Saturday Night Live Rips Staten Islanders Protesting For Their Right to Earn a Living

This is a bit old by now. I kept forgetting to post about it.

"SNL" star Pete Davidson said the anti-COVID lockdown protests there make the borough’s residents look like "babies" -- but quipped that he's glad he’s no longer the "worst thing about Staten Island," his native borough.

...

"And the owner said, no one wants to do that because they'll go out of business,"
Davidson said.

"But the argument that people in Staten Island don't want to drink outside can be disproven by going to literally any Little League game."

They probably don't want to drink outside, in New York, in December, because the overnight temperature is in the low thirties. Just a guess, Petey.

And meanwhile Petey and all of his SNL buddies (and virtually anyone in the "entertainment" and "news" industries) is given a special exception so that they may continue collecting a paycheck.

Saturday Night Live even has a live audience -- while Broadway is shut down, because live audiences aren't permitted.

And how do they manage that?

By claiming that audience members are actually... required employees.

Saturday Night Live doesn't have an actual audience -- it has a actors being paid $150 for a night's work of faking laughter sitting on its bleachers.

And that is real: SNL evades the ban on live audiences by simply admitting that no one would ever willingly sit to watch SNL for 90 minutes. Only people being paid $100 per hour would do such a thing.

"Saturday Night Live" hosted a live audience at its season premiere over the weekend -- by doling out $150 checks to audience members in order to comply with New York state's coronavirus regulations.

About 100 audience members collected the surprise checks at the end of the iconic sketch show’s Season 48 kickoff on Saturday night at NBC’s Studio 8H, the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

Current state regulations prohibit media productions from hosting live audiences unless they are made up of paid cast, crew or employees. The audience must be no more than 100 people or 25 percent of capacity, whichever is lower, and audiences must practice 6 feet of social distance in all directions, the state says.

But the brains behind "SNL" came up with the creative solution -- compensation -- and dispensed the free tickets through a third-party website in order to ensure an audience of no more than 100.

posted by Ace at 04:14 PM

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