Roast of Joan Rivers on 'Saturday Night Live' (Too soon?)
Comedian Sarah Silverman hosted a "celebrity roast in heaven" of the late Joan Rivers during "Saturday Night Live" on Oct. 4, 2014. This is from a performance in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 10, 2013. Credit: AP / Jack Plunkett
Certainly the big thing from last night's "Saturday Night Live," was this big thing: A Joan Rivers roast in heaven, performed by guest host Sarah Silverman, which will somewhere prompt the question: "Too soon?"
And therefore this answer: Not. remotely. Maybe not too funny enough, but that's another issue. Rivers certainly wouldn't think it's "too soon," so why should anyone else? Here's the link. You be the judge.
This was presented, in fact, as homage -- Silverman's fond remembrance of someone who influenced her so profoundly. Not particularly mean-spirited, that perhaps was the larger problem -- only one good characteristically Joan line, and none of the others dipped in that venom that made a typical Rivers barb so memorable or devastating.
It would've actually made sense too if some of the other "celebrities" on the panel were either contemporaries or at least entertainers. Steve Jobs? Ben Franklin? But that's comedy and "SNL" for you -- sometimes it works, sometimes not. But at least this sketch acknowledged that one of the major forces in the world of comedy is gone. It was homage, and that's probably good enough.
