Gadgetory

Saturday Night Live is a cultural institution in the 39 years since the show first aired audiences have moved from analogue sets to the Internet Saturday Night Live is no longer confined to Saturday night so as the show is gearing up for its Christmas episode we sat down with cast member Taran Killam to talk about the evolution of SNL and his new comic book the illegitimate Terran thank you much thank you let me start that again no we thank you much yeah thank you much oh thank you so my really thank you much you I thank you much it's Paula right yeah I miss arish I don't know it's a phraseology as all I'm saying this is exactly how I wanted to start it's perfect how are you doing I'm excellent help myself great great congratulations on an awesome season thank you buddy thanks yeah you're getting a recurring character with the jebadiah Atkinson yeah yeah you never know how does that how does that start with that that is that's a complete fluke that was a text from Seth the day of the show Saturday hey we have this idea for an update character come up to 9 and do a read-through if you can this afternoon and yeah the Seth and the update team wrote that and and we performed it less than 12 hours after I had first heard of the idea so you just never know it's funny cuz like a character like that a clip of that clip went kind of viral on the Internet is there any push for certain clips to go viral absolutely not yeah no that's the frustrating thing sort of as a performer like Warren come on make a t-shirt of that put it in the lobby but it really is so much of this show and what what people connect with is dictated just by the audience an audience responds and I could even tell that that hit more than any than other things from my own social circle when friends reach out through texts and stuff you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah it's exciting that your friends on the show the first year or maybe even the first few months but nobody's gonna text you know every week but that was one where a lot of people reached out to tell me how much they liked it this season it feels like we're seeing more pre tapes I certainly obviously the first season we had fake commercials with John Belushi is there a push for more pre tapes now yeah yes there is Lonely Island changed the game man but but truly what those guys accomplished is so amazing and it's they they connected in a huge way with it with a new generational audience you know this tech-savvy era social media society that we live in even though even though the sketches are normally around the same length there's something about the look of a pre-taped that matches so much of what people are saying online in terms of Funny or Die clips or stuff you'll find on YouTube so I think that's why those travel well and they do tend to be the this slightest bit shorter yeah and I would say in general pre tapes tend to have more of a musical element to and the biggest things online you know the things that get the most amount of hits or anything musical any music video you know that's all the stuff that people will play over and over again because they want to they want to listen to it writing the pre tapes does that start before the week because they're so big yeah when I came in lonely island had already achieved sort of Goliath status so their process was sort of like you know the producers would kind of go to them and hey what are you doing this week and they get to kind of go off and manage that but none of us have the track record that they do so people everybody's submitting stuff cast members are submitting pieces writers are submitting pieces for the table and then even then something might might happen later in the week what will also occur is that something that was pre taped a week previous maybe like played all right but didn't have the host in it it wasn't necessarily topic time-sensitive so that'll get delayed and they'll bring that back a week later and and do some additional reshoots that happened with mo Kiki myself and Matt nas are two of our pre tape directors just kind of went out on the street and just shot it ourselves most of it and calling in favors from people in different departments and casts wise and then it played pretty good it didn't have the host in it and the part that Anne Hathaway ended up playing was Vanessa Bayer okay so we did reshoot and then kind of beefed up and as well when we when we did it the next week you were saying about like YouTube and Hulu and also you mentioned like Funny or Die or above-average are these new platforms providing more opportunities for creative original content it is it's a very interesting time because someone in Kansas City can be their own distributor really you know and I mean if you have elbow grease and the idea and that and the equipment you can have people see your work you can make a TV show now to get people to watch it it has to be good yeah I mean and and so the television industry is run by professionals who have all put in their time and who have studied the craft and who are experts who they are professionals so I think that's why it still remains the go-to source for entertainment you know the sort of mainstream stuff but there is great stuff on the internet that that's done more independently and then they tend to just be immediately scooped up by by the evil corporation would you say that the FNL fan is different than a fan of say a sitcom or any other shows absolutely I myself am a fan of SNL and up in to up to the day before I got hired could tell you who is funny who was and what they should do more of what they should do less of because fans feel like they own the show and they do fans own the show right it's it's lauren has said often that it's the most like a sports team the TV show that's most like watching a sports team because a new roster comes in and there's game day on Saturday and you have a different performance every week and people you know follow their favorites and love you or hate you based on how good you were just in recent history so speaking of promoting you said yeah you have a new comic book I do yeah and this is creatively the thing that I'm by far most proud of it inspired comics in particular and and and things spurred from there be it animated series or movies are what inspired my imagination Ninja Turtles x-men Batman spider-man you know this is what made me want to play pretend this is what made me want to be other characters it's it's really why I am doing any of this so it's just also an art form that I respect so much it's a platform that I respect them that I love and then I end that I was very curious about too you know yeah the traditional trajectory of an SNL career is this into comedy movies or maybe a your own TV show after you know if you're lucky and I guess you know I'm not too worried about that right now cuz if it comes great and and you're only in so much control a comic book felt like something that I could manage more on my own as opposed to you know spreading myself super thin over very you know sort of like lofty goal of produce you know writing and starring in my own movie it's something I'd like to do down the line but but this just felt like a good first step into something that I love