The interesting thing about this is that Saturday Night Live by no means has to edit the episode to contain the rehearsal footage skit; they could've just run the same episode and be fine. You have to wonder where along the chain of command someone said "run the funnier version." But why couldn't they have just performed it the first time?

Eh. SNL disappointment shouldn't come as a surprise to many, but the fact that they hold back on the good stuff is just depressing. Then again, it's nice to know they're making an effort to put it out there. Here's hoping they can add some pizazz to a fairly blase November schedule.

We've seen this sort of behavior before, most notably with people like Jude Law and Colin Farrell, guys who were made into leading men before they had time to prove that they had the chops for such a responsibility. Let lessons be learned from the past and let's put Butler on probation.

Why does this misbehaving star deserve to be grounded? Well, after some early success in a Tomb Raider movie and the title role in the abysmal film adaptation of Phantom of the Opera, Butler and his abs starred in the surprise hit 300, grossing half a billion worldwide and making a legion of fanboys, ladies, and gay men very happy in the process. Because of this crossover appeal, his handlers thought that he could simultaneously dabble in both action and romantic comedy. That could be true, but he hasn't bothered to be in a good movie since 300. Crappy movies are crappy in any genre.

With P.S. I Love You and The Ugly Truth, his rom-coms with Hilary Swank and Katherine Heigl respectively, were both box office flops and critical duds. Gamer, released last month to deafening silence, has barely made a mark and struggled to get past the $20 million mark. It has been a series of missteps for this Scotsman. Citizen, which costars Jamie Foxx, had a good showing at the box office, but critics lit into it, which means that it probably won't rally much more in coming weeks.

While not as bad as Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr or professional bad decision makers Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, Butler is headed down that path if we don't intervene. If he can't pull out a decent project or two then he will be banned from all movies, tabloids, red carpet affairs, awards ceremonies, and celebrity relationships. If he can stay out of the press for three years, he may be rewarded with the starring role on a CBS procedural. This is your punishment Butler, so you better shape up.

Next year's Jennifer Aniston comedy The Bounty could go either way. Aniston was in The Break Up, the best romantic comedy of the decade, but the quality probably had more to do with the writing and direction than her abilities. It better work out, because if not, Butler is well on his way to being an over-valued, over-paid star who can't open anything bigger than a cereal box. If it does, along with maybe a prestige picture or a great cameo in a smaller film, then we will reinstate him into our good grace. Until them, he's in a professional time out.

[Image via Getty]

It's one of the ironies of Morgan's career that he's found bigger stardom as the star of a parody of Saturday Night Live than he ever did on the real thing. And in his upcoming book, I Am the New Black, he mentions who treated him like shit, namely then stars Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri. Morgan writes, "All I have to say about that is, where's Chris Kattan now? Where's Cheri Oteri now? That bitch can't even get arrested."

But the grudge apparently runs even deeper, because when Morgan sat down to record the audio version (in the clip above) of that passage, he started ad-libbing, expanding on his earlier points: Morgan says he still counts Will Ferrell, Molly Shannon and Colin Quinn as friends, but as for Oteri and Kattan: "Fuck 'em."

Amazing. It's not everyday you hear Tracy Morgan acting like a demanding, slightly unhinged television star who feels underappreciated by his co-workers. It's more like every week.

We're told Mogan will be at the Union Square Barnes & Noble Thursday Oct. 22 at 7pm if you want to see if he'll curse more old colleagues.

The word was "strategery," which acclaimed Land of the Lost actor Will Farrell made famous back in 2000, when he lampooned the man who would become President George W. Bush.

Always hip to popular culture, Press Secretary Gibbs instantly recognized the reference, saying, ""I love it how a 'Saturday Night Live' word has entered into the lexicon." He then threatened to curse.

Who knew government could be so darn great? Plus, as an added bonus, it gives Gibbs' opponents some fuel for their "he's not dignified" fire.

Here's the clip of Farrell on SNL, in case you don't remember...

While Will Farrell is allowed to make mediocre comedy after mediocre comedy, Jan Hooks hasn't worked since 2004. Yes, SNL has launched the careers of countless male superstars, but what has it done for the women? Pretty much bubkas. There are a few notable exceptions—Tina Fey, Gilda Radner, Amy Poehler, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for instance—but whither Ellen Cleghorne, Victoria Jackson, and Julia Sweeney? From the show's original cast, Jane Curtin may have gone on to several sitcoms, but Laraine Newman has been doing little more than guest spots and voice work for the better part of the decade.

