit."
Page Six describes more of the suggestions from Twitter: Some commenters suggested ideas, including, "Extraterrestrials found your Tesla Roadster sent to space in 2018 & are trying to figure out what it is," "You play Chris Hansen on "To Catch a PP loan" with Ross Gerber," and, "Something about how it is all a simulation," while many of the responses to Musk's tweets were real zingers.
"You meeting with SNL writers using the same motivational techniques you use with $TSLA engineers. Elon: I need this done tomorrow or you're fired. SNL Writer: In your dreams a-hole," one user responded.
SFGate reports: Both Musk fans and critics weighed in, with the tweet drawing over 4,500 quote tweets at time of publication (and 113,000-plus likes from his devotees). One of the top responses skewered his recent move to Texas.
"How about a skit where a selfish billionaire has a tantrum and makes a showy to-do about moving his factory to another state, but that new state is so dysfunctional it has a third-world power grid and runs out of electricity to run his factories and cars? That would be hilarious...."
As a result of his controversial image, "SNL" announced that cast members will not be required to act alongside him if it makes them uncomfortable. No cast member has publicly decline to perform yet, but cast member Chris Redd did jump into the Twitter fray to correct Musk on his use of the word "skit."
Page Six describes more of the suggestions from Twitter: Some commenters suggested ideas, including, "Extraterrestrials found your Tesla Roadster sent to space in 2018 & are trying to figure out what it is," "You play Chris Hansen on "To Catch a PP loan" with Ross Gerber," and, "Something about how it is all a simulation," while many of the responses to Musk's tweets were real zingers.
"You meeting with SNL writers using the same motivational techniques you use with $TSLA engineers. Elon: I need this done tomorrow or you're fired. SNL Writer: In your dreams a-hole," one user responded.
Who (Score:5, Insightful)
Fun fact (Score:4, Interesting)
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The good news is nobody is forcing you to watch it.
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No, but see - Elon asked for feedback on some sketch/skit ideas and then SOME PEOPLE WERE ASSHATS ON TWITTER.
See? That's why an article had to be written! Totally man-bites-dog.
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The guy called a world-renounced cave rescue expert, who was actually in the process of saving children's lives, a *pedophile* because the expert had correctly pointed out that Musk's metal 'rescue pod' would not fit into the cave complex in question. Caves that the expert had already been inside and were dangerous enough to have already killed a member of the Special Forces.
Musk has never formally apologised for doing that.
China (Score:2)
He could use... (Score:1)
Good or bad (Score:5, Insightful)
SNL will likely get their best ratings of the year on this, even if it's just like racing fans showing up to see any crashes, and I suppose that was Lorne's intent all along...
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It was probably Musk's idea, and he probably paid royally for the honor.
Re: Good or bad (Score:1)
Musk is the new Howard Hughes. He hasn't entered fhe late stark raving mad and living in a Las Vegas highrise stage yet, but he's got various Spruce Goose projects already going.
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Why not Jeff Bezos? They are virtually the same person.
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And he has more hair than he had in the 1990s!
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SNL will likely get their best ratings of the year on this
They would get better ratings if they hadn't alienated 50% of their potential audience by being flaming liberals. I keep my politics to myself when I'm at work. I would watch SNL if they would do the same.
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First off it's closer to 25-30%
And SNL has always been political, Chevy Chase mocked Gerald Ford, Phil Hartman played Reagan and Clinton, Dana Carvey's famous Bush impression, Wil Ferrell and W Bush.... 30+ years later it's still on the air so I guess they don't necessarily need those people to watch to succeed?
And guess what, comedy will always tilt leftwards culturally and politically, by it's very nature, throughout history.
Re:Man, the left really can't meme or tell jokes (Score:5, Informative)
Man, the left really can't meme or tell jokes...
Ask Tucker Carlson about Jon Stewart some time.
Re:Man, the left really can't meme or tell jokes (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you want to start an argument on which side of the political and cultural spectrum the vast majority of influential comedy has come from throughout history..
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I don't think you want to start an argument on which side of the political and cultural spectrum the vast majority of influential comedy has come from throughout history..
