NBC Photo: Dana EdelsonThere's some seriously unfunny stuff happening over at Saturday Night Live. First up, just like last year, they've added two pretty white chicks to the mostly white cast.
These gals might be deserving, but there are plenty of hilarious black and Asian and nonwhite comedians out there who would give the show more diversity. Not to mention, casting a black actress might mean they wouldn't have to keep flying in former castmember Maya Rudolph to play Michelle Obama these next four to eight years.
Producers made room for these two predictably attractive babes by firing Casey Wilson and Michaela Watkins. Watkins has been vocal, and pretty cheerful, about her exit from SNL, but Casey's been completely quiet on the matter.
Could it be because of the totally bitchy and sexist way in which she was ousted from the sketch show?
Our inside comedy sources tell us SNL producers told the curvy Casey to lose 30 pounds during the show's summer hiatus. They pretty much demanded it. And whether Wilson just couldn't drop the weight or she just only wanted to give her middle finger some exercise, she didn't drop a damn pound. And that's when she was axed, we're told.
The comedian was already on thin ice, since she never really developed a hit character on the show or struck a nerve with audiences during her two-season run. Case was aware she was one of the show's least popular players—she even made a Funny or Die video about people not finding her funny (which, coincidentally, we find hilarious).
But insisting she drop pounds to be another stick-thin star? How pathetically prehistoric could Lorne Michaels & Co. possibly get? Casey was pretty much the only female castmember the show's had in years who wasn't a size 6 or smaller (a pregnant Amy Poehler notwithstanding). Whereas SNL's been famous for highlighting obese men—John Belushi, Chris Farley, Horatio Sanz, Bobby Moynihan, to name a few.
Did Will Ferrell have to look good in a bikini for people to laugh at him? Hell no! So why should the women be treated any differently?
We've asked for a comment from the folks at SNL on this weighty issue, but they're keeping mum for now.
Personally, we've seen Case play foul and ugly characters onstage live at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre in H'wood, and the furthest thing from her mind was worrying if people found her sexy. Good for her—what's so friggin' funny about a perfect-looking woman anyway? Lorne needs to wake up and realize we tune in to SNL to laugh, not get turned on.