 Starring: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Dax Shepard, Romany Malco
Director: Michael McMullers
Year Of Release: 2008
Plot: Businesswoman Kate decides she wants to have a baby, however she doesn’t have a man and discovers she isn’t able to conceive. As a result she decides to find a surrogate mother for her child, through an agency that promises they rigourously screen potential ‘womb donors’. However the woman Kate gets turns out to be quite a handful, particularly after she leaves her husband and asks to move in. It also turns out despite claiming to be pregnant with Kate’s child, that may not be true. |
It’s difficult to imagine what the comedy film world would look like now if it weren’t for Saturday Night Live. In the 34 years that the live sketch-comedy show has been running in the US, it’s produced a ridiculous amount of the comedy world’s top stars, including Baby Mama actors Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Will Forte.
Although it’s well known that people like Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy started out on the show, it’s worth looking at a list of who else has been part of the Saturday Night Live cast, just because it’s amazing so many famous names were discovered and/or schooled by a single show. Former SNL-ers include Chevy Chase, Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, David Spade, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Farley, Jon Lovitz, Dan Akyroyd, Adam Sandler, John Belushi, Rob Schneider, Bill Murray, Kristen Wiig, Chris Rock, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Harry Shearer, James Belushi, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, Robert Downey Jr., Sarah Silverman, Jeneane Garofalo, Damon Wayans, Joan Cusack, Randy Quaid, Martin Short, Tim Meadows, Chris Kattan, Maya Rudolph and Ben Stiller.
It’s one hell of a list, although it ought to be said, not all of them had the best of times on SNL. Sarah Silverman was fired by fax after one season as a writer and featured player, due to the fact that none of her sketches ever made it into the show. Damon Wayans meanwhile only made it through a few episodes until he got thrown off the series, for turning a sketch about a straight cop into one about a flamboyantly gay one instead.
Even us Brits have got in on the act, with brief SNL stints in the past for the likes of Pamela Stephenson and Morwenna Banks.
Among comedy performers, Saturday Night Live is seen as such an incredible platform to show off your talents and make a name for yourself, that there are plenty of other comedy stars who’ve auditioned for the show at one point or another before they were famous and failed to get hired. These include Jim Carrey, John Goodman, Geena Davis, Steve Carell, Johnny Knoxville, Dane Cook and Lisa Kudrow.
However the importance of the show isn’t just in finding new comedy stars, as the numbers of writers and director who’ve gone on to have major cinema success after working on the show is also impressive. The reason Baby Mama is filled with former SNL talent is partly because it was written and directed by a former writer for the show, Michael McMullers, who also worked with former cast member Mike Meyers on the screenplays for the Austin Power sequels.
In fact it’s not uncommon for bands of SNL-ers to break off and head off to Hollywood together. For example, when Will Ferell made his first movie, Anchorman, he did it alongside former Saturday Night Live head writer Adam McKay, who co-wrote and directed the movie. They’ve continued the partnership with Tallageda Nights, Step Brothers and the upcoming The Other Guys. Even on his non-McKay movies, Ferrell often brings in people he worked with on SNL to punch up the script (such as with Land Of The Lost), trusting that they know exactly how to make the most of his talents.
Others who’ve worked as writers on Saturday Night Live include Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), Larry David (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm), Greg Daniels (who took The Office to the US, as well as being a producer on The Simpsons during its early days), Mike Judge (King Of The Hill), Conan O’Brien, and comedian Rich Hall.
Baby Mama star Tina Fey is a particularly illustrious SNL alumni. She was originally hired as a writer on the show in 1997 and in 1999 became the series’ first female head writer (taking over from Adam McKay). The following year it was decided to let her perform on camera and shortly afterwards she became a full cast member.
Since then she’s written the great teen movie Mean Girls, and has won numerous awards for the sitcom 30 Rock – about the head writer of an SNL type series – in which she stars, as well as writing and producing.
It really does seem that SNL is like America’s comedy school, and while Baby Mama may not be a masterpiece, it’s a good example of the sort of talent the series has produced.
It also seems that cast members from Saturday Night Live making a break for the big screen is far from over, as current cast member, Will Forte, has just completed filming the lead role in the movie MacGruber, based on a series of SNL sketches about a bumbling, MacGyver style secret agent. The film also stars fellow SNL-ers Maya Rudoph, Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader, and marks the directing debut of one of the show’s writers, Jorma Taccone. MacGruber is due out in 2010, and we’ll just have to see whether it marks the breakout hit for yet more SNL comedians.
TIM ISAAC
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