30 years ago-- hell, maybe 20 years ago-- this would have been absolutely correct. Today it's not quite so simple.
Here's a brief list of comedians who have stated, very publicly and very emphatically, that they think "political correctness" has gone too far and that it is killing comedy: George Carlin. John Cleese. Gilbert Gottfried. Mel Brooks. Chris Rock. Bill Maher. Stephen Fry. Jerry Seinfeld. (That's off the top of my head. If I did some googling, I'm sure I could come up with a truly impress
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You do know there is far more to the cultural and political left end of the spectrum than ones feelings on "political correctness", a term that has almost zero defined concrete parlance for what it actually defines. Also none of it has "killed comedy" as comedy is still around, stand-ups still perform, comedy shows still are on the air.
What the public defines as acceptable has and will always change and comedy changes along with it. That's the funny thing about a "culture war", it's unwinnable by either
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You do know there is far more to the cultural and political left end of the spectrum than ones feelings on "political correctness", a term that has almost zero defined concrete parlance for what it actually defines.
That's absolutely true, and I thought I had succeeded in getting that point across in my post. Maybe it wasn't clear.
Also none of it has "killed comedy" as comedy is still around, stand-ups still perform, comedy shows still are on the air.
The phrase "this is killing comedy" is lifted from a Mel Brooks interview. It's a Borscht Belt kind of phrase (cf. "You know this is killing your mother?"), obviously not meant to be taken literally. Nothing can kill comedy. But you sure as hell can have a dampening effect. Comedians are saying out loud that they're afraid to attempt edgy material-- Pete Davidson has mused, in interviews
Re:Man, the left really can't meme or tell jokes (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, modern SNL is shit and all but I can count the number of successful conservative comedians in this country on one hand. Our country's conservatives are generally not comedically gifted at all.
How bout one where a billionaire... (Score:5, Interesting)
How bout one where a billionaire uses his personal wealth to end hunger and create an efficient system for providing access to clean water to every human on earth... ...and then, as a twist, it's not a skit but he really does that.
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I mean, people would still hate him all the more for it, but it would be a really good thing for a billionaire to do.
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Re: How bout one where a billionaire... (Score:1)
Oh you silly goose... Look at Bill Gates! He manages to superficially do that, while *still* having it be a typical billionaire act that isn't really about anyone but him, when you look deeper.
Ttmhey all have foundations and "philathropic" things. Because that's by far the best tax dodge. Like any "expenses" that really just end up benefiting you again.
Say you give a lot of money to fight malaria. But you give it to businesses that you got shares in, and the business hence growing amplifies your money, so y
Re: How bout one where a billionaire... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's pretty much standard for any Giving Pledge signatory (which Musk is).
1. Found companies that do really well.
2. Hold onto your stock until you think the market really grasps their true potential. I.e.: if you think a billion dollars today that you plan to give away is going to be worth ten billion in a decade, you're not going to give it away today; you're going to wait a decade so you can do more with it.
3. Retire and slowly start divesting over your remaining decades, and allocating the divestment proceeds toward things that you think are good for the world or humanity.
4. Try to time things so most of your assets have been divested by the time of your death
Gates, older and retired, is of course further along on this. I expect Elon to retire from Tesla somewhere around the 2030 timeframe, maybe a few years before that, once most of the world's conversion to EVs and battery grid storage is complete. I suspect he'll want to stay focused on SpaceX for longer, since that will continuously be breaking new ground, and where the largest fraction of his divestment will get directed (Mars settlement). It should be noted that despite how much Gates (in his retirement / cash-generating divestment phase) gives away, he still spends far more on himself than Musk does. Even before Musk sold his homes, his total combined property assets were worth less than just Gates' largest home alone.
Most of the world's wealthiest people are Giving Pledge signatories and are somewhere along the above spectrum. The most notable exception is Bezos, who is not a signatory (although his ex-wife is).
Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
I look at this as NBCL has everything to lose by putting on a terrible public speaker, and Musk is just going to shrug it off and keep making rockets and cars.
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Leslie Jones is getting work and her stand up is pretty funny.
John Mulaney, Keenan Thompson, Leslie Jones (Score:2)
I'm bad with names, there are probably others. What do you consider break out? Several of the women were in the awful Ghostbusters remake.
