Dick in a box
Venerable old late-night creaker, Saturday Night Live (SNL) has shown a little life in the last year or so. In the past, they've revitalized the show by changing the cast and even then, by specific one-man wrecking crews like Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell or Mike Myers. This time, it's due to the machinations of funny man Andy Samberg who has added digital sketches to the show which are often distributed on YouTube, where they have garnered huge amounts of online accolades in the only appropriate manner--downloads.
Last year's "Lazy Sunday" video showing Samberg and Chris Parnell rapping about the Chronicles of Narnia while eating cupcakes started the trend, quickly followed by heavily-bleeped rap video starring Natalie Portman.
The NY Times has a story today rightly pointing out the trend-setting nature of another SNL short that was aired on Saturday starring Samberg and Justin Timberlake. This video called "Dick in a box", talks about what the two gentlemen have gotten their women for Christmas (hint: it's in a box). On the show, they bleeped the word "dick." But NBC, for the first time in broadcast history, side-stepped the censors by placing the unexpurgated version of the sketch on Youtube where it has been extremely popular.
This is fascinating stuff. Since the FCC as no jurisdiction over the Internet, broadcast TV can sidestep regulation on the Internet, the way Howard Stern did by going to satellite. I predict wide-spread usage of the tactit during the next broadcast year, making YouTube even bigger than it ever was before.
Posted on December 21, 2006
