Live From New York It's...Michael Phelps!

NBC has just announced that Olympic super swimming sensation Michael Phelps will be hosting the season premiere of Saturday Night Live on September 13th, with musical guest Lil' Wayne. Lil' Bow Wow, Lil' Romeo, and Lil' Caesar were all booked, so they went out and got the next "Lil'" guy on the list. In recent years the show has taken a dive, so most likely people will not be watching when this tattoo-faced purveyor of the English language takes the stage. It will be interesting to see Phelps on the show as he is the first Olympian since Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 to host SNL.
My personal favorite of all the athlete hosts on SNL has been WWF star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson; that is, if he counts as an athlete, which there's definitely room for a dispute on. His somewhat theatrical day job at the WWF was sure to lend a hand in his onstage charisma. One of the funniest skits I can remember from that episode was when he was dressed in drag as an undercover cop who had become the girlfriend of the Ladies Man, played brilliantly by Tim Meadows (still one of the best SNL characters ever).

Below is a list of all the athletes/people associated with sports (George Steinbrenner- Owner of the New York Yankees, Carl Weathers- Apollo Creed in the "Rocky" films, and Mr. T- Clubber Lang in "Rocky III") I wish I could have seen the Billy Martin episode, I'm sure they touched on him getting fired 20 times by Steinbrenner. The ones I remember from my younger days were Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan (his skit with Stuart Smalley is a classic), Charles Barkley, George Foreman, Deion Sanders, The Rock, Derek Jeter, and more recently Peyton Manning and Lebron James.

For the most part, when athletes host Saturday Night Live, they remind us that they don't make their money acting. However, the show is a staple in pop culture, and athletes are a part of that pantheon. I'm sure Michael Phelps will get a few laughs, if not Lil' Wayne's music may. I think the show has been lacking substance and has come off as very stale and tired the last 3 or 4 years.

The show always has dark ages like this though, so hopefully it comes out of this as it always has, wiping the slate clean, with the exception of a couple gems in the cast. I haven't seen too much of Bill Hader on the show, but he was hilarious as the cop in "Superbad," and I wish he was featured more in "Tropic Thunder" as Les Grossman's assistant, so he can stay. Darrell Hammond, who has been on the show forever, will always get laughs for his spot on impersonations of Sean Connery and Bill Clinton, so he can stay for another 13 years if he likes. The guy from Keenan and Kel who played Fat Albert in the film, he's got to go. He's about as funny as watching grass grow in the middle of winter in Minnesota. Seth Meyers and the guy from the "Hot Rod" movie, they've got to go. Amy Poehler should stay, though I hear she's ditching the show in November. Tina Fey is gone, Tracy Morgan is gone, Jimmy Fallon laughing through every skit he's in is gone, and Horatio Sanz is gone. These were the lone bright spots in the show, and now it's like the lights are out and they keep the show going and going and going.

I would have liked to include clips of each of these hosts in all of their horrible acting glory, but unfortunately, the NBC honchos have had every single clip from SNL removed from YouTube, even all the musical performances. I could get into that, but will save it for another time.

What I notice most about the list is not who is on it, but who is not on it. Mainly some modern greats who, personality-wise, seem like they would be suited for the show such as: Tiger Woods, John McEnroe, Venus and/or Serena Williams, Kobe Bryant, Tony Romo, Terrell Owens, Tony Hawk, and Alex Rodriguez.

Athletes on SNL: OJ Simpson- 1978, John Madden- 1982, Mr. T. & Hulk Hogan- 1985, Billy Martin- 1986, Carl Weathers- 1988, Wayne Gretzky- 1989, George Steinbrenner- 1990, Michael Jordan- 1991, Charles Barkley- 1993, Nancy Kerrigan- 1994, George Foreman- 1994, Deion Sanders- 1995, The Rock- 2000 & 2002, Derek Jeter- 2001, Jeff Gordon- 2003, Andy Roddick-2003, Tom Brady- 2005, Peyton Manning- 2007, Lebron James- 2007

"Olympic Outrageousness, A New Phelps Phan, and the Legend of Bela Karolyi"

Hope I didn't make everyone wait too long for a post. I was down the shore in Wildwood from Thursday to last night, so here's some Monday morning Olympic recaps for you...