Leslie Jones is in commercials now. Mulaney has Netflix specials, Keenan has a sitcom. I'm sure they were well paid all around.
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Even in comedy, I don't think SNL is nearly as relevant as it used to be. Who was the last cast to go on to have a real breakout career? Maybe Bill Hader?
While I think everyone will agree SNL is shit, it's probably more about changes to an industry attempting to reign in control over their laborers with restrictive contracts and less enticements. A pretty common conspiracy theory is that pop stars are characters played by multiple people for a reason: pretty much every business tries to remove indispensable people for the sake of carrying on without them.
Cancerous cancer growing on cancer. (Score:1, Troll)
He really has no clue how cringey he is, does he?
This is peak cringe. To cringe on a level no man has cringed before.
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See, that's "innovation".
Just turn on SNL auto pilot (Score:2, Flamebait)
I have to question (Score:5, Insightful)
"Always the innovator" and "Elon Musk is crowdsourcing ideas". If you can't see how he's clearly not the one doing the innovating, you shouldn't be writing articles about him.
SNL is such a has-been of network TV (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm really surprised it's still on TV at all... except I guess there's still a market out there for anyone daring to make fun of well-known figures, even if it's poorly done?
Elon's smart for leveraging the media anyplace he can, especially when he runs a business that spends nothing on traditional advertising. But someone really thought it was "hilarious" to write a skit about him getting disgusted with liberal policies in CA and moving the business to TX? There's really no humor at all in that, when you understand what the complaint was about. The power outage situation in TX was thanks to corrupt folks put in charge of regulating that industry, and really not directly because of TX promoting more a more business-friendly environment.
Whatever.... I've long ago quit watching SNL and felt like my IQ was slowly draining out of my brain when someone insisted I watch a random recent skit of theirs from a video stream.
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Um, making a skit that forces a billionaire who acts like a baby https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0... [nytimes.com] to play himself acting like a baby is hilarious. At the end they can even show him not giving a toss about the 450 employees he got infected with Covid because he kept his California Tesla plant open in defiance of local rules https://www.theverge.com/2021/... [theverge.com] or the chain reaction of infection that followed that likely infected thousands of more people.
Sure, modern SNL is shit but I think most people would fi
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The "someone" who thought it would be hilarious was Ms Betty Bowers.
This is not a real person. Betty is a character "America's Best Christian" on youtube. She uses this position to satirize the modern right, particularly by pointing out hypocrisy. I don't think that she really intended anyone to film such a sketch, she was just mocking which is what she does.
https://www.youtube.com/channe... [youtube.com]
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Texas is a good location. (Score:2)
Austin Texas is a good location for the factory.
Texas is big and wide open, so there is room to put a large complex there.
Austin Area has an educated workforce, as well enough of those "Liberal" Benefits to attract younger educated people to the area.
Texas, being in the Mid-West, and the Golf of Mexico. Means there is shipping, trains, and closer to more economic areas in the United States.
I personal don't care for the politics of Texas, and their management has a lot to be desired. But that is a minor pr
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as well enough of those "Liberal" Benefits to attract younger educated people to the area.
Of course those same people attracted by the "liberal benefits" Austin most definitely provides would likely find everything outside of the city's immediate area extremely different. They would not have that problem in Alameda.
Plus, I think most people would take California Bay Area weather over Austin Texas weather any day of the week.
Years ago I remember talking to a friend who had just moved back to California from New Orleans. He moved back because while he loved living in the city he couldn't stand wha
Skit Idea (Score:2)
I can see him standing next to his "unbreakable window" cyber truck again. Then suddenly a big wrecking ball comes swinging in and breaks the window. Musk is like, "Oh not again!" as they cut to Miley winking in the crane.
Tesla lifeform on Earth (Score:2)
"Extraterrestrials found your Tesla Roadster sent to space in 2018 & are trying to figure out what it is,"
Aliens think the car+person is the highest lifeform on earth. The aliens start communicating with Teslas causing the cars to become sentient, and humans become support for the cars who are finally able to establish a Tesla civilization on Mars!
awesome (Score:1)
An Actor (Score:1)
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