NBC Edits SNL Bailout Skit Following Legal Concerns Over "People Who Should Be Shot" Chyron

Deadline Hollywood Daily:

On the past weekend's Saturday Night Live, a brutal but hilarious Democrat-bashing skit aired about the $700 billion federal bailout and the insanity of those subprime mortgages, and it featured lookalikes for George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, hedge fund billionaire and big Democratic donor George Soros, and a parade of sob-story "victims" who turn out to be deadbeats, greedy house-flippers, and schemers. (The unedited YouTube version is below...) The sketch was embraced by Republicans for appearing to blame Democrats for the Wall Street meltdown. At one point in the sketch, President Bush (played by SNL regular Jason Sudeikis) even said, "Wasn't it my administration that warned about the problem six years ago and it was Democrats who refused to listen?" (Immediately Barney Frank starts to complain... only to be hushed by Pelosi.)

NBC put the video online Sunday morning. But then it disappeared off the network's SNL website soon after. Needless to say, a lot of conspiracy theories were spun, especially by Republicans who wondered if the Democratic Congress, or perhaps Soros himself, were pulling NBC's puppet strings. "If you suspect a few high-placed phone calls to NBC led to the bailout skit slipping down the memory hole, you're not alone," wrote right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin.

But anyone who actually saw that video could see this was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Because SNL labeled Herb Sandler and his wife Marion, the real-life former owners of Oakland's Golden West Financial (aka World Savings), as "people who should be shot" and accused them of predatory lending that brought down Wachovia Bank even though no charges have been filed. NBC told me just now they never received any legal threat from the Sandlers. [Though the couple did give an angry interview to The Associated Press about the SNL sketch.]

Instead, the network claimed: "Upon review, we caught certain elements in the sketch that didn't meet our standards. We took it down and made some minor changes and it will be back online soon." Specifically, NBC said it has edited out the chyron on-screen text, "People who should be shot" that appeared beneath the Sandler' lookalikes, as well as the "allegations of corruption" made against the couple.

Read the whole story: Deadline Hollywood Daily

Comments

[LaFilleEnRose]

Cowards all the media. When they bash Republicans they fear a backlash and so they write something about Democrats just to balance it out. But it's never clever, and rarely catches on b/c insincerity is never artful but almost always obvious. Because it has no real truth behind it, it doesn't connect and makes the perpetrators look foolish. A recent column by David Brooks highlights that very thing...wh­en Obama called him on a few things like that that he put into one of his columns. It shows. Frankly it always shows. SNL cowards...­.they get rich off of perfectly capturing Palin and then lose respect for trying to make it up to her.

[AlteSoldier]

Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it's the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities?

These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and ignore the rest of the paper—economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd.

http://www.americablog.com/

[sdskelton03]

If none of those issues was the cause, what was?

[crewmaster]

Come on NBC, let's see it.

As an Obama supporter, and a member of the Democratic party, I say, if we can dish it, we better be able to take it.

I don't have a my party, right or wrong mentality. We'd better be able to take a look at ourselves, (and see what we're projecting to the world), or we're no better than the Bush, Karl Rove, Cheney machine.

[funkalicious]

Yeah Pulled for legal ramifications like speaking truth to power silenced by the MAN.
What happened to
F@ck em if they can't take a joke....

Shine a light and the rats scurry back into their closet.
We the people have problems left and right.

[sdskelton03]

The couple that the issue was about is a huge left wing contributer, like Soros.

Does that change how you feel?

[funkalicious]

NO
F@ck em if they can't take a joke....

What some on the left forget
I can give people a hand up but I need to be standing to do it.

[littlepuffycloud]

Malkin is a self-loathing maniac. Sad and horrifying at the same time.

[4real]

Honestly who cares what Michelle Malkin thinks? Who made her relevant?

[larry278]

I wonder if NBC's self-censorship of SNL sketch on bail-out was initiated by GE lawyers or strictly a silhoute(sp?) of cowardly, perfidity of NBC's suits & lawyers sans any input from GE? Formely it was network suits always were always the 1st to plumb the depths of cowardly conduct, aka self censorship, to reach a new lower nadir of cowardly network standards & practices. If you had the spine of an earthworm-you were hired as a network suit.