Luckily Ana Gasteyer and Christine Ebersole went on to find steady work on Broadway, but that's kind of like being the chastest girl at a Sex-aholics Anonymous meeting. Why can Jimmy Fallon get his own late-night talk show, when Nora Dunn and Cheri Oteri are at home waiting by their phones? And for every Janeane Garofalo — who fled 30 Rock after one season, allowing her to escape with her career intact — a dozen Siobhan Fallones or Mary Grosses float out of sight. Maybe they should have taken the Maya Rudolph route and married a hipster director and done a drama. Now people are talking about how she's an "actress" instead of a comedian.

And it's not that these women aren't funny; they did scale to the very pinnacle of their trade by earning their places on the show. Hollywood doesn't know what to do with funny women. After all, it would rather have an attractive but bland actress playing the female lead on a sitcom rather than someone who has actual comedic timing. Look at who is starring in this season's romantic comedies: Amy Adams, Sandra Bullock and Jennifer Aniston, three ladies who never let themselves get pigeon-holed as "funny."

Don't worry, Casey and Michaela, just remember that there was a little girl named Sarah Silverman who got fired from SNL after one season too. She went out there and did her own thing, and in the end talent won out, and now she has her own show on basic cable! Look at how far you can go!

First, the inevitable viral Digital Short that happens when Justin Timberlake hosts: Timeberlake and Andy Samberg reunite for the "Dick In A Box" sequel, "Motherlover." Cameos from perennial MILF's Patricia Clarkson and Susan Sarandon, masterful comedy.

The show cold-opened with Will Forte as Tim Geithner in a relatively highbrow sketch about a banking stress test. Forte's Geithner impersonation wasn't perfect - or close, for that matter - but the jokes were both fairly topical and spot-on.

JT opened the show with the old standby I'm-Always-On-SNL shtick repeat hosts get to pull at some point. Typically, this is the kind of staid, old, boring shit SNL's writers lean on to devote energy towards other material that isn't funny, either. But: pair it with a musical bend and an effortlessly, ridiculously charismatic Timberlake, and it floats.

More cameos and Star Trek topicality on Weekend Update: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Leonard Nimoy. Finally, the stars get to slag on the fundamentalist fanboy Trekkies who're trashing the franchise's epic revitalization. Fun: watch Keenan Thompson break character at Nimoy's surprisingly decent comedic chops.

Finally, Jimmy Fallon pops in for another Barry Gibb Talk Show with Timberlake. Slightly meandering at times, but the overall effect of seeing (A) Fallon playing characters again and (B) anything that involves Justin Timberlake singing on the show plays well is a nice reminder of the glory days. It's too bad SNL has to keep dipping into the (fairly recent) past to unearth a quality hour of TV, but we'll take what we can get.

This bizarro sketch about circumcision and gay stuff (glory holes, mostly) was short and weird and sweet. Will Forte seems to be responsible for these ones.

The Fourth Jonas Brother sketch was good for two reasons. First because Alec Baldwin is just a funny fellow and looks good in a wig. Second because the Jonas Brothers didn't get any applause when they first showed up, which was hilarious, and they didn't seem to get that they were being made fun of the whole time. Ha.

In this one, it looks like they're masturbating!

The Vincent Price Valentine's Day special skit was probably the best of the evening. Those ones are always good though, if only because Kristen Wiig generally does a whacked-out Judy Garland or, in this case, Carol Channing impression. Raspberries! Too bad it's not available for embedding.

At least not officially — not yet — despite condemnation from the blind community and the governor's office itself. Instead, one of the outraged has pieced together this press release signed by Michaels, supposedly endorsed by NBC (using a well-known network publicist's name) and then disowned by SNL's actual publicist upon investigation. We'd let it go at that, except the fake is so crappy and loaded down with typos, hinting that maybe the sender, too, owes the governor an apology of sorts:

“On our program last week, during the Weekend Update sketch, we featured a parody of New York Governor David Patterson. [sic]

It was not our intention to insult the Governor or to demean anyone with a physical handicap. We have great respect for Governor Pattersonʼs [sic] achievements and his leadership of our great state, as well as for people all over this country and the world who continue to thrive in the face of adversity and better our world in spite of any physical handicap.