Well, it took a weekend of partying down the shore for me to finally get into these Olympic games in Beijing. I was not too keen on the games ever since the recent 'roids in running scandal has left the track and field competition in shambles for what will probably be another decade. This, along with the crazy, everyone boycotting the China-Darfur thing and the US basketball team being pretty miserable the last few years, made me not take notice of the games.

The only time I watched the Olympics prior to this weekend was was briefly last Saturday, after checking into the Borgata before the Stone Temple Pilots show while looking for the Yankees game which wasn't on in the Philadelphia TV market that doesn't have the YES Network. The only thing on TV was the women's fencing events, one of the most painfully irritating events that has ever graced a TV screen. This event consisted of 2 young women, lunging at each other with a pointy metal stick for a half hour; honestly, what little kid grows up thinking amongst dreams of being an astronaut, movie star, or the president, that "I'd like to be an Olympic fencing champion when I grow up?" They should relinquish these obscure events to ESPN 8 The Ocho, because without a superstar like Phelps, the games as a whole would be dead in the water, pun intended.

I started hearing about this Michael Phelps guy, first in one of those cell phone commercials where you see someone talking about them self, who is in the background doing things when their phone is out of service; the part of them looking in on them self then yells because they had a chance to meet Phelps but didn't have cell phone service. Sounds as confusing as trying to interpret the true meaning of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," I know, but if you've seen the commercial with this "Phelps Phan," you'll know what I'm getting at.

Anyway, Phelps has been on a tear, and I witnessed this over the past weekend as he continuously slaughtered the competition, culminating in his winning of his eighth gold medal during the 400 meter medley relay on Saturday night. Phelps beat out a record set by fellow American Mark Spitz at the 1972 summer games in Munich. Phelps also shattered another Olympics record in winning his 14th overall gold medal in his Olympic career (including 6 from the Athens games in 2004), which is 5 more than the previous record holder. Then came the stories of his 12,000 calorie a day diet, most of which he burns off while training, and America now has a new sports icon, right up there with Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Jerry Rice, this guy has dominated his sport like no other before him, and may have a few more golds left to win the next time around.

Now, onto the next unforgettable moment at the Olympics this weekend. This one, unlike Phelps's great accomplishment, was unforgettable for all the wrong reasons. The creepiest old man of the Olympic games award has to go to former US gymnastics women's team coach Bela Karolyi. BK was commentating with Bob Costas all weekend, and on Friday night, he graced the world with one of the most disturbingly hilarious displays of excitement over women's gymnastics that I have ever witnessed before in my life. Karolyi is best remembered as the coach who carried Kerri Strug off the mat after breaking her leg and still leading the US to gold in the 1996 games in Atlanta. Bela was semi-creepy then, but in 12 years he has transformed into a guy that authorities should keep a watchful eye on. Pounding the desk and screaming out his pleasantries while watching a young girl perform gymnastics doesn't even sound as raunchy and creepy as this Borat-sounding analyst made it look on Friday night. He let out screams, scared the living daylights out of a flabbergasted Bob Costas, and sent millions of parents around the world into a frenzy making sure their children were tucked safely in their beds away from this ridiculously raving Romanian.

This was one of the funniest things I have seen on network television since Joe Namath's drunken, harassment-laced ramblings during a Jets-Patriots Monday Night Football game a few years back. We continued to see them replay this uncomfortable outburst of Howard Dean "Byaaaaaa!" proportions the next morning, and it is sure to give the struggling Saturday Night Live some good material for weeks and maybe months to come. I have not found the video up on YouTube yet, but as soon as I do, I update the article with it.

Bela Karolyi, I salute you for not letting women's fencing become the most ridiculous spectacle of these Olympics, and sacrificing your self respect and livelihood to look like a crazed lunatic on NBC.

And while we're at it, I'll salute another Bela, one who I prefer over Karolyi...Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula himself.

Photo courtesy of: wheresnigel.com