[Ramirez]

They made jokes about Dems. That's not a good career move in the entertainment business.
We will not see that nonsense again.

[Sadducee]

I though the sketch was very funny, and I blame both parties for the mess we're in.

[ivoteforsmartpeople]

Since most of what my grandma left my (now college age) kids for their college funds is Wachovia stock...it­'s not too funny to me, either!

I hope there is a VERY Special place in their HELL waiting for them!

[Thundrdrum]

With the exception of Tina Fey's "there isn't going to be a talent part?" in the "debate" there wasn't much that was funny. The Barney Frank guy was hysterical but they got the real Frank's participation in the bailout wrong, too.

[Ramirez]

No problem. The Barney Frank stuff is down the memory hole anyway.
From the LA Times blog:
****

...a comparison of the two versions shows that actually a little more than that was cut. What also was excised was any mention of the involvement of Massachusetts' Rep. Frank in the Sandler subprime mess.

Frank is the influential chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and an ardent political protector of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which participated in the subprime problem.

In the original skit Sandler addresses Frank, saying, "And thank you Congressman Frank as well as many Republicans for helping block Congressional oversight of our corrupt activities­."

To which Frank replies enthusiastically, "Not at all!"

All that's gone in the new version...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/palin-snl-pelos.html

[bbbbmer]

The skit wasn't funny, and its representation of the mortgage meltdown and its players was woefully inadequate -- even for a joke, especially its portrayal of Barney Frank, who did everything he could to prevent the meltdown, but was portrayed as a contributing cause of it -- which would be consistent with Foxnews' version... It also depicted those manipulated into subprime products as excon dopers with multiple kids, which is an insult to the actual people who were taken to the cleaners by predatory lending practices. I realize SNL hasn't been funny since the late 70's, but there are far better comedy writers in the marketplace of ideas than those employed at NBC producing this tripe...

[gmtia]

I agree with you about the skit not being funny. I think the comments were though.

[afwifey00]

Of course you wouldn't find it funny... YOu are a one sided liberal lemming. Funny how conservatives laugh at ourselves and when there is an op to laugh at liberals(which rarely happens in today's media), they all cry it's not funny... Pathetic..­. Well, let's see, if Obama wins SNL is sure to tank cause they won't get ratings for making fun of any liberal. Although, I think it should have tanked after Eddie Murphy and steve Martin. Never been that funny since...

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

"conservatives laugh at ourselves.­"

Now THAT's funny.

[Joulanda]

I have to say the Joe Biden guy had me in stitches. This dude was way too funny. I've seen this clip played over and over and I still laugh out loud at him. The Palin look alike, flawless. SNL the funniest I have ever seen it. Stupid politicians give comedians way too much material and I'm loving every bit of it.

[YouDisgustMe]

i thought the skit was funny.....­but i have to admit, i was made a little uncomfortable by the "people who should be sh0t" chryon

[Tommygun264]

You're right. It should have read "people who should be eaten alive by rabid dogs".

[YouDisgustMe]

lol...much better

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

People who should be forced to appear on that wife-swapping show that plays up economic and cultural clashes.

(It's PG rated. Please.)

[DRaymond]

I know that they were trying to be funny, but it isn't just a lawsuit issue, The one thing that they teach you in broadcasting 101 is that you never, never, NEVER advocate bodily harm against someone, much less murder. And it isn't particularly funny either.

[TN]

Excuse me, the bill they referred to was a bill sponsored by Chuck Hagel, McCains name wasn't on it. It was the 109th congress, a republican congress that did not vote it out of their own, republican committee. There is no way they should make it look as though the republicans tried and it was blocked by dems. The blame the dems do have is Bill Clinton signed the deregulation bill in 1999, a republican amendment to a bill and he signed the deregulation of the Commodities Futures bill. That is what the dems are to blame for/Clinton, not Obama.

[urweatherman]

Sorry, don't believe you. Please get your facts straight..­..

[rowzeer]

It was part of the Banking Modernization Act and the Repeal of the Glass Stegall act put in place after the crash of 29 all written and pushed by Repubs which created "dark markets" and allowed banks to sell the loans they made as an investment­....things Glass Stegal prohibited

[rowzeer]

Ur....the facts are straight..­..read a newspaper