Well, it's possible that he was referring to Dr. Faye Miller, who may be more of a behaviorist than a "shrink", per se, but who obviously has some formal training in psychology, and whose role in Don's life was not unlike that of a therapist. She's the only person he's volunteered his "Dick Whitman" secret to, and there has certainly been some lingering speculation that she might be reintroduced in the show, whether as a reemerged love interest or otherwise.
To the uninitiated, know that Chris Webber is the best commentator in basketball. He's a better analyst than he was a player, and he was a very good player. Unlike Charles Barkley, he actually breaks down the game with insight and clarity, yet still has the wit and expansiveness to be engaging. He actually makes me want to watch halftime shows.
Also, points for Eddie Murphy: Delirious reference. Double points for busting out yiddish.
Hamish Linklater would have been a fantastic Jim- but I'm glad he didn't get it. He did and is doing cooler stuff instead. Matt Besser would have been a hilarious Dwight, too.
I think we can all agree the right people were cast though.
I'll be the one take this seriously like an idiot:
KC and Idina are too old to play these roles anymore, so weep, theatre nerds.
Megan Hilty now has enough name recognition to be qualify for consideration, and she has the added qualification of having actually performed the role on Broadway (first replacement after KC.) She'd crush it. Glinda isn't really that hard a role to cast, though. Pretty soprano comedienne who can play manic and type-a.
Far as Elphaba goes, the vocal demands of the role pretty much eliminate 90 percent of the "singing movie star" field, including Amy Adams, Scarlett Johanson etc. Anne Hathaway might actually be able to eke it out, and might be the only person standing between the role and Lea Michele.
I could also see certain stunt casting gambits paying off. Most notably a Carrie Underwood/Kelly Clarkson hookup.
Dispensing with the celebrity requirement, I'd go with recent B'way Elpheba Teal Wicks, who probably has the most "movie star" good looks of anyone to play the role.
If I really had my druthers, though, I'd give Wicked the 2-D Disney animation treatment. A live action version would be almost sure to fail- this property was meant to be animated.
The Pharaoh exaggerations are weird ticks like the shoulder bouncing and the cheese grin that not only aren’t hallmarks of Obama, they have roots in black stereotyping that makes it feel even more off the mark to me.
EXACTLY THAT. Pharoah's Obama pairs a passable vocal mimic with taunting minstrelsy.
I totally disagree. I think Armison's Obama was exactly in the mold of Carvey's Bush I or Ferrell's Bush II. It was a caricature that ignored broad impersonation and instead isolated and mutated a few key characteristics- in Obama, namely his nebbishy intellectualism, calm and detachment. Armison also eventually got the voice down pretty well.
The problem with that Armison's was that it didn't resonate with people's actual experience of Obama. Obama's problem, from a sketch show perspective, is that he's actually COOL. Not in a surface or aesthetic sense, necessarily. In that sense he's just sort of a nerdy dad and/or hardass professor. Obama's cool is rooted in the fact that his entire public persona is based in the perception that he's "in on the joke". That he's emotionally intelligent and naturally empathetic- but in a more earnest and organic way than Clinton's "Ah feel your pain" version. This task is more like trying to lampoon John Stewart. You are not likely to succeed.
SNL recognized this, so they switched over to Jay Pharoah's. Pharoah's Obama is closer to Hammond's Clinton- it's a mimic job. Except for Hammond, Clinton's personality- extroverted, extemporaneous, gregarious- offered a broad surface on which to play. Obama offers none of that- very little defining body language or verbal ticks (beyond the occasional "uuh"), and because his entire persona is based on even-tempered, patient, post-racialism, there is not much skin to grab for comic purposes. Pharoah's gets the voice dead on, but that's where it ends. From there he has to construct a character that bears no resemblance to Obama, but rather reads as a the central character in a generic "Hey, what if the president was BLACK??" sketch from 10 years ago.
And let's also just cut to the chase- there has to be a bit more care taken in lampooning the first black president than with the 43rd white president. Armison's sort of pan-racial aesthetic range as an actor made him uniquely qualified to play a president who is half white and half black. Pharoah, especially wearing that lightening makeup they put on him, can't help but look like the crude Def Jam Obama of nursing home nightmares and fevered right wing fantasies.
I haaaaaate Jay Pharoah's Obama impression. Maybe it's because it's mimicry instead of a caricature, but it just feel so goddamned exploitative. Like it was dreamt up by far-right Republicans.
Like... the shit with the shoulders? The taunting grin and upturned nose? It belongs on that long defunct Fox News sketch show. The ENTIRE GAG now is that he's black. And the politics ("end the military"? seriously?) are so far off the mark it's scary. SNL is grasping at straws because they've never been able to get a handle on Obama- so they're setting for a shucking, jiving, race-baiting version of him that's more Al Sharpton than Barack. Pharoah should stick to his one-note Denzel Washington impersonation.
I never thought I'd say it, but bring back Fred Armison.
Sorry this comment wasn't funny.
Cylon No. 1 from Battlestar Galactica.
Also, despite his black incumbent beating powers, Tommy Carchetti was based on Martin O'Malley, an avowed LIBRUL.
That guy is awful. Gawker is awful. So shrill. So histrionic. So unjustifiably self-important.
The Anti-Videogum.
Also: when you namedrop/humblebrag, don't then backhand the name you're dropping.
My fiance loves the show, and I love Sutton Foster (I work for the company that just produced "Anything Goes" on Broadway) so I frown upon your nitpicking.
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