Sometimes, in attempting to make the audience laugh, people can be hurt or made to feel as if they are the butt of the joke. That was never our intention, and I hope that our attempt to entertain did not harm. Again, my sincerest apologies to Governor Patterson [sic] and to anyone who may have been offended by the segment.”

Don't mention it, "Lorne"! We're sure filmmaker Fernando Merrelies [sic] will be the next to send his contrite regards to those offended last summer by his allegory Blindness, which he now realizes "failed at the box office due to its vast, insensitive alienation of the sightless demographic, for which I am truly sorry." Surely he won't make that mistake again.

Though Fey fired herself as Sarah Palin after the Republican ticket lost the election, the will of the people (and the network's biggest female star) is no match for the whims of tax credit-wielding lawmakers! According to New York, Fey was forced to reheat the impression for the state's Assembly Speaker and his Democratic caucus:

NBC boss Jeff Zucker asked her to make the appearance, according to Fey’s manager, David Miner. “He doesn’t ask every day for something,” Miner says. The lawmakers voted for legislation this year expanding tax credits for New York film and television productions, like 30 Rock. Miner says Fey was happy to be there, but one lawmaker in attendance isn’t convinced. “She seemed incredibly uncomfortable,” he said. “It was like she didn’t know what she was doing there. Someone said, ‘Do a Sarah Palin!’ and she did a Sarah Palin.” Fey posed for pictures before racing out to finish a script for a 30 Rock episode shooting the next day.

Will the country ever stop forcing an uncomfortable Fey (they said it, not us!) to sing for her supper when the woman runs a sitcom that demands her attendance? Or will Zucker continue to issue loaded threats to Fey, musing, "You don't have to do Palin for my godson's bar mitzvah, but what do you think about Kevin Eubanks getting a 9:30 Leno pre-show, hmm?"

• Zucker Calls, Fey Says ‘You Betcha’ [New York]

Or maybe by the network, fearing the overindulgence of cursing, bleeped or not. Or maybe even by Samberg himself, fearing some Emanuelian turnabout for casting the Illinois representative as the boorish lout who would "strip [Joe Lieberman] naked and make yhttp://publish.gawker.com/ged/newou walk your McCain-loving-ass back to Connecticut, you fucking turncoat." We'll likely never really know why the sketch was killed, but we favor the latter scenario, just for the potential for Emanuel to threaten to "crack that big fucking nose of his" while teasing an SNL guest appearance in the weeks ahead.

• 'Saturday Night Live' [NBC]

· The fun starts with a sketch about an overly affectionate family that builds to Samberg making out with Fred Armisen for no apparent reason.
· Then there was a legitimately funny Digital Short in which Rudd and Samberg paint each other naked, that ends in what has to be the most violent scene in the show's history. (If the episode had a secondary theme, it would be guns blowing people's heads off.)

· Moving along, we have a carload of seemingly straight guys admitting shocking things in song, that—surprise!—starts with Jason Sudeikis admitting he had sex with a male cab driver.
· Here's where things get really interesting. Seth Meyers introduces the topic of Prop 8 on Weekend Update. The crowd boos, which annoys the anchor, who admonishes them by saying, "OK. Vote's over." What follows is an over-the-top flaming Bobby Moynihan as Hanna-Barbera character Snagglepuss, who decries Prop 8, but denies he himself is gay. He finally admits it, and says he has a "partner"—the Great Gazoo.
· A parody of Beyonce's "Put A Ring On It" video featuring backup dancers Justin Timberlake, Moynihan, and Samberg in high heels and leotards. They could have played this straight, and it would have been funnier, but instead they lisp and mince the way gay people do (that's supposed to be sarcasm for those of you currently wearing your fierce, Tom Ford irony-ray-blocking sunglasses), and it gets old kind of quick.
· Another direct reaction to Prop 8 features yet two more characters in the closet—tough guy parking attendants played by Rudd and Bill Hader. The humor derives from the fact that they are so in denial about their homosexuality, they act as if their random sex acts in bathrooms, and with each other, is all a joke. It ends with them proposing to each other and talking about how excited they are to have a wedding.

Before you leap into the comments to either defend the material as hilarious and that's all that matters, or decry it as ugly stereotyping that couldn't come at a more insensitive moment, we'd just like to remind you all of one thing, OK?

