https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/saturday-night-live-ego-nwodim-lisa-from-temecula-silly.html

By Jesse David Fox, a Vulture writer and host of Good One: A Podcast About Jokes

Ego Nwodim has been very good throughout her four and half seasons on Saturday Night Live,
but for those of us who followed her work outside the show, there was longing for her to get
an opportunity to do something really stupid. If you�ve listened to any of the 37 appearances
she�s made on the podcast Comedy Bang! Bang!, you know she has an impressive ability to wring
the most out of the absolute dumbest characters. The depth of her silliness is on full display
in personas such as Entr�e PeeE Neur (an entrepreneur who comes up with ideas for products
that already exist) and Pastor Pasta (a pastor who likes pasta).

On this week�s SNL, she finally got to play a CBB-esque character. Enter Lisa from Temecula.

Written by Alex English with Gary Richardson and Michael Che, Lisa showcases one of Nwodim�s
greatest strengths: wholly committing to a character who has the dumbest, smallest game (the
comedic idea that the sketch explores and heightens) possible. �Lisa from Temecula� feels
like what �Close Encounter� was for Kate McKinnon � but whereas that character had a big hook
(she was abducted by aliens), Lisa just likes extra-extra-well-done steaks and is weird.
Throughout the escalation of the sketch, Nwodim remains perfectly understated even as the
table hops and flops, which is somehow an even sillier choice. When she stands up to get
leverage on the steak, she plays it as if she were the only normal person in the place.

Everyone in the sketch breaks watching Nwodim fully inhabit this person as glasses topple and
a pitcher of sangria hops around perilously; I�ve replayed the sketch multiple times just to
see the face Bowen Yang makes when Lisa says, �Oh, �cause we Black!� It really is such a
stupid character. I know that using words like dumb and stupid and silly might read as
pejoratives, but trust it is the highest compliment that can be given to this sketch. Coming
out of an era when the show received a lot of attention from people who were hoping it would
bring down a presidential administration, it�s nice to see the kids just have some fun. This
is the dumbest thing SNL has done in a while. They could stand to do things like it more
often.

tmc1982@gmail.com wrote:

>https://www.vulture. . . .

Not Terrence Clay but Ubi the shithead forging Terrence and abusing
Usenet by preloading headers. Stop Ubi the shithead. Post your followup
to the genuine Terrence Clay article, not Ubi's forgery.

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
> tmc1982@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> https://www.vulture. . . .
>
> Not Terrence Clay but Ubi the shithead forging Terrence and abusing
> Usenet by preloading headers. Stop Ubi the shithead. Post your followup
> to the genuine Terrence Clay article, not Ubi's forgery.
>

If we do that, then they won’t appear in rat, right?

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

tmc1982@gmail.com wrote:

>https://www.vulture.com/2023/02/saturday-night-live-ego-nwodim-lisa-from-temecula-silly.html
>
>By Jesse David Fox, a Vulture writer and host of Good One: A Podcast About Jokes
>
>Ego Nwodim has been very good throughout her four and half seasons on Saturday Night Live,
>but for those of us who followed her work outside the show, there was longing for her to get
>an opportunity to do something really stupid. If you�ve listened to any of the 37 appearances
>she�s made on the podcast Comedy Bang! Bang!, you know she has an impressive ability to wring
>the most out of the absolute dumbest characters. The depth of her silliness is on full display
>in personas such as Entr�e PeeE Neur (an entrepreneur who comes up with ideas for products
>that already exist) and Pastor Pasta (a pastor who likes pasta).
>
>On this week�s SNL, she finally got to play a CBB-esque character. Enter Lisa from Temecula.
>
>Written by Alex English with Gary Richardson and Michael Che, Lisa showcases one of Nwodim�s
>greatest strengths: wholly committing to a character who has the dumbest, smallest game (the
>comedic idea that the sketch explores and heightens) possible. �Lisa from Temecula� feels
>like what �Close Encounter� was for Kate McKinnon � but whereas that character had a big hook
>(she was abducted by aliens), Lisa just likes extra-extra-well-done steaks and is weird.
>Throughout the escalation of the sketch, Nwodim remains perfectly understated even as the
>table hops and flops, which is somehow an even sillier choice. When she stands up to get
>leverage on the steak, she plays it as if she were the only normal person in the place.
>
>Everyone in the sketch breaks watching Nwodim fully inhabit this person as glasses topple and
>a pitcher of sangria hops around perilously; I�ve replayed the sketch multiple times just to
>see the face Bowen Yang makes when Lisa says, �Oh, �cause we Black!� It really is such a
>stupid character. I know that using words like dumb and stupid and silly might read as
>pejoratives, but trust it is the highest compliment that can be given to this sketch. Coming
>out of an era when the show received a lot of attention from people who were hoping it would
>bring down a presidential administration, it�s nice to see the kids just have some fun. This
>is the dumbest thing SNL has done in a while. They could stand to do things like it more
>often.

I've never seen more cast members crack up around a table since the Disney character breakfast Debbie Downer
sketch ages ago. I was also reminded of a years-ago sketch called "The Proposition" where Kristen Stewart
approaches and flirts with an older, aloof couple (played by Ego and Keenan) at a dance club, dressed like they
came from church and were there just for the food. She was perfect in that, too. A lot of these sketches where
so many break have to do with a lot of jokes and physical humour that the leading cast member pulls out in the
live episode, like Will Ferrell playing footsies under the jacuzzi water at the Wellshley Arms with Fallon,
often when someone gets very uncomfortably close to the other's face in a sketch (always seems to work) or (in
a reverse way) how Mulaney switched the jokes on Bill Hader's Stefan between dress and live. I dunno how I
could keep it together through most of the sketches if I were sharing a stage with a lot of these guys, but
definitely one like Ego's Lisa would have done me in.