SNL Detroit Sketch: Part Two

The really funny thing that happened Saturday night wasn't to be found in what aired on the SNL, but what didn't show up on NBC.com a few hours after the show ended. Normally, NBC posts the sketches from the show on their website, usually an hour after it airs on the West Coast. But this week the sketches were posted at least an hour late, at around 3:00 a.m Eastern, with the notable exception of the Congressional Hearing sketch which opened the show. As of this posting, the sketch hasn't shown up at at NBC.com or Hulu.com, where the network routinely posts the sketches.

Four the past few months I've been posting commentaries of the political content on SNL on my YouTube Channel, Britethorn. (Here's the posting in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQCWqJSJlqc ) Other than that posting, the only other place I've been able to find the sketch is over at Crooks and Liars, where it's being hosted by their site: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/snl-spoofs-big-three-bailout...

My guess is that the advertisers got to NBC and demanded that the sketch disappear. While I'm not the biggest fan of the Big Three and and very conflicted about the prospects of bailing our Detroit (as are a LOT of people) there's no doubt in my mind that SNL went way, way overboard in their skewering of the domestic automakers in the sketch. It would have been one thing if they had simply grilled the three CEO's for their disastrous appearance before Congress this past week, but they instead attacked everything that Detroit produces. They went so far as to claim that they had factories that produce nothing but lemons and every car or SUV mentioned in the sketch was completely dysfunctional.

I've searched the news sites on the web for some mention of the sketch, but have been unable to find anything about it. I'll be interested to see if Chris Mathews makes mention of it later today on Hardball, or if he will bow to the pleasure which must be coming from the NBC execs not to mention anything about it. I applaud SNL for airing the sketch, but I'd LOVE to have been in the room after the sketch aired when Loren Michael's phone started to ring.