Vote's over.

"It's interesting, in that everyone seems to project onto it whatever they want. Defamer was like, 'Tina Fey was there with John McCain and she was clearly over it, and didn't want to be there.' That may have just been physical exhaustion they were reading, but it was very clear that someone was projecting that."

Certainly, while writing a 4:04 AM post we may be more prone to projecting exhaustion, but we assure Tina that we meant no harm. OK, listen up everybody, we're going rogue now: It took a lot of courage to stand next to a candidate for president and systematically satirize every facet of his campaign while never breaking character, and any jokes we made were motivated from a place of love (and an overriding concern for the gem that is 30 Rock).

• Entertainment Weekly

First, we have 21-year-old Abby Elliott (above left), daughter of Chris Elliott (let's hope her tenure goes over better than her dad's brief, mid-90's SNL stint). Abby may be familiar to fans of UCB's Midnight Show, but we discovered her at Defamer back in 2006! Here's Abby playing a quavery-voiced Kirsten Dunst in the impression that won our hearts:
SNL's other addition is Michaela Watkins, a Groundlings main company player who can currently be seen as the Hamish Linklater-romancing Lucy on The New Adventures of Old Christine.
Kudos on the gig, ladies — though we're still surprised that there's no one being added to the cast who could conceivably play Michelle Obama (or even Sheri Shepherd!). We hope Maya Rudolph enjoys all those JetBlue miles she's bound to rack up.

• Two more reasons to turn on SNL: Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins join the cast! [The Comic's Comic]

"It's true," said the highly-placed source. "We're finishing out the season, then we're done."

Fox had been experimenting with potential MADtv replacements over the last few years, though none of its hush-hush, taped pilots ever made it to series. We're hearing, though, that the network has currently decided to keep its other late-night offering, Talk Show with Spike Feresten. Developing!

• MADtv [Fox]

Coleman's narrow margin of victory — 1,210,942 to 1,210,371 (a third-party candidate pulled most of the remaining votes evenly from Coleman and Franken) — would automatically prompt a recount, the results of which won't likely be known until next month. Especially with Franken and his attorneys hovering nearby and the SNL alum on the lookout for anywhere else he can close the gap — starting with conspiracies, natch:

He said his campaign was already looking into reports of irregularities in Minneapolis where some voters had trouble registering, though he wouldn't elaborate.

"We won't know for a little while who won the race, but at the end of the day we will know the voice of the electorate is clearly heard," Franken said. "This has been a long campaign, but it is going to be a little longer before we have a winner."

A brutal feeling to be sure, but look at it this way, Al: Crushing, expensive political defeats like these can only do wonders for your Oscar chances. Get to work!

• Coleman leads Al Franken in Minn. Senate race [AP]

Or rather, Ben Affleck as Keith Olbermann bellowing about his cat, one of a scorching fistful of issues chafing at the imperious MSNBC pundit last week on Saturday Night Live. His outrage over Miss Precious Perfect's rejection from their Upper West Side co-op represents only the most insistent of his convictions, however, and in turn, only one delicious course of the scenery menu Affleck spent nearly nine-minutes devouring. If we didn't know any better, we'd think all this big-shot director really wants to do is act. And really, we couldn't blame him. [SNL]

Of course, Shepherd's theory is only bolstered by the fact that SNL can't cover Michelle Obama unless Maya Rudolph's got a free weekend, but later in the show, head writer Seth Meyers came out to do some damage control. "Next time we do it...Sherri, you can come and play yourself," he offered. Is there no end to SNL's 30 Rock poaching? Somewhere, we imagine that an exhausted Tina Fey just muttered "Blergh" and collapsed into her Sabor de Soledad.

• The View [ABC]

McCain was game throughout the cold open, a QVC ad that spoofed his inability to match Obama's major network infomercial. Unfortunately for the candidate, his willingness to self-deprecate (with wife Cindy along for the ride as a ginsu knife spokesmodel) was deflated by a clearly over-it Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, whose every through-the-motions gesture read, "Is an 8.5 not enough for you people?"

Later, McCain appeared solo for a Weekend Update skit where he was greeted with a chorus of boos before launching into an amiable self-ribbing. Was the bit funny enough to overcome that rocky first impression? We've got the Hulus — cast